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News for October 2009
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 30 October 2009 |
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| Names of the Dead |
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In this time and place - the United States on the cusp of a huge choice about health care - there is no more important blog than Names of the Dead. It's a video blog actually and a very unusual one. The posts are of Alan Grayson, on the floor of the U.S. Congress, reading the stories of people who have died due to the lack of health insurance, as submitted by their loved ones. Please, read this and pass it on to anyone you know who has a story to tell. Sadly, there are too many. Over 40,000 a year, in fact, including: Jack Snell (51, Cook, MN), Jim Shoe (22, Park Ridge, IL), Cindy Rhea (30's, Knoxville, TN), Rhonda Petrey (44, Toledo, OH), Clifford Scott (52, Tallahassee, FL), Louis Bruce Witherspoon (61, Anaheim, CA)....
Posted: 10/30/09; 7:11:34 PM # |
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28 October 2009 |
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| Light a Fire: Successful Social Marketing for Nonprofits, Seminar on Dec. 9, 2009 |
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We're all attracted to the notion of "social marketing" and who wouldn't be, when it holds the promise of extending our reach far beyond our own lists of stakeholders. But so long as we approach social marketing in the same channel-oriented way as we approach the rest of our marketing, we're going to have meager results at best. Furthermore, as a sector, we're putting 80% of our efforts into the media that gives 20% of the results. If you're interested in turning this around for your organization, you might want to consider an upcoming seminar: Light a Fire: Successful Social Marketing for Nonprofits. It will be held live, online, on December 9, 2009.
Posted: 10/28/09; 5:07:29 PM # |
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27 October 2009 |
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| A Problem-Solver's Guide to Copycatting |
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As most of my readers know, I'm a biologist by training. The main strength that I derive from that in my work is a lot of practice thinking in patterns, systems, and aesthetics as applied to projects and organizations. A short article in Fast Company entitled A Problem-Solver's Guide to Copycatting makes a case that we could all learn to copy patterns from the natural world, as we approach human and social challenges.
Posted: 10/27/09; 5:26:00 PM # |
| 2009 Tribalization of Business Study |
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The phrase being used in business communities to describe the rising importance of communities and networks is "tribalization". The highlights, flipbook, and related links from the 2009 Tribalization of Business Study, by Ed Moran at Deloitte is worth a look despite its hard core for-profit language and focus. It's a survey based report and they overreach their conclusions a bit as a result, but I can't argue with the key insights. For example, they suggest three next steps: (1) Think tribe - not market segment. (2) Think network - not channel. (3) Think customer-centricity - not company-centricity. Are you doing these things? I'll bet you they are all pretty hard for you, especially the third one.
Posted: 10/27/09; 5:23:19 PM # |
| Real-Time Evaluations of Humanitarian Action |
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In an effort to counteract the popularity of bolted-on evaluations, I taught a seminar recently on what I call Integrated Evaluation. A complementary approach to this topic is addressed in the Real-Time Evaluations of Humanitarian Action (97 page PDF), by ALNAP, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action. This guide covers key steps for both managers and teams, and includes instructions for 25 different tools and checklists.
Posted: 10/27/09; 5:10:11 PM # |
| Good Practices in Participatory Mapping |
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Maps are not neutral tools. Whether they depict geographies, concepts, social capital, or something else entirely, they are inherently value-driven and social. In Good Practices in Participatory Mapping (59 page PDF), a review put together by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the authors tackle this issue head on. Their focus is on geographical maps (which befit an agricultural context), but they cover an excellent range of participatory techniques that reflect democratic values. They cover intermediaries, tools, impacts, enabling environments, and processes. If you're interested in the power of maps, this is a great document.
Posted: 10/27/09; 4:59:26 PM # |
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26 October 2009 |
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20 October 2009 |
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| Small Change: Does 'Microlending' Actually Fight Poverty? |
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Like just about everyone else, I am a fan of microfinance. Although there is a lot more to economic opportunity than loans, it has always seemed to me to be part of grassroots empowerment. But I suspect that I've formed my opinion based on prevailing opinion, powerful stories, and the way the model suits me as a donor (or lender). It seems that the actual effectiveness of the model in fighting poverty is, at the very least, in question. In Small Change: Does 'Microlending' Actually Fight Poverty?, Drake Bennett of The Boston Globe reports on two new studies coming out of MIT's Jameel Poverty Action Lab. They are probably "the most thorough, careful studies yet done on the topic. What they find is that, by most measures, microcredit does not offer a way out of poverty."
Posted: 10/20/09; 4:23:44 PM # |
| The 15 Laws of Meeting Power |
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Venkatesh Rao decided to look at meetings as a problem in multi-agent systems design - what he describes as "thinking of humans in unforgivably simplistic and reductive ways". But the resulting 15 Laws of Meeting Power are really very interesting. This is definitely my kind of thinking - not short and sweet sound bites, but rather rigorous and disciplined thought experiments. In brief, his 15 laws are: (1) The Power Of The Obvious, (2) The Power Of Polarization, (3) The Power of the Dancing Referee, (4) The Power of Positioning, (5) The Power Of Listening and Citation, (6) The Power Of Non-Trite Compromise, (7) The Power Of Vocabulary Expansion and Contraction, (8) The Power Of Controlled Aggression, (9) The Power Of Brinkmanship, (10) The Power Of Emotional Control/Lack Thereof, (11) The Power Of the Me-Too, (12) The Power Of Non-Egalitarian Engagement: Dare To Be Rude, (14) The Power Of Non-Zero Sum Engagement, and (15) The Power of Humor. Do you spend more than an hour or two in meetings a week (meaning a hundred hours a year or more), then you ought to spend some time with these ideas.
Posted: 10/20/09; 4:16:26 PM # |
| Stephen Downes' Thoughts on Trust |
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I recommended The Trust Blog, by the staff at GuideStar, to you recently. And I've been teaching seminars on the topic of trust building, networks of trust, and related topics for many years. So, I was really pleased to see Stephen Downes (of whom I am a huge fan), offer his Thoughts on Trust. I think he nails it when he says that "discussions of trust get started precisely in cases where there is no trust." Although the context of his post is new technology, his observations are entirely applicable to the widespread issues of trust in civil society.
Posted: 10/20/09; 3:41:45 PM # |
| 10 Golden Rules of Social Media |
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Yes, the title is linkbait, but I like it anyway. Aliza Sherman has been doing this almost as long as I have and her digestion of 20 plus years of experience into 10 Golden Rules of Social Media are utterly simple and powerful. They could easily be a checklist for any social media project or campaign: (1) Respect the Spirit of the 'Net. (2) Listen. (3) Add Value. (4) Respond. (5) Do Good Things. (6) Share the Wealth. (7) Give Kudos. (8) Don't Spam. (9) Be Real. (10) Collaborate.
In fact, it makes me think that I ought to see if I could build some research around this list. Unfortunately, the most important one (indeed the one that leads to all the other nine, as far as I'm concerned) is a challenging one to test. "Respect the spirit of the Net." I have a solid idea of what that means and oddly, I think it's a large part of what people pay me for. But could I build an instrument for it? I'm not so sure.
Posted: 10/20/09; 3:35:53 PM # |
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13 October 2009 |
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| The Message in the Cryptex: Gavin Clabaugh Answers the Social Media Question |
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Thank you, Gavin. I have been teaching social media for years now (since long before we were talking about "2.0" stuff) and I focus on meaningful, high impact strategies that leverage the strengths of particular organizations. But that isn't what people want. They want an easy answer to how to use the brand of the season (today it's Facebook or Twitter) to raise money. Anyone who promises easy answers (tips, tricks, hacks, etc) will attract an order of magnitude more interest than those who don't. Frankly, the whole dynamic infuriates me.
So, it's with enormous gratitude that I read The Message in the Cryptex by Gavin Clabaugh. With his trademark eloquence, he tackles this very same frustration. And believe it or not, he does have an answer. And it actually is an easy one. But chances are good that most of us still won't like it.
Posted: 10/13/09; 4:14:03 PM # |
| Making Sense of Social Networking and Social Media |
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I recently recorded a social media seminar for the clients of a colleague whose work I admire. I wish I had had my hands on Adam Louie's excellent introduction to the topic in Making Sense of Social Networking and Social Media. It's got much less hype than usual and he avoids over-dramatic statements like "the end of email". He's got some solid numbers that underscore why it's so important that we do social media inventories of our stakeholders. Did you know that one third of adults in the U.S. have a social network profile somewhere?
Posted: 10/13/09; 4:13:53 PM # |
| The Confidence Game |
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In The Confidence Game, Burt Webb takes a quick look at
the role that confidence (as opposed to fact) plays in people's decisions to follow a leader or support their actions. Having led some people off a few cliffs in my day, I worry a bit about this dynamic. I also worry that this (along with groupthink) explains some funders' willingness to back the same old bad ideas, so long as they are being advocated by someone they like. Some interesting questions are raised here.
Posted: 10/13/09; 3:47:36 PM # |
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9 October 2009 |
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| Third Anniversary of the Guru's Handbook |
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Congratulations to Asher Bey for three years of publishing a most remarkable blog - The Guru's Handbook. He celebrates this Third Anniversary with a letter from a loyal reader, who offers three reasons they are such a fan: Asher creates a sense of safety by sharing mistakes and shedding ego involvement. He is an indefatigable advocate for integrity and responsibility in teaching. And he offers specific practices that invite readers to test the ideas for themselves.
Posted: 10/9/09; 12:15:07 PM # |
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7 October 2009 |
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6 October 2009 |
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| The ICT4D 2.0 Manifesto: Where Next for ICTs and International Development? |
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Vision statements and manifestos for sectors of organizations and causes play an important role in advancing our work. I've written a few myself, but I also applaud the work that others do in pushing us all to think big. Most recently, I've enjoyed Richard Heek's The ICT4D 2.0 Manifesto: Where Next for ICTs and International Development? (33 page PDF). He identifies and explores the same forces we are all having to deal with as the trend toward personal communication and information empowerment continues. We could get away with thinking that ICT was just for us, the organizations, but now we know that everyone is an author, a participant, a contributor. Heeks very clearly defines the opportunities for development work and the structural and strategic changes required of us to seize on those opportunities.
Posted: 10/6/09; 5:58:38 PM # |
| Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009 |
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I almost always link to Project Censored's annual list of ignored stories, because I think they provide a painful context, direct and indirect, for the work that most of us do. (Indeed, for many of us, it's our own missions that have been ignored.) This year is no exception. The Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009 are: (1) US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street. (2) US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s. (3) Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates. (4) Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina. (5) Europe Blocks US Toxic Products. (6) Lobbyists Buy Congress. (7) Obama's Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past. (8) Bailed out Banks and America's Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions. (9) US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza. (10) Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate. (11) Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine. (12) Mysterious Death of Mike Connell-Karl Rove's Election Thief. (13) Katrina's Hidden Race War. (14) Congress Invested in Defense Contracts. (15) World Bank's Carbon Trade Fiasco. (16) US Repression of Haiti Continues. (17) The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan. (18) Ecuador's Constitutional Rights of Nature. (19) Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor. (20) Secret Control of the Presidential Debates. (21) Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare. (22) Obama's Trilateral Commission Team. (23) Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud. (24) Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion. (25) Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon.
Posted: 10/6/09; 5:43:52 PM # |
| Experience Themes: How a Storytelling Method Can Help Unify Teams and Create Better Products |
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When I teach people how to achieve clarity of communication purpose in my website reinvention workshop, I talk a lot about the "user journey" - the interaction of intent and opportunity that leads to experience and action by a stakeholder. In her article on Experience Themes: How a Storytelling Method Can Help Unify Teams and Create Better Products, Cindy Chastain describes a method for achieving that clarity. She derives her method from the art of narrative and, because we are story-telling creatures, that can be a powerful framework for helping us piece together all the complicated, seemingly unrelated, elements of a user experience. She makes a compelling argument for coming up with a story based "theme" for the experience and then using that as guidance for functional requirements, content strategy, site architecture, and interaction design.
Posted: 10/6/09; 11:33:55 AM # |
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