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Business Development

Feb 27, 2009

Partnering with Business

Hosted by Rod Schwartz (May-June 2009)

Partnering with Business…or Dancing with the Devil?

Last November I wrote about a UK social enterprise called the Bright Ideas Trust which secured partnerships with Bank of America, The Prince’s Trust and a host of others. These firms provide critical financial support, credibility and a range of other services.

Technology firms such as Microsoft and Salesforce.com actively assist charities and social entrepreneurs, with free products. Sure, it may be in their selfish interest to “hook” these firms on their products, but in the process, don’t social entrepreneurs gain access to valuable resources?

When we at ClearlySo work with professional service vendors to develop products for our social business clients, this is another way of “partnering” with businesses, and each party is considered to gain something from the exchange.

Normally the above are all considered “appropriate” business partnerships.

But in Bangladesh, Grameen struck a “dream partnership” with Norwegian phone company Telenor to roll out a highly successful joint venture. The deal now has turned sour. What went wrong with this business “partnership”? Do partners turn nasty when the fruits of cooperation are great? Not very “social”, is it?

Telecoms firms are active all over the developing world, often working with local partners. Is this exploitation or cooperation, and what factors will help determine which it will be? Can social entrepreneurs do anything to ensure fairness?

Are certain specific firms simply out of bounds for social enterprises? When The Body Shop sold out to L’Oréal (part-owned by Nestlé) observers reacted with rage. “A step too far for an ‘ethical’ company”. It’s one thing for Ben & Jerry’s to be purchased by Unilever, but Nestlé…...

What about other sectors? Defence contractors? Tobacco manufacturers? Or banks—today’s bête noire? Are some industry groups just beyond the pale? Can any self-respecting social enterprise engage in a partnership with these?

What about energy companies—should social enterprises not engage with the well-regarded Shell Foundation because of some of the historically unpopular activities of its parent? If BSkyB (Rupert Murdoch’s business in the UK) is a leader in certain aspects of working with social business—how should we view this, cynically or positively?

Partnerships with business, are they worth it or too problematic? Join Rod Schwartz, CEO of ClearlySo, in the conversation.

Aug 14, 2008

Desperately Seeking Hybrid Funds

Hosted by Villy Wang, President & CEO of BAYCAT (September 2008)

Genetically speaking, hybrids are the offspring of two different breeds or species produced through human manipulation for specific desirable characteristics of both. Whether this makes you think of tangelos (a mix of grapefruit & tangerine), or fuel-saving automobiles (gas & electric), or even golf clubs (iron & wood), it’s always about finding the best of both worlds.

Enter the world of the hybrid nonprofit social enterprises, which creates the need for hybrid business models, hybrid funding, and thus hybrid professionals!

Specifically when it comes to raising money, even the vocabulary “fundraising” or “development director” versus “investing” or “investment relations manager” connotes different processes and personnel with different skill sets. What really is the difference between writing a grant and a business proposal in the world of the hybrid nonprofit social enterprise?

Although traditional grant makers are impressed that an organization has diverse sources of funding that include earned income, it is not necessarily a requirement for funding. When do grants become investments that require a ROI? In our hybrid nonprofit social enterprise at BAYCAT, clients enjoy the fact that their “fees” are really “investments” that further a social purpose that is also supported by public and private grants. In fact, the growing trend is that our clients who pay us a fee also become donors, or vice versa. Thus, a new hybrid “clienor” or “donorent” is born. (yes, you heard these terms first on Social Edge!)

And as you scale your operations, who cultivates, manages and supports these relationships? Do hybrid nonprofit social enterprises have to invest greater resources in establishing a traditional development department, an investor relations team and a sales/client management division?

Perhaps one way to think about this issue is that the fundraising/investment world is really at a non-existent or nascent stage for social enterprises, and that is why we work so hard at hybrid fund development tactics:

Wherever you go in the world, most social entrepreneurs are acutely aware of the problem of the “missing middle” – the gap between the traditional funding of nonprofit ventures through grants…and the more substantial financial investments necessary for rapid expansion. The Power of Unreasonable People, John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan

Therefore, as we develop new sources of ‘hybrid’ funding, isn’t it just as important to develop a pool of hybrid fundraising/money making professionals?

How can we run our nonprofit social enterprises efficiently so we can manage donors, investors, clients and clienors/donorents?
Where do we find these hybrid fund developers?
What do we call them and pay them?
How do we stay competitive with the marketplace?

Join Villy Wang, President & CEO of BAYCAT, in the conversation.

Oct 01, 2007

Partnerships for Global Solutions

Hosted by Edith Asibey (October 2007)

Edith Asibey (Asibey Consulting) is no stranger to global issues. She has advocated for universal access to education, poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the Global South and the U.S. The scope and urgency of these challenges has alerted Edith to the need for effective partnerships for global solutions.

Building upon my participation in the 2007 edition of the Clinton Global Initiative, I am hosting this conversation about effective partnerships to tackle the world’s biggest challenges: what works, what doesn’t and why?

Partnerships are at the core of the Clinton Global Initiative. During the three-day conference there were numerous examples of the different partnerships that CGI is enabling.

But at a more basic level, the building blocks for a partnership were best summarized by President Clinton during his opening remarks:

“The premise of CGI is that we are faced with complex problems that government is either not solving or that government alone can not solve […]

What brought us together and what connects us, as nearly as I can determine, are three basic convictions: First, just about everybody in this room believes that our common humanity is more important than our interests and differences […] Second, we seem to all accept our share of responsibility for correcting as much as we can the current challenges of the world and passing along a better world to our children.

Third, we actually believe we can do it. We believe we can make a difference.”

Let’s expand upon President Clinton’s description and explore what it takes to build successful partnerships:
-   What are the key ingredients for partnerships that work? What lessons can be learned? Are there replicable experiences?
-   Is innovation a must-have for successful partnerships?
-   Should partnerships always involve governments to ensure long-term implementation and scale?
-   We often hear that many partnerships are motivated by public-relations interests; is that good or bad?

Join Edith Asibey in the conversation.

Sep 10, 2007

Volunteers for International NPOs (Part 3)

Hosted by Patrick O'Heffernan (September 2007)

Sources of Interns

Part 1 (Hiring Volunteers) is here.
Part 2 (Resources for Training and Managing Volunteers) is here.

Many NPOs and FPO's use programs that train existing volunteers and staff either in topical areas, like sustainable development, or in broad skills like leadership and international negotiation.

Some of these programs are also sources of interns for NGOs. I will describe two of the best I know of –one US and one international- and ask members of the community to post the names and URLs of others they know.

One of the most comprehensive international programs is Leadership for Environment and Development, or LEAD International. Based in London and operating through offices in 14 countries, this 16- year old organization trains mid-level staff or volunteers from NGOs, corporations, media, and government in sustainable development and leadership in a global context. The training is designed to focus on strengthening knowledge of sustainable development and enhancing key leadership skills among new groups of leaders. The majority of training is undertaken at the regional level, with additional inter-regional and international components available. A key part of the training is meeting and working with others from around the world and developing a global network of useful contacts. LEAD also offers training and leadership consulting to for-profit and non profit organizations. The LEAD website offers free case studies NGOs can use in their internal training.

In the US, the 64-year old Coro Center for Leadership, founded in San Francisco but now operating through independent offices in seven cities, trains rising high school students and recent college graduates in leadership and civic engagement through projects and internships. Applicants must go through a rigorous national selection process. Those selected become Coro Fellows in Public Policy.

Each Fellow is assigned to a series of month-long consulting projects across a variety of sectors in public affairs, such as government, business, political campaigns, organized labor, media and non-profits. They also undertake group and individual projects. Coro also offers training programs to US-based corporations and non profits and places interns in both for and non-profit organizations for a small fee.

LEAD International, Coro and other similar programs have developed extensive networks of graduates that provide job leads, referrals, reviews, and assistance on projects. These networks that are often cited by graduates as the aspect of training with the most long-term value to both graduates and the organizations they work for.

So what organization is your favorite source of interns? Click here and tell us.

Aug 20, 2007

Volunteers for International NPOs (Part 2)

Hosted by Patrick O'Heffernan (August 2007)

Resources for Training and Managing Volunteers

Part 1 (Hiring Volunteers) is here.

Many NPO’s and NGO's could not function without volunteers. To some a volunteer is a person who comes into the office a few hours every week; for others, it means hundreds of individuals or professionals who are the NGO's day-to-day operation. Excellent sources for an overview of volunteer management are the Free Management Library, ServiceLeader and Volunteer Resource of the Points of Light Foundation..

Volunteer management begins with recruitment and selection. Always recruit with a carefully written job description detailing the tasks, level of expertise and education needed for the job. Selection can be done by reviewing an application form, conducting interview or doing background check. See the Canadian organization CASAanet for guidelines on background checks, and Energize Inc. for tips on interviewing.

Formal training can range from having an experienced volunteer train new ones on the job – an excellent process – to giving actual classes. Be careful about creating expectations for training. Since receiving training may be a motivation for some volunteers you must be clear that it is not given in exchange for the volunteer's time but so that they can carry out their role more efficiently. Training should be designed by and involve the staff members who will supervise the volunteers or who work in the same area. For help and information on training volunteers, see the UK site CharityDays, and the US-based Senior Corps Tech Center on motivating and training volunteers.

Managing volunteers involves insuring they show up, know and do their job, understand and follow your organization's rules, and fit into the organization without causing problems. The first three can be handled with training. Fitting in is best handled by screening out potential problems in the interview process. Since the motivation for volunteering can range from wanting to give back to looking for a mate, you must recognize and exclude potential volunteers who can interfere with the organization's mission by antagonizing staff or funders, gossiping, or otherwise engaging in inappropriate behavior. See Energize, Inc. and the World Volunteer Web for hints.

My preferred management method is to assign a staff member the role of Volunteer Coordinator, which may be a full-time job or be full time during recruitment and interviewing and then part-time during management. The Volunteer Coordinator manages the volunteers through training, volunteer meetings, monitoring their work and their punctuality, motivating them with events, awards, and recognition, and if necessary, retraining or even dismissing those volunteers who engage in inappropriate activities.

A special case for volunteer management is the use of volunteer professionals such as doctors or computer specialists or attorneys. Professionals rarely need close supervision but often require support in the form of information, access to files, contacts, as well as a basic grounding in the organization's mission and protocols. In addition to the volunteer management sources mentioned above, an excellent example of how an organization recruits, trains and manages professionals is United For Sight.

Let us know how you manage volunteers. Click here and join Patrick O’Heffernan in the conversation.

Aug 14, 2007

Volunteers for International NPOs (Part 1)

Hosted by Patrick O’Heffernan (August 2007)

Part 2 (Resources for Training and Managing Volunteers) is here.

Does your non-profit organization (NPO) use volunteers? Many do and the recruiting, training and managing of volunteers are important skills – almost as important as fundraising.

The first step is to determine which you need –volunteers or interns. Volunteers are people who serve the community or organization without compensation, motivated by altruism, a desire to meet people, religious convictions or because it makes them feel good (which it does!).

Interns work in a temporary position in businesses, government or for NPOs receiving on-the-job training. Interns may be paid and receive college or job credit, although internships in NPOs are often unpaid or subsidized by another organization. Typically, interns require a more organized training and management program than volunteers to meet the terms of their internship.

Many organizations train volunteers and provide them to NPOs: large programs like the U.S. Peace Corps, Rotary International or the UN Volunteers, and smaller ones like V.I.E., focused on a single skill set or on a single region or village. You can find a partial index of organizations that recruit, train or provide volunteers around the world at ServiceLeader.

You may also consider joining the International Volunteer Programs Association so that potential volunteers can find you in their database.

You should also investigate Global Volunteers, an American NPO founded in 1984 to promote peace through international understanding by sending volunteers to assist with rural work projects around the world. Global Volunteers has special consultative status with UN ECOSOC and invites applications from NGOs that meet its criteria.

You should also be familiar with the Berlin-based International Cultural Youth Exchange. With offices, national committees and community service networks worldwide, ICYE is one of the largest youth exchange/volunteer organizations in the world. It promotes intercultural learning and voluntary service through home stays combined with community projects. NGOs that wish to register with ICYE as a host should get in touch directly with the ICYE National Committee in their country or fill in the Expression of Interest Form on the website.

A new area of volunteerism is volunteer tourism (VT) – combining a vacation with community service. VT is controversial because many of the organizations involved are for-profit and some critics maintain that the focus is often more on tourism than volunteering. But the organizations involved range from universities to travel agencies and often provide uniquely qualified and hardworking volunteers. NGOs should check out the volunteer tourism industry magazines Brave New Traveler or Transitions Abroad (both with a western point of view) for an overview.

You should also check Charity Guide, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to facilitating flexible volunteer opportunities, both through VT and general volunteering. Although most of the site is dedicated to actions individuals can take independently, it also refers potential volunteers who want to work with specific organizations. If you want to be considered for referrals, you should contact the management team.

Finally, if you know exactly what kind of volunteers you need and prefer not to go through an organization or association or rely on volunteering tourists, you should post your volunteer position on Idealist.

Add to this toolbox and join Patrick O’Heffernan in the conversation.

May 08, 2007

Black Swans

Hosted by Charles "Hipbone" Cameron (May 2007)

Working with the Unexpecteds

Nassim Nicholas Taleb just published The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. It is one of those books -- like Gladwell's Tipping Point or Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds -- that adds a new and often counterintuitive idea into the general mind-soup.

In Taleb's case, the new and counterintuitive idea is that it's not what we know which might help us navigate the future, but what we don't.

To focus this approach on our concerns here as social entrepreneurs: one strong implication of the book is that the next extraordinarily successful venture – in our field as in the wider economic sphere – will be one that doesn't look all that obvious at first glance.

So how will we – as individuals, as funders, as a movement, recognize it?

Here's Taleb on entrepreneurship:

The next killing in the restaurant business needs to be an idea that is not easily conceived of by the current population of restaurateurs. It has to be at some distance from expectations. The more unexpected the success of such a venture, the smaller the number of
competitors, and the more successful the entrepreneur who implements the idea. The same applies to the shoe and book businesses or any kind of entrepreneurship.

Put like that, it seems fairly obvious – though it's not the way we usually look at things, not the way we "work".

I'd like to explore the implications of that paragraph with the social entrepreneurial community. I think there's a great conversation to be had here, because Taleb's pitch for the "idea not easily conceived of" needs to be balanced, or perhaps followed, by the idea of the "second-mover advantage".

The thing is, we know how to be second movers – all we have to do is watch and learn. But here are my questions:

• How do we recognize a positive black swan opportunity?
• How do we convey its benefit to others, since it's non-obvious by definition?
• How can venture and foundation folk nurture black swans?
• How can we ride them?

Join Charles "Hipbone" Cameron in the conversation.

Jan 16, 2007

Play around, procrastinate, make a mess...

Hosted by Charles Cameron (January 2007)

This event with the somewhat quirky title is really about styles of management, both personal and institutional -- and the idea is that there's much to be gained from counter-intuitive strategies.

Charles "Hipbone" Cameron offered to host this item after reading a very positive LA Times review of Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman's new book, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place.

That review in turn triggered fond memories of James Ogilvy's Living Without a Goal, and behind them both, the don't push the river Taoist philosophy of Lao Tze and Chuang Tze, which is at once humorous, profound, and deeply counter-intuitive.

There are, he tells us, a thousand books supporting effort, organization, tidiness, planning, timeliness and so forth -- but none of them would be necessary if humans weren't also so predisposed to be inefficient, disorganized, untidy, unplanned and procrastinating, a side of things which may have a great contribution to make but which is seldom recommended by those who want their lives purpose-driven and full of effective traits.

According to Charles "Hipbone" Cameron, some of you may already be masters of taking randomness (often called chaos) and bringing it into order -- but for those whose orderliness precludes the random, there's much to be said for loosening the tie, opening the top button of the shirt, rolling up the sleeves and getting messy, erratic, relaxed, inquisitive, all jazzed up and drifty.

It's a form of listening. It lets reality to speak to us in ways that question our otherwise sacred assumptions. It allows "emergent properties" to, well, "emerge" from systems. And it's fun.

Einstein was a master of this "way" -- and in fact it's something you'll often find in absolutely top flight people. But it's not often discusssed, perhaps because it runs so counter to the grain of all the other advice we ever receive.

Let's talk about it. Let's discuss messy desks, failures to make deadlines that turned out for the best, chance encounters that brought purpose to our lives or the lives of those around us.

What's your story? I'll tell you mine...

amanuel melles - Jan 16, 2007 8:58 pm (#1 Total: 25)
With people, with ideas, in action

What matters is results

Thanks for bringing up this issue. As a director, I never worry about my staff's cluttered desks. Everyone has his or her own way of getting "organized"...what matters to me is the bottomline: that what I expect them to do, is done. Of course, people waste more time trying to find materials they need in a cluttered work environment. But people often compensate by the additional time they spend to ensure their work is completed.

Natural ecosystems are often regenerated through random and choatic events (coral reefs bleaching; forest fires). The reality of today's workplace and organizations (artificial ecosystems) is that order, tidiness and strategic planning are rewarded. We don't know how to handle messy, creative and usually productive staff.

amanuel

zoe brooks - Jan 17, 2007 2:35 am (#2 Total: 25)
East Oxford Action

Creativity = organised mess

My husband worked for a number of the top publishing firms and tells me he could always tell how creative and original the company was by the messiness of the desks - the messier the more creative. I spent several years working in community arts and theatre and my observation supports my husband's position.

Creativity often comes from the juxtaposition of apparently unrelated ideas. Even the time "wasted" tidying up my desk is important to me, I find the random shuffling of papers allows me to see connections. Once the papers are filed they cease to exist. That is not to say that order is not also needed - there is a need for people who tidy up and organise within any organisation and moreover creativity is after all about bringing a new order to chaos. But for too long the tidy police have been patrolling offices!

ClaraJ - Jan 17, 2007 4:14 am (#3 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good

Adding +/- 10-20% for the ultimate designer

Purposeful random chaos/play/procrastination introduce and allow for the ultimate designer (energy or incarnate) into the creative process. It is INDEED "a form of listening" (Cameron) and a way to ask for help in "LINKING apparently unrelated ideas." (Brooks)

??? I'm a theist.. hipbone... would you elaborate on what you mean by the "don't push the river" Taoist philosophy? The river is a great image.. one that I use in my personal definition of spirituality.. taken from a quote by Tolstoy.

Namaste Chiara

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 17, 2007 11:27 am (#4 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

responding to your terrific responses

Hey, I'm impressed. I expected this topic would either be attacked by the forces of tidiness and timeliness, or ignored -- and lo, three of you have written in taking positive attitudes to the disgracefully untidy suggestion I've made! ; )

Amanuel, I thank you for the mention of corals and fires, and for your comment that (normally) "order, tidiness and strategic planning are rewarded". Perhaops Abrahamson and Freedman's book will loosen things up a bit -- but isn't it encouraging to see others here with a high tolerance, and even respect, for cluttered desks and creative minds? The correlation between the two is instructive!

One of the most brilliant minds I've ever met, a senior researcher and modeling software developer at the Brookings Institution, has a desk piled high with books and papers which overflow across the floor -- up to the same height -- for sveral feet on either sidxe of the desk. Most impressive.

Zoe: great to read you here. East Oxford? somewhere out past Magdalen bridge, then? Headington, Cowley? Oxford's my once-upon-a-time home town.

You write:

Creativity often comes from the juxtaposition of apparently unrelated ideas.

That's absolutely right,and we can go a little further and specify that the juxtaposition comes about through an analogy or homology between the two disparate ideas... That juxtaposition, indeed, is the precise target of my HipBone Games:

http://home.earthlink.net/~hipbone

Clara:

Please allow me to hold my response to you over for another post -- I have a rather long quote I'd like to deliver, and fear it would overwhelm this one!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 17, 2007 11:53 am (#5 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [Clara] Adding +/- 10-20% for the ultimate designer

Hi Clara:

You asked:

would you elaborate on what you mean by the "don't push the river" Taoist philosophy?

I think the best way I can express it is via a quote from Alan Watts and Al Huang's book, Tao: The Watercourse Way:

Taoism as a philosophy aims for the natural flow (think also of Milhalyi Csikszentmihalyi's book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) of the river or watercourse, for a path or way that neither "tries too hard" nor "gives up in despair" -- but rather, in a delicate and continuously sensed balance, moves through life without undue stress and with innate gracefulness.

The watercourse way is not "as the crow flies" -- direct and rigid as a line drawn with a straight edge -- nor is it tortured by its own complexity. If I can put it this way, it allows for eddies and picks up stray leaves as it flows ever onwards...

ClaraJ - Jan 17, 2007 12:17 pm (#6 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good

Very cool

Love the ink image! Have not done calligraphy... but remembering the scene from "crouching tiger" & remembering the calligraphy at the asian museums I've been to... you are exactly right!

The funny thing is this watercourse way as you describe it... I learned its management style from my ED at Sanctuary Arts Center - an art center for homeless youth - Leslie had a way of managing by the Holy Spirit (that would be the Christian equivalent metaphor to what you're talking about... the Father/Son parts of the trinity has a "as the crow flies" qualities about it... but listening to the Holy Spirit of the trinity... well, you HAVE to listen to how the "Way" is operating *already* in our lives. For profit Msft taught me the "as the crow flies" management style. Not for profit SAC taught me the "watercourse" management style.

There's also another favorite Taoist saying ... there are 3 kinds of leadership: those who are anonymous, those who are loved, and those who are feared. Well, based on my experience, you can only lead anonymously by paying GR8 attention to the WAY - whether that's Taoist or the Holy Spirit of the Trinity.

Clara

tutormentor - Jan 18, 2007 7:32 am (#7 Total: 25)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Cluttered desk - sign of entrepreneur?

Some random thoughts on this topic.

I vote for the cluttered desk. Give me flat space, I fill it with papers and books. In the book titled The Spider and the Star fish there is a reference to how some people thrive in ambiguity and others require structure.

I've read management books that talk of stages of growth. When your in the creative stage there is lots of ambuguity because you're building something new, and generally don't have lots of help doing it. As the organization grows, the need for structure, and the resources to provide structure grow. That's becasue a larger organization needs to find organized ways to keep everyone focused on the same goals. Maybe this goes overboard and stiffles innovation. That's probably another discussion.

The idea of going with the flow is an important one. I'm constantly reaching out to people all over the country/world. Yet, I can't control how fast they respond. I have to go with the flow.

However, I think the role of the entrepreneur, or the innovator, is to sometimes dig a canal, and change the flow of the river. If we keep doing what we have done in the past (flow of the river), we keep getting the same results.

ClaraJ - Jan 18, 2007 7:45 am (#8 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good

Paragliding Management Style

True, social justice agents have to know when to change the flow of the river... however... I think.. if we want the kind of change akin to the Berlin Wall (a peaceful revolution) vs. the civil rights movement (a peaceful yet violent revolution), then I think the answer lies not so much in digging a canal, as to know when to change flows of river. A paraglider moves from air current to air current - so the sign of an anonymous leader is one who moves from river to river depending on a divinely inspired calling. MLK Jr. had it! And so did Gandhi!

And still, yet, sometimes, I agree, changing flows or brushes is not sufficient. There are times we have to grunt and dig a canal - but then we have to be prepared for massive resistance from the water. The higher the good, the greater the evil that resurrects in all of us.

Amen.

tutormentor - Jan 18, 2007 12:58 pm (#9 Total: 25)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Quote from How to Change the World

I'm reading this book now and one quote that got my attention was "In the fight for an ideal, we face those who are deceptive, envious and incompetent. The man who is firm pays no mind to such poeople and wastes no time counting them. For he who marches toward the light need not worry about what occurs in the darkness."

This was praise of Prof. Ennio Amaral, who through his wwork made it possible for poor people in the fields of Brazil to gain access to electric energy benefits.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 21, 2007 6:33 pm (#10 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [ClaraJ] Very cool / Paragliding

Re: [ClaraJ] Very cool / Paragliding

I have to admit I'm not too surprised to see your suggested link between the Taoist "watercourse way"” and Christian "Holy Spirit" – but then I got my degree in theology, so I lean that way anyway. And Tao is one of the suggested translations of Logos in Chinese. Having said which, I wanted to sidestep that issue and keep on the mess, randomness and procrastination line of inquiry, which is why I was a bit quiet for a while on first reading your post.

On the subject of knowing when to change flows of river -- I think that’s a great question, and we’re very fortunate to have two brilliant documents from Donella Meadows on the subject:

Places to Intervene in a System
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid790.php

An astonishingly important paper for anyone hoping to change the way things are, this is Dana’s classic account of where interventions will have the greatest impact. Using Jay Forrester’s systems theory as her basis, she shows that the greatest impact doesn’t come by influencing quantities (numbers, material stocks and flows) but from playing with the rules of the system (incentives, punishment, constraints), the power of self-organization, the goals of the system, and above all the mindset or paradigm out of which the goals, rules, feedback structure arise. Dancing with Systems: What to do when systems resist change
http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/pubs/Dancing.html

This is an excerpt from Donella Meadows's unfinished last book. She suggests that while systems thinking says the future can't be predicted, it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can't be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can't surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can't impose our will upon a system, but we can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone. A brilliant essay in favor of a fully human and humane understanding of complex situations, problems. -- and note the "watercourse way" thinking that’s present there, too!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 21, 2007 6:41 pm (#11 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [Tutormentor] Cluttered desk / Quote

Dan:

Hello once again:

When your in the creative stage there is lots of ambuguity because you're building something new, and generally don't have lots of help doing it. As the organization grows, the need for structure, and the resources to provide structure grow. That's becasue a larger organization needs to find organized ways to keep everyone focused on the same goals. Maybe this goes overboard and stiffles innovation. That's probably another discussion.

Yes, but an important one. The anthropologist Victor Turner [in his masterpiece, The Ritual Process] argued that St Francis was trying to create a permanently “liminal” community – one where the creative stage would continue past his own death – in the form of the Franciscan order, but that such an attempt is doomed to failure, and that even before he died the Order was self-organizing in ways that undercut his original sense of values.

Turner makes it clear why the liminal is a necessary refreshement to the normal, but cannot possibly replace it. It's a fascinating I'm drifting close to religious studies again. Let's get back to(wards) business!

I think the role of the entrepreneur, or the innovator, is to sometimes dig a canal, and change the flow of the river. If we keep doing what we have done in the past (flow of the river), we keep getting the same results.

I’d rephrase that to say the flow sometimes mandates the digging of canals in new and unexpected directions <grin>. Otherwise, I heartily agree.

beautiful complexity - Jan 24, 2007 5:54 am (#12 Total: 25)
Learning at the Intersection of Art, Enterprise & the Environment

Messy Desks and Liminal Moments

As a social & environmental entrepreneur I found myself recently at the liminal moment in time between 2 years of my setting up of a complex project (alone and with little help) and the next phase where people have come to the table to help create a bigger vision. My desk has been so messy for the past 6 months I have abandoned it in favor of the less distracting dining room table. Last week I found myself sort of stuck and mindlessly started to clean up one of my shelves. I came across an old notebook from several years ago, way before my current project was even dreamed of. I was astonished to find things in that book that directly relate to my current project and the exact stage I find myself at. The first line in the book is, "All beginnings are mysteries, the mystery of creation" Henri Amiel. A few pages in I found something I must have copied down from some book or webpage, The 5 componets of Creativity - Foraging, Reflecting, Adopting, Nurturing and Knuckling Down - All of these actions suggest messiness rather than neat and tidy well managed and lineal processes. My philosophy at the moment is to create, it hardly matters what, but the act of creation seems to keep me in the flow.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 25, 2007 9:58 am (#13 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

messy car poem

Here for your general enjoyment is a poem that, shall we say, leans towards the miracle of messiness? It's about car ownership and family...

I wish I could get the software here to do a triple indent, so that the poem itself could be set off with a wide margin and white space all around it -- poetry deserves that kind of treatment IMO.

But anyway, the poem...

The Rules of the New Car
by Wesley McNair

After I got married and became
the stepfather of two children, just before
we had two more, I bought it, the bright
blue sorrowful car that slowly turned
to scratches and the flat black spots
of gum in the seats and stains impossible
to remove from the floor mats. Never again,
I said as our kids, four of them by now,
climbed into the new car. This time,
there will be rules. The first to go
was the rule I made for myself about
cleaning it once a week, though why,
I shouted at the kids in the rearview mirror,
should I have to clean if they would just
remember to fold their hands. Three years
later, it was the same car I had before,
except for the dent my wife put in the grille
when, ignoring the regulation about snacks,
she reached for a bag of chips on her way
home from work and hit a tow truck. Oh,
the ache I felt for broken rules,
and the beautiful car that had been lost,
and the car that we now had, on soft
shocks in the driveway, still unpaid for.
Then one day, for no particular reason except
that the car was loaded down with wood
for the fireplace at my in-laws’ camp
and groceries and sheets and clothes
for the week, my wife in the passenger seat,
the dog lightly panting beside the kids in the back,
all innocent anticipation, waiting for me
to join them, I opened the door to my life.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 25, 2007 10:07 am (#14 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [beautiful complexity] Messy Desks and Liminal Moments

Wonderful post!

Is the Boyne River (of the Boyne River Project, which I learned about in your member's bio) the same river in Ireland which gave us the celebrated Battle of the Boyne? Your facility sounds remarkable indeed. Very much my kind of place.

Cordelia Salter-Nour - Jan 26, 2007 12:39 am (#15 Total: 25)
eShopAfrica.com

squalor versus mess!

Like others in this discussion I believe in a healthy, creative mess... but the car poem touches on squalor which is a different thing.

I was lucky with my children - they grew up in West Africa where any food mess was immediately located by ants who patrolled every square inch of the house 24/7.

No eating cookies in bed for my kids.... in the night the ants would be there to clean up the smallest crumb. If you left a candy bar lying around within minutes it would be covered in ants. Highly recommended to create hygiene awareness!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 26, 2007 10:38 am (#16 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [Cordelia] squalor versus mess!

Ha! Actually I agree, mess can be creative, gum (in general, affixed to furniture etc) isn't. But it's interesting, the army of ants which you see as virtuously cleaning up the crumbs would be viewed by my wife as far worse than crumbs themselves. In Southern California context.

Myself, I'm busy at the computer...

Cordelia Salter-Nour - Jan 30, 2007 4:45 am (#17 Total: 25)
eShopAfrica.com

Re: [Cordelia] squalor versus mess!

I didn't really think of them as my cleaners... more as my squalid behaviour detectives

your wife may have personal reasons not to like ants but in fact ants are very clean... members of their colonies are designated as cleaners and ants that farm produce anti-biotics to protect their crops (or should that be ant-i-biotic?)

don't think your computer is safe either... at various times I had colonies of ants setting up residence inside my scanner, speakers and laptop... they would just move in overnight

but as the combined weight of ants is greater than the weight of humans I figure they're here to stay!

beautiful complexity - Jan 30, 2007 2:58 pm (#18 Total: 25)
Learning at the Intersection of Art, Enterprise & the Environment

Boyne River

No Charles - its one of 2 Boyne Rivers in Southern Ontario. The facilities include the first several miles of pristine source water from several small rivulettes and streams (very messy arrangement of water flowing down through a valley) Great trout fishing & a fish hatchery to boot! This Boyne River is about collaboration not the divisions created by the Battle of the Boyne.

Marguerite - Jan 30, 2007 9:05 pm (#19 Total: 25)

Messy Mind

Hi Charles -

Long time no post here. But forget the messy desk -- I have a messy mind. It goes in about 10 different directions at a time and I never know which one to follow.

I seem to always have at least two and sometimes four or five different projects or thought paths going at one time. I read the same way -- four or five different books laying scattered around the house -- I read a chapter from one then another. Just can't seem to stay with one thing for long or my mind just goes blank.

But the "multi-tasking" works for me in that somehow things seem to fit together and flow -- you know something from one project or thought or book will cross-link with something else and then patterns start to emerge and make sense from what seemed in the beginning to be a jumbled chaotic and unrelated mess.

I go to sleep at night and never remember dreaming, but in the morning most times with the first thoughts of the day a complete picture of something I was puzzling about will emerge.

My thoughts tumble out in the same jumbled manner as I skip from one subject to another in conversation -- drives people around me nuts trying to figure out where I'm at, but it works for me. Which is why my live-in companion is my dog Sweet Pea -- she just keeps listening as long as I scratch her back, and life is rosy.

I've been referre to by several former companions as: "The crazy lady".

Well, catch you later -- I'm off to see the wizard.

Wish I had your knack for keeping these discussions going. You always seem to know the right thing to say/write. Amazing.

Eva-Marie - Jan 31, 2007 5:09 am (#20 Total: 25)

Dear Marguerite,

I read your article and was deeply impressed.

Everything has two sides.

Of course changing from one theme to another can be a sign of fatigue and less concentration, but on the other hand it can be a sign of creativity as well. It can possibly enreach life and believe me, not only yours. So if people can´t follow your associations maybe it is not primarily your fault.

By the way, in working with my patients it was very helpfully to to be empathically with them, because I could see the picture in front of my eyes and after getting one peace of the puzzle I could often take the conclusion about the story behind the story.

Friendly Regards

Eva-Marie

Marguerite - Jan 31, 2007 9:13 pm (#21 Total: 25)

Everything has two sides (and more)

Hi Eva-Marie,

Thanks for your gentle and perceptive comments.

You're right about the creativity part and its allowed me to put very large projects together in a very short time while everyone else is still at step one, and to solve problems that seemingly have no answers. So, it wasn't my intent to come across as complaining, except men do seem to like dumb blondes better. But there is always the exception to the rule.

Anyway, like with the "cluttered desk" a "messy mind" creates chaos, but there is an order within chaos that emerges if you let it. And that's where change begins on the edge of chaos. So what I was saying is that we should encourage the chaos and then just sit back, relax and watch to see where the multi-dimensional patterns are emerging and let the sub-conscious or the intuitive mind bring them together in a natural and organic manner. Be open to letting life take us down a path instead of trying to create the path. Yet always being in control enough to make a conscious choice to reach out and tweek it if we see a better way.

In this way we're enouraging both sides of the brain to get involved. Whereas our current educational system emphasizes left-brain linear thinking. And left-brain linear can't manage reality because it fails to see the whole dynamic of the situation.

So, most of us are driving down the freeway of life able to see out of only one side of our vehicle. And, we wonder why we keep crashing. Two marvelous books on this are: Smart Moves - Why Learning Isn't All In Your Head and Brain Dominance by neuroscientist, Dr.Carla Hannaford.

As a therapist,? Eva-Marie it's marvelous that you are able to work with your clients from a holodynamic plane where the view is expansive.

arabianmonkey - Feb 1, 2007 11:29 am (#22 Total: 25)
filmmakers change everything!

Thundering in....and breaking out

In a community undergoing enormous transformation, with a cultural challenge towards diversity and embracing change, I've found myself adamant to engage in the 'system', while maintaining a disheveled attitude and packaging, and total individuality. I’ve also noticed that I get their attention more as they inspect and dissect my exterior - then we start talking. The true shock comes when I say, "Go ahead, just change everything. What’s the worst that’s going to happen?”

A couple days ago I met up with an old school friend over an interesting project he needed consulting on. I went to his offices - shiny, new, clean, unlived (or so they seemed, inspite of the many very serious looking people sitting behind desks, who had been there for months apparently). My mouth then said smtg without my brain's control - or so it seemed, "someone should spill a can of bright paint in here". By the time we got to his office, the energy was bouncing off the walls, we had an amazing talk and mapped out a little road ahead. I could tell he kept looking around, thinking: what just happened to my comfort zone?...but I kind of like the feeling!

When we were kids, we explored because we could. We played hard to achieve something. And we played clever to win. We changed the play when it got predictable. And we broke the rules, because we just weren't sure. And we created chaos because we were exploring. And we made a mess to get attention.

And sometimes that's the only way to get someone to listen - to themselves, to you, to the world around them, so that they allow themselves another angle. So that they see and hear the same things in a different way, and say, “aha”!

As I look back on my last 18 years of work, I’ve jump started organizations and programs where many said ‘impossible’. I've thrived on chaos, and those who found it difficult to deal with reached out to me. Today I like that about myself. My disruptive theory works (most of the time). The times I decided to procrastinate, the waiting turned into golden opportunities where something so new and relevant appeared and made the world of difference.

In today’s time stealing world, we just don’t seem to let space in. And on a planet that is obsessed with rules, we’ve forgotten how to think. And in times driven by formulae, we’ve neglected to remind ourselves that humanity by nature copes with disorder. But fear is what holds some back! So perhaps it is fear that we must address rather than messy or clean desks.

Marguerite - Feb 1, 2007 9:12 pm (#23 Total: 25)

Aha! The Fear Factor

arabianmonkey writes in part:

When we were kids, we explored because we could. We played hard to achieve something. And we played clever to win. We changed the play when it got predictable. And we broke the rules, because we just weren't sure. And we created chaos because we were exploring. And we made a mess to get attention.

(snip)

In today’s time stealing world, we just don’t seem to let space in. And on a planet that is obsessed with rules, we’ve forgotten how to think. And in times driven by formulae, we’ve neglected to remind ourselves that humanity by nature copes with disorder. But fear is what holds some back! So perhaps it is fear that we must address rather than messy or clean desks.

I love this because it points out so perfectly that before the "education system" got a hold of us, whether that be mom and dad, or the church, or school, we were so innocent -- so full of curiosity and afraid of nothing. And then after a few raps across the knuckles and other places, or a trip to one's room or the principle's office, and the innocense and curiosity get stuffed as one learns that a cluttered desk or mind is not appropriate -- everything has to be orderly. And then the withdrawal into fear begins.

I'm also thinking that since the Great Depression, which few of us remember, we've not been faced with any degree of adversity here on our own soil. And especially for the middle class we've not been challenged to any degree to really think outside of the box the fear factor has created. But for the poverty-stricken -- that's a whole nother ball game.

Now my mind's jumped to another subject and I'm considering how the middle and and upper classes are going to handle global climate change and the "right in your face" kind of challenges this is bringing about. It seems to be that those who are poverty-stricken have a lot better chance of getting through this than the average American since they are use to solving problems where no answers seem apparent --and it becomes a matter at some level of consciousness of "be creative or die".

ClaraJ - Feb 1, 2007 9:28 pm (#24 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good

Thanks

for the Donella Meadows article, esp. the one titled Dancing with Systems. There's much to ponder in her writing.

You studied theology? No wonder... :) How fascinating about St. Francis. His "liminalism" reminds me also of his radical stance on "poverty," so radical that he advocated against financial sustainability on an organizational level. Course other mendicant orders like the Dominicans would vote otherwise, and grow much larger than the Franciscans.

Thank you for giving me much to ponder...

Clara

ClaraJ - Feb 2, 2007 11:09 am (#25 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good

Interplay of left and right handers

Eva Marie,

I agree with you about the importance of interplaying with left handers... :) One of my favorite activities is interplay where you get to balance both the left and right hand..

Anyone who wants to "dance with systems," male or female should REALLY try out interplay. What's interplay? It is "world-wide movement dedicated to ease and fullness, peace and diversity, creativity and community, development and change. It is an easy-to-learn practice, and a set of simple but powerful ideas that can change the way you live your life. It integrates body, mind, heart and spirit. It gets you running on “all your cylinders.” It creates strong, caring communities. Find out more! www.interplay.org.

Charles, if you love meadows, you'd love interplay. One feedback to her docs is ... it'd be nice to integrate more of the body wisdom as she suggests in her title of her paper

People on this blog stream have mentioned how messiness encourages the incorporation of spontaneity.. and how despite the messiness... being in tune with the "way of the tao" converges the messiness into a beautiful pattern.

Try out interplay! It's a blast! You laugh and it's quite healing. It's also what I do when my brain feels fried. I let my body take the lead then over my over-analytical brain.

And speaking of messiness and spontaneity, I'm writing this in Big Sur on a mini retreat vacation and the first page I turned to in a poetry book was this... I find it quite appropriate to post it now.. though it is deeply personal. And Eva Marie, you should listen to your instincts.. if your soul is telling you something is too personal to post on the internet, it probably is and you shouldn't - at least at this moment. Thankfully, social edge allows you to delete and edit blogs... a key feature!!! Can't change history... but sometimes, shelving history is best for all involved.

So here's the poem I found by Carolyn Mary Kleefeld and David Wayne Dunn in the messiness of books in this library..

Your Quiet Godliness

In the quiet of your godliness, can you know the thrust of your spirit's flame gave me the eyes to behold, the ears to imbibe the orchestration of the tides?

In the quiet of your godliness, can you know the pines standing so silently tall murmur from their roots into mine?

Your quiet godliness touches me with a creature's pulse, as deeply as the songs of the whispering stream soothe my soul

Can you know the thrust of your spirit's flame has emblazoned my senses to unknown rhapsody?

In the quiet of your godliness can you know?

p.s. Charles, I'm still chewing on St. Francis.. he never advocated financial sustainability.. but his radical poverty sure ignited a social movement.. could argue had longer social impact though business wise was foolish. Something to think about. Makes me think of Bill Shore's latest book... we started thinking of social enterprises, then social entreprenuers in a business integrated sense... but people like MLK sure wasn't "business" minded.. though politically savvy and he sure ignited something. Perhaps Francis never wanted and yet wanted a the same time to cannibalize his own organization. The Dominicans flourished... so did the Jesuits... and perhaps ... that was a higher will than what Francis or us in our "human finite" view could foresee.

I wonder if the next skoll forum has a talk on integrating faith and spirituality... there's something about religion and faith that can ignite a social movement. MLK was in the end a preacher... a generational preacher... and that served him well. Even Gandhi said that "prayer when used appropriately is the most instrumental form of action." Unbusinesslike? and totally irrational.. huh?

Clara

Jan 10, 2007

How do you evaluate? How do you prioritize?

Hosted by Charles 'Hipbone' Cameron (December 2006)

Priorities

By Charles “Hipbone” Cameron

The very fact that you are a social entrepreneur, or specifically interested in social entrepreneurship, strongly suggests that you have prioritized: you have decided that you value “contribution to society” above simple profit.

But prioritization is a key not just to the most basic of questions, “what shall I do with my life?” – but also to the finer details of doing it.

How do you prioritize? Are you an instinctive “prioritizer,” for whom every self-help book ever written looks like a manual for other people, or do you have tricks and heuristics which allow you to keep your priorities straight, constantly checking and adjusting your priorities to fit the changing situation? Do you use a Covey planner, or follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity?

How do you evaluate? How do you prioritize?

I am interested in your thoughts on this, all the way from how you handle the small details that can get lost when you have a thousand tasks to juggle and only one hand to juggle with (the other one tied behind your back by a bureaucracy, perhaps, or just by lack of time), to the Big Question: what’s the most urgent need I can hope or help to meet?

Do you decide on a course of action based on your own perceived skill set or preferences, based on local need, an assessment of overall global need -- or was (or is) it perhaps a personal connection, story or inspiration which steered (and steers) your life in the particular direction you have chosen?

• How do you achieve clarity?

• How much of your decision-making is heart, and how much mind?

• How do you prioritize?

Jump in the conversation.

DR.PRABIR DUTTA - Dec 12, 2006 10:19 pm (#1 Total: 11)
CALCUTTA MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

I Prioritize

There is nothing to prioritize to gain immediately.I seek those to gain who need it from me.It is to be candid," a continuos process without any loss on my part".

I make profit out of benefit yielded by my society.

qazi - Dec 13, 2006 9:07 am (#2 Total: 11)

Prioritizing is indeed a difficult art!

Hi Charles, I first must admit that prioritizing has been and continue to be a major problem in my personal and professional life. However, I have, over the years, learned the art somewhat and here is how I try to prioritize:

Stephen P. Covey's 'time management matrix' in the book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" helped me a lot to differentiate among the works that are 'important and urgent ' vs. 'important but not urgent' and so on;
Alan Alekin's system of priority where he recommends that the highest priority work be given an 'A', and the second highest a 'B', etc. sends a very clear signal as to one's priority. As many know, even within an 'A', there could be A1, A2, etc.
Recently, I am prioritizing on the basis of two criteria: First I choose paid work (consulting and training) that contributes to my long-term ambition of founding a private university meant for poor but talented people in Bangladesh. Admittedly, there aren't enough engagements of this kind to pay all my bills, sp to speak. So, my second way is to work for a certain number of days in a week (say 3 days) which may not directly contribute to my future ambition but is good enough to pay all the biills and even save some for social work.
Since I was at 2006 Skoll World Forum, I am hooked onto the idea of 'social business' --the particular version which Nobel learute Prof. Yunus first talked about at the Skoll Forum and recently in his Nobel lecture at Oslo. I believe that I can contribute in this area as an adjunct business school faculty(teaching this course), Ashoka Affiliate (I encourage disadvantaged kids to go in to social business) and with a serious interest in promoting higher education as a tool for reducing poverty.

In summary, I look for work that is related to povery reduction.Thus, when I do consulting assignments in the corporate sector, I would rather take up an assignment related to corporate social responsibility(CSR) or corporate community investment(CCI), as opposed to other mainstream topics.

A work-in-progress website of our firm's training wing can be found at http://www.futureleaders-bd.com/

Oliver Tessier - Dec 14, 2006 6:11 pm (#3 Total: 11)

planning and structure

I consult to many organizations at once, so I am constantly balancing multiple sets of priorities. For big projects, I identify the intended outcomes, then each step toward achieving those outcomes. I put steps on a weekly timeline (in Microsoft Project) so I have a way to measure progress, and I assign them to the responsible parties (very often myself). Then I track tasks on my daily calendar, highlighting the ones that must be completed. And I follow up to make sure all the other players are on task.

To manage client priorities, I keep lists that tell me the status of everything we are doing. After meetings, I follow up with written "To Do" lists. "Here are the highlights of our discussion. Here's what I will do by X date; here's what you will do by X date."

To the degree I can manage it, the prioritization happens early on, during the planning process, when I can look at the competing tasks and decide if I will have the resources to complete the tasks on time, rather than at the last minute, when decisions would have to be urgent ones. And I hold onto the prioritization by monitoring progress and maintaining dialogue with the players.

It's not foolproof; if a CEO I'm coaching fails to deliver annual goals on time, I may have a series of meetings backed up, but I try to stay ahead of projects enough to compensate for lags like that.

Which is not to say that I don't occasionally get stuck in a really great novel and ignore the whole lot for a morning.

Hope that's helpful.

tutormentor - Dec 15, 2006 7:59 am (#4 Total: 11)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

having a road map, or blueprint, helps

Over the 30 years that I've been leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program I've begun to create a segmented understanding of each of the actions that need to happen to help a single program grow from good to great, or that would help an entire city of single programs grow from good to great.

I have a wall in my office that shows the major categories, and some of the sub categories of actions that need to happen each year. It stretches along about 20 feet of space, so when talking to people I ask them to think of the calvary charge in the old western movies. It's a long line of horses with riders, and one person carrying a flag, pointing toward the enemy.

For my organization to be successful, each horse/rider represents something that needs to happen. If I have a staff person or volunteer responsible for that action, then all I need to do is follow up to make sure they are headed in the right direction, and lead (carry the flag) to keep stretching them to do better.

In a small organization, many roles have no one on the horse. Thus, I have to take that role.

What I've learned is that not every thing has to happen at the same time. Thus, I'm able to switch from one role to another at different times each day, or week, or month. As long as I can look at the wall, and know that we're making progress toward goals, based on the time/resources we have available, then I'm confident of what we're doing.

Another way I describe this is that my wall, or my calvary charge, is a blueprint, similar to what contractors use to build buildings. While a calvary charge is a horizontal line, hopefully moving in one forward direction, a blueprint is a vertical stack of diagrams, and each page represents the actions of many people that must take place in the right way before the contractor can move to the next page of the construction.

In my blueprint, the foundation, or first step, is building a database of tutor/mentor programs, and of volunteers, leaders, donors and others who are interested. If this database does not exist the city does not have an overview of where programs are operating or where they are needed. If we don't have a list of programs and supporters, we cannot invite people to come together to build relationships, or do what's needed to help more programs be in place to help kids.

The next step is sending invitations for people to come together, and for people to be volunteers, donors or supporters of various programs in the city. The step after that is building a better understanding among all of the stake holders of what everyone does, and a shared understanding of some of the common needs that could be resolved if programs were working together.

There are additional steps, but with the limited resources I have (time and money) I primarily focus on maintaining the first few steps so that I'm able to grow to the steps that follow as I get the resources to do so.

I look at these charts and my wall every day, and I document actions taken to achieve these goals in an OHATS section of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org. This way I can see where I'm making progress, and where I need to spend extra time to move forward in areas where I'm not making progress.

With this blueprint on my wall, and in my mind, I'm able to audible in any conversation I have, with anyone in the world, to connect what they do, to a role they might play, in helping me do what I do. I do this every day in order to find volunteers, donors, or partners to be some of the sub contractors on the blueprint I've described, or riders on the horses in the calvary charge.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 15, 2006 8:06 am (#5 Total: 11)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

First coemments

Welcome, all!

It's a funny thing, but I have the feeling that we're getting to grips with the second half, only, of the issue I was raising. We seem to be talking about how we annotate our priorities and organize ourselves around them once they're formed -- a valid and important topic, to be sure -- but not how we form those priorities, how we evaluate possibiities so as to know what priority they should have for us.

Oliver -- greetings [ and I have a strange feeling we've crossed paths before this ]

I note that in one of your documents, you talk about vision, mission and values as though mission needs to be aligned with vision, and values with (vision and) mission -- you may be speaking here of another kind of "value" to the sort I'm thinking of, but my question here is about the vlaues that allow you to form a vision.

How, in a world of multiple needs and tensions, as a human with multiple needs and tensions, do you chose what is most significant to you? In those "moments of scanning my whole life"?

I'd love it if we could add a little of this side of the equation -- call it "how do you evaluate" as opposed to "how do you prioritize" -- into the mix here...

Dan:

How did tutoring / mentoring come to have such primacy in your life?

tutormentor - Dec 15, 2006 10:13 am (#6 Total: 11)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Tutor/mentor - a 40 year journey

Charles, I went to college in the 60s and thus the Civil Rights movement and the War in Viet Nam were part of my learning. I studied history in college, so learned to look at what happend at one time and in one place, and apply that thinking to what is happening, or could happen in current times and where I live. Then I spent three years in the Army, in the Intelligence Corps. I learned to collect information from different sectors, rate it, and use it to solve problems.

In 1973 I became an Advertising copywriter at the Wards HQ in Chicago, and shortly thereafter, a volunteer tutor meeting weekly with a 4th grade boy. In 1975 I became the leader of the tutor/mentor program, and by 1981 I was responsible for the creative development of all Ward national advertising and for developing the annual ad calender.

I had no knowledge of running a tutor/mentor program, or of being a mentor when I joined this program, and I had no knowledge of advertising when I joined Wards.

However, my background prepared me to learn from what others were doing and to apply that to innovating ways to get better at what I was doing. I was lucky to have some great mentors, and be inspired by some great ideas.

In each of my jobs I worked on the same calendar of activites each year. Thus each year as I repeated what I did the previous year, I learned more about what I was doing, and with this experience, I could innovate more ways to do it better.

By 1990 I had 17 years experience in both careers, and my understanding of what needs to be done to connect tutors and mentors in one organization, or many organizations, had grown to a passion.

I was given the opportunity to leave Wards, and I converted the original tutor/mentor program to a non profit so I could earn a living doing what I had a passion to do. Not many people are so fortunate.

Over the last 16 years I've added to what I learned from the first 17 years, but I've been able to devote 60 to 70 hours a week to what I'm learning, and I've been able to use the Internet to expand my network of who I was learning from.

Thus, my current passion and sense of purpose comes from a lifetime of involvement.

This is exactly what I'm trying to duplicate in my leadership of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. If we can get more business people involved in more places, and keep them involved for a lifetime, teach them to learn from what they do, and what others do, and teach them to apply this learning every day to leadership that helps kids in poverty get the support the need to move to jobs and carers, we'll create hundreds of leaders with the same sense of purpose, but with a variety of skills and networks that I don't have.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 18, 2006 10:10 am (#7 Total: 11)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Here's my hunch

Thanks, Dan -- wonderful story!

I'm really surprised (and a little saddened) that this item hasn't taken off, and I have a hunch as to why that might be -- which I'll post here on the off-chance that it triggers renewed interest.

The question we're tooking at here -- setting priorities -- is really in two parts:

how do you know what you really value and what choices to make, and

how do you organize your day / week / month to be effective? Here's my guess...

The second question may seem so obvious or trivial that many of us can't quite be bothered to answer it -- "I use a daytimer, of course", or "I make lists" just doesn't seem lkike something worth saying in a world that's already overflowing with time-management self-help titles and so on.

And the answer to the first question -- how to we value, how do we really come to understand what's important to us, and align our lives with that understanding -- may itself be more a matter of intuition and instinct than a rational process that can be easily put into words.

That's my hunch, anyway -- that the way we come by our primary oprientation and values in life may be somehow too organic an internal process for easy explanation...

Any comments? I'd love to know why this event has been so quiet, and what's really going on "behind the scenes"...

Pamela McLean - Dec 18, 2006 12:51 pm (#8 Total: 11)

Charles wondered why it's quiet here.....

Maybe others feel a bit like me on this one:

Ref question one: how do you know what you really value and what choices to make,

That's a deep question - would take much too long to answer....

Ref Question two how do you organize your day / week / month to be effective?

Personally I've nothing helpful to share there - in a word - "Badly"

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 19, 2006 5:56 pm (#9 Total: 11)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re; [Pam] Charles wondered why it's quiet here.....

We'e on the front page for another week!

Regarding question 1: how do you know what you really value and what choices to make, Pam writes:

That's a deep question - would take much too long to answer....

Maybe that's a good sign, maybe that's an indicator that we're touching on something profound (rather than something so irrelevant it's easiest and best just to ignore it). Let's take a stab at it. If three of you will attempt to answer this question, I'll give my own answer, too.

DR.PRABIR DUTTA - Dec 20, 2006 3:42 am (#10 Total: 11)
CALCUTTA MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

gsbi2007@scu.edu

Attached my biodata in short.

Attachments:

biodata.doc (35 KB)

tutormentor - Dec 20, 2006 2:27 pm (#11 Total: 11)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Art, not science

Charles, I'll give this a go.

What I really value, is related to what I'm trying to accomplish, and what needs to be done every day to move toward the goal. I'd like to be working with lists and weighted priorities, but in a small organization, this is more art than science. I described my "blueprint" and "calvary charge". These are all visualizations of the many different actions and tasks that all need action in order to be successful. However, they don't all need action every day, nor could I possibly give each my attention every day.

Thus, I prioritize by what needs attention most, based on what it is, and what value it is to the organization. This is subjective, based on my own understanding of the goals, and the importance of one action vs another.

I think the most important thing I could pass on to others is that without a clear goal/vision in mind, and without being able to segment achieving this goal into groupings of activties that need to repeat over many days, months or years, then sub groupings, it's not possible to sort through all of the choices each day to determine which needs attention.

It's also not possible to recruit others to help you by taking on one or more of these actions as their own responsibility.

Social Edge Survey: Results and Consequences

Filed Under:

Hosted by Victor d'Allant, Executive Director of Social Edge (January 2007 - Closed)

Victor d’Allant, Executive Director of Social Edge, shares the results of the audience survey and introduces you to the new Social Edge.

To coincide with my first year at the helm of Social Edge, I hired Mission Minded, a San Francisco based research firm, to conduct a survey and better understand our audience –you.

Back in September, some of you received a survey to help us understand how the Social Edge community felt the site served them: purely as inspiration or as a robust source of practical information? As community-builder or as a possible source of funding? We also wondered what changes Social Edge could reasonably make that would better serve our audience.

The results recently came in, and I am eager to share them with you –whether you already participated in the survey or would like to take this opportunity to share your opinion.

When I joined Social Edge, I thought that our online platform should become “the practical global network for social entrepreneurs.” I am proud to report that these goals, in large part, have been achieved.

• Our audience is definitely global, with only 47% of active users coming from North America (we are physically located in California but global in scope). Approximately 22% log in from Asia, 16% from Africa and 7% from Europe. You are global citizens, and we all gather on Social Edge!

• Most of you are leading (35%) and emerging (14%) social entrepreneurs. An additional 13% are staff members of social benefit enterprises, for a total of 62%. The remaining are consultants (11%), academic and students (8%), and 3% come from the funding community. There is no doubt that Social Edge is the online platform for social entrepreneurs and professionals in the field.

• You seek inspiration as well as practical “how-to” tools. Overall, you tend to prefer content from experts above content from fellow members. This is why I established from the beginning of my tenure at Social Edge a strong top-down editorial voice for the site, bringing in experts as the primary source of content.

• But Social Edge is also an online community. Member-to-member communication and interactivity are important to you. Mission Minded discovered that Social Edge users were more active than the average online community based on usability expert Jakob Nielsen’s findings: “In most online communities, 90% of members are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of members contribute a little and 1% of members account for almost all the action.” On Social Edge, 34% forward content and links to others, and 17% post comments!

Questions for the Social Edge community:

• Do you agree with these findings?

• Did we miss any important point?

• As we are about to relaunch on a new platform, what you would like to see on Social Edge 2.0?

surya prakash.Vinjamuri - Jan 9, 2007 7:34 pm (#1 Total: 13)
Life-Health Reinforcement Group

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Dear Victor,

Greetings from Life-HRG!

Immediate responses to your Q's.

Do you agree with these findings?

Have to carefully see the findings, which you have shared in gist.

2. Did we miss any important point?

Deffinetly we have do some homework for this.

3. As we are about to relaunch on a new platform, what you would like to see on Social Edge 2.0?

I love to see more new energy pumped in.

Waiting for the launch as early as possible.

Have wonderful feedback session.

-surya.

Victor - Jan 10, 2007 10:55 am (#2 Total: 13)

Interactive Portal

I am often asked whether Social Edge is a portal or an online community. My answer: both! We are a hybrid between a portal with mostly static content (like most traditional media with an online presence) and a typical online community with mostly user-generated content (like YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr). In fact, Social Edge is an interactive portal.

Patrick O'Heffernan - Jan 10, 2007 10:58 am (#3 Total: 13)

nice work, Victor

These data will help all of us who publish events on the site fine tune it for our audience, especially as you launch the new platform and the podcasts. Well done!

Victor - Jan 10, 2007 12:18 pm (#4 Total: 13)

Podcasts on Social Edge?

Oui! Patrick is currently interviewing Peace Corps returned volunteers who have become social entrepreneurs. I just listend to the first one, Molly Melcher, Director of Tostan in Dakar, Senegal. Wonderful!

As we relaunch Social Edge, we will post this great series of podcasts. Stay tuned!

Benjamin Litalien - Jan 11, 2007 5:31 am (#5 Total: 13)
President & CEO, Social Franchise Ventures, LLC

Lessons Learned...

Victor, congrats on running one of the most robust blogs on the web! As I review the threads there are many nuggets of value to be gleaned and I wonder if there is a way to simplfy the process. For example, when a session has been completed it might be good to have the author/sponsor provide a recap, highlight learnings and generally summarize the responses. As others research past sessions it would provide a quick guide to the content without the need to review every response.

Also, as an organization it would be interesting if you were able to pick some of the most intriguing information that is posted and share that with the broader audience or even the social enterprise community at large.

I don't think there is a more thorough, diverse and insightful collection of inputs for social entreprenuers than you've amassed on the SocialEdge!

Victor - Jan 11, 2007 9:46 am (#6 Total: 13)

Information Sharing?

Benjamin is right --we should be able to find a better way to share information relevant to social entrepreneurs. One of the new features we will introduce on Social Edge 2.0 (as we call it internally) is the Edge Wiki. A wiki? Yes, as in Wikipedia. It will be the first open source online encyclopedia about social entrepreneurship. Registered Social Edge members will be able to edit the entries and even create new ones.

tutormentor - Jan 11, 2007 1:12 pm (#7 Total: 13)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Spider and the Starfish

It's coincidence that the book Spider and the Starfish has just been released at the same time as you are upgrading Social Edge. I've just finished reading the book and am inspired about the role of catalysts (many on Social Edge) and the potential sites like this have to create distributed ownership of important issues.

However, I don't think this will happen as rapidly as it could be if the mix of donors/foundations remains at 3% of the total.

In a recent discussion at http://www.gifthub.org/giving_as_field_of_practice/index.html Phil and friends talked about "getting the right people together". I think this is something that should also be part of the Social Edge vision.

We can share great ideas and learn from each other, but unless we're introducing each other to the resources we need to put great ideas to work in more places, we're not capaitalizing on the potential of Social Edge as a catalyst for change.

I don't think this is just the responsibility of Victor and the Skoll Foundation. In a Starfish network, this responsibility is shared.

At the end of next year what would it take to have the mix of donors/investors be 25-30%?

tutormentor - Jan 12, 2007 2:24 pm (#8 Total: 13)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Connecting those who can help with those who need help

I created a web page to show a chart that I created about 10 years ago, showing how leaders, catalysts, etc. can draw the people they know into volunteer-based t utor/mentor programs throughout a geographic area, and how such people can create on-line forums like Social Edge to share ideas, collaborate, etc. The link is http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/Partner/CC/Presentations/Leaders/pictures_history.htm

This illustrates a role I feel the sponsors of forums like Social Edge can talk. When I was asked why they should take this role, I said, "To whom much is given, much is expected." Forums like Social Edge, Omidyar, and the Ohrah Winfrey Angel Network attract thousands of visitors because of the celebrity/influence of the host.

Thus, those who have been blessed to have such a position in life, have the responsibility of connecting all of the right people with each other so that more good can come from the networking that is done.

Victor - Jan 12, 2007 8:24 pm (#9 Total: 13)

A mix of donors/investors of 25-30%?

Social Edge currently attracts over 20,000 unique visitors per month (compared with 7,500 a year ago). How realistic is it to try to attract 6,000 from the donor community? Are there that many program officers in the first place?

Our mission is to give social entrepreneurs tools to be more effective in their work, which in turn should help them attract the right kind of resources.

tutormentor - Jan 14, 2007 9:24 am (#10 Total: 13)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Why not try?

If we think of a donor/investor as more than a program officer at a foundation, then there are man more than 6,000 of these people in the world. IF Social Edge is to remain THE leader in drawing social enterpreneurs together, and in helping them be more effective in their work, it would be important to try to grow the percent total of investors.

Otherwise, someone else will fill this role and many of those who spend time here will choose to spend that time elsewhere.

Victor - Jan 16, 2007 4:38 pm (#11 Total: 13)

Diverse and insightful collection of inputs for social entrepreneurs

Benjamin writes that there may not be a source with "a more thorough, diverse and insightful collection of inputs for social entrepreneurs" on the Internet. Thank you.

Ironically, that's also the challenge we are facing as we are designing the new Social Edge --how do we make sense of so much material?

One of the key features will be a Resources Wiki --a content database that can be searched, that willbe easy to read and, for those who dare, easy to edit!

ClaraJ - Jan 17, 2007 1:49 pm (#12 Total: 13)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good

Synchronicity of Grace

LOVE the wikipedia feature! I just wrote a blog to hipbone and wanted to reference other blogger's "words" so I kept putting them in (). This is watercourse way operating, exactly what Charles was talking about. Great job!

As for donor/investor mix, I tend to agree with tutormentor... isn't it true that only 15-20% of funding come from foundations - thus program officers - and >70% come from individual donors? It'd be great to have social edge attract them... there's a lot of them out there. When I introduced myself as a donor to a npo - their first reaction was "great! less paperwork!" I think there's a lot of potential there...

p.s. however pls don't inundate me with grant proposals... there's only so much I can do....

p.p.s. would love to see a global translator on social edge as a utility. if we are global...shouldn't we converse in global languages? n'est-ce pas? guruchi... aigoo.. per favore... hasta luego!

Clara

Victor - Jan 18, 2007 7:20 pm (#13 Total: 13)

A global translator?

Bien sûr, Carla, c'est une très bonne idée. Es realmente una idea muy buena .

But the technology is not there yet. Online translation services can produce a good first draft, but not a decent translation --certainly not good enough for Social Edge.

As an example, I tried to translate a French sentence (Les logiciels de traduction ne sont pas encore au point) and this is what I got in return: "The software of translation is not yet at the point." Not good enough.

We would love to launch Social Edge in other languages. Maybe Social Edge 3.0?

Nov 30, 2006

A Network of Purpose

Hosted by Charles Cameron (November 2006 - Closed)

networkpurpose What’s the magic ingredient that turns a powerful digital resource, like the Social Edge website, into a vibrant community of friends, meeting and networking through a powerful digital resource and community space like, well, Social Edge?

Charles "Hipbone" Cameron says that this place is already a terrific resource. When we need information, we come here to find it. When we have a question, we leave it here because we know that a bunch of others will read it. It’s like the reference desk at a library, informative, rich, detailed.

But it’s not yet a rich tapestry of people, we don’t know each other much better than any two patrons in the same large library. Oh, we may recognize the gentleman over there with the Fedora hat as a regular, perhaps we overheard him talking to the librarian once and liked his voice – but we haven’t sat down for coffee together, haven’t seen the photos of each others’ kids.

This place, in other words, hasn’t yet built much in the way of bonds of connection and community between individuals. And so we don’t come here to be in our virtual home, so much as we come here to ask questions or retrieve information. We are not yet a “full-service” library: thus far, we are more of a resource than a community, more of a place to visit than a family to connect with.

How can we get to know one another better?

How can we maximize our group potential?

Recognizing one another, feeling kinship, coming back often enough to notice the odd request for help or mention of a solution and, yes, make the connection that’s more than just words, or ideas even -- it’s a network in action, a college of the inspirational and the inspired, meeting, questioning, responding, acting, collaborating, thanking. A network of purpose?

A network of purpose -- for which the Web is a trial run and launching pad. A Web extending not just into our needs but into our lives and hearts.

How do we manage that?

Charles volunteers: "I’ll throw in the bright thoughts and even brighter questions that my networks propose, if you’ll throw in yours. Let's talk."

Let’s rock the box, the boat, the world.

Pamela McLean - Nov 20, 2006 5:39 pm (#1 Total: 66)

Networks and purpose

Count me in too please.

One of the ways I describe myself is "Cawdnet convenor" - where Cawdnet is the network of people I exchange ideas with and collaborate with in various ways. The name comes from CAWD - which originally stood for the Committee for African Welfare and Development. It now stands for a registered charity.

CAWD was started by my friend the late Peter Adetunji Oyawale. I "got into all this" in the first place by helping him to write letters, make phone calls and such like - regarding the community development project that he wanted to start back home. He needed help because here in the UK his "African English" was a bit of a communication barrier.

Subsequently I've tackled all kinds of communication barriers (cultural, ICT, infrastructure challenges, etc) as I have continued working on CAWD related projects in rural Nigeria. I want to bring together the networks on the Internet and the networks in rural Nigeria, for purposes of education, friendship, understanding, collaboration, philanthropy, investment, and all aspects of development.

Another network that is important to me is one started by Andrius Kulikauskas. To oversimplify - Andrius has set up a network of networks on the Internet which he weaves together in interesting ways. (If I am lucky then someone else in his network will see this mention and add details before I have time to return to write more.).

Pam

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 21, 2006 5:05 pm (#2 Total: 66)
P-CED

Charles, Pamela, this comes at a moment when I as another Brit have just been reflecting on how much better this socially enabling kind of network is done in the US. To be specific it comes at the moment that I'd just read the recently published Action Plan for Social Enterprise, which although it documents many interesting developments, only serves to highlight how distanced we are, with a plethora of subscription based networks offering no major vehicle for discussion. To speak plainly, to me what I've read today seems more a promotional manifesto for a change of leadership in UK government. To some extent, I feel used by it, knowing much of what it prescribes is based upon the voluntary efforts many of us have pioneered and promoted at no personal gain.

Here then, as you say Charles, we have begun and I apologise Pamela for not knowing anything about CAWD, but I have to say that what I see and engage with on Omidyar.net has the edge for several reasons.

First it's unscripted, allowing free flow and expression of ideas and to some degree provides the facility for collaborative decision making in small funding exercises and what it doesn't do, is route discussions away to disconnected blogs. As a result there are in the order of 16,000 members able to express themselves freely and cross reference conversations easily. It isn't perfect, the hierachy of topics is a disordered mess and the peculiar formatting language it uses it plain awful.

A network of networks then? If it's at all possible to achieve this kind of connectivity with so many different formats in play.

In the wider context,there's the question of language and accessibilty, knowing as I do that content rich web forums can often exclude those that might well wish to contribute in the developing world but are excluded from doing so, if not by language, by the limits of bandwidth and cost if indeed they have access at all.

Jeff

.

tutormentor - Nov 21, 2006 7:28 pm (#3 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Creating a Network of Purpose: The Tutor/Mentor Connection story

In May I hosted a discussion on Social Edge titled Creating a Network of Purpose. The link to that discussion is at tutormentor, "Creating Networks Of Purpose" #16, 9 May 2006 10:45 am

Charles I'm glad you've started this again. Since hosting the discussion in May I've continued to work toward creating a network that would help create the resources that volunteer based tutor/mentor programs need to operate. I'm please to say that last week we had a major breakthrough when the Chicago Sun Times donated $2 million to the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association, which will use this money to make grants over the next 3-5 years to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.

I've participated in Social Edge, Omidyar.net and many other forums with a goal of recruiting others who would take a role in building a network of purpose focused on tutor/mentor programs in many cities, or who would see they work as a contribution toward borrowing the process of the T/MC to create a network of purpose focused on other social issues, in Chicago, or elsewhere in the world.

I encourage everyone to review the May discussion, and I look forward to what new ideas can come forward now. I encourage everyone to think of this as a step on a journey. It took us 13 years to get the first major donation toward Chicago tutor/mentor programs. I hope it does not take as long to get a second, or a third.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 21, 2006 8:26 pm (#4 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

quick drive-by post

I'm still mulling the three fine messages we've received so far. Pam, yours was posted before I'd even completed the final draft of my intro post! Jeff, you've lots to say and I'll need a morning to tink it through and respond even a bit... and Dan, you already know you're an inspiration, and I borrowed your title shamelessly. Thank you on both accounts, and I'm happy you came by already.

Tomorrow I want to post (a) some references to resources and (b) fuller responses to the three of you.

And a warm welcome to all who follow.

surya prakash.Vinjamuri - Nov 21, 2006 8:28 pm (#5 Total: 66)
Life-Health Reinforcement Group

In the name of development

Here in our our city of hyderabad what is happening is we are working towards forgetting that we are human beings.

We were a peaceful city & say large happy family till 1980's - systematically life is now is understood holding a cell phone,riding bikes & cars on a busy road with few flyovers built to ease the traffic & few on the way of completion - roads widened or getting widened by destroying memories of - particular tea stall or paper store or vegetable points.

In the midst of all these lands are taken over ( which otherwise fertile) replaced by concrete structures for a price - where the vegetables growing or rice/wheat will not yield the price what they got - a life time yield.

Friends, life is no more understood as an opportunity given to survive & serve & to see that generation ahead enjoys what we are able to, today.

Lot's of insecure acts causing the damage and needed intervention today is withhold what is good, reinforce habits & lifestyle which would protect tomorrow.

Values we uphold which we imbibed by our elders & the family we represent & the teachers & books, will be the foundation for better tomorrow.

I just want to end the opening note of my this posting with this observation: "the colors we see, when we look up at the sky are never harsh - all pleasant colors, no harshness at all".

I wish we take the inspiration from nature to be natural,gentle & human.

Laurinda - Nov 21, 2006 8:30 pm (#6 Total: 66)

Networking: Multi purpose?

Hi to you all.

It is interesting that this topic has come up again! ... at Empowerment Gateway we are currently looking how can we facilitate access to netwoks and knowledge resources in South Africa. It is one of the projects that has been tabled for development in the new year.

Like Jeff, I use Social Edge and Omydiar as two of my many networking platforms. ... but recently we have been evaluating how could a network of networks be created? ... and we are seriously evaluating if an IT platform like ManyOne could be the answer for us with the creation of an Empowerment Gateway portal in South Africa linking to the rest of Africa.

Additionally our membership in numerous CUG's on Yahoo has also enabled us to broaden our own network. Today all the groups that we are networked to provides instant access to over 200 000 individuals worldwide. I have an advantage over most english speakers as english is my 3rd language ... with portuguese and french as principal languages.

The pronblem is mainly financial resources to support a more effective communication platform. In South Africa the cost of broadband is prohibitive in comparasion to the cost in the USA for example ... we are paying 50c a meg versus 50c a gig. ... and I am not mentioning the rest of Africa ...

As we evaluate and research this topic in the months ahead if you are interested I'll give feedback on what is happening. Regarding ideas on how to improve this process ... I am afraid that I don't have answers YET! ....

Laurinda

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 22, 2006 12:00 am (#7 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

again, briefly, more tomorrow

There are two keys here, I think. One has to do with software choice, and is far subtler and more important than management in general expects. The other has to do with patterns of visiting and posting on a website.

But that's just dipping my big toe in, much more to explore... What's your idea? What's your pratice?

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 22, 2006 2:02 am (#8 Total: 66)
P-CED

Not my idea

Charles, With regard to your last question and the general subject of social purpose connectivity. A decade ago, an ordinary man outside the mainstream establishment pitched an idea to a President. He'd asserted that the new class of information impoverished would replace those currently impoverished as the result of the Industrial Age and that there was a way this could be avoided, by changing the way we look at business. He didn't write a book about it, but seized an opportunity to put it into practice, drawing on the tools pioneered by M.Yunus to deliver proof of concept starting with $6m to empower several thousand families, paid back in full over 5 years.

Hopefully, before the end of this year members your Senate Foreign Relations Committee will take delivery of another document descibing how the same approach can be scaled up to a whole nation at a net cost of zero. Among other things, it will detail how 5 million new subscribers can be delivered affordable access. The message remains unchanged, in order for new enterprise to flourish it must have access to an affordable source of information to gather intelligence on locally available resources and access its target markets.

In all this time, he's remained in relative obscurity, experiencing periods of homelessness and exclusion, and yet in recent times, these ideas have bounced back. Unsurprisingly, I don't need a UK Chancellor to tell me he wants us to think about new ways of doing business, though I might now want him to think about new ways of doing politics.

For all the networking we may muster and all the ideas we may brainstorm, it counts for little if government remains unapproachable. I have no access to the cross-party parliamentary groups on Microfinance and Social Enterprise, nor any constructive response from a government department on Social Enterprise. I am in fact at odds with one of the supporting government departments who've enabled a competitor to drive me out of business.

This I know is straying from the topic, but what I fear most is that what we've striven for will be served back at us as a watered down placebo, serving only the career interests of the new opportunists.

That being said, I'd certainly like to explore the feasibility of expanding dialogue to be more inclusive. feeling that we need to speak in plainer language and languages to get across the social purpose message. In essence, very simple, to ensure personal survival think less about climbing to the top of the pile and more about how those we clamber over in the process determine what we must face in our future.

edward - Nov 22, 2006 4:21 am (#9 Total: 66)
self

Recognising the Limitations and building on the positives

Charles it’s excellent that this topic has been revived. My starting suggestion is that we be precise and sure about the possibilities and limitations of a virtual community such as we have in Social Edge. This would then enable us to identify how and when to extend or draw out related ideas and activities to be developed in other ways. This could even be through other virtual communities subordinate to a central one on Social Edge.

One possibility is that we have a segmented series or hierarchy of ‘spaces’ within Social Edge. This would mean that a general discussion could be kicked off at the broadest level. Then those posters most interested (and with most to offer!) could ‘commit’ themselves to a more intensive and interactive series of exchanges and collateral dealings by joining or forming a sub-forum specific to the topic in hand. Posters would be expected to demonstrate some sort of commitment – perhaps by submitting more detail of themselves and/or their organisation or accepting the need to re-register for the sub-forum. It would be important for posters to the sub-forum to be able to demonstrate what their practical interest in the topic is, and what they specifically need to learn or can offer.

A significant drawback with web-based forums is that they tend to be (rightly) open-access and very generic, at least to start with. This can mean they tend to become much taken up by folks who have only a very generalised interest in a topic, but who nevertheless are prone to join in any discussion on any topic. This tendency can reduce the value and effectiveness of the forum for those who have a real ‘need-to-know’ or who have practical knowledge or experience to usefully exchange with other like-minded people.

In my own work in delivering real-life Open Forums on Community Regeneration around Scotland, I find that the personal or individual touch is essential. Even in these real-life situations where ‘real’ people gather together there need to be some encouragement or facilitation for person-to-person interaction to get going. It can be something as simple as going up and welcoming someone you see standing on their own and introducing them to someone else.

As you see I’m a pragmatist in these things. To work effectively, forums and networks need to offer a practical purpose, ideally with the furtherance of learning and development. We do not yet have the technology to bring about meaningful personal interaction through websites. So we need to recognise this limitation in order that we can work on the positives and develop the benefits.

The major problems with what I’m suggesting is that it might simply reduce the number of participants to any discussion – and Social Edge users might worry that it smacks of a lessening of accessibility?

One other practical suggestion then; we could make even more use Social Edge to better involve ourselves as to what ‘real-time’ events will be taking place in the medium to longer term future around the world and that involve our own organisations and communities. This would offer possibilities of Social edge posters being able to link up with one another and realising scope for meeting up ‘real-time’ at these events. Each of us could even undertake to let Social Edge have early-knowledge of any events of activities in the longer-term future that our organisations or communities will be engaged on.

tutormentor - Nov 22, 2006 5:48 am (#10 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Social Edge as a connector, not the main meeting place

In a huge world with many important issues, and many locations where these problems persist, I think it's unrealistic to try to create any single portal to create networks of purpose focused at doing significant work and collaboration in any of these issue areas. I feel that portals like Social Edge and Omidyar should be entry points and connectors, pointing people to other locations where more intense discussions can take place.

I've often pointed to the Boston Innovation Hub as an ideal model of an entry point. Here's the link: http://www.tbf.org/indicatorsproject/hubofinnovation/innovation.asp

The hub is a pie chart and each slice represents an issue important to Boston. When you click a slice, you go to another page where the information relates just to that issue.

In the model I recommend, a pie chart like this on Social Edge would enable people interested in the environment to click that slice of the pie, and they'd go to another chart, which would be a map of the world, showing where environmental issues are most severe, along with another pie chart, that would segment environmental issues into sub sections, such as water, global warming, etc. A click into one of these would take you deeper into that topic, and again you'd be able to choose what part of the world you want to go to join the discussion.

Each of these different clicks might take the visitor to a new web site hosted by a different group of people. For instance, while I focus on Tutoring/Mentoring in Chicago, our friend from South Africa might host a parallel portal, focusing on Tutoring/Mentoring in Africa, and someone else might host one focused on London or Sydney.

We each could meet and share ideas in the "global" portal for tutor/mentor, or could go into the sub sections hosted by each partner, just as we come into Social Edge to share ideas.

The theory behind what I'm saying is that I believe the glue that brings people together is the passion of a few people to solve a clearly defined problem. I've been leading tutoring/mentoring in Chicago for more than 30 years. Thus, I've a clear vision and a strong commitment. That enables me to stay involved, even when I have to pay the bills from my own bank account.

I don't think any high level gathering at Social Edge has that type of commitment, or that type of depth of experience, toward any single goal. Yet, Social Edge has huge visibility that could draw new blood, and new resources to the portal, and then point them to a cause that is being led by someone else who has introduced themselves, just as I do.

By giving recognition at high levels to the work done on on the local community level, Social Edge can encourage people to get involved. If it leads to higher visibility and more traffic at Social Edge, we may finally get some donors, business leaders, celebrities and even elected people to come into this portal, and then on to specific issue areas where they can learn and become personally involved.

While I share these ideas in Social Edge and Omidyar.net and other places, I also try to make them a reality from my own site. Thus, as you visit http://www.tutormentorconnection.org from time to time you'll see progress toward a goal of connecting Chicago with major cities around the world in a network of purpose.

I think that as others at the local level work from their base to create this world wide network, we can innovate ideas that help each other, and that feed into larger connecting points like Social Edge. In this way we will learn from each other's innovations, and learn to help each other to find the resources needed to put innovation into action.

Pamela McLean - Nov 22, 2006 2:37 pm (#11 Total: 66)

Charles' two keys

Charles wrote "There are two keys here, I think. One has to do with software choice, and is far subtler and more important than management in general expects. The other has to do with patterns of visiting and posting on a website."

A reply to mention some relevant points. Can't explain fully now.

Appropriate delivery mechanisms are so important - and can make the difference between inclusion/exclusion in the group. Careful analysis of what information should be pushed and what pulled is one of the issues that need consideration, especially if people have little Internet access.

In Cawdnet we use the descriptions "bandwidth rich" "bandwidth challenged" "bandwidth poor" as shorthand to describe our current situation regarding Internet access. It helps people within the network to appreciate each other’s circumstances. At home I'm bandwidth rich, When I visit my friends in Nigeria I am either "bandwidth challenged" or "bandwidth poor" - depending who I am with (and sometimes it is more like "bandwidth starved")

In the Cawdnet community, as we work together, we try to understand each other and be considerate. This is quite a challenge sometimes given our varied cultural backgrounds. Part of this consideration is to pace our information communication expectations appropriately. For instance, one of our group members can only travel to the city once a month to access her email. Others expect rapid exchange of info. Amongst the bandwidth rich there is usually a preference to be kept in the loop. For the bandwidth poor being "kept in the loop" can be counter-productive - too many emails makes it impossible to find the ones that really matter.

When the bandwidth poor come online they need to be able to grab essential information quickly and easily. We sometimes describe this as the bandwidth rich having access to an info supermarket 24/7 while the bandwidth poor can only dash in when they are really hungry and quickly grab whatever is on the nearest shelf.

Since I got involved with CAWD most of my effort has been directed to exploring how people like me (bandwidth rich) can be helpful to people like my bandwidth challenged and bandwidth poor friends and wider network in Nigeria and beyond. I want to find the best ways to ensure that when they do get to the Internet they find what they need, ready waiting on the nearest shelf of their personal information cupboards. I also want them, as far as possible, to be included in any relevant discussions that the bandwidth rich are having. This provides all kinds of information communication and management challenges - and has defined the development of my personal "network of purpose" - a network which I hope will be networking with the SocialEdge "network of purpose" wherever there are overlapping interests.

chrismacrae - Nov 22, 2006 5:09 pm (#12 Total: 66)

travel guides to world change

our network aims to make travel guides to world change as popular as a local publications as hotel guides or sports leagues were in the 20th century

for 23 years now we have forecast that certain sustainability crises will be irreversible by about 2015 unless entrepreneurial citizen networks get connected up from the grassroots in ways that neither global corporations nor national governments can by themselves

some ideas on how to do this are here a b c d but the fun is seeing which city group will take the lead on which crisis and how we can vote around the world for those change projects we trust most for their practicality, replicability, urgency

if at a time when the UK government publishes the Stern report that we are so far down the vicious spiral of climate that we need to invest 1% of GDP to save 20% people all around the net cannot take another look at other spirals that have not been addressed locally with urgent worldwide attention ,then we may well have missed the last call to use social networks to value sustainability.

Sustainability crises are rooted in compound future consequences and it is clear that the maths that values corporations and governments still (6 years after Brookings and Georgetown first released unseen wealth research) systematically excludes compound future integrity, which is why the people will have to take the lead in reorgansing systematically

chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk

Attachments:

inconvenientlytrue.jpg (71 KB)

surya prakash.Vinjamuri - Nov 22, 2006 7:42 pm (#13 Total: 66)
Life-Health Reinforcement Group

Being online & in line

In my previuos post I just posted what is happening in my city & my expectation how we should keep getting inspired by nature.

I eagerly waited for response & then I see people crossing my post & continue dialogue with charles - I said to myself, surya you are no ghost - Iam with my all sweat & blood physically present while posting - then I checked again what charles said in his openeing remark -

" How can we get to know one another better?

How can we maximize our group potential?

Recognizing one another, feeling kinship, coming back often enough to notice the odd request for help or mention of a solution and, yes, make the connection that’s more than just words, or ideas even -- it’s a network in action, a college of the inspirational and the inspired, meeting, questioning, responding, acting, collaborating, thanking. A network of purpose?????????????????":

I would have just appreciated my limitation of understanding this event or give me space to warm up - I see lot's of seniors with tons & tons of knowledge or keying their knowkedge, while a person with limited knowledge like me is trying to understand and trying to explain the context I am representing.

If network of purpose has to evolve into be more human or say we like to bring in life to beautiful world of connectivity for promotion of larger good, we need to be higly inclusive & process oriented.

My words if they are making any 'sense' do respond beforing jumping over my post.

-surya.

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 22, 2006 11:13 pm (#14 Total: 66)
P-CED

Online and in line with Nature

Surya,

Let me apologise for not being social. It reminds me of my first and only encounter with an nntp newsgroup called Social Enterprise, where I introduced myself enthusiastically and have waited since,

A lot of what I read goes right over my head, it is far too learned and complex for me, or for me to relate to others.

Inspired by nature, certainly. Reminding ne that long before our time two poets collaborated in a kind of opensource way by publishing a collection which omitted their names from the title page. Wordsworth and Coleridge wanted to promote a new kind of poetry understandable by all.

From within, Here is part of something you may enjoy:

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

From 'Tintern Abbey' by William Wordsworth

chrismacrae - Nov 23, 2006 4:34 am (#15 Total: 66)

a reply to Surya

First, Charles' thread says: "I’ll throw in the bright thoughts and even brighter questions that my networks propose, if you’ll throw in yours." A thread cannot do multiple things without getting lost. Until people who design virtual communities recognise this pattern rule of open space, we will never get anywhere.

What Charles or thread designers could do (because they have powrer to create new threads) to develop this threads convergent invitation is to list at the top of this thread those purposes that people brought that they are prepared to give their own threads and continual awareness to. Of course this should involve a relationship commitment on all sides which might include:

the purpose network proposer agrees she or he will always come back and answer on purpose conversations; that the purpose stated is indeed the deepest one of their network of conversation for many years to come; there are also other criteria which could be developed over time like in Surya's case if another city comes with the same problem, how will he make that citizen group as much as a part of the we are losing human being initiative as the hyderabad

I have met social edge's virtual community failure to develop around core missions over time in about 50 virtual comunities over the last 12 years including several that Charles also knows. I am interested in solutions that experience of such multiple failure to support doing of systematic chnage brings. My friends and I do have also 2 prototypes in test

First is clubofcity which now includes clubofhyderabad . For 3 years I moderated the section of the European Union knowledgeboard.com on emotional intelligence. I found that naturally enough people wanted to talk about crises (and actionable learnings) in their own locality as well as communally whether people worldwide in other localities had similar experiences or collaboration soultions. I started threads within knowledgeboard by country, and every time anyone in my inbox mentioned a local crisis or emergent project/solution network, I pasted it into the country concerened. I did all of this as a volunteer. I invited local people to add comments. Most lurked even though the country threads became some of the best browsed. I was then accused by the administrators of knowledgeboard of creating too many threads that were more like "newsletters from me" because I was the main one putting content in ver months or even years in spite of this being pasted through what local observers from many communities had sent me. So I started collaboration knowledge city blogs around http://clubofcity.blogspot.com/ of which there are now over 100. Ideally local people take control of editing the whole sity blog once they see it has momentum. Surya is welcome to be main editor of http://clubofhyderabad.blogspot.com/ if he sends me an external email to chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk because blogger needs an external mail to invite moderators

Youth Guides needed to community tools like linkedin, BBCactionNet, yahoogroups, Zaadz -
a ClubofCity ad

However as I track citizen problems, which future historian networks have been learning how to do worldwide and locally deep for 23 years, we see sustainability clusters crises like climate, wars, poverty compounding such urgency all around the world that (as our senior economics editor first forecast in a death of distnace history of 1984) we have in all likelihood less than 9 years left to turn them round before it wil be impossible to turn round sustainability. Climate is only the first of many which we have finally got national governments confessing to: UK HM treasury invest 15 of the UK's whole exconomy in a opposite way to save 20% of the whole economy( to have any collaboration permission to save 100% of world). So at a macro (local to global systematic level of integrity) I am now most energetically interested in mapping what sustainability crisis issues do peoples recognise as need world changers travel guides to because if we don't turn systems around at every micro, inter and macro level by 2015 we never will.

A change world travel guide has these features be it a printed brochure, a pdf, a thread within a social community,...:

It agrees a deadline for "turning round" the world change- which all involved with the emergiung world citizen network will have cooperatively failed if start of sytsem turn round is not achived

It votes for projects or other leaders who anyone who supports the guide's local to change world vision need to know of first both because there is an entrepreneurially proven project and it is replicable and whomever coordinates the project wants to open source wherever interlocally relevant. Several thousand Londoners are committed to making change world guides more and more popular until we become an olympic city in 2012 and have the stage to hand out whatever best world citizen travel guides have cooperatively been banked by then. So are there other cities anywhere that want to cooperate around making change world travel gudies as popular as guides to hotels or spectaor sports. Sustainability or not of the human race is ultilmately a media and learing crisis. As Gandhi said when he founded the univestity of ahmedabad in 1920 : knolwedge is that which liberates us. Problem is those who make a business case for knowledge management are propagating exactly the opposite knowledge (Soros' age of fallibility if you wish). What a leading knowledge guru in Japan calls learning slavery. For this reason, the first print world changers guide I am microfinacing is on learning and the core world chnagers featured have lifeteime experiences of Gandhi and Montessori. We're looking for others to feature particulary a practitioner of Brazilian Freire would be nice

chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk worldcitizen.tv

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 23, 2006 12:46 pm (#16 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

A remarkable response

The response to this item may be the most intense and challenging I’ve yet seen to a SocialEdge event of this sort, and it’s taking me a while to figure out how to respond as moderator without disturbing any of the various flows that have emerged.

Pamela, it’s a pleasure as always to read you here, and you open up the issue of bandwidth in a way that’s so to speak “prior” to the first of my two keys, the choice of software. I was taking a certain amount of bandwidth for granted, thinking of how some conferencing software is simpler / more intuitive / more helpful than others, and how the choice of software is often made by people who aren’t thinking in terms of facilitating conversation and conviviality.

And that’s important because, counter-intuitively perhaps, conviviality – and a sense of belonging – is the environment in which networking thrives. In Knowledge Management terms, it’s the tacit knowledge shared at the water cooler rather than the overt knowledge available in job descriptions and manuals that’s most important to an organization’s flow -- Etienne Wenger, I think, would call it a matter of “conversation”. It’s when we’re informal and friendly that we convey our most significant knowledge, and we only convey it to those with whom we feel a sense of kinship, of community, of trust.

Etienne Wenger on Communities of Practice:

http://www.ewenger.com/theory/
Paradoxically, that’s what Surya Prakash was calling for when he noted that his post had been “skipped” by following posters – he was basically expressing the wish that we who read and post should do so “as if” this were a conversation rather than a series of vaguely related monologues.

Surya, I’d suggest we all need to know that in online conversations such as this one, the fact that someone follows a particular post with another post that doesn’t relate to it doesn’t mean the first post hasn’t been read or appreciated – sometimes a post is simply too rich for an easy reply to be possible, sometimes the reader who would most like to reply has an important task to perform, and bu the time she returns to your post the conversation has already moved on…

But we’d all also do well to note SP’s point too, I suggest, and to try to acknowledge each other even when diverging from recently raised topics. One of the functions of this kind of software seems to be to allow the braiding of several distinct but related conversations into one rich, polyphonic thread.

And the acknowledgments are the aspects of our messages which build, little by little, the sense of kinship and trust that in turn builds a resource into a vibrant community…

In which the networking is richer and more enduring.
Chris Macrae calls us to action. I’m a wordsmith myself by trade, that is (somewhat paradoxically) my action, but his point is well taken.

Chris, I don’t actually have the capacity to start threads here. I get invited to suggest topics for events fairly frequently, but that’s a bit different. My focus here in initiating this particular event was on what can be done to turn a resource into a community, but you take it further in the direction of action points, just as Pam brings up the brandwidth issue, Dan points to a wider network of networks with his post entitled Social Edge as a connector, not the main meeting place, and Jeff points us to the need for a certain context within government for success to be possible. And then there is Edward, who wrote:
I believe we do, and how to do it is a large part of what I was hoping to get to here -- and in a later post, I'll tell a couple of stories about how erich the connections formed online can be.

Each of these directions in turn could be the jumping off point for a single event of this kind, and the presence of all of them in this one thread suggests that our topic is a very live wire indeed, with far more “in” it than I originally hoped or imagined. I trust we will do our best to develop each strand in turn, while also weaving the beginnings of that net of regard and trust that’s my own “key” to this business.

Enough for now,

My regards to each of you, more to follow as your various and significant suggestions continue to bubble in the rich brew of this item…

Charles

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 23, 2006 12:57 pm (#17 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [Jeff] Online and in line with Nature

Thanks for that breath of Wordsworth!

tutormentor - Nov 23, 2006 3:16 pm (#18 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Network of purpose needs understanding of purposes

The fact that we're each in the same on line forum may mean were achieving the purpose Charles had in starting this thread. We're getting to know each other better.

However, I'm not sure that's a "network of purpose". From reading every message, I'm not clear what Surya's purpose is. I've a sense that Chris is setting up some sort of city to city collaboration, for a purpose that is important, but I'm not clear on what the path is to achiveing it. In Pam's post I sense that her purpose is to create greater access for those who cannot even get in this discussion.

And I've stated my own pupose, which may be as unclear to others as yours is to me.

I'm not sure about everyone else who post messages in forums like this or Omidyar, or everyone who write blogs, but I lead a small non profit and spend most of my waking hours trying to find a way to keep it funded, and achiveing its purpose. Finding extra time to spend digging through the deep thoughts posted on some of these forums is almost impossible.

Thus, I respond to people who I think I can help, or who might help me because they understand and value what I do. In many ways I'm advertising. Hopefully I'm also sharing and contributing to the work others do.

If I don't understand your purpose, or if it does not relate to my own purpose, I'm not likely to have enough time to spend in your space to figure it out.

In the end, if we each have a different purpose, we're not going to spend hours in the same discussion, let alone years, no matter how important we think our own purpose is.

I don't think Social Edge has more than a generic purpose, of supporting social entrepreneurs who do good for themselves by doing good for others. That's not the same as Social Edge to end Aids, or Social Edge to support Chris's purpose, or Dan's purpose.

I heard a wealthy Indian speak a few months ago. He talked about all the people who came to his office asking for help. He had one rule. He said "Don't tell me of the problems. I know them. Tell me your solution."

I think that's a recipe for building a network a purpose.

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 24, 2006 1:05 am (#19 Total: 66)
P-CED

Understand purpose

This is true, TM. We spend a lot of time sifting through what may or may not be relevant to our own purpose, sometimes overwhelmed by the task, at others finding and engaging with those on a parallel path and the ideas generated in the informal groups we create might be passed from one network to another gaining momentum through our human ability to deduce association.

Quite often though, it doesn't work out this way and with very large networks we may observe several groups, oblivious of each other, treading the same path. Our intelligent networking software might detect this and draw our attention to it, hopefully without homogenising us forcible.

Laurinda - Nov 24, 2006 10:32 am (#20 Total: 66)

Virtual networks versus human networks

I have spent the past 20 years looking and trying various network platforms. Going back to the days of BBS's. Have run various projects as a means to establish a virtual community.

One of the things that I have learn is that you need to integrate a human interface if you are going to have sustainable impact. You need to provide access to the "connectivity poor" through affordable portals .

There is a need for multiple entry points into the network and multiple knowledge resources portals. The system needs to be intelligent enough to be able to automatically link "same topic" discussions even if they are happening across various discussion groups ... you need a network of netowrks intelligently linked but with an human interface at grass route level to support and assist information and knowledge dissemination, encourage debates and innovative though processes ...

... and I can go on and on ...

This is part of the final research that we are in the process of conducting at present.

tutormentor - Nov 24, 2006 2:05 pm (#21 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Human interface and connecting virtual networks

Laurinda, I agree that there needs to be human facilitation and a way to connect many platforms. Since I'm a small non profit, the only way I'll have access to the type of human facilitation that is needed is to find volunteers who will take this role. I've succeeded in a small way, but keep looking for partners at universities, where students who are learning these concepts, could be facilitators in the way I think you describe.

In the same way, I'm looking for business and university partners who are developing new applications, who would look on me and what I'm doing as a way to test and demonstrate the applications in a real world purpose.

Without finding volunteers, partners, and even a few financial supporters to make these advances in technology and needed manpower available, I'm like a kid staring in the window of a candy store, who has no money to buy what he wants so badly.

I think there are many who might have an important vision, but don't have the tools and manpower, to create and lead networks of purpose.

surya prakash.Vinjamuri - Nov 24, 2006 3:33 pm (#22 Total: 66)
Life-Health Reinforcement Group

Purpose of Network

At the outset I like to submit that my intention was not to compel individuals to respond.And I like to thank you for the responses which are helping me to understand and reflect.

I like to share these initial thoughts -

When you want a topic of this nature & intent to be infused with energy, then you need to have lot's of patience, in one word we need to underline the word PURPOSE & thus accept the fact it's highly process oriented.

I keep looking at the process of deciding to bear a child to bringinging up the child to be responsible & purposeful.

As huge responsibility lies in every couple who decide to have an unprotective sex that their lies a possibility of becoming pregnant & one should own the responsibility of continuing & giving life and add purpose to it.

Here I am quoting this example of Life - because I see lot's of gap in understanding this that " when you have ability to create then you have the responsibility of giving appropriate direction".

Please see my earlier posts in the social edge where I mentioned from the inception of social edge that " How I see life", at times I did share my personal tragedies & dilemma's.

Social edge is home for me & at times I become demanding, please accept that, child in me is who prompts me to demand - I miss each one of you who feel for the society and I feel social edge is all about being HUMAN & that's the purpose.

-surya.

chrismacrae - Nov 25, 2006 3:55 pm (#23 Total: 66)

To be devil's advocate

If this virtual community box has no way that its moderators can create league tables of all time contributions (urgent projects, deep questions, whatever) across conversations either in dedicated threads or a community-wide newsletter -then I don't believe this has been designed as a powerful resource for activating community

I find it odd that we seldom see the people who actualy designed the toolbox answering this sort of usability question

(Incidentally, there are ways eg a weblog dedicated to cataloguing - to patch the missing facilities but these still require moderators agreeing to repeatedly publicise eg the external bookmark that is used to catalogue projects ) or a link designed into the top page

chrismacrae - Nov 25, 2006 4:19 pm (#24 Total: 66)

Time for no-cost ads for social and other crisis entrepreneurs

I strongly believe that people who are spending substantial amounts of time in virtual community spaces with the intent of connecting social projects/needs should start to pool/syndicated no-cost ads. These ads could look very much like the google box ads you see for example in weblogs. However people can agree to insert them appropiately wherever html access includes simple tables.

Its important that the social advertiser has a bookmark to click to and is intent to greet any serious people who are drawn by the ad for a similar project or conversation. A few mock-up ads are here I agree the topic Surya is talking about is important and a crisis in many places. Does he wish to moderate a conversation on this over the coming months? If so we can co-create an ad once where know where his discussion group is bookmarked. I believe one of my all time social heroes lives in his vicinity so there is quite a lot of related social gravity. In principle I am prepared to take one ad per person who wants to try this around socila crisis issues. I am working in various networeks concerned with travel guides to world change in any virtual and print media. Having a catalogue of ads people want displayed because they represent a long-term entrepreneurial make a difference focus is a natural resource for our genres to help promote.

chris macrae info@worldcitizen.tv

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 27, 2006 4:12 am (#25 Total: 66)
P-CED

Social advertisement

I agree Chris, and can cite one example where you and I live. http://www.nearbuyou.co.uk/ for those trading for social purpose. It also raises once more, the question of whether search engines like Google work against social endeavour. I offer the example of "human trafficking" as a search term, returning ads for a band by that name promoted on Ebay. Hence one must bid against Ebay itself to draw attention to efforts to counter trafficking.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 27, 2006 8:26 am (#26 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [Jeff] Social advertisement

FWIW, I just googled "human trafficking" and the top sponsored link was for Ashoka, the top unsponsored return for www.humantrafficking.org/ -- a web resource for combating human trafficking. But you're right, the Google algorithms can be frustrating on occasion.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 27, 2006 8:51 am (#27 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [tutormentor] Network of purpose needs understanding of purposes

Hi Dan:

Once again, thanks for your instructive comments. I'd like to pick up on one particular point you made...

The fact that we're each in the same on line forum may mean were achieving the purpose Charles had in starting this thread. We're getting to know each other better.

Yes. My purpose was to increase the degree to which we “know” each other, in the sense of feeling an active kinship with the people who post here, rather than using SE as a sort of reference work to be consulted when needed – and you are precisely one of those with whom I feel increasing levels of that kind of kinship.

I'm not sure about everyone else who post messages in forums like this or Omidyar, or everyone who write blogs, but I lead a small non profit and spend most of my waking hours trying to find a way to keep it funded, and achiveing its purpose. Finding extra time to spend digging through the deep thoughts posted on some of these forums is almost impossible.

I seem to have made it sound as though my purpose required a greater outlay of time than I meant to suggest. It’s a matter of repeated visits, repeated participation, and of giving information, advice, pointers or whatever as much as or more than taking them which counts here – and as with painting a watercolor, repetition enriches and deepens the effect.

There are people I seldom if ever see here any more, whose presence I sorely miss.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Nov 27, 2006 9:02 am (#28 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

informal mentoring

They're not about the kind of formal mentoring that your work coordinates and facilitates, Dan, but I wanted to post you these two stories about the man who was my own mentor, a remarkable English priest and school teacher working in the Johannesberg shantytown called Sophiatown, Fr Trevor Huddleston.

One young black kid in South Africa aged about 8 or 9 was sitting with his mother on the "stoop" outside his house in a South African shanty-town, when a white priest walked by and doffed his hat to the boy's mother. The boy could hardly grasp how this had happened -- his mother was a black woman, as one might say, "of no account". But the priest in question was Fr. Huddleston, and it was a natural courtesy for him to lift his hat in greeting a lady... The young boy never quite recovered from this encounter: we know him now as Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu.

Another young black kid, Hugh, aged 12 or 13, fell ill and was taken to hospital, where Trevor Huddleston visited him. Trevor asked him what he would like more than anything in this world, what would so thrill and please him that he would have the greatest possible motive for getting himself out of the hospital and back to school. Hugh said, "a trumpet, Father", so Trevor got hold of a trumpet to give to the boy -- now known the world over as the internationally renowned jazz trumpeter, Hugh Masekela. To my mind, those two stories suggest the incredible power of a concerned and loving elder to open new realms of possibility in young minds and hearts, whether the relationship is formal (Trevor was Hugh Masekela's school teacher at the time) or informal (he knew Mrs Tutu from her work as a volunteer with a local charity for the blind).

At times, it seems to me that there's a "transmission" of sorts by which one life sparks another, and that Trevor's existence and impact was largely a matter of making that transmission with as many people as possible. I see your own work in a similar light, and it's the presence of so many "transmitters" gathered here that makes thuis place, for me, such a compelling online context to return to.

tutormentor - Nov 27, 2006 11:32 am (#29 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

The multiplier effect

The story of Rev. Huddleston is one that I'd like to see multipled many times and in many places. That can't happen without a network of people working together with this purpose in mind.

I learn a lot by dipping in and out of these discussions, just as I've learned alot by hosting Tutor/Mentor Conferences every six months for the last 13 years. In fact, this is the primary way that I learn. There just is not time for me to read lots of books and research papers, or to dig through some of the extensive on-line conversations that I find in some on-line forums.

I feel that what Charles and others are Social Edge do to facilitate understanding and relationship building is extremely important, One of my goals is to find people who do this on a regular basis, within the tutor/mentor knowledge network. A few people with deep understanding of a subject can do much to help many other people build a functional understanding, which is enough to make better decisions in support of a cause.

I've added a new Google map feature to the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org. Now when you search for a program in Chicago, you'll get a Google map showing where the program is located. Using the Google feature a program could also search for businesses, churches, hospitals, etc in the same zip code, who could be sources of volunteers, dollars, and job/internships for kids in the program.

This work was done by volunteers, which shows what's possible if we can unleash the talent that's in the world and apply it toward a network of purpose.

surya prakash.Vinjamuri - Nov 28, 2006 9:08 am (#30 Total: 66)
Life-Health Reinforcement Group

Twin situations

Jeff.Mowatt,Dan,chrismacrae &Charles - I read through each of your mails so many times -

And I see & understand that they are so many different approaches for similar situations & networks would attend to the purpose.

I just like to quote this dilemma - My wife being gyenocologist is able to address the issue of infertility and bring in life to those families who are longing to have children & I being part of implementation of Child Care Protection Act 2000 (Govt.,of India) am responsible for taking care of children who are destituted for various reasons are given direction with provision of safe environment to continue their life till they attain 18years of age.

So while we lead our life I see that we have the responsibility of understanding,reflecting, on what is going on with life in the area we represent and thus develop, borrow & or just observe to help ourselves to move forward.

I see reflections by seniors such as Charles, experiences shared by Dan, knowledge of various methods suggested by chrismacare & Jeff, along with words of WORDSWORTH shared are deffinete inputs for me, here I like to end using the words of Charles -

" it's the presence of so many "transmitters" gathered here that makes this place, for me, such a compelling online context to return to".

chrismacrae - Nov 28, 2006 9:55 am (#31 Total: 66)

my 2 end cents worth

I would recommend that Surya goes to http://www.ashoka.org/ and goes through the catalogue of social entrepreneurs in India which is where Ashoka started social entrepreneurship's edge nearly 30 year ago. I believe many do work relevant to his or his wife's vocation. What I dont know is whether they network as a group yet. If they do, they should let Surya and his wife join their knowhow flows; if they don't perhaps that's the first network of purpose Surya can build out from. If that makes sense but for some reason there are inertias in getting India's child-nurturing entrepreneurs on the same map, tell me and I will go pay Bill Drayton a visit down in Arlington. I enjoy the cure of publishing whether network maps connect or are full of holes!

I have just come across perhaps the most purposeful message a summit of 100000 people has ever issued; world social forum kenya 2007 has announced its about:

which world do you want to live in

B) where profit matters most?
A) where life matters most?

see the 3 minute invitation video link at http://futurehistorian.tv/_wsn/page8.html

I'm working on helping to propagate the WSF ad in simplest ways that any forum can include, but help is always inspiring if this message is one your social networks want to interconnect to chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk http://futurehistorian.tv/

Incidentally , Peter Eigen of Transparency International and ashoka's Global Academy forecast last year that Jamuary 2007 would be one year from our last chance deadline for starting to end corruption everywhere. So for our amazing human race, Kenya is probably the final crossroads for all networks of purpose to do with human sustainability. It is not just Gore's and Skoll's climate crisis' inconvenient truth where we at the precipice (or final tipping point) of dare we get hi-trust and deep purpose interconnected.

If folk want a community thread to continue conversing around the WSF invitaion at , one is at http://www.omidyar.net/group/community-general/news/1564/

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 28, 2006 11:33 am (#32 Total: 66)
P-CED

A chance, at last

The end of corruption is something worth talking about, so I'll join you Chris, This brought to mind the story of one of the earliest advocates, a lone tranmitter who I only learned of recently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius_Gracchus

Ebay has now been outbid it seems, so perhaps as an example in one small way, the power of commenting on this elsewhere drew attention. Or could it have just been sychronicity?

Of destitute children, who can be related directly to the effects of corruption in our "economic" orphans, of good business practice over bad, of government bodies who accept corruption as an inevitable overhead, I can say much and even propose some solutions.

So with our many transmitters, perhaps we can succeed where Tiberius was overwhelmed?

Bill Snyder - Nov 28, 2006 4:22 pm (#33 Total: 66)
Cambridge, Massachusetts

networks of purpose -- communities of practice

New to this list, so please excuse if this is old hat....

"Communities of practice" offer a structural model for thinking about intentional design and cultivation of networks--specially those that emphasize action-learning. (cf. Charles' mention in post #16 above.)

Typical success factors: active facilitation (often requires sponsorship for strategic communities); issues close to participants' personal/professional passion; and requisite mix of ways to engage.

Building on tutormentor post #18: Is the domain of this group too generic? Need design ones on more specific topics, e.g., social entrepreneurs on topics related to China or AIDs (mentortutor's examples)? Need do outreach to coalesce group with more specific shared interests? Need time/funds (sponsored by self/other) to support sufficient facilitation/coordination--and perhaps travel to meet in person? Etc.

As reference re: application in civic context (city-based multi-stakeholder coalitions on topics like reducing gun violence, sharing ideas/experience across multiple US cities), see: www.businessofgovernment.org/main/winners/ [author: Snyder]

Would be interested in hearing from those focusing on networks for cross-city collaboration on public-good issues (health, housing, education, econ. developmenjt, etc.).

- Bill

joe angelelli - Nov 28, 2006 5:13 pm (#34 Total: 66)
Pittsburgh, PA

Cross city/state networks....

Also new to this list...glad I found you folks.

My organization, the Pioneer Network, is an umbrella group for "culture change" in long-term care and aging (Ashoka Fellows Bill Thomas and Barry Barkan are founding Pioneers). In the last 18 months, the number of statewide culture change coalitions has gone from 6 to 33. We have a collaborative blog built on the Scoop platform http://www.PioneerExchange.org, but we're finding it to be not the most appropriate way to stimulate and maintain "communities of practice" on-line. So we're looking at converting over to a Drupal run site to help "groups" communicate within and across states, something similar to what they're trying to do at http://www.relocalize.net.

Just downloaded your "Communities of Practice" document -- very compelling. I plan to share it with the coalition leaders. Thanks.

tutormentor - Nov 28, 2006 6:18 pm (#35 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Business/Government.org

Bill, Joe,

Your ideas align with mine.Bill, what's your connection to the Business/Government.org group. I see there are several IBM people. IBM sponsors and e-mentoring program, meaning lots of their people are already engaged in electronic mentoring. I'm sure many are also involved with face to face mentoring. I have two IBM employees in my organization. Thus, this company is in a good position to be a community of practice, and could have the same impact on technology as the Lend A Hand Program (http://www.lend-a-hand.net) is having on getting lawyers involved with tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.

In IBM's case, if we could gain support from the BG group to build a community of practice within IBM, this would lead to cross city collaboration because there are IBM offices in every city.

If we can apply this thinking to the world of tutor/mentor, or helping kids from poverty be starting careers at IBM some day, then I feel the lessons can apply to building communities of practice in any other sector.

I also think we could build some infrastruture and people mobilization that could feed into the work Chris is talking about.

I could just email the IBM contacts shown on the web site, but if you know the folks and would make an introduction, that might be the tipping point.

tutormentor - Nov 29, 2006 11:39 am (#36 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

New York Times article shows why we should connect

On Page 4 of the Nov. 29 International edition of the New York Times is an article titled "Report Shows Muslims Near Bottom of the Social Ladder". The article says that out of India's population of 1.1 billion, Muslims make up 13%. The report's major finding is that "The community is relatively poor, more illiterate, has lower access to education and private-sector jobs and lower availability for bank credit for self-improvement."

They could have been talking about African Americans in America and have written a similar story.

Like most media stories, this one does not point to groups like Social Edge, who are hosting discussions so people from India, the US and elsewhere can connect to build relationships, and solutions, to these issues. Thus, we need to create this call to involvement ourselves, using this and many similar forums.

In the Links library of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org I have nearly 1000 links that provide information related to poverty in America, and volunteerism, tutor/mentor programs, and strategic philanthropy as solutions. Anyone in the world can use these Links to find ideas that they can use in their own city/country. Furthermore, I have sections for International Mentoring, and Discussion Forums. People can add links to these sections, enabling US programs to learn from International partners, and enabling people in different countries to find each other.

My site will never be the main site to learn about poverty in India, or any other country. Thus, someone else has to duplicate what I'm doing so there is such a site for other countries, or other cities. However, once you do that, adding your link to my site enables anyone coming to my site, to go to your site, to learn all about poverty and solutions to poverty, in your country.

As we think about how we network around issues like this, we should also be thinking about who we should be inviting to participate. In my last message, I suggested inviting IBM volunteers. We could just as easily be inviting leaders of India's IT industry. They have the same skills, and the same self interest. We could also be inviting students and alumni from universities from around the world.

If we can get a few business, volunteers and donors help us create a technology infrastructure that groups in different countries could draw from to create their own networks of purpose, we'd lower the costs of getting started, and find manpower from universities to help with the work of building a network. We could do much to help end poverty in many places.

surya prakash.Vinjamuri - Nov 29, 2006 9:38 pm (#37 Total: 66)
Life-Health Reinforcement Group

Hesitation a stumbling block

Ours a small Non-Profit unit which managed by Doctors who chip in time & money for social cause, while surviving it is rather important to serve.

The entire philosophy runs on the basis of SHARE.

I see Dan what he is mentioning about is based on this principle of sharing.

I see hesitating to ask or borrow concepts for promoting well being of the society each represents will be stumbling block for furtherence dream developing into ONE WORLD

I like to further the dialogue of my previous post where I mentioned Twin situation we are facing -i.e: If we are able to BRING IN LIFE by following effectively with infertile couple and thus being blessed with a child, on the other side of it we also take care of the children who are being deserted.

Here I see twin responsibility while we protect & promote health of the children who are born, we have the responsibility of the children "who are not wanted".

I see in one's life it's a luxury to have hand holding by dear one's for life.

So I see we have to develop means of hand holding by organizing systems where in we come together in the area we live and towards achieving this I initiated an activity called OPEN HOUSE where people can just drop in and they have access to kitchen and on marked days & time health experts come and share their knowledge and we have continuous dialogue on life happening, where we have active listeners.

This I started in June, now you should see how people just walk in as a right & relate.

I will attach photographs in coming posts.

What I see need of the hour is to have people for people for life.

Thus we can see & feel purpose of network.

Mother of all is the one who accepts limitations & infuse energy and thus strengthen purpose of life for each of us being born.

-surya.

Patrick O'Heffernan - Nov 30, 2006 12:20 pm (#38 Total: 66)

great discussion

First, welcome to Socialedge Charles. I know you have been partof the community for sometime and we are happy to see you on board.

Communities are organic. They grow, usually in unplanned ways. Butg we can create a growth environment and fertilize them. Photos help; so do phone numbers. Joint events are great - events in which two or more people join together to post. Joint projects in which a group of the community see a common purpose and work offline together.

Since we are not in the same place, to meet personally, we would have to have a conference (hint to Victor). A good example of this is YearlyKos - the annual conference of liberal bloggers from around the country. this is the first time most of these people had met or even knew if they were male or female. It really tightened up the community.

melomara - Nov 30, 2006 12:58 pm (#39 Total: 66)
Corporate Coach, Innovation Leader

Communities of common purpose

I see some hunger here to nurture specific communities of purpose around mentoring, welfare of children, etc... Back to the basics of what it takes to nurture on-line communities - as Bill Snyder says in post 33 above - communities will flourish around a common purpose. I think moderators are important, and if possible, some true action can result. On zaadz.com, there are many specific "zpods" which people can join. For example, I am a member of the "An Inconvenient Truth" pod. Even on zaadz, I think that more work is required to get and keep people engaged.

I would like to propose the idea of creating communities of purpose around a series of "Bigger Games". Check out The Bigger Game Company website.

This is a cut and paste of the Bigger Game Model, copyright and trademarked by The Bigger Game Company.

Everyone here, every social entrepreneur is playing a Bigger Game. Many of our Bigger Games are in the same playing field, with a very similar compelling purpose. We are all looking for ways to engage allies in "our" Bigger Game. That where the need for communities of common purpose is really strong, and where the impact of these communities can be bold and impactful.

I am good friends with the founders of this company, and I use the model in my corporate role with internal teams. I believe that to create a community around a compelling purpose, and then leveraging the model intentionally to discuss and clarify the hunger/need, the existing and needed allies, investments, etc... could be powerful. I believe that overtime, the community members would be compelled to meet via phone or face to face to take the community to new levels, and real world action.

chrismacrae - Nov 30, 2006 5:49 pm (#40 Total: 66)

Planet purposeful News - Those at grassroots have the intelligence best for world strategists need

We now have multiple cases and many webs of purposeful networks for open world citizens to connect around out of every locality http://clubofcity.blogspot.com/ ;

clean energy emerging here http://up200.tv/_wsn/page3.html

why Yunus is currently the world's most value multiplying strategist/economist http://grameen.tv/ http://brac.tv/

to improve their sustainability reputations, the smartest game the world's largest corporations can play is to partner in no loss-strategies gravitated by vital human development rights - see eg the Grameen -Danone story at the Clinton Global Initiative; if you can't find it and need to email me at chris.macrae @yahoo.co.uk http://brandchartering.blogspot.com/ http://worldclassbrands.blogspot.com/

why Bushes top-down team lost the war - which some of them have frankly admitted - ultimately how ever greatly inconvenient the power of whites in a house in DC, you need hi-trust relationships with people at localities if they are going to trust you to reconstruct their lands

indeed, all 4 of Larry Brilliant's core crises to the sustainability of the species depend integrally on the intelligence that only those at grassroots context can see and help interconnect; the folks who have not be listened to the top for years- remember Orleans; those charged to respond to levee safety preferred running arabian horse networks and wearing the smartest suits televised disasters had ever seen

link at http://guidemakers.net/ ... all our compound global sustainability crises http://changeworld.net/

can only be resolved in time if local intelligence is integrated with those who have global budgets; tangible corruption is about bribes; intangibles corruption is what eg Exxon have done in misinforming the world as if they have all the correct knowledge;led by Branson we in the Uk we are prepared to declare legal war on Exxon; false information about sustainability of our species is the biggest weapon of mass destruction in tghe knowledge netwoking age; why does our treasury have to spend 1% of GDP to save 20%; entirely because those partying with the non-transparent Exxon network has been spending billions of dollars on false messages; buying up any academics or politicians who needed funding however blindly they thought they were doing the patriotic thing; every country similarly afflicted should send Exxon its bills? That would bring a purposeful social edge to commune round, to practice across world citizen networking http://worldcitizen.tv/ - just as well Brits also own the largest public broadcaster in the world; it is time for information that grassroots people have collected throufgh generations is fully valued insetad of externalised onto

there are mathematical and economic reasons for what I hav estated in this post that some of us clans and networks -including the guy who deputy edited The Economist over 5 deacdes who hapens to be my father - have been studying for 23 year now - the new book of maps will be published next year; the treausre trail for chnaging network economics starts with tghe original future hostory on death of distance

http://www.normanmacrae.com/netfuture.html#Anchor-Changin-27687

http://www.normanmacrae.com/intrapreneur.html

http://entrepreneurialrevolution.blogspot.com/

http://er100.blogspot.com/

http://futurehistorian.tv/

http://networkeconomics.tv/

http://www.valuetrue.com/ http://joyoftruth.com/

tutormentor - Nov 30, 2006 6:52 pm (#41 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Tutor/MentorConference today in Chicago

I hosted a conference in Chicago today. Around 100 people attended, including leaders of tutor/mentor programs, a sr. program officer of MacArthur Foundation and to Ex. Directors of small foundations, as well as many college, faith based and misc. people. The goal was collaboration and capacity building, which is the same goal I have here on Social Edge.

In the Discussion Forum of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org I'll be posting some of the questions raised today, and my hope is that people from the conference will join in.

This will be a challenge though. In a final wrap up session of about 25 people, I asked how many have a web forum, or a blog. None did. Thus, connecting our face to face people, with our on-line people, is a mountain we must climb if we can move to a next level of collaboration and community building.

Thanks for the ideas you all are sharing.

joe angelelli - Nov 30, 2006 8:36 pm (#42 Total: 66)
Pittsburgh, PA

Nested conversations, nested communities

I share Patrick's perspective above (#38) concerning the organic nature of all this.

Without getting too bogged down in the details, I think having the capacity for nested comments is crucial, as it allows a sense of dialogue and conversation to develop more naturally as compared to simply stacked comments.

I was contributing on http://www.dailykos.com in the pre-Scoop days (mid-2003) and remember the power that nested comments provided in terms of building community after the conversion to Scoop (that and "diaries" contributed by readers). There's an incredible sense of community there (100,000+ members), but there's still the issue of effective ways to organize and communicate around specific issues, as Scoop doesn't really provide for that. I think there's has been a conscious decision to avoid creating/facilitating splintered "groups," but that hasn't stopped folks from organizing on their own via Google groups, etc. In fact, the YearlyKos event that Patrick mentioned was 100% initiated and pulled off by a small group of dedicated volunteers. (I was unable to attend YearlyKos, and feel like I really missed out on something.)

Patrick O'Heffernan - Nov 30, 2006 11:05 pm (#43 Total: 66)

joe - the planning has begun for next yar's yearlykos

plan now: chicago, last week of july. I am seeing gina this weekend and will keep you up to date on the progress

chrismacrae - Dec 1, 2006 7:41 am (#44 Total: 66)

Be The Change * Be The Connect compounds NoP integrating localities globally

Mapmakers can see that there is a double loop here where you are likely to be perceived as being the worst of both worlds especially if you are trying with whole sincercity to breakthrough to be linking in to the best for the world. Give me some open space to question please http://guidemakers.net http://changeworld.net http://worldcitizen.tv

q1 so how do you do? To be or not to be?? a world citizen???

After playing with networks in 1973 as a researched at the UK National Development Program for computer assited learning networks my advice :

on be the change (towards world citzineship) is know your clan, the tree you branch out of

1973 was a great time to explore learning networks because there were no big business interests telling you how. Most of what our educationalists in Leeds and other Universities found in 1973 still hasnt begun to be replayed around today's internet. That is why I agree with my father's 1984 forecasts that learning networks will be one of the great crisies that will compound sustainability or loss of futire generations http://www.normanmacrae.com/netfuture.html But I never quite understood where their whole system dna cam from

Accidentally it turn sout I can go up my family tree to just 4 people who had impacts on nearly a 100 nations; mt father who interviewwd leaders in over 30 countries over his 5 decades at The Economist; his father who was a British diplomat in 15 extra countries in the period betwen the 2 world wars who accidentally witnessed the worst government systems yet globally topped over people - Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany; a cousin whose family line is missionaries in Africa but who's reporting as war correspondent from places like Iraq. So I am interested in Be the Internationalist. I do not claim to know a lot about each culture. But I do see that bridging cultures requires a lot of trust. I can see how to rank top people in the last US administrations on cross-cultural bridging intelligence. Most are definitely in the lowest quartile compared with all 6 billion beings. But then being at the top of a superpower is the greatest system handicap you could have when a world is integrating local networks like tehre will be no tomorrow. Clinton of the white house was very median at cross-culture bridging; today at CGI he's a world benchmark for all who act for sustainability

But as a Scot I can also discover with deep passion that free ethical markets were mapped by Adam Smith and never more systematically questioned for transparency than by the 1840s founder of The Economist James Wilson http:er100.blogspot.com . Both Adam and James would have found it funny peculiar that social entreprenurship is claimed to be a new world lens when mathematically it was far simpler in their old english frameworks; it was what they always integrated and web-logged in their maps. A map of productive and demanding human relationship systems - be this economic or social or multiplying te compound welath and health of each as win-win-win - you see does not work unless it connects people on the ground. You cannot truly audit maps from top-down governace without starting each audit with he most grounded new observations. Most Scots also were expatriated worldwide well before 1900 because the English sent up early global accounatnts to prove to Lords that sheep made better 90 day numbers than sheep. Of course tangibkle accountants spreadsheets have and always will be were extremely illiterate in terms of compound maths. Nothing much has changed to this day -has it?: the global accountants are rigged around investing in machines not people; in separating ring fences not flowing life-critical knowhow and precenting risks ahead of time even as networks as sytems*systems*systems make boudaries absolutely critical to sustainability of wholes; they have so little understanding of compound consequence maths that unlike true entrepreneurs global accounting and man consulting align with the type of top-down economist who has caused the greatest market failure ever as HM Treasury now reports the climate crisis and th need to invest 1% of DGP systamatically digferently to save 20% of GDP or 100 of the future. Quite frankly with only one of the 3 worst come ons still surviving Exxon,(Enron, Andrson) national leaders should be sending their bills to Exxon now that would be an interseting network orf purpose.

so might some of the following:

1 help Brits take over the BBC and restore it as a world service questioner for all peoples

2 add a slide to the white paper first presented Delhi 2004 at http://www.globalreconciliationnetwork.org/ on the coming wars between goodwill and badwill networks; an interesting branch in this area of research was early 2001 where the chair of the committe of Brookings and Georegtowns deepest brains on compound future welath presented the extrem risks of not understanding this to the incoming adminsitartion from texas as was givem a Texan booting; I happened to interview her the month after this happened; her compound rsik warning of unseen wealth seemed like dire spirals then; of course her research has proved to be the greatest future history system lens white houses of man has so far not chosen to see through

3 vote for the 200 people league table of most networked being best for the world http://up200.tv/ http://www.normanmacrae.com/netfuture.html#Anchor-Changin-27687 http://groups.google.com/group/maclink/about?hl=en-GB

4 make a map between to randomly take 3 : social edge, omidyar.net and Zaadz- given that the world citenry values seem to be pasionately the sam,e in all 3 od tehse paces - why no be the connection bridges; presumably becuase socila edge is most interested in channeling skoll foundation news; omidyar.net believes fairness means channeling nobody news (even though most of its members would love to know what connection can be mead with eg the 100 million dollar funding to explore microfinace at Tufts) and Zaadz boldly tries to design a new virtual community interface unlike the very clunky ones of socila edge and omidyar.net; of course it would be good to hear what I misunderstand from those who actually know why each community separates boxes instead of connecting them

5 devalue the dollar by another 100% unless politicinas agre eit is time to stop only devaluing peoples currency when corporations are more to blame; we could for example all agree that Exxon is wortless and all other oil companies are to be taxed so they never make a higher profit than say they did on inauguration day in 2001; that order of worldwide democratic decision would suitably devalue a global market sector which has taken humanity to the precipice http://sqtest.tv I agree this is a revolutionary idea but do you think something elss thah that will turn the tides of bombs for everyone - a chapter my dad as future hostorian first wrote up in 1975 as the greatest risk of America's Third Centiry as The Economst called hi survey map http://futurehostorian.tv

perhaps a topline story on Gandhi should be the bottom lines on be the change*connection; I have been reading him avidly recently but not as much as a grandson of someone who c-wrote the legalese of India's Indpendence shoudl; so far I havent found the context where he proclaimed be the chnage - please beam me up if you know; however it is clear from his writings and independent reveiws by Eisntein that he was the greatest connector of all 3 apexes of systemic entrepreneurial revolution : micro inter and macro; and alsways in that audit order at each cylce; a family story hepls to understand why; his dad's job was to do the triage at the court of a local prince; when people came demanding an audience with the prince, Mr Gamdhi would know who led each subnetwork more actively than ever the prince did; and work out whether the triage participant had a concept worth the subnetworks audience; and would otherwiose offer kindly adice on how to colaborate on an existing NoP project;

chrismacrae - Dec 2, 2006 7:44 am (#45 Total: 66)

eg of beyond borders purpose

I justify inserting this here as I hope we have no more united purpose than peace and one of the prizes giftgivers to this competition is skoll in the form of some free invites to skoll 2007 world championships in Oxford

I see that http://www.changemakers.net/ has now translated its online peacemakers competition into Arabic at this bookmark http://www.changemakers.net/journal/peace/submitentryarab.cfm

could you pass the news on if you know of anyone who might wish to participate; I can't speak anything but English but if anyone needs to understand who stages http://www.chnagemakers.net/ before deciding on participation I can send their email of queries to Bill Drayton whose investment in changemakers and 2000 social entrepreneurs around the world over the last 30 years can be browsed at http://www.ashoka.org/ or experienced on video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5793752041303022963&q=Ashoka

chris macrae http://up200.tv/ us tel 301 881 1655 info@worldcitizen.tv

http://groups.google.com/group/maclink/about?hl=en-GB&

http://www.changemakers.net/journal/peace/submitentryarab.cfm

chrismacrae - Dec 3, 2006 6:43 am (#46 Total: 66)

One of the simplest ways to network purpose would be if the different people social edge hires to converse connected the biggest stories social edge propagates. So a newsletter has just been sent out by skollfoundation presumably to thousands about the scandal of ever increasing cancerous chemicals in food chains. But as far as I can see there is no one-click debate and network of purpose assembling around that. Meanwhile the biggest story skoll has helped propagate in the last 2 years is climate crisis but oddly if we searched socialedge there's nowhere that a conversation is editing the progress that Inconvenient truth is waving all round the erst of the www - even as in parallel Al Gore has been taking training of 1000 people in using the slides from skolls films live in Nashville and Sydney

If tangible real estate is all about location, location, location - purposeful networks , virtual community real estates and communications are all about connection, connection, connection not authors however deeply caring or gurued who seldom if ever commune between themselves and know the future history of the biggest purposes skoll has been mediating and helping people ro participate in propaganda which maps through transparently to where each of us beings can simply see how to act on it to our hearts content

tutormentor - Dec 3, 2006 8:23 am (#47 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Issues index

It would be interesting to see an "issues index" added to the home page, that searches key words, similar to a Google search, to identify the issues most talked about in the forum and discussion space. Issues, as opposed to topics, are what creates a network of purpose.

An attempt was made a while back to create a geographical connection that would show what part of the world a person was focusing his/her efforts on. I can't seem to find a link to that discussion. Charles, maybe you recall it? There is a giving map on the home page, which I have no idea what it's purpose is. Maybe a map should click to discussions that relate to that part of the world?

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 3, 2006 11:26 am (#48 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re [tutormentor] Issues Index

Dan:

An attempt was made a while back to create a geographical connection that would show what part of the world a person was focusing his/her efforts on. I can't seem to find a link to that discussion. Charles, maybe you recall it?

Yes, indeed.

It was calloed the Social Entrepreneur Index, Dan, and represented an early attempt of mine to facilitate connections between poeoploe in nearby locations -- my original idea was to have a similar device for people working on similar issues, the two comnbined giving users the ability to network with those who (a) were dealing with some of the same local issues or (b) faced similar problems.

It didn't really catch the eye of enough SEers to become the resource it could have been, and seems to have been archived around June of this year -- it is no longer available from the front page, but you can find it at:

http://www.socialedge.org/socialsector/social_ent_index.html?293@@

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 3, 2006 11:36 am (#49 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

I'm collecting ideas

I'm collecting ideas on what we could do at SE to facilitate networks of purpose, heightening the sense of community, etc -- the sorts of things that have been proposed in this item -- so if any of you feel like it, posting a brief list of bullet points with suggestions would be most welcome.

That doesn;t mean we can't also continue with more detailed discussions -- just that short bullet points on the main ideas would be helpful.

Thanks.

tutormentor - Dec 3, 2006 2:52 pm (#50 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

National Coalition for Deliberation and Discussion (NCDD)

This is not short bullet points, but one thing we might consider is that Social Edge may not be the best forum for discussing wide ranging ways to work on social issues. That's because it has a narrow focus on social entrepreneurism as the main unifying feature for people who come here.

I've been browsing a site called the National Coalition for Deliberation and Discussion, which has many resources, and many links to related sites that host various forums for deliberation and discussion. The link is http://www.thataway.org/

My goal on NCDD is finding groups already working in the same area I am, or finding partners/volunteers who can help facilitate the information I'm collecting so that more people understand it and act on it. As a small organization of 2-3 people, I am limited by time and talent as to what I can do on my own.

If other sites are already doing things we want to accomplish, it might be better to draw some social edge people to those sites, rather than try to build an ideal environment on a site we don't have much control of.

Bill Snyder - Dec 4, 2006 9:23 pm (#51 Total: 66)
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Mini-case illustration about facilitating networks for global change

Regarding facilitating "networks of purpose," consider a mini-case illustration on cultivating linkages and nurturing global-change communities….

In 2005 a number of foundations joined forces to bring together ~70 NGOs to foster innovation, knowledge-sharing, and new relationships. (Conveners included Rockefeller Bros. Foundation, Ford, Mott, General Services, and others.)

The gathering was held last fall in New York and included NGO leaders from around the world. Their work addressed a wide range of issues, including trade, human rights, climate, labor, environment, migration, etc. In a pre-conference survey, NGO leaders said the most powerful lever for increasing impact today was facilitating connections—-beginning with greater collaboration among NGOs themselves.

Indeed, perhaps the most visible result of the conference was the emergence of a new community of practice on the topic of “corporate accountability.” It includes 10+ NGO leaders who met at the RG-05 conference and share a passion for making progress on this topic-—and who feel strongly they can do better by working together. They were given seed funding by the RG-05 conference organizers to cultivate stronger inter-NGO working relationships and pursue new joint initiatives. They collectively combine skills in areas such as standard-setting, legal action, campaigning, network-development, media, and dialogue. (They met again recently at the RG-06 event--http://rg06.bridge-initiative.org.)

For brief summary of results of a pre-conference survey of NGO leaders see www.reinventingglobalization.org at “Conference” and download “Survey Results.”

See attached PP slide for a way to map global players who are addressing the spectrum of public-good issues through a variety of strategies and tactics. This 2-dimensional graphic was used to map players at the RG-05 conference--as a way to visualize how to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas/expertise and foster new collaborations. Other key dimensions not represented here include Places and Sectors.

A 4-dimensional map highlights opportunities for weaving together a multi-stakeholder "action-learning system" with the requisite variety to match the complexity of the problems we face. Beginning with a map of the players helps us see the landscape of players, issues, and initiatives--and much can be achieved simply by seeing who else is out there!

The RG-05 experience suggests what we can achieve through more systematic and intentional mechanisms for convening players and fostering ongoing connections among them. There is tremendous latent capacity ready to be leveraged if we will only facilitate a critical mass of strategic linkages.

As this mini-case suggests, the how-to for cultivating networks is itself not so complicated--some discovery, mapping, convening, and ongoing connecting and sustaining would achieve a great deal. One key ingredient we need more of now: Visionary sponsors willing to provide ongoing support, legitimacy, influence, and seed-funds.

* * *

p.s., There are a growing number of global networks that connect local-global initiatives and include players across sectors--what my colleague Steve Waddell calls "global action networks" (GANs). For examples, see www.gan-net.net.

Attachments:

06.12.05 weaving local-global public-good networks....ppt (47 KB)

surya prakash.Vinjamuri - Dec 4, 2006 11:08 pm (#52 Total: 66)
Life-Health Reinforcement Group

Recap

Friends,

After reading Charles post where he had said -"I'm collecting ideas on what we could do at SE to facilitate networks of purpose, heightening the sense of community, etc"

I took print of the entire conversation in A4 size and placing them in two columns and reduced the font size - I got 17 pages and I started reading -

so much of openness I saw and I also saw the wealth of information & experience each is possessing and the frankness of communication and the level of compassion demonstrated was awesome.

Just I like to post what we are doing as a recap -( why I am posting here is explained at the bottom)

Couple aspiring to become pregnant are coming to our clinic > their wish is being heard and they are blessed with a child > child grows and some reason gets deviated and lands in a situation where in there is nobody to take care > with power bestowed on us in implementation of Child Care & Protection Act we are able to take care of them and give them direction > Meanwhile whoever comes for clinical help we are able to guide them and treat them, at times save lives > As women moves into her menopause we are able to back them up and improve their quality of life > People who are aged and who are residing in our area are personally taken care and we are able to meet their basic needs.

While all the above situations and interventions are going on, one thing which is standing out is our approach to food -- from production i.e. from protecting 200 farmers who produce food to attending to people who are hungry (which is done through open house) is what we are able to do.

All these activities are carried out with thorough reflection on Life, which is done under banner - Life-Dialogue

Friends,

All this work was done after founding the organisation (1999)to enquire why after 52 years of our independence we are not still able to organize.

Friends, today we reached a stage again, where land becoming domain of few players - our farmers are committing suicides and govt,. stating farming is no more lucrative (irony here is when land being most fertile).

Friends I strongly believe what we do to our lands is what we do to ourselves - ie, you protect the land and you will be protected.

This entire dialogue when happening, here we are mute witness to the entire game.

So, what I like to impress upon is - we need lots & lots of hand holding and volunteers to understand these and they being empowered with knowledge & strength to face the consequences of acts, which will determine our very existence.

tutormentor - Dec 5, 2006 8:57 am (#53 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Maps - same words, different meaning

Thanks Bill for providing this information. However, when I looked at your map I saw a different version than the maps I'm using. Visit http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/programlocator/default.asp and you can see maps of Chicago that show where poverty and poorly performing schools are concentrated. Search the Find a Program section, by zip code, and you'll see that we provide listings for existing programs, with a Google map interface.

If Surya were listed on a Program Locator for organizations that do what his organization does, the map would show where he is in India, and might also show who else, if any, is doing the same work.

If the world organiztions were creating map directories like this, the could be drawing volunteers and resources from the rest of the world through the map and to the organizations working to end poverty. They could also be using the map to create an understanding of all of the places in the world where there is a need for service, but no programs currently serving that area. This hopefully, would lead to a strategic increase in the distribution of programs.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 5, 2006 9:55 am (#54 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

A word to the wise

It seems to me that we have a strong conversation going on here, and I don't want to see it dampen down unnecessarily. I suspect that it will be moved from the "front page" position with graphic that it now enjoys at the top of SE's home page to a place in SE's "Top 10 on the Edge" list tomorrow -- so please bookmark it now, or check the "Top 10" list to follow it after it's moved...

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 5, 2006 10:01 am (#55 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [tutormentor] Maps - same words, different meaning

Like Dan, I noted the map in Bill's .pdf didn't "map" the geographic distribution of the ventures in question, but guessed that would be part of the third or fourth dimensions he mentioned. The idea of using a 4-d map is an intriguing and difficult one, because visualizing in 4-d is very tricky for us humans, and I wonder what such a map would look like. Even 3-d can be difficult to convey in 2-d -- and thatr's when we're talking static maps; things get even tougher where there's a need ot represent change over time, as in the kind of process mapping that is needed for dealing wi9th feedback loops.

Do you have any examples of 3-d (or even 4-d) maps, Bill? Preferably with location as one of the elements?

tutormentor - Dec 5, 2006 10:30 am (#56 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

multi dimension maps

Charles, I've also been trying to think in multi dimensions rather than one dimension. If you think of a ball, it is made of of an infinite number of one dimensional spheres, each using the same hub.

I have a section links in a process improvement and innovation sub section at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org. These point to web sites that illustrate various ways to graphically illustrate concepts. They also represent tools I'd love to apply to the work of the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Since I don't have funds to hire this expertise, I need to find partners who want a real-world model to use in demonstrating their applications and ideas.

If any of you know of web sites that model 3-d and 4-d concept maps, please add the link on the T/MC site, or email it to me, so I can add it.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 5, 2006 2:49 pm (#57 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re; [tutormentor] multi-dimensional maps

I don't know of any multi-dimensional maps, unfortunately, although I know that Ted Nelson's ZigZag project is his attempt at providing navigation for an n-dimensional database.

http://xanadu.com/zigzag/

You might like to post this website, which gives a quick overview of some forms of visual mapping, together with a brief pitch for my own HipBone approach:

http://www.beadgaming.com/hipdocs/02mapping.pdf

Bill Snyder - Dec 5, 2006 6:52 pm (#58 Total: 66)
Cambridge, Massachusetts

examples of multi-dimensional maps of learning systems

Charles,

Actually, perhaps I should have used another term--yes, 4-D is difficult to imagine! Even if it's probably what is needed to be more representative. Okay, for an idea of how complicated the dimensions look, even as a flatland graphic, see attached slides two mini-cases. The second frames an analysis of an initiative in the Colorado River Delta along four dimensions (as term used here): Issues (water, economy, etc.), Sectors, Change Strategies, and Places.

This is all schematic, so not nearly GIS-like regarding places, for example. (Thanks, Tutormentor, for your reference along those lines--impressive!) The map here is merely to suggest parameters and analysis questions relevant when cultivating a broader learning system for public-good outcomes.

As mentioned, the map is a place to start to identify players and begin process of convening those who want to weave the network to leverage complementary capabilities, relationships, etc. for shared public-good goals. It's a kind of social network analysis with a learning-system framework embedded in it.

Ther are two sllide illustrations in attached PP. One at cross-city national level (3 dimensions); the other transnational (US-MX) on 4 dimenions. See attached. See "View/Notes Pages" under each slide for related commentary/analysis questions.

Attachments:

06.12.05 Illustrations of multi-dimensional Learning Systems - Snyder.ppt (90 KB)

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 6, 2006 8:08 am (#59 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Jason on SE Mashups this week

A brief note --

I just wanted to draw your attention to this passage from Jason's blog on SE this week, which seems an apt illustration of some of what we're discussing here:

With a Web 2.0 approach to integration, this kind of entrepreneurial mash-up is certainly possible. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Kiva + Roots of Peace + Google Maps + Flickr mash-up that let's you buy fruit from a specific farmer in Afghanistan, read about them, see where they are located and see pictures of their orchards. GlobalGiving + International Bridges To Justice that allows you to give financial aid to specific legal battles and research the issues involved. Riders for Health + Institute for OneWorld Health + Healthcare Without Harm + VillageReach working together to get the latest medicines to the most remote parts of Africa.

Makes me look at the issues of scale in a whole new light. A bunch of small organizations working together could have a greater impact than a single large organization with a limited focus. Imagine the possibilities.

You'll find more at http://untangledontheedge.blogspot.com/2006/12/social-entrepreneur-mash-ups.html

Pamela McLean - Dec 6, 2006 12:44 pm (#60 Total: 66)

Keep talking

I'm lurking here - not feeling I need to join in because I'm well content with the points Charles and "tutor/mentor" are raising.

I'd like to hightlight a few issues that currently interest me - but time is against me One is how networks networks with each other. Others relate to issues of bringing volunteers and techies and other "outsiders" (regarding the core content of the network) to collaborate (more because manipulating the content is their core interest). Eek very badly expressed - I'm tempted to delete it - but maybe it'll strike a chord with someone...

I agree with Jason on SE Mashops points aboutn small organisations working together. ...

tutormentor - Dec 6, 2006 6:46 pm (#61 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Imagine the possibilities

Charles, the mash up that Jason envisions is exactly what I'm trying to create. My focus is on volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs, but the network of people working with me could be anyone working to end poverty by helping kids to careers. I've demonstrated what impact one small organization can have on hundreds of similar organizations in a huge city. Imagine what would happen if dozens of similar organizations were duplicating what I do for the same goal. Imagine what would happen if this were duplicated in dozens of cities.

tutormentor - Dec 7, 2006 10:28 am (#62 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Using GIS to help charities in an entire region

I've described ways I'm using GIS to draw support to tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. Here's a link to a group using GIS to draw holiday donations to charities in upstate New York: http://www.agishost.com/givingmap/

I just feel that if we can make the data collection/mapping process easier to adopt and use in various places, we can take a huge step forward in sharing the work of increasing the number of people who use this information to make decisions on where to make donations of money or time.

Pamela McLean - Dec 9, 2006 3:33 pm (#63 Total: 66)

An example fo a network of purpose

I recently wrote this update and explanation to someone in my network - and realised that in the "thanks are due" section I had described an example of a network of purpose. It may therefore be of interest here.

Regarding geographical mapping - the trainers I refer to are mainly in Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. The support network was widely scattered - I particularly remember noticing Canada, USA, somewhere in South America, and India, as well as UK and Nigeria - I would need to check the archives from 2 years ago to make a complete list.

The email follows: (The comments to "R" were additions to an email previously circulated to others.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is an update about making the Teachers Talking "No-Computer Computer Course" resources available online. The diagrams are now available plus some explanatory notes at "Cawdnet Campus". To go straight to the resources click here http://moodle.cawd.net/course/view.php?id=67 and then log on. To see them in the context of other work we are doing go to http://moodle.cawd.net/ (Cawdnet Campus) as a guest and then visit Teachers Talking.

Thanks are due to:

# Omo Oaiya, for taking care of the technical side of things. (R - Omo and I have met a few times - about three times in UK and once in Nigeria - usually we e-meet via Skype - for a long voice catch-up meeting. In between we usually just exchange brief typed one or two liners. He is a professional techie and has provided an implementation of Moodle for us, on his servers, so that Cawdnet Campus can happen. He gives us guidance and support too. He is a "Cawdnetter" - so no charge.)

# Lorraine Duff for administrative support. (R- L and I have been working together now for several years as CAWD volunteers. We have only met once F2F. We used to do a lot of sending stuff via email, and using yahoo chat and the phone. We still do that, but now we have Cawdnet Campus we do lot of our work together there, in the admin and working group areas.)

# Katie Nonyelson for the diagrams. ( R - K and I live fairly near each other, so we can meet. However we are trying to move over to more work via CCamp - like Lorraine does - so Katie can do odd bits of work with/for me after her toddler is in bed.)

# Fantsuam Foundation (FF) for inviting me to design and present the programme in the first place, and then sorting out the logistics so the courses could happen. (I started to make a "Special thanks are due to...." list at this point, but it got ridiculously long. Thanks to everyone at FF who helped in any way, large or small.) (R - obviously work with FF is at a distance, except when I go there. Email, Yahoo chat, and CCamp admin areas all play a part)

# Everyone who joined the Teachers Talking yahoo group in response to my call for help in developing and presenting the initial course at FF.

(R- That was my first ever experience of setting up a yahoo group - around October 2004. I asked people I knew and then later mentioned it on a couple of lists. I didn't need a lot of people - but I did need a few - and I didn't know if anyone would join, but it got very lively, and was a great experience. I checked the membership list after about ten days, and realised we had more than a dozen members spanning four continents. I think it grew to about sixty by the time we ran the course)

# Core members of the TT group whose creative contribution and hard work enormously influenced the subsequent shape of the TT programme. (R- These were wonderful. Special mention to Ross Gardler -techie:software development and Open Source expert - who suggested we should have a wiki and set it up for us, and then helped us to explore issues about how a wiki did/did not suit our needs and what to do about it. Also to my friend Richard who did so much to help get information from the yahoo groups to the wiki, and everyone who sent suggestions for what we should include in our wiki/information-cupboard.)

# Everyone who has participated online to make participants feel part of "the connected community" during the Teachers Talking Online parts of the programme. (R. That was great fun. When TT course participants went on-line - the first day that many had ever seen a computer - - they joined the TT yahoo groups - and found there were people online, thousands of miles away ready to welcome them to the "connected community" of the Internet. David Hopson was part of this group.)

# Last, but not least, everyone I'm sending this email to - because your interest in TT has encouraged me to get it on-line to share with other trainers.

Pam

tutormentor - Dec 10, 2006 4:47 am (#64 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Good example

Pamela's example shows how many people can work together via the Internet and face to face meetings to accomplish a purpose. Keeping this group and others working together for many years is just the next level of networking. You introduced this as something that happened a couple of years ago. Has it been on-going since then?

I encourage you to visit this link: http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/OHATS/TMC/TMC_OHATS_page.htm . OHATS is an Organizational History and Documentation System that is intended to document actions over time to achieve a purpose. We started this in 2000. The goal is that many people document. The reality is that I've been documenting for many people. However, it's an example of many actions that are all focused on a single purpose.

Anyone here who is working toward the same goal, could add themselves as a recorder, and be contributing actions. For instance, if Charles begins to invite people from his network to become more involved in these discussions, that would be an action. If some of the GIS people Pamela knows began to work with T/MC, that would be an action. If a group in Africa or India began to duplicate the T/MC, to map youth organizations in those nations, that would be a critical action.

Over time the actions of a growing number of people toward a common purpose is what changes the world.

tutormentor - Dec 11, 2006 1:11 pm (#65 Total: 66)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Keeping this discussion going

Since this discussion is no longer featured on the home page, it will be more difficult to keep it going. One demonstration of how a network of purpose might work toward a shared goal is this:

At http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/Partner/CC/egroups/egroups.htm I host a list of discussions, and I've added a section for Social Edge, and put in links to this discussion and other that I'm following.

If each of you put a reference to this discussion on your own pages, or in your blogs, visitors to your sites can be encouraged to visit this discussion. It's simple, but if many people do this, we each contribute to a common purpose.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Dec 11, 2006 3:15 pm (#66 Total: 66)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

Re: [tutormentor] Keeping this discussion going

Thanks, Dan.

FWIW, There is actually a link on the SE front page, under the heading Top 10 On The Edge, item # 2 is A Network Of Purpose. Our "best" conversations go there after their alloted run.

Tomorrow, I'll be moderating a new conversation, on priorities, so I'll be mostly posting there -- but this item will stick around for a while if we keep posting.

Are You a Player?

Hosted by Patrick O'Heffernan (November 2006 - Closed)

Join fundraising expert Patrick O'Heffernan as he explores the lessons told by Alan Kelly, the brilliant strategist who helped guide Oracle in its successful battle with IBM for server supremacy. You may be a player without realizing it.

Are you a player? We all are, according to The Elements of Influence, a new book by Alan Kelly, and we need to learn the games we are playing and their rules. Kelly works in the for-profit arena, but is keenly attuned to the NPO world and wrote this book with both in mind (Full disclosure: my wife was VP of his firm a few years ago).

In The Elements of Influence, Kelly lays out the plays for winning strategies in games you may not have realized you are in. He calls playmaking what we all do in our negotiations, advocacy, and even managing our staffs - a discipline in which you know and understand the moves you use to get what you want, and that others use either with you or against you to get what they want.

What Kelly outlines is not game theory or negotiation techniques, it is a handbook for how to cooperate, negotiate, advocate and win… and know exactly what you are doing at all times because you know and use specific "plays".

Kelly lays out the Playmakers Standard a carefully crafted table of 26 plays - with names like The Pause, The Bear Hug, The Disco - in three categories and eight subcategories, and explains each one through examples of how profits and non-profits have used them successfully and unsuccessfully.

For instance, Kelly describes the use of the Disco play by Johnson and Johnson in 1982 when cyanide-laced Tylenol tablets were found to have killed seven people. In the Disco a player agrees to concede an element of its case to preserve or advance its overall agenda, and disarms critics or enemies. J&J accepted responsibility, pulled 31 million bottles from the shelves, and blazed the trail for the now-standard tamper-proof containers. The Disco cost J&J millions, but it preserved future revenue in the billions and protected the company's good name while quieting regulators and critics.

Other companies would have used a Deflect or a Red Herring - plays intended to shift attention, or a Filter - a play to confuse the issue, or even a Jam - a move to handle it quietly and keep information from the press and the government. Kelly notes that the US Catholic Church, when confronted with sexual abuse charges, tried all of these unsuccessfully and ended up wounding its reputation and its finances.

After reading the book, I set it down and said to myself: That is what I have been doing all of these years; if I had only known I could have done it much better.

Much of the book is based on the for-profit sector, and most of the stories are about companies, not organizations, but the techniques work well -- we have all been using them without the kind of understanding that Kelly brings.

I am adopting this system and would love to hear about your systems for creating and executing strategies.

Jump in the conversation.

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 29, 2006 2:22 am (#1 Total: 11)
P-CED

Black belts of influence

A phrase from the review of this book which struck a chord, remembering first, the words of author Laurie Lee, in describing the influence which disarms by being itself disarmed.

Some years later, as the web opened up new horizons. I stumbled across a real black belt of influence, who by some incredible coincidence happened to have the same name as me, finding much more in common too.

http://www.jeffmowatt.com/articles/humilityadvantage.html

So, yes, in many ways I've made the same discovery.

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 29, 2006 9:19 am (#2 Total: 11)
P-CED

On further reflection

Patrick, Something striking about the examples above is that they describe a defence strategy for dealing with a flawed product or reputation. Surely the best game play, is the no game?

By that I mean ensuring that the starting point is one of integrity, the people we return to because we recogmise the value they offer. Game play, only entering the negotiation process at the point where defence is necessary. From the sound of it, Oracle and IBM started with the zero sum game, ie the world isn't big enough for two database servers.

A couple of years back, just before I joined him, my colleague faced a real zero sum game finding his project blocked by corruption. An ultimatum was delivered £4m in personal tribute or a foreign goverment minister would block the project.

Naturally he objected, pointing out that the project was intended to help people in poverty, not the minister himself.

Countering this, the minister announced that my colleague was no longer significant, he'd deal direct with US sources and just go around him "It's not your money, so you have no power"

That's where he miscalculated, when my colleague pointed out that it was indeed his money, his and every other US taxpayers, Furthermore having taken the precaution to copyright his project plan, he'd enforce his IP rights, ensuring no agency dare touch it rather than let him profit at the expense of his own people.

Leaving the minister with a well know colloquial expression suggesting he perform an infeasibile act upon himself, he observed the man actually banging his head against the wall in rage and frustration.

Two years later, a democratic revolution, gave the opportunity to finally remove the minister from office. Nobody profited from this zero sum game, at least not yet.

Surely then, game play only arises from a position of anticipated defeat? If our "opponent" invokes such a strategy, we might well consider they are in doing so, exposing a weakness.

I remember with some amusement when first travelling in this Post-Soviet world and for the first time, detergents were being advertised on television. The response was not as anticipated, in a country well acquainted with propaganda. Elderly women were in uproar - Look at this terrible stuff on TV, it's so bad they have to advertise it! In retrospect, a profound observation on how we are far more readily decieved by our would be manipulators.

Alan Kelly - Nov 29, 2006 1:20 pm (#3 Total: 11)
Author, The Elements of Influence

Comment from the Author

Patrick -- You're right, you've always been a playmaker.

What this work amounts to is a descriptive system of what influencers of all stripes do, either as reflex or according to plan. The certain breakthrough is that it isolates the influencer's moves and counter-moves into 25 irreducibly simple strategems (what I call "plays") and then places these into the first useable strategy framework. Now we know, for example, that a simple Trial Balloon is a testing play, well to the left on the playmaking spectrum and, correspondingly, that a Crazy Ivan is an attacking strategy on the far right. (See http://www.plays2run.com/table.php)

There is an important predictive component to this system, too. For every one of the plays in The Playmaker's Table there are recommendations for decoding that play and, even better, for countering it. If I run a Filter on you, you're often well advised to run a Mirror on me.

Insofar as my own experience is rooted in corporate games (e.g., Oracle vs. IBM), plays are run on both sides of the collaborative/competitive spectrum and, certainly, well outside the for-profit world. Think of the Pope this week as he tip-toed into Muslim Turkey. His play was a "Recast," an attempt to morph his ill-advised comments of last September into something more akin to a diplomatic bridge. Watch him, now, as he runs "Screens" to advance his agenda through symbols...not words.

On game theory and negotiation, you might think of The Playmaker's Standard as a welcome interpreter to some pretty balky disciplines. Plays can explain the strategies that players choose whilst in their respective games of chicken, prisoners dilemma, zero-sum, etc. That's a breakthrough for the frustrated mathematicians and economists who don't quite understand what it is the rest of us don't understand about game theory.

Thanks for the good words. Keep running those plays.

Alan Kelly

Patrick O'Heffernan - Nov 29, 2006 10:06 pm (#4 Total: 11)

i thought i recognized the name, mowatt

But I guess you are not the Canadian environmental writer! But very good points. I love the story of detergent on Soviet TV. As to your observations, I will look to the author for a reply. Alan??

Patrick O'Heffernan - Nov 29, 2006 10:11 pm (#5 Total: 11)

Alan's response

The Pope's visit to Turkey does respond to Jeff's question on tactics, but what about the underlying qauestion - what if the game is not as we see it. What if,for example, there IS room in the world for two server manufacturers (there is), or if the best play for the Pope is to revise his thinking and not make the comments in the first place? Can a focus on playmaking obscure the nature of the game? Alan??

Jeff.Mowatt - Nov 30, 2006 1:21 am (#6 Total: 11)
P-CED

Farley, the wolf man..

That's who you're thinking about Patrick, Something of a social entreprenuer in his own right, having made a compelling case for the wolf in the scheme of things to later influence government policy towards hunting them in what was then the Soviet Union.

Now the Oracle ascent has professional interest for me. I worked for Honeywell in the 70's and 80's finding a niche specialty in the interface between structured (Bachman) databases and relational which came from the development of MRDS under the MIT backed Multics development. Never met Ted Codd, though his protege Chris Date once dropped into the office for a chat. So this is an area I have some grounding in. This, IBM's DB2 and others, were at the time mainframe offerings and Oracle to their credit, saw the way forward in porting this concept to emerging hardware platforms. Back then, we sold bundled hardware and software packages and having an RDBMS component was part of the bundle.

It was Larry Ellison buzzing around in a MIG that brought something else to mind, which was put into print in a book called "The Wrong Stuff". It described the discovery that the culture of selecting test pilots for their qualities of independent and macho personality was in fact mistaken. Too many people were being killed because these personalities lacked the capacity for the collaborative effort that was needed to preserve human life.

This then is my assertion, that in business we still need to tackle the "Wrong Stuff", because just like Farley's wolf, there is scope for all of us to prosper, My colleague and now I, tackle this head on in in our condemnation of unrestrained oligarchy in the former Soviet Union, the macho zero sum game which is now so out of control, it threatens us directly (eg recent activities involving Polonium-210).

This oligarchy, which has no regard for human life, is to my mind, the ultimate consequence of "Wrong Stuff" business, For me, it is diametrically opposed to Mohammed Yunus's endorsement of the Social Business Enterprise, a philosophy which I'd align myself with completely and for me a must do in future Social Edge commentary.

Alan Kelly - Nov 30, 2006 5:17 am (#7 Total: 11)
Author, The Elements of Influence

Too much focus on playmaking?

To Patrick's question...can playmaking get in the way? Can it obscure judgment and progress? Yes, but only if it's viewed (and used) as weaponry. Good playmakers know, however, that strategy is as much a sword as a shield and that it can be used to massage as much as to tear. In The Elements of Influence, I don't prescribe these tendencies. I only describe them.

Look at the subclasses of playmaking (http://www.plays2run.com/table.php): Detach, Test, Divert, Frame, Freeze, Lure, Press, Attack. Collaborators tend to run Testing and Framing plays (like, for example, on a prospective donor). Blood-sport competitors tend to run Pressing and Attacking plays (like, for example, on a House Bill).

And what of the zero-sum game? Can there be muliple winners? Marketplaces decide that question, not the playmaking system, but my own view is that any player in any marketplace should want and welcome competition. Without it, there's less opportunity to create relevance and topicality. And without these, there's less opportunity to prosper. So, personally, I always look for counterparts. They can be complementary or competitive, but it's tough to run even Testing plays if noone's paying attention.

However you may approach your market -- whatever your philosophy, ground rules or circumstance -- I believe that all of us, as influencers, are "always" running plays. We're also the target of plays. You might often run a strategic "Pass" so as to take on another opportunity. You might run a careful "Pause" so as to let a market build. These are as "left-sided" as one can be on the playmaking spectrum. But, even then, you're in the business of playmaking because your strategies are being employed with purposeful effect.

Can anyone think of a marketplace where strategy and influence don't abound? I think they go hand-in-hand, so best we have our own periodic table to guide us.

melomara - Nov 30, 2006 11:47 am (#8 Total: 11)
Corporate Coach, Innovation Leader

What about playing a Bigger Game?

Interesting categorization of plays (sometimes intentional, and sometimes not) that we often see in business. I have not read the book, but I would pose the question - which play serves the player, and the Bigger Game they are playing? Here's a link to a nifty little model - called the "Bigger Game" model, that I have used extensively. I suspect that all social entrepreneurs and conscious capitalists will immediately find clarity by looking at their current "game" (e.g. what they are "up to") through the lens of this Bigger Game model. What is your compelling purpose? What comfort zones are you leaving? What are your gulps? What bold action (play) will best serve the game now? What play will most resonate with potential clients or allies?

Bigger Games are everywhere. I think that the Bigger Game model helps give context to the process of choosing your play.

Patrick O'Heffernan - Dec 1, 2006 12:29 pm (#9 Total: 11)

Great Link!

I checked out the Bigger Game model and found it immeidately useful in another project. I recommend it to everyone. It does exactly what you say...provides context for the game you are playing

Patrick O'Heffernan - Dec 1, 2006 12:34 pm (#10 Total: 11)

The Wrong Stuff

Jeff, I think that the wronjg stuff model actually applies to a lot of business promtional practices. Business is seen as - and often is - a highly competitive 0-sum game. But in the information world, collaboration and partnerships bring power, and the macho types don't do this well. Women do, which may be why more of them are moving into senior postions in the high tech industries. Also, the wrong stuff tyupe seem to dominate the miniong, logging and extraction induistries where their job is seen as "dominating nature". And look where that has gotten us.

Patrick O'Heffernan - Dec 4, 2006 9:11 pm (#11 Total: 11)

thaks alan

I think a lot of pauses are in order, to ask those questions .

Nov 01, 2006

Web Video for the Social Benefit Sector

Hosted by Patrick O'Heffernan (October 2006 - Closed)

For-profit sites like YouTube.com, googlevideo.com, current.tv and Jumpcut.com are collecting thousands of videos every day and making news. Join Patrick O'Heffernan in learning how your social benefit organization can benefit from that trend.

About six months ago, I launched a non-profit website that enables visitors to upload videos, comment on and rate them, and engage in online forums about the American elections. The site, ThePeopleChoose, is linked to the non-profit television channel, Link TV, which will broadcast the best videos that have been uploaded. My experience tells me that there is opportunity here for NPOs.

• I learned that there is an appeal for some foundations to experiment with this new form of creative relationship building and communication.

• I learned that private companies in this field are new enough that they welcome non-profit partners because they see they traffic enhancement and branding potential.

• I learned that online promotion is necessary to build traffic and that blogs are likely the best way to do it.

• I learned that it can excite an NPO's staff and board and raise morale to see their work in video, especially video that others have gone to the trouble to shoot and post.

Why do it?

1. Video can deliver unique impact and reality about your work. By asking people to upload video, you avoid production costs and achieve a powerful authenticity. Your appeal to donors and funders will go up as they see and get engaged in your work and even upload videos of their own. You will build relationships with film schools, local high school and college classes where the faculty are assigning video projects, and with new foundations that found you through video.

2. Video websites appeal to young people – a source of new members and volunteers. They also showcase new talent, like the students and volunteers who upload videos and text to ThePeopleChoose.

4. The technology is widespread and the cost is low if you partner with a private sector video site – a good way to build a corporate relationship that can grows into other things.

3. Video sites can build relationships with users and commenters.

How do you do it?

1. Unless your organization has large amount of server space and bandwidth, form a partnership with a video upload company. This is a win-win for them because your members and promotion will bring more traffic to their site, increasing ad revenues, and they provide the space, upload applications and bandwidth to you at no cost.

2. Have your IT person or a contract programmer add a "new clips" section to your site's back end. This is a site which allows your staff to grab videos uploaded to your partner's site and post on you own so they open theirs, preferably in Flash.

3. Put a button or a box on your home page that asks people to upload their video and takes them to a page where they agree to your terms of service, and then sends them to a page on your partner's site that has your logo on it where they actually upload the video. Your staff then reviews it to make sure it meets your terms of service (TOS) and rules, like no profanity or copyrighted material. (In your TOS, let them keep the copyright to their videos, which they license to you at no charge – take a look at the TOS's on some of the upload sites and then have your lawyer or a volunteer attorney draft yours.)

Questions? Comments? Jump in the conversation.

scottbeale50 - Oct 3, 2006 2:08 pm (#1 Total: 37)
Scott Beale, Founder, Atlas Corps www.atlascorps.org

Our CSO has started to use video too

Thanks Patrick for a great topic!

I am starting a new citizen sector organization (NPO, NGO) that takes rising NGO leaders from the developing world to volunteer for one year in the U.S. Since this is a new model of international service I decided to upload a video of myself describing the organization. It does not look as fancy as I would like, but I am pleased with the start.

See: http://www.atlascorps.org/about/where.htm

Or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeVra0s2lbY

I am using a simple logitech camera and a free windows movie maker software. It really is easy! I have a lot of work to go before it looks very professional.

Here is my question. Do most people have and know how to use video cameras to post video replies? Are there bandwidth problems with these videos? And, is there a "best" video site to use?

Thanks!

Scott Beale, Executive Director, Atlas Service Corps

http://www.atlascorps.org

SusanE - Oct 4, 2006 8:00 am (#2 Total: 37)
Footpath Pictures, Inc.

Use of Video Online

After volunteering in Peru with CARE my husband and I were inspired to use our skills as video producers to start a small company dedicated to telling the stories of non-profit organizations. Our company, Footpath Pictures (www.footpathpictures.com), has been working with non-profits for the past several years and we've seen tremendous success using video as a fundraising tool. And although portions of the video are often used online, generally, the video is used as part of a presentation with donors or the main event of a fundraising gala. That personal "live" connection of an event or a one on one meeting seems to me to be critical in fundraising. It seems video, for all of it's strengths can't replace the relationships that must form in successful fundraising. So I guess my first question for the discussion is, are there examples of successful online fundraising campaigns that use video as the primary call to action? I know I've been moved by video online, and I've certainly sent friends links to videos I felt were important. But I've never donated to a cause after watching a video online, I don't think-other than political campaigns, I've ever been asked. There must be someone using it successfully and I would love to see how it's working.

Second, is something that we at Footpath have started to focus more on and that is reaching out beyond the standard fundraising events to the general public- raising awareness. We have so many new possibilities emerging every day thanks to the web and ever expanding broadcast opportunities, film festivals, etc. We've taken a proactive approach to developing this part of our business by finding partners with complex stories that will resonate with a broader audience and then developing a communications strategy that includes both a fundraising video (about the organization) as well as a longer documentary on the issues (not the organization) that can be shared through a variety of avenues. We believe that most foundations will actually be more interested in raising awareness than simply funding a marketing video about the organization. By producing the two programs simultaneously, we can make the most of our production time. We're big sticklers on efficiency. That applies to production but also to the use of the videos once they are complete. We want our partners to get the most bang: money, support, awareness for their buck. And we personally want our documentaries to make a measurable difference. These stories can move mountains, they truly can. Having the will and the insight to raise money to tell the stories takes a lot of faith and belief in their power. It's not hard for me, because I've seen these stories raise literally millions of dollars and change the perception of an organization from the inside out. Patrick, you are correct, and I've often been surprised by the non-profit's reaction to their own story. Sometimes a video gives them a new perspective on their work and the importance of it. It can be very uplifting to the entire staff.

Scott, I watched your video and I thought it was a great approach to giving visitors to your website a sense of your organization in a very personal way. I will be sure to pass this idea along to the non-profits we work with. Especially when you are working internationally, making a personal connection like this is essential. Thank you for sharing it!

Best, Susan Ellis Footpath Pictures Inc.

tutormentor - Oct 8, 2006 6:55 am (#3 Total: 37)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection

Youth leadership enhanced with video

We've had a small video program in place for about 10 years. It's aim has been to connect innercity youth with mentors who work in the communications, video, film industries. There are many benefits from such a program and one is that the material youth create can tell of their involvement in a NPO and invite others to participate. Until YouTube there was no way to distribute the video effectively to a large audience.

We put one of our videos on YouTube recently at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuPfJcCEpsk

People who view this can see how teens are rapping their experiences and the expectations of Cabrini Connections. This is just one of many videos that have been created over the years. You can view clips of others at http://www.cabriniconnections.net/IYP/Videos.html

One of my goals is to create a network of youth arts/video programs, using central Internet web sites as interchanges to connect viewers, volunteers and donors with hundreds of youth organizations, and using the videos created by youth and volunteers as the entertainment and advertising that draws more and more people to this sector.

In the Links SECTION of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org/ there is a sub section on arts/mentoring where people with youth video programs can submit a web link. That's the first part of our own effort to create a web library of such programs.

Patrick O'Heffernan - Oct 10, 2006 11:28 am (#4 Total: 37)

Scott....good site. Answers

Scott It is amazing just how many people have cameras and know how to use them...however,most of these people are under 30. But the plunging prices of cameras, the rising simplicity of USB and Firewire connections are expanding both the number and the age range. Several million peole do it every week at YouTube; we get 25,000 hits a week at ThePeopleChoose, and other sites are also growing.

One thing to watch out for is cell phone video. Not all sites accept cell phone video as it is a different format (jumpcut.com does not, as of now). Since many people shoot video with cell phones, you may have to post instructions on how to convert cell phone video to .mov or other usefull file formats.

However, the real key is generating the videos...giving people a reason to do it. In our case, we can offer to show their video on a national TV network, which is cost free for us and a boost for them. Contests are an even better way to do it. The blog Crooks and Liars <http://www.crooksandliars.com/> is now running a contest for liberal videos. Current offers TV time; Sunlight Foundation and moveon.org ran contests for the best ads, with Sunlight offering cash prizes. You might consider teaming up with a corporate sponsor to offer a prize consistent with your mission and their products.

As to the best video site, tht is raidly changing as the industry matures (recall that YouTube has been around les than 2 years). I like jumpcut.com. Even though they were bought by Yahoo, they seem to be staying independent and open to the non-profit sector. They are good at promotion and understand the value of co-promotion with NPOs.

With YouTube's purchase by Google for $1.65 billion, there will be advertising and possibly some policy changes at YouTube. However, given Google's great reputation and its Google ads progrm, YouTube may be a good source. For the time being, I am staying with Jumpcut.

Good site, incidently.

Patrick O'Heffernan - Oct 10, 2006 11:44 am (#5 Total: 37)

Using videos for fund raising

Susan, I love your multi-use approach to video. Thatis how Ted Turner got riach - he took each piece of film and used it in many different ways - CNN, Hedline News, CNN International, affilliate feeds, specials, etc. etc.-- the same newsfilm, different audiences and advertisers.

I don't have an example of a video itself generating money, but I have a great deal of experience that confirms that the intimacy and immediacy of a video can provide the focus for an ask and re-inforce the points of your presentation. I find videos especially useful in house parties. One tht I sponosred at my home for

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