Last week, I had an opportunity to participate in a two-day workshop was designed for Packard Foundation grantees, from across the Foundation’s funding areas, who lead and manage networks or accomplish much of their work through networks. The workshop, facilitated by the Monitor Institute, was focused on Network Effectiveness. Specifically, the workshop goals were:
- Introducing and applying network tools, frameworks, and case studies that can help network leaders assess their effectiveness and increase their impact
- Facilitating peer-learning and exchange
- Exploring what it means to work with a network mindset
I learned a lot about the network approaches and was particularly interested learning a bit more about social network analysis and mapping processes. During the session, I live tweeted the notes using the hashtag #packnet. A number resources were shared and interesting points made during the back channel which I summarized here
The first day I presented a brief over view on social media for external communications which included 8 principles. The presentation is above.
On the second day, we did a half day session using the Social Media Strategy Simulation Game. The hypothetical organization was part of a network and working on Earth Worm Sustainability. Some design learnings:
- Program staff have a harder time coming up with an objective than technical or communications people. Might consider giving them a choice of objectives to select from, rather than have them construct.
- Constant dance between understanding the tools and not leading with them. What's needed is permission to explore the tools.
- Because it took longer than anticipated to formulate the objectives, we didn't have opportunity to explore the adoption/resistance issues.
- The small groups should a mix of people and include someone with experience actually using the tools and one person who is a good facilitator.
- I'd like to be able to add a set of "metrics" cards, and possibly experiment cards. This is probably more appropriate for a more advanced level.
The report outs from the small group had some terrific strategy ideas and approaches. You can read the notes here. The game wiki is here.
On of the ah ha content moments for me was:
This points to a great opportunity for reverse mentoring and working across generations.
You can find lots more resources on Network Effectiveness over at the Monitor Institute's "Working Wikily"
I enjoyed the last comment: I find that a lot too that people don't realize that younger people may have lots more skills, but even younger people may not link those skills to professional uses!
Posted by: Joitske Hulsebosch | June 07, 2009 at 06:14 AM
Beth:
I had a thought which I included in the eval form for the second day session (the only day I attended). New Thought: Instead of giving people the Forrester Technographic profiles for all age groups (which is useful as a reference but in the context of the game was overwhelming), just give them an objective and audience demographic (or a choice of them) and the on the "tools cards" (i.e., blog, Twitter etc.) put similar demographic info so the challenge is in optimizing the tools strategy to the objective/target audience. obviously you don't want to make it too straightforward, it was really overwhelming trying to process (as a group) all the info that was on those cards while still struggling for a grip on the objectives.
My 40/40 hindsight two cents! It was still a fun game!
Dana
Posted by: Account Deleted | June 07, 2009 at 08:23 PM