Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Report Urges Foundations To Jump Into The Waters of Social Media

Photo by Fred Dawson

”Come On In. The Water's Fine. An Exploration of Web 2.0 Technology and Its Emerging Impact on Foundation Communications" is a new report that describes how philanthropy communications professionals are using social media.  It was underwritten with the generous support of The California Endowmentt, Edna McConnell Clark, and Robert Wood Johnson foundations.   The authors are David Brotherton and Cynthia Scheiderer who will present the report at the upcoming Communications Network conference.

The 45 page report is based on an extensive literature search and interviews with Philanthropy professionals who are currently experimenting with Web 2.0 tools and techniques.   I'm still wading my way through it ... but at first scan nothing earth shattering - except for the idea about communications with the general public and foundation's embracing the groundswell.  There is some good basic common sense advice about how to move forward with adopting Web 2.0 tools, a couple of good mini-case studies,  (the one about the Nitrogen Wiki) and a focused list of references from the philanthropy world.

The report is really about encouraging those in the philanthropy world to stop sitting on the sidelines and begin to dip their toes into the web 2.0 world.   

Beyond just sustaining influence is the need to circumvent criticism in an era of increased skepticism. By opting out or continuing to wait on the sidelines, foundations risk appearing even more insular, perhaps inviting scrutiny by the new vanguard of citizen journalists busily blogging on the outside.

Ultimately, it may come down to the fact that foundations have the ability to innovate, experiment and explore in a way few other institutions can. Many we interviewed felt that communicating those innovative efforts through these new technologies makes sense. Of course there are risks and challenges. But there is also the sense that whatever is lost in message control will be more than made up for by the opportunity to engage audiences in new ways, with greater programmatic impact.

The getting started tips include:

• Assess your organization's appetite for innovation
• Recognize and garner the resources required
• Build internal allies
• Be strategic
• Leverage the great work of others
• Go slowly and build on successes

They identify a list of questions for the field to consider -- many of these topics the nonprofit blogosphere has been discussing in parallel as it relates to nonprofits and social media integration.   The topics include:

• Control and Transparency:  How comfortable is the foundation with the participatory nature of Web 2.0 communications?
• Generational Digital Divide:  Is the generation divide real when it comes to emerging technology?  Will it take new leadership to truly adapt, or can early adopters model behaviors for others to emulate?
• Influence: How can foundations best maintain and increase their influence over issues they care about?  How will ideas and feedback generated from online communications influence grant decision-making?
• Alignment:  If communication is less about unidirectional message and more about how foundations engage with their audiences, what does this mean for integration of communications and programs?
• Evaluation and Measurement:  How will foundation asses and evaluate the impact of sucess of their online communications efforts?  And how are the challenges inherent in the Web 2.0 world any different from the measurement obstacles of traditional communication?
• Individual Giving: What are the implications of the rise of Internet-empowered individual giving for foundations? How will nonprofits adapt to the need to interact with foundations in a traditional way and social entrepreneurs in a new way, and how will this affect their capacity?
• Grantee Network Building: Should foundation be funding nonprofits to develop their capacity to communicate and build networks among their service recipients, donors, practioners, and volunteers?  What is the right investment balance between a fondation's communications efforts and that of its grantees?
• Communicating with the general public: Should foundations take advantages of the opportunities Web 2.0 offers to interact directly with the public?  Is there a role for grantmaking foundations to use their resources and Web 2.0 technologies to help create networks of people interested in certain issues and connect with grantees to tack action?  Could this be a way to help advance progress on foundation priorities.

That last question is the most provocative one.   The report ends with a nod that there are no answers yet - and the way to begin is to get started.

By continuing to innovate and share learning across foundations, the field will develop answers to the unanswered questions. As Victor d‘Allant of Social Edge said,  We‘re learning as we go. There are no experts yet.  Or, as Rich d‘Amato of Case Foundation said, Come on in, the water‘s fine.

What's your take on the findings of this report?  How would you answer some of these questions?   

Time Management for Nonprofit Techies (and Bloggers)

Flickr Photo by Mangee

Some of you in the nonprofit technology field may remember this wonderful cartoon "Time Management for Techies" created by Miriam Engelberg who we lost breast cancer about two years ago.  I thought of that cartoon today as I read Chris Brogan's brilliant post "Scaling Yourself" which seems to be resonating with bloggers and micro-bloggers including me.

Chris reflects and shares some tips.  Go read it.  I love the say no with kindness.  He references the How To Say No podcast that gives you a method for saying no. (The quick and dirty: to listen deeply, acknowledge their position, and say "No" kindly.) Listen to the podcast, it's short, it's brilliant and informative.

What are your most useful synchronous online facilitation practices?

Photo by/NC from Matthew Saunders' Flickr Stream

TechSoup holds regular meetings for nonprofits in Second Life and I have been attending regularly and sometimes facilitate like this I did this past week.  So, I've been reflecting about effective facilitation of virtual meetings in Second Life  Right now the primary method of group interaction is via  unmoderated chat interface. 

Sometimes it doesn't support the process of collaboration effectively for all the reasons we already know.  But there is also a trust issue too -- particularly if you don't know all the avatars in real life.  Given that you are starting a virtual representation of people - you may be proned to projection.

I've thought using the moderated chat protocol that is interface independent.  I learned one from Nancy White when I took her online facilitation workshop.  It goes something like this:

-If you want ask a question type ? into the chat line
-If you have a comment or observation type ! into the chat line
-When finished typing, type GA
-If you need multiple lines, use  .... at the end of your phrase to indicate you're not finished.

This protocol might make some aspects of inworld chat only meetings smoother and less multiple threads, but introducing it into an established group's meeting practices might be a little like herding cats. 

I also find that I reach cognitive overload with the SL chat client pretty fast because:  1.) chat history flys by and I'm scrolling back to catch up   2.) The chat window I'm reading covers up the screen if I want to reach the history without scrolling,  so I have to move it around to watch what is happening in world  3) I have to translate the avatar name to real person name and relate to agenda or summary notes that I'm taking elsewhere. 4) There isn't a place inside of the virtual world where you can easily post the agenda and I haven't found a virtual flip chart yet.  It kinds of gets in the way of effective facilitation.

I also don't like using chat alone because it sometimes can get chaotic, leads to miscommunication, and feels so slow.  That slowness is great if you want to immerse in a conversation where you reflect and explore, but it can be really annoying if you're trying to come to agreement, determine actions, and make decisions.  I've always had chat as a back channel to a conference call and used it to summarize key points as a sort of electronic flip chart.   There I go again, wanting a virtual flipchart.

At Friday's meeting in-world, someone brought along their roundtable with expandable seats.  It worked for me because of the clock technique we often use to facilitate conference calls.   Now, if I could just find a flip chart in SL that let's you type in the summary of key points - I'd be a happy.

That's why Nancy White's post on most useful synchronous online facilitation practices really caught my eye.  So, I read it with this question in mind:  What techniques can be applied or adapted to Second Life facilitation or virtual world interface facilitation?   How does SL compare to these other tools and where does it fit on the gradient?  And, how does a virtual world tool help or hinder effective online collaboration or a synchronuous online communication?

Nancy takes us through a gradient of modalities and technologies for synchronous meetings.   Nancy observes:

For one shot interactions where you cannot expect a lot of investment in learning tools or processes, the conference call (land line and/or VOIP) is still the dominant choice, but I try to include SOMETHING visual in the mix

This is interesting to me because Second Life is quite the opposite - there is a huge investment in learning the tools, there is no audio (although that is changing) and it is all visual.  How much does this help or hinder effective collaboration?  How might it influence your choice of using Second Life for a project?

Nancy goes on to describe why multiple modalities are important:

The reason to have something beyond the is two fold: one is to increase our engagement and participation, particularly for those of us who are not great in an aural-only mode. With a visual, I'm less apt to start doing my email or staring out the window. For the same reason, I love my cordless phone because I find I listen to long phone meetings better when I can walk around and move away from my computer. It does something to my thinking. I'm still hard wired for VOIP calls and, despite the price, I am tempted to get a bluetooth headset for the computer.

I'm very similar to Nancy in that I have attention issues with aural-only mode.   But, I'm also finding when I don't any aural mode for group collaboration meetings - chat only - I start to have similar attention issues.   So, that's why I like having both the visual and the aural.

There is a new tool called SecondTalk that lets you integrate skype with Second Life.  While not yet perfect as some colleagues have noted here.  Problem, of course, is that I'm not sure exactly how it might support a group call on Skype.  (There is also the problem that Second Life sucks up a lot of memory, and some folks might not be able to run both apps at once.  I know that running both together on my computer slows things to a crawl.)

Nancy's next point is about how the visual and aural support the process of collaboration:

The second reason is other tools can support the process of the meeting or gathering. Using a chat room to collectively take notes, or a wiki to evolve the agenda and take notes during a meeting. Co-editing WHILE discussing a document. Queing up questions in a larger phone meeting via chat so that a) you know you are on deck to speak and b) people have a chance to be heard, especially if they are less inclined to jump in to a conversation.

This gets me back to wanting that virtual flip chart.   Another thing that happens and I know there is probably a way to prevent this - is that our meeting are taking place in a busy place where visitors often come by who are not involved in the group.  The other day, we had someone come by with their virtual dog who fetching a ball.  It's cute, but it flooded our chat transcript with "woof woof."  Now, I'm a huge dog lover, but it disrupted the meeting.

Nancy goes on to talk about the type of tool you might consider for ongoing meetings with larger groups:

When you get to the place where you are doing larger meetings (over 8 or so), or are doing ongoing live meeting practices, it starts making sense to consider more sophisticated tools and pratices. This is where things like web meeting tools, co-browsing, and such can be useful.

What I notice about web meeting tools is that most of us don't know how to make the most of them. We may learn how to use all the tools and features, but we haven't had exposure to good facilitation practices. We try and duplicate offline experiences (be they useful or not) and not really take advantage of the medium.

Of course, the meetings I'm attending in Second Life are related to planning and implementing projects in Second Life.  So,  while some aspects of the interface are annoying - as I've outline above -- it comes back to a question of "What makes for a good facilitation practice in Second Life?"  Given that it is a virtual word, do online facilitation techniques used in RL or other types of online applications make sense?  How can we take advantage of the medium of Second Life? 

I keep coming back to damn virtual flip chart.  I posted a question on the educator listserv and there doesn't seem to be one. yet.

Nancy's post continues with some observations about synchronous online facilitation techniques gleaned from reading "Learning in Real Time" by Jennifer Hoffman and Jonathan Finkelstein.   

When we facilitate synchronously we not only have to manage the software, the domain of the conversation, but we also are working to legitimately request and get the attention of participants who, for the most part, we cannot see. We have to do this across a diversity of styles and skills. It is truly a "ringmaster" job ....

What I notice is that Jonathan writes about something I learned from my colleague, Fernanda Ibarra. It is the masterful use of a shared white board to move people from being consumers of a meeting to being active participants. Fernanda showed me how she prepared a whiteboard screen with clipart of a circle of chairs. As people entered the web meeting space, she invited them to write their names under a chair. This helped orient them to and practice with the tool, created a sense of "group" and gave a visual focus as people entered the "room." It was brilliant. I've riffed on that idea and found it very useful. We've done After Action Reviews with the white board taking the place of a flip chart used F2F. We've even had virtual parties. This brings together , text, and images.

This starts to get really excited about the possibilities of Second Life and really using the medium.  Now what if our shared table (see above) could also be a shared white board -- our collaborative virtual flip chart.  Of course, you'd need the aural channel for it to work.

Nancy points to a few good resources on the topic of synchronous online facilitation techniques that I need to explore ..

"Learning in Real Time" by Jennifer Hoffman and Jonathan Finkelstein
Top Synchronous Training Myths and Their Realities - By Nanette Miner
InSynch Training and their Synchronous Training Blog
LearningTimes training

 

Technorati Tags: VECoP

Questions as Technology

I love Jamie McKenzie's Questioning Toolkit that leads you through different types of questions and how you can use them in instruction. What I like most is the Unanswerable Questions.

His other article is titled "Questions As Technology," and while it was written in 2002, it still resonates:

Because the new information landscape is streaming by at supersonic speeds, we find ourselves working overtime to “get our minds around” the essential issues, trends and data of our times. Making meaning is harder than ever before.

Supersonic speeds? We open our e-mail and watch a stream of messages flow into our mailboxes. Some of them are correspondence, some of them spam and many of them information “alerts” we have set in motion by subscribing to many of the services that may be tailored to our interests and needs. It is hard to keep up with this torrent.

Quick fixes, wizards and templates abound as substitutes for deeper understanding, but the ultimate answer to information abundance and degradation is unrelenting pondering and questioning. The better we are at interpreting the data and challenging the assumptions behind them, the greater our chances of handling the riddles, the conundrums and the paradoxes that are so prevalent. Questions make it possible.

 

Confession: I'm a car slob too.

Today, I gave someone a ride in my car and I had to apologize for being a car slob.  I have some good excuses - have young kids who eat in the car, I'm too crazy busy to clean it up, it has almost 100,000 miles, etc.   

Well, I'm also a tagging and rss slob.   I'm not going to put the link in to it - but tagging and rss encourages my sloppiness.   I need to change my habits and be a little more neater and thoughtful. 

• Only stuff you need to find later or think is really fantastic
• Try to clean up delicious tags for stuff like mispellings, etc. - perhaps this might need some regular maintenace
• Think about your categories and try to be consistent
• Do a radical weeding of you bloglines - unsubscribe from any that you don't find real value in reading anymore.  Reorganize the folders in bloglines.   Try to find meta feeds or teach yourself how to use the tools to splice together feeds.  This is my next personal learning area ...

Here's an excellent article from Alexandra Samuels on tagging tips.

Presentation Zen Blog: A Resource Review

I've been accumulating resources about how to make presentations better (more interactive).  In my woolgathering, I came across the Presentation Zen Blog written by Garr Reynolds.  A recent post makes this point:  Presentations Are Conversations.  The article takes the points in made in the Cluetrain Manifesto and relates them to presentations.  It's a long article, but this quote resonated:

You can learn a lot from presentation coaches and communication books, but this is not rocket science. We can be much better by simply looking at the presentation as an opportunity to have a conversation with others about something we care about. All the technique, training, and "PowerPoint" tricks are useless if the talk doesn't come from your gut, from your heart and soul.

His personal web site has some good tips on creating, delivering, and slide design. 

Notes on prep/creative process:

I love his tips and he shares his creation process too ... it's definitely how I begin and create and it's in "analog mode."   Reynolds notes "Though you may be using digital technology when you deliver your presentation, the act of speaking and connecting to an audience — to persuade, sell, or inform — is very much analog."

My process  is analog, but I have to start with a mind map of the ideas (sometimes several versions of it), then do a linear outline, and finally sketch out a storyboard with image ideas.  Then I sit with my storyboard, and look through  my photo sources, like flickr and my photographs.   Then, I start to develop it in Powerpoint and I don't touch the templates at all ... I create from scratch to give it consistent visual look, but avoid the cookier cutter asethetics. 

Reynolds has an excellent Zelazny Cheat Sheet on how to figure out which charts and graphs to use to illustrate your point.  (Gene Zelazny is the author of "Say It With Charts" and director of Visual Communication for McKensey and Company.) 

Reynolds advises using color well because it evokes feelings and emotions.   Spoken as a true artist he writes, "The right color can help persuade and motivate.  Studies show that color usuage can increase interest and improve learning comprehension and retention."    His tips off a quick lesson in color theory and some pointers to other resources, including an article on how to tweak the color schemes in Powerpoint.

Mistakes as Teachable Moments

I'm preparing for a Webinar I'm doing next week and am revising some of the materials and exercises based on my experience delivering it for the first time.    I'm also a learner right now in some online workshop and one of the best teachers I've encountered in a long while just said something that I'd like write on a post-it note to keep in view or frame to hang on my wall.

"I am comfortable sharing my mistakes as a learning moment.  It is much better than just sitting silently feeling bad about them!"

Many of us think that as the "teacher" we have a model a perfect process!  After all, we're the suppose to be the expert, right?

However, think about some of your best learning.   Was it when everything worked correctly and as expected or was when something went wrong .... really wrong.  My most memorable learning experiences as a teacher are when things were going along just swimmingly -- just as I had anticipated and then Wham! something unexpected happened.

It's important to remember in your training to describing when processes or ideas do NOT
work and that is often as or more effective than showing how it does work.   Anyone who has done any teaching in a computer lab has probably had this experience.   You know, where you show the steps, but when the students try to do it, they make a mistake or go off track in a way that you weren't anticipating.   Sometimes you can hear adult students muttering "WTF" to the computer, perhaps why some have dubbed this the  "WTF learning principle").

The inspiring trainer of trainers are those who model how mistakes can be teachable moments.

Leonardo was a (mistake) Genius

Marnie Webb is writing again about mistakes.  The post she points to talks about genuis makes mistakes, the particular genius is Igor Stravinsky.

Her post made me think of a book I read a while back called "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci" by Michael J. Gelb while preparing a workshop on creative thinking strategies for a leadership circle for individual artists.

Leonardo made many mistakes and experienced adversity in his quest for truth and beauty.

One of the thinking principles is called: Dimostranzione:  A committment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.   

It mentions some great journal questions about mistakes:

• What did you learn at school about making mistakes?
• What is the biggest mistake you ever made?
• What did you learn from it?
• What mistakes do you repeat?
• What role does fear of making mistakes play in your daily life, at work and at home?
• Are you more likely to make mistakes of commission or omission?
• What I would do differently if I had no fear of making mistakes?

Mistakes Are Opportunities for Reflection

I can make better choices chair
Originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg.

Marnie Webb asks "Why don’t we think mistakes are a part  of excellence?

I think in our culture we tend to view someone who has made a mistake as being "dumb."  Maybe it has something to do with our upbringing or our educational experience.  We were not taught at an early age that "reflection" is a good thing, let alone how to do it.  The message was that a mistake is an opportunity for shame, not an opportunity to reflect on how to do something better.

I'm hoping schools are different these days.  My son's school is.  His kindergarten classroom has something called the "I can make better choices chair."  The kids sit in it and think about what they did and how they could do it better.   It isn't a  punishment or timeout chair, they are just trying to teach the kids to be reflective and that our "mistakes" are good learning moments.