The Bamboo Project Blog

Technology Can't Create Change When Culture Stays the Same

An interesting article in yesterday's NYT--Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops. Apparently a number of school districts throughout the country are re-thinking their 1-1 laptop programs because they aren't seeing the results they expected. This is a great example of what happens when you bring in technology without really thinking through either your expectations for results or how your organizational culture needs to change to make the best use of the technology. It also demonstrates how our expectations for what technology can accomplish often far outstrip their actual ability to do so.

Here's what's happened. During the past several years, many school districts around the country began instituting 1-1 laptop programs, making sure that every student in the school had their own laptop computer. Apparently the assumption was that standardized test scores would rise if students had ongoing access to laptops. But schools have been finding (not surprisingly) that test results have not risen, so they're getting rid of the technology, also citing expense, maintenance and the fact that laptops don't "fit in to teacher lesson plans." There are several problems with their thought process, though, that have implications for all organizations using technology.

Select the Right Tool for the Job
The first issue here is that schools selected the wrong tool for the job they apparently wanted to accomplish. As Andy Carvin notes:

The moral of the story would seem straightforward: large investments in educational technology focused on raising test scores simply don’t work. And you know what? They’re right. If you take a bunch of laptops and make them available to every student, you shouldn’t expect to see grades skyrocket. But many education technology advocates could have told these schools the same thing before they invested all of this money and gotten burned.

Mark Warschauer, an education professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of “Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom” echoes this thought:

“Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said. “If the goal is to get kids up to basic standard levels, then maybe laptops are not the tool. But if the goal is to create the George Lucas and Steve Jobs of the future, then laptops are extremely useful.”

The real moral of the story is--Be clear about the outcomes you are expecting and then select the solution to your problem based on its ability to actually achieve it.

For Technology to Work, You Need to Adjust Your Work Practices
In many of the school districts profiled in the NYT story, teachers actively resisted the integration of technology into their classrooms and refused to change their teaching practices to make the best use of the laptops. Again from Andy Carvin:

When you get caught up in the hype, it’s easy to forget a very basic axiom: if you’re going to make a fundamental shift in how students and teachers access technology, you better be prepared to make lots of other fundamental shifts in how you assess and teach students.

For one thing, those standardized tests used as bellwethers of progress aren’t crafted to assess the kinds of learning that take place with certain technologies. Laptops bring four big opportunities to the table: opportunities for equal access, mobility, individual creativity and for collaboration. Many of these laptop programs focus a lot on the first opportunity - promoting equal access - and bless their hearts for it. But unless educators are in a position to embrace and encourage the other three, you’re missing out on most of the benefits that can come from a laptop program.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen students using their laptops in the classroom as if nothing else had changed, lined up in neat rows, each laptop on a desk, with students listening to a teacher lecture or taking a test on the laptop. Those aren’t laptops - those are expensive pencils. Of course you’re not going to see achievement improve when pedagogical practices aren’t rethought from the ground up! Where is the boldness, the pedagogical imagination required to put these devices to use to reach their teaching potential - and students’ learning potential, for that matter?

To get the full benefit of a particular technology, we have to understand that it will necessarily change our work practices. If we don't change how we do our work to make the most of the technology, then we'll inevitably see the implementation as a failure. For example, many of the agencies I work with have "automated case management systems." The problem is, staff are expected to keep up with all the old paper-based ways of maintaining case files and the computer version becomes a much-resented add-on.

Second moral of the story? For technology to be successful, we have to change our work practices to harness its power.

Be Clear About What Technology Can Do For You
Technology is not a cure-all. It will not fix poorly thought-out goals, ineffective work practices, staff motivation and morale, or any of a million other organizational issues. In this example, schools faced with increased pressure to improve standardized test scores saw laptops as a magic bullet rather than as one of many strategies they could employ. It's a mistake many organizations make, especially if they're caught up in the hype. But technology doesn't exist in a vacuum. For it to be successful in any organization, it has to be part of a larger plan of improvement and change.

Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water
If you've selected the wrong technology tool for the job, if staff don't change their work practices to make the best use of the tool and if you haven't been clear about what other strategies need to be in place to support the technology, then you really shouldn't be saying "See--the technology didn't work."  To me, this story is an example of blaming technology for our very human failure to change. What's discouraging is that this failure to closely examine the role of these other issues in the situation means that people will be deprived of a tool that would have been a very real asset had it been properly deployed.

To me, the bottom line is this. New technologies have very real benefits and possibilities, but only if we are ready and willing to use them appropriately. That means picking the right tool for the job, changing your work practices, and being clear about what other strategies need to be employed to make the technology shift truly successful. If we aren't going to change our human behaviors, then technology will always be a failure.

Is the Scarcity Mentality the Biggest Barrier to Social Media in Nonprofits?

Through a circuitous route I won't bother to explain, today I find myself thinking about the impact of scarcity thinking on nonprofit organizations.

One of the most powerful learnings I've had in my professional practice is that our mental models have a profound impact on our work practices. One of the mental models I'm observing at work today is scarcity vs. abundance thinking and  I'm starting to wonder if the biggest barrier to using social media in nonprofits is the scarcity model of thinking that seems to permeate most nonprofit organizations. This scarcity thinking seems to be me to be in direct conflict with the abundance thinking that has created the social web and I'm wondering if the two can co-exist. I'm also wondering if it's the scarcity mentality that is at the root of so much of what's going wrong in nonprofits today.   

Scarcity Thinking vs. Abundance Thinking
This article does a nice job of explaining the differences between abundance thinking and scarcity thinking in organizations.

 Abundance, in terms of business and personal value, is an attitude of growth (my emphasis). I can grow more rapidly personally by banding with others in a business environment as we, together, grow our proverbial economic pie more rapidly than any of us could otherwise do. In the process, although we may have smaller shares of a collective pie than 100% of our personal pies, those smaller shares will be worth more than our individual, personal pies.

That is the theory and that is why doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, business appraisers, and members of many other professions come together in professional service firms. Collectively, they can do more and do better than any of them could do alone.

For professional service firms to grow, however, it is necessary that the concept of abundance that brought groups together in the first place be fostered by and among the individual professionals.

In an abundance environment, professionals work together to provide services to clients and customers. They do so by doing what is best for their customers. The rewards for their efforts are then shared on a collective basis.

While no rewards systems are perfect, if the economic pie is growing, the effects of many imperfections are minimized. If business is slower in a given year, everyone recognizes that the pie is smaller and that their shares will also be smaller. The collective emphasis then is on maximizing growth and minimizing the effects of economic adversity.

  Scarcity, in terms of business and personal value, reflects an attitude of the absence of growth (my emphasis).  Therefore, those with the scarcity mentality tend to think of the pie, whether personal or collective, as fixed, and want to grab the biggest piece possible, even some of the grab takes away from others.

Scarcity is defined as "the quality or state of being scarce; especially : want of provisions for the support of life."   And scarce is defined as "deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand: not plentiful or abundant."

There just isn't enough to go around when the scarcity mentality is present, regardless of the success of an organization.

Abundance vs. Scarcity. Problems arise when a professional with a scarcity mentality joins with an abundance-oriented organization. He or she is not focused on the growing pie because of the perception that at any given time, the pie is fixed in size. That attitude fosters emphasis on individual performance and rewards rather than collective performance.

From what I can see, most nonprofits operate from a scarcity mentality. We are constantly talking about what we lack--money, information, staff, resources.  There's a strong feeling that there isn't enough to go around and so the focus is on grabbing the largest share possible for your organization and holding onto that share for dear life. In a scarcity mentality, the impulse is to hoard, not to share--at least when it comes to anything of value. And the focus is on the individual organization, on survival and limits, not on the collective social mission and on growth.

This post from the Kiva Chronicles describes some of what goes on in nonprofits when scarcity is at work:

For the past two years I've operated in an environment where scarcity was the rule. We had a really small budget and stretched it so wide. We used open source methodologies, we had no IT person, no travel budget, no QA testing, no paid accountant, used furniture, little insurance, no computer budget, no server administrator, low budget hosting, a CEO who writes code, etc, etc. Most of all, we had no free time and all became workaholics. I'd venture to say I saw the sunrise 100 times last year.

Scarcity, while we might complain about it, can become a badge of honor as well. In the nonprofit world, I see that all the time. Nonprofits often compete in terms of their overhead ratios. Most every nonprofit out there advertises to it's funders how it likes to keep overhead low so that the majority of funds it raises goes to constituents. Kiva is not all that different. Last year we raised $2M in loans through our website and spent about $200K on our own staff (aka overhead). Thus, we can advertise that our overhead was no more than 10% of the total funds sent to our consituents. That's golden in the fundraising world.

This kind of competition, while it seems logical to the public, can also be destructive. For instance, is it a good thing that Kiva had no QA testing process last year? Sure, we spent less on dreadful *overhead*, but at what cost? A buggier website?

Web 2.0 and social media, on the other hand, seems to have sprung from an abundance mentality. Our capacity to inexpensively collect, store and share digital information has created a world where the uses of digital resources are limited only by our own sense of the possibilities. As a result, Web 2.0 culture emphasizes sharing, creating collective value, and ongoing growth  via developing networks of people, information and resources. Further, an individual's value is measured by the value that he/she brings to the collective. It isn't measured by how well he/she holds onto information and resources for individual gain (as is the case when we operate from beliefs of scarcity).

Questions That Emerge on Scarcity vs. Abundance Thinking
Some questions that are starting to form for me as a result of this line of thinking:

• Is it possible for an organization to operate in a culture of scarcity and still embrace social media and Web 2.0? My guess is that they can't, except in the most superficial ways. It will either be shift to abundance thinking and really harness the power of social media or stay in scarcity thinking and make ineffective use of social media. I doubt that it's possible to really get collective knowledge and information sharing going when a scarcity mentality says that there isn't enough time, resources, energy, etc. to really make it happen. And I think that there's just a fundamental mismatch there that permeates organizational culture in ways I'm only dimly perceiving right now.

• Are many of these "perceived" barriers to knowledge sharing a result of scarcity thinking? Are these really barriers? Or is it just that we're missing solutions because we're so focused on "lack-of" thinking?

• How would our ability to find new solutions to implementing social media and knowledge sharing within organizations be changed if we shifted to an abundance mentality?

• What are the larger impacts of scarcity thinking on nonprofits? How do we miss possible collective solutions to problems because we're so focused on preserving our own piece of the pie? How do we miss the larger picture of the best ways to address our organization's social cause when we are in scarcity mode?  I keep thinking about Begging for Change and about how so many of the problems that Eggers points out are really rooted in scarcity thinking. What's even more bothersome is that this scarcity thinking seems to move down the food chain into how clients are treated, which in many cases further deepens client dependence on nonprofits.

• What organizational and individual changes would we have to take to move from scarcity thinking to an abundance mentality? There might be some ideas here, here, and here.

I'm feeling a vague discomfort in exploring this line of thinking because I hesitate to appear too "New Age" and so much of what's available for exploration seems to come from the self-help aisle. But the more this all rolls around in my mind, the more I feel like there's something big here that I want to further explore. (Why do my biggest questions come up when I have the least amount of time to ponder them?)

I'd be curious to hear from others about this. Are there any resources you'd suggest that I look at? Any ideas that you have on whether or not I'm on the right track in thinking that this may be a fundamental barrier to true acceptance of social media?

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Creating a Learning Climate for Nonprofit Staff

Awhile ago, Allan Benamer of the Nonprofit Tech Blog talked about nonprofit staff as knowledge workers and how technology and work processes need to support staff whose value comes primarily from their ability to make effective use of knowledge and information in working with customers. If we're to fully capitalize on the promise of a knowledge network, then staff need to have the tools, resources and supports necessary to truly fulfill their function.

This idea has been rolling around in my head for awhile now. My primary role in my consulting practice is to build organizational capacity, in part by building staff capacity through training and ensuring that staff have what they need to get their jobs done. Part of my fascination with technology lies in its power to help staff better manage knowledge and information to become highly skilled in their jobs. I keep feeling like we're missing some key pieces of the puzzle in terms of how we work with staff. They seem to be the forgotten ones. Developing their capacity is low on the list of priorities beneath things like accounting systems, how to raise more money and marketing. Yet in most nonprofits, without our staff, we are really nothing.

Earlier this week I talked about informal learning and the need to create an environment that supports  ongoing professional development.  I believe that informal learning ("the other 80%") is a crucial element of staff capacity-building, but one to which we pay little attention.

Here are a few ingredients I think we need to create a climate that supports informal learning.

• A team of staff who have passion for the work they do. Passion is critical. If you don't love what you do, then you're not going to be devoted to doing things to make yourself better at it. And there's nothing better for learning than being surrounded by people who are excited about their work and want to get better every day at what they do.

• Managers who nurture curiosity. Personally I don't think there's enough curiosity in the world. When my girls were 3-4 years old, all we heard was "Why?" But it seems that when we grow up, we stop asking questions and just start accepting things as they are. Without curiosity there is no learning, though. Here are some tips for "Learning to be curious" that I think hit the nail on the head (although I find it sad that we have to LEARN to be curious!)

• Access to resources and learning activities. One area that I think is really interesting is "micro-learning."  Without getting all technical about it, micro-learning is bite-size learning experiences that can be easily digested in a short period of time. A great example of this is 23 Things, which is a series of mini lessons to help staff learn about different Web 2.0 tools. Ideally, staff try to come up with their own ideas for learning activities they'd like to pursue. But an eagle-eyed manager might also keep an eye out for these kinds of activities to share.

• Access to learning tools and encouragement to use them. One of the reasons I love to blog is because it helps me learn--it's essentially a way to maintain an online learning journal complete with links to resources and tools that help me learn even more. Wikis, social bookmarking,  RSS and the work of others in my field that I can catch online also feed my daily learning fixes. Fortunately I work for myself and so I don't have to worry about a boss who decides to take these tools away from me. But other people do. To have a culture of learning, organizations need to consider if the benefits of arming staff with knowledge management tools don't outweigh the risks.

• An expectation that learning is something that happens on a daily basis on "company time." If learning is going to be part of an organizational culture, than it has to be woven into its fabric.Learning shouldn't be reserved for special training days. And it shouldn't be something that we expect always expect staff to do on their own time. My favorite organizations are those that have subscriptions to professional journals and pass them around the office with the expectation that staff will read them. My favorite bosses have always sent interesting articles my way. In a good learning organization, at the end of the day, not only should we be asking "What did you accomplish?" but we should also be wondering "What did you learn?" If the answer is "nothing," then we have a problem.

So a few of my thoughts. . . . what other elements do we need to create a climate that supports informal learning? And is creating such a climate really as critical as I think for nonprofit staff?

______________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE--Rallyfan of Random Thoughts on Life and Work adds another item to the list--giving staff a chance to actually USE the skills. He has a good post on this that you should also check out. 

Also, I've written a follow-up post describing two other strategies that I think are critical.

Organizational Barriers to Using Web 2.0 Tools

Earlier this week I was reflecting on some of the challenges of technology stewardship in nonprofit and government agencies. I mentioned that I'd done training for a government client that blocked access to sites such as Google Mail and how this obviously impacts staff's ability to use many of the tools I talk about. (Fortunately the IT department had not been told to block access to Wetpaint or some of the online career assessment tools I used in my training or I would have had a big problem!)

Now I see that Bev Trayner had a similar experience:

"First I couldn't get Firefox to work. And second I couldn't download the new Google groups. These things can only be done by someone from the IT department I was told. So we phoned the IT department who agreed to send someone in two days to do it.  He spoke of difficulties and permissions and copyright - but agreed to do it as a special case for these people as they were involved in this particular project.

I had had a similar conversation with him about installing Skype a few days earlier (not in the office, but on a computer we were going to use in a hotel at a meeting) but had let the conversation ride .."

This reminded me of an e-mail conversation I've been having with a nonprofit user in Australia. She pointed out to me that while she sees that social media tools make it easier for non-technical types to integrate technology into their workflow, at the same time there's an ongoing organizational message that says "Leave the technology stuff to the IT department." 

I'm seeing a real tension developing between where various new tools are taking us and how organizations are responding. Most organizational cultures haven't caught up to technology and  institutional barriers are getting in the way of even experimenting with new technologies. A couple that I've been seeing:

• The Tyranny of the Expert--IT has always been regarded as this very specialized, highly difficult to understand area of expertise. Partially this is because it has been difficult to understand and using many technologies did require a higher level of expertise. But as tools become easier and easier to use, reality is that non-technical people can certainly learn how to use what were once highly sophisticated technology tools. The problem is that there's a mysticism around technology that has developed and I'm not sure too many people within organizations are doing much to dispel this notion.

The problem with this tyranny of the expert is that it breeds user dependence. If I have to rely on someone else to figure out the technology for me, then I'm going to be helpless without that tech person around. I won't think about using tech unless the tech person (or my management) explicitly says I must because thinking about using technology isn't part of my job. It's someone else's. That's not true and I think it's a major barrier to doing work more efficiently and effectively.

• Bureaucracy and Command and Control--Most government agencies and a large number of nonprofits are built upon a hierarchical, command and control organizational structure. This culture requires that people must go through endless layers of permissions to get anything accomplished. It is exactly the kind of environment that kills experimentation and innovation, two attributes that are critical in an organization that is looking to adopt new technological tools. Bureaucracy is about maintaining the status quo. Using new media is decidedly NOT about that.

I think there are others, but these are two that have been on my mind lately because they are so ubiquitous in my clients. I'd be curious to hear more about other experiences and perspectives in this arena. What do you see in your work?

The Technology Steward and Communities of Practice

David Wilcox and I had a great conversation yesterday (my first opportunity to use Skype--thanks, David!) and among many topics, we discussed the concept of the technology steward in a community of practice.(David has been doing some thinking about it lately here.)

In case you haven't seen this term, technology stewards have been defined by Nancy White, Etienne Wenger and John Smith as:

“. . .  people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs. Stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community.”

Now Nancy has posted a presentation on technology stewardship that she'll be delivering at Ignite Seattle! (Thanks to Beth for the link) I highly recommend checking it out on Slideshare so that you can benefit from Nancy's notes on each slide in the comments section.

As David and I talked yesterday, one of the issues we discussed was the fact that technology stewardship really requires meeting clients where they're at and helping them to take baby steps towards using technology to support their knowledge development. I try to do this as I work with them on other projects that are initially unrelated to technology. Basically always looking for a chance to try out some tech as I do other work. 

Unfortunately the clients I work with are sadly behind in their uses of technology. The other day I did a training for a client that has blocked work access to all online e-mail (gmail, Yahoo, etc.), despite the fact that this client is supposed to be helping people find work and today's workplace requires that you be able to access e-mail. The staff of this same client could not even tell me their work e-mail addresses because they said they didn't use them. It's hard to talk blogging or wikis with people who haven't accepted e-mail as an indispensable work tool.

Nonetheless, I'm trying baby steps with them, using a wiki to support the training I provided. Not calling it a wiki, because that's information they don't need to have and that would only confuse things, but at least using it so that they can get acquainted with what it can do.

With another client, I'm using Typepad to develop a "Hot Jobs" website that their job developers can use to showcase employment in the area. At first, I won't be including any commenting features, just using Typepad as a way to create a quick website that they can easily update themselves. But eventually I'm hoping that we can move into some of the community aspects of the software as they become more comfortable with using this kind of publishing tool.

One thing I'm learning is to stay away from the social media jargon with these organizations. As soon as I say "wiki" or "blog" or "podcast," they get a bit of the "deer in the headlights" look on their faces and they tend to shut down. Instead, I'm just talking about blogging and wiki software as tools that allow staff to create their own websites, just as Word or Publisher allows them to create a newsletter. I'm not even mentioning the terms, just what the software can do.

I'm also learning to not overwhelm them with the features of what they COULD be doing. That is too scary for most of my clients. They're often looking for reasons to say "no" to anything new, anyway. So I'm trying very hard (and against my own nature) to focus only on the specific features that will address a specific problem they've identified for me. "You need a way to be able to highlight jobs on a daily basis without having to go to a webmaster? There's a tool that will do that for you. Why don't I do a quick prototype for you so you can see how it would look?" Increasingly they say yes and now I have my foot in the door.

Once that door has opened for me, I'm able to sneak in a few more features. The Hot Jobs site I'm  developing--I added in a Wayfaring Map mashup and some video to show them what was possible. These were things that were hard to explain on their own, but within the context of addressing a problem they'd already identified, the features started to make more sense to them. 

I'm finding that this kind of stewardship is really working best with my longer-term clients, although I also try to incorporate what I can in everything I do. I've come to believe that part of my technology stewardship responsibility lies in waking people up to the even the existence of these tools. Although I may not be able to facilitate their implementation in the long run with some clients, at least I've moved things along by making them aware that the tools exist.

 

Innocentive and the Rockefeller Foundation Partnering to Provide "Open Innovation" Solutions to Nonprofit Problems

A few days ago, I wrote about my growing belief that the value in Web 2.0 for nonprofits may lie more in the underlying principles, than in the actual tools.  An announcement made yesterday by Innocentive and The Rockefeller Foundation supports my case.

The Rockefeller Foundation and     InnoCentive today announced that the Foundation will create a non-profit area on InnoCentive’s     global scientific network, specifically     designed to spur science and technology solutions to pressing development problems.      The non-profit Rockefeller Foundation area on InnoCentive’s scientific platform will bring to     bear the talent of thousands of world-class scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs in solving     the most pressing and complex humanitarian challenges posed by non-profit entities selected by     the Foundation.

This “open innovation model,” which InnoCentive has pioneered in the “for-profit” arena using challenges posed by R&D-focused companies, will now be turned, for the first time, toward technological problems faced by poor or vulnerable people in the developing world.  The new agreement is the first step in a larger Rockefeller Foundation initiative aimed at promoting innovation in a manner that spurs development, and that specifically increases access to proven innovation models for work on behalf of poor or vulnerable populations around the world.  In some cases, the initiative will also help to advance access to, or distribution of, specific innovations that can be of important benefit to poor or vulnerable people.

Innocentive's process for solving scientific problems is simple--companies submit details on a scientific problem or issue they wish to have solved, along with a dollar amount they are willing to pay for the solution. Award amounts range from $10,000 to $100,000.

Researchers may then register at the Innocentive site and get detailed information on the problem to be addressed. If they wish, they can then develop a solution and submit this to the company, which reviews all of the options and then rewards the researcher(s) who provide the solutions that meet the company's guidelines.

Innocentive intends to apply the same process to resolving nonprofit issues with The Rockefeller Foundation footing the bill.

This "open innovation model" is pure Web 2.0 and I think will be interesting to watch. As a long-time consultant in the nonprofit world, I find that consulting contracts are as much based on relationships as they are on actual solutions. I've watched a number of nonprofits form relationships with consultants who, in fact, never really resolve the issues they were hired to solve, but they're so good at the relationship piece, they're consistently called back.

This model will flip things on its head, I think, putting the focus on the solutions and pulling together the best ideas. It also has the potential to harness the power of collective intelligence as you get many minds working on the same problems, but with different perspectives. Organizations would then have a range of solutions from which to select, as well as the option of combining some very different solutions that they might not otherwise receive. Seems to me to be a very viable and interesting approach that I'm looking forward to watching.

Thanks to The Business Innovation Insider for the tip.

Michele

With Web 2.0, Are We Missing the Point?

Lately there's been a lot of backlash against all things Web 2.0. It's as though we reached a crescendo of excitement, culminating in Time Magazine proclaiming "You" and Web 2.0 as People of the Year. Now, let the backlash begin.

But by focusing on Web 2.0 as just a bunch of different web-based tools, I wonder if we're not missing the point.

There's no doubt that Flickr, Vox, YouTube and BaseCamp have attracted followers because they're cool and easy-to-use. In the world of both businesses and nonprofits, they also invite scrutiny as we look at the ways to capitalize on what these new resources have to offer. 

But I'm beginning to think that the real revolution lies in the principles that these tools represent, not in the tools themselves.  In other words, it isn't whether or not you use YouTube. It's about whether or not your organization is embracing the values that YouTube represents, values that are having increasing importance in a networked, global economy.

In setting up our Web 2.0 wiki, I found an interesting article by Troy Angrignon that sums up the common themes of this generation of the Internet. Several of these are themes that I think apply to how nonprofits must evolve to survive and thrive in an increasingly connected world, even if they never create a podcast or blog a meeting:

• Collaboration--Nonprofits have long been on the collaboration bandwagon. But their collaborations aren't always effective. In a global world, working with others to achieve results is not "nice"--it's a necessity.

• Conversation--Most nonprofits have learned how to "talk" about what they do with anyone who will listen. But now we have to provide the means for people to talk back to us--and for us to do something about it. Web 2.0 multiplies the power and reach of conversations. It also provides the medium to make them more effective. 
  

• Community--Online tools make it easier to create vast webs of online "tribes " of individuals who share common interests and, often, common goals. These offer opportunities for nonprofits, as well as challenges. Creating the right kinds of communities and conversations creates the foundation for better collaboration and service.   

• Connection--People are connecting to people, but machines are also connecting to machines. Or they should be. The expectation is that we're using automation and data sharing to create deeper networks of service. And that we are collecting and using information in ways that create higher value for customers.
  

• Content Creation--It turns out that when you give people the power and opportunity to create things, they often will. And in large numbers. For organizations that are often strapped for staff, time and materials, harnessing the efforts of a willing army of content volunteers may be a major recipe for success.

• Cumulative Learning--Cumulative learning means that we build on the knowledge of others. In any organization, the ability to capture and utilize the knowledge and skills of their best staff can make a critical difference. But in nonprofits, this is even more important. Their services are often based on staff knowledge and ability. And in nonprofits with high turnover, effective managing of knowledge will ensure consistent services.

• Core Values--Transparency, openness and a focus on the customer are key core values of Web 2.0. But these are also core values that individuals are increasingly beginning to demand of the businesses and organizations with whom they work. Nonprofits that can master these skills will be more effective than those that don't.

• Cheap and Fast--Work is done quickly and for as little as possible. Nonprofits are generally good at doing things on the cheap (even when that's not advisable), but fast has often been a challenge.

While I believe that in many cases, the tools of Web 2.0 look promising for nonprofit use, I think that we can't lose sight of the larger issue here. Changes in technology inevitably create changes in culture, even for those who may never use the technology. Some of the lessons we need to learn are not just about what tools to use, but also about how our work practices may need to change even if we never actually use the tools.

Michele

Stop Managing to the Exceptions and Start Learning from the Consequences

In my work with nonprofits, I've found that there's a tendency to manage to the exceptions. This plays itself out a few ways.

In some cases, entire systems will be developed around what could go wrong. Staff management policies and and practices are based on the few who are problems, rather than the many who are not. Client services are developed to "control" the "bad" client, rather than to meet the needs of the vast majority who are "good."

I've also seen this principle in action when management are evaluating the use of new ideas or  technologies. They immediately consider the worst possible scenario and then use that as a reason to ultimately stick with the status quo. They've already proven they can live with the negative consequences of what currently exists, so in their minds it is often the case that "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't."

I think it's valuable to evaluate new ideas in light of the potential worst case scenario. You need to be clear about what COULD happen, rather than being all Pollyanna about it. But to me, envisioning worst case scenarios should be a route to planning to deal with them, rather than to shooting down something that could, in fact, serve you better.

I thought about this phenomenon when I was reading Chris Lehman's post on Dealing with the Worst Consequences of Your Best Ideas. Chris is the principal of a newly-opened high school in Philadelphia called the Science Leadership Academy. They are in the process of working through their first year and what Chris has to say about their planning process is applicable to nonprofits, too, I think:

One of the things I always try to keep in mind when I think about school planning and design, and something I said a lot to the faculty as we planned, was "There is no panacea in education and every great idea has a dark side, so what are the worst consequences of your best ideas?" It's important to do for two reasons -- one because I think that many educational institutions become reactionary too often, throwing the baby out with the bathwater when an unforeseen consequence of a really good idea comes along. I'd rather think about every potential dark side so that when they happen, I'm not surprised, I've thought about them first, and I've come to the conclusion that it's a consequence I can live with. And two, because you can look to mitigate them and plan for them, and speak about them before hand.

This is what happens in nonprofits, too. There is no panacea in nonprofit work.  We work with very complex social problems with no easy answers. These problems (should) force us to consider complex solutions with great potential to backfire. But unintended consequences shouldn't make us back away from powerful solutions. Instead, they should invite us to delve deeper and to consider how these consequences can help staff learn and grow to more workable options.

To illustrate this point, Chris discusses a recent issue that the school had with their students using instant messaging on their laptops:

We had some students use the laptops and instant messaging in really inappropriate ways. It was upsetting teachers and students alike, and we saw a creeping loss of a sense of safety. So what did we do? We talked about it as a community on our moodle site. The student forums were suddenly filled with conversations about what was going on, what screennames to beware of, how to block someone in iChat, and (I'm not kidding) discussion by students about how poorly this reflected on our community. The adults chimed in from time to time to give our perspective, and the conversations continued as we did continue to try to find out who was doing this. What was interesting is that as the conversations about the behavior continued, we saw less of the behavior, and I believe that to be two-fold, 1) We, the adults, made it clear that there would be consequences, and 2) (and more importantly) it quickly became obvious that the kids doing it didn't have a ton of support in the community. Kids were really upset.

This is the kind of thing that nonprofit managers fear will happen when staff use social media tools. Maybe they won't say inappropriate things, the way that teenagers would, but what if staff talk about non-work related things? Or link to something we don't approve of? In many cases, the fear of this will be enough to squash the idea before it's even implemented. But if you're willing to use this as a learning opportunity, these consequences can actually help you improve your community and capacity to function.

What strikes me about Chris's response is that the school chose to use this unintended consequence as a learning opportunity rather than to shut down their use of the tool.

Many schools (and nonprofits) would look at the experience and say "See--they're doing exactly what we worried they'd do. This is why we shouldn't have allowed them to do it in the first place!" But Chris and his teachers took a different approach. They used the experience to reinforce the organizational culture they are trying to create, one that is focused on developing students and their critical thinking skills, rather than one that is trying to create unthinking robots:

In the end, of course, this is about much more than how a few students used their laptops. It's about the culture of SLA, and how we create an open culture where kids aren't just told what to do, but have a lot of ability to make decisions in a caring community. There's a Vaclav Havel quote that speaks powerfully to this whole issue:

"Freedom is only one side of the coin, where the other side is represented by responsibility. . .

. . . (This experience)  reminds us of our own values and how we have to strike that balance, and not take away the kids' freedom to express themselves, freedom to make decisions, freedom to take ownership in our community, because that is our best idea, but rather, we just have to make sure we teach -- and embody ourselves -- the responsibility that goes with that."

To me, this story captures the essence of organizational capacity-building--having the courage to try complex new ideas and then to facilitate the organization through discussion and learning about the consequences of those ideas. Bad or good, there's always something to be learned.

Michele

What Happens When I Have Time to Think

Creating Passionate Users, one of my all-time favorite resources, is devoted to the idea that we need to meet learners where they're at. This, of course, means that we must first understand where they're at and then be able to do something about it.

Lately, I've been trying to put myself in my customer's shoes, something I'm forever advising them to do. Here are some things that I know for sure when it comes to nonprofits and using technology:

• They don't have time to read about all the great stuff that's available.

• There's so much information out there that even if they do have the time, many people quickly become overwhelmed.

• They want someone to explain things to them in easily digestible pieces so that they can understand the technologies, one piece at a time.

• They're most interested in seeing in a concrete way exactly what we're talking about when we say that nonprofits should have a blog or do podcasting. They need to see examples of how these tools are used by real organizations to accomplish the real work of an NPO.

Seeing this need, I went looking for resources that could help. And while I found a ton of good stuff, I didn't find anything that exactly met what I pictured.

There were a lot of great articles and how-to's and examples, but they were spread out all over the place and they were sometimes confusing to understand, especially if you don't know the jargon of the new media. I couldn't find a good "Nonprofit Web 2.0 for Dummies," that boiled down the essence of this stuff into pieces a "regular" person could understand.

So like any good denizen of the Web 2.0 world, I went and created something myself.

Our Web 2.0 for Nonprofits Wiki is meant to give nonprofits a brief introduction to the concepts and tools of Web 2.0 and to provide them with specific examples of how other nonprofits are using these tools to engage in their basic work activities. I assumed that people would either want to know about specific tools ("what is MySpace?") or they would want to know about how to get certain tasks done. To help them, I've tried to organize the wiki by both the tools, as well as by the activities for which nonprofits might use the tools. So there are sections on advocacy and engaging volunteers and there are cross-referenced sections on blogs and podcasting.

Our goal with this is not to be the definitive resource for all things Web 2.0. There are plenty of sites that are doing this, like TechSoup. We're also not trying to get too detailed and technical. Instead, we're trying to create something that's easily digestible and understandable for most nonprofits and that organizes the information in terms that they are most likely to understand.

More importantly, we wanted to create a resource that could serve as a repository of best practice examples for how other nonprofits are using Web 2.0 to do their work. To the extent possible, we wanted to show rather than to tell.

Why Use a Wiki?
I considered putting all of this into a website, and I might do that at a later date. But the reason I chose a wiki was so that other people could add their own content and examples, making this a more dynamic, collaborative resource. One of the major tenets of the Web 2.0 world is harnessing collective intelligence and with a wiki, we can do that most easily.

Isn't This Replicating Other Work Being Done By Other People?
I thought for a while about whether or not I should even begin this project, which has taken many hours to put together. But I wasn't able to find exactly what I was looking for and I felt like this was something that was really needed by our customers. One of the best services we can provide in an information-overload environment such as ours is some simplicity, guidance and pruning back of the garden of knowledge.

Why Should I Care?

Well, like I said, the power of the web is in harnessing collective intelligence. It's also in sharing what you have with other people who may be able to do something even more amazing with it. Ideally, the wiki will at least be a place where people can get some basic information. More than that, I'd really love it if others contributed their best practices and ideas. As much as possible, I'll add new information as we go along. There's also some other work I want to take care of to clean the place up a little and to continue adding information into different sections. It's definitely a work in progress.

So please take a look and feel free to add your comments and best practices to the site.

 

UPDATE: Rallyfan from Random Thoughts on Life and Work is already adding some resources! He reminds me that in order for anyone to make edits, you need the wiki password, which is "nptech," without the quotes. Sorry I didn't mention that previously.

Michele

The Nonprofit Digital Divide

Jayne Cravens of Coyote Communications has written a provocative commentary on the growing digital divide among nonprofits. She asks a powerful question:

"I'm on dozens of online communities, most of which relate to nonprofit organizations and civil society in some way. I also attend onsite conferences each year relating to the same sector. Through these online and face-to-face gatherings over the recent years, I'm seeing a disturbing trend: a gap between those organizations in the USA that are using the Internet in a myriad of ways to support their missions, and those who are still largely on the sidelines and not using network technologies in working with their volunteers. The question is, are these sidelined nonprofits there because of lack of access to resources, or lack of will to embrace them?"

After several recent conference experiences, Jayne comes down squarely on the side of lack of will, a result of command and control, top down organizational cultures that see technology as the responsibility of the Tech department, not as a critical component of their organizational strategy:

Nothing illustrates this contrast in organizations better than two conferences I attended in 2006.

At the first, a major international conference, I spoke to a room full of veteran volunteer managers and representatives of long-established nonprofits. I talked about online volunteering and online communities. From the feedback I received, these were brand new concepts to most of the attendees, even though the practices have been around for many years. No one expressed interest in immediately exploring the practices, feeling that it was something to think about, but not to urgently implement. For them, volunteer management is a top-down endeavor, and technology use in working with and supporting volunteers is something to think about someday, when there's time. Two people even said that they would be providing my materials to their tech staff, implying that it was up to the tech staff to decide if these activities would be pursued.

At the second conference, even tiny nonprofit organizations with entirely volunteer staffs were using computer and networking technology to involve volunteers, donors, advocates and the general public in a variety of mission-based activities. These organizations were very much focused on giving their volunteers a bigger voice at the organization - and, in the end, actually giving these volunteers lots more to do, an increase in work load that the volunteers liked very much. These organizations also had a focus on engaging in activities that exude transparency and openness in all aspects of decision-making and management, and on being immediately responsive to volunteers' and other supporters' thoughts, suggestions and criticisms. Their volunteer involvement is focused on their staff always listening and acknowledging what they have heard from volunteers, by action as well as by words. They made their volunteers feel included and energized, not with pins or mugs or luncheons, but through greater and more-meaningful involvement, through ongoing, interactive support, through greater responsibility, and through actions that showed volunteer feedback had been heard.

In earlier posts, I've talked about the more technical aspects of this digital divide and  strategies to effectively ride the innovation curve. But Jayne brings up the other part of the equation--the openness of nonprofits to the idea of a culture that encourages collaboration and two-way communication.

For those nonprofits to whom participatory culture is as natural as breathing, there's a strong impetus to learn the new technology tools because these fit naturally into their mission and their organizational culture. But for nonprofits that have always relied on a command and control structure, learning these tools can be not only unnecessary, but threatening to their way of life.  New media asks for a level of transparency and "letting go" on the part of organizations that does not fit in to their way of operating in the world. It demands skills that they haven't developed and asks them to fundamentally change the ways in which they do business.

While access to and information about new technologies is important, it is this fundamental need to change organizational culture that may ultimately be the biggest challenge to adopting new media. It's one thing to say "your organization needs a website," which was the change demanded in the first round of Internet-enabled communications. That's still one-way communication that can be controlled by a few people within the organization. But when we start looking at tools that require information sharing, transparency and the ceding of control to volunteers and employees, that is quite another story. It's a cultural shift akin to Henry Ford's assembly line, which fundamentally changed our society.

That, in the end, is what makes this phase so challenging. As Ford's practices were adopted, few organizations were equipped to handle it. They didn't have the management structure or practices--they didn't even have management as we know it, as that's part of Ford's legacy. Some organizations were able to adapt and change and they survived in that new world. Others were not able to make the shift and they did not survive. I'm sure that many of them thought "oh, this is just a fad, it'll go away" or "I don't really need to worry about this--it doesn't apply to my business." I suspect that those are the organizations that found themselves out of business within a year or two.

In my opinion, we've let the genie out of the bottle with new media. People have expectations that they can and should be able to get information about anything, that they should be able to participate in the creation and dissemination of information related to topics and causes that interest them. Ultimately I think they won't accept the old way of doing things and the pressure will mount for non-participatory organizations to change their ways. The question is, will they be able to do so in time to survive?