Bonnie’s reflections are up on her blog, too.

Writing this blog post also made me realize that I think even Bonnie and I have different views of the “Global Scale” project – and that’s just fine! I think people looking to ramp up/scale their work to different communities even if the geographic boundaries aren’t part of it, are people who should be engaged. Similarly, people working on projects/programs that are just in one part of the world but are trying to communicate them (especially if they are trying to elicit support from elsewhere) to people outside that region should be joining in and sharing their experiences. Etc. I really think there is a wide range of opportunities for finding value to contribute regardless of the work or organization someone is from.

With a name like that!

Naming anything can be a difficult task: you can over state or under sell, you can rely on jargon or be too vague. In this case, “global scale” meant something to us because we had context and our own definition. But it isn’t something, so we’re hearing from the current community members, that makes sense to them or connects as something relevant to their work. The name doesn’t match the purpose. We need a name we can all orient around, that captures the idea: it isn’t about working on global initiatives per se, but is instead about ramping up efforts and scaling impact to effect, at least eventually, a greater world.

Where do I fit?

We also want to ensure that the name and the language used on the wiki help answer the question of “where do I fit in all this” immediately to the community. We know many, many people that have ideas, experiences, and information to share on this topic, but when directed to the wiki they didn’t see how their work was relevant. Again, just because we have an understanding of the space, doesn’t mean it’s clear to others. We want to ensure that the entire community understands both what they can share and what they can learn from the wiki.

And we hope you’ll help us!

1. What names would you suggest? Maybe “Scaled Efforts” or “Scaling Impact” “International Outreach” or something else – we need your ideas!
2. What gets you thinking? What kinds of prompts or questions would help you start to think about this topic and help you identify how you can contribute?

(Photo credit: Flickr: ToastyKen)

Why Global Scale

Movement building is something I’m very passionate about, and I think we can truly make lasting social impact if more organizations, campaigns, and changemakers operated in a movement focused way, instead of investing resources and capacity into one-time efforts. Opening up the way we work, collaborating with others to further our reach, and inviting the community to take responsibility for success (by extending opportunities to contribute) all help us build movements and scale up our work.

Global Scale Purpose:

Bonnie and I were inspired by conversations with each other on and offline but knew there were many more people who should be involved in discussing, sharing and learning.  The Global Scale project aims to create a resource for NGO practitioners where guidelines, lessons learned, tips, links and other help for ‘scaling up’ effective programs can be found.

How to Contribute

Global Scale Discussion Group

This email group is intended as a conversation space to supplement and support the Global Scale Wiki. We recognize that some times it’s easier to share a link, talk about a concept, or participate in a discussion before jumping into a shared learning space like a wiki. So, share whatever you like on this list!

Join the email list (Google Group) today and introduce yourself!

Global Scale Wiki

With this wiki, we are aiming to create a resource for NGO practitioners where guidelines, lessons learned, tips, links and other help for ‘scaling up’ effective programs can be found.

Visit the wiki today and share your ideas and examples!

December Roundtable

This month’s NTEN Communications Roundtable focuses on communications struggles, lessons, and best practices for working internationally. Movement building, campaigning, and scaling programs and services across regions, borders, and countries is incredibly important to making lasting social impact. Bit it also comes with very real obstacles for communication: from translation and language barriers to cultural differences that may impact your programs or reception of your services.

• Date: December 7th
• Time: 10 am – 11 am PST

Register to join the roundtable call from NTEN!

Introducing the Global Scale wiki!

Bonnie Koenig and I have had some great conversations about how we have seen and how we have tackled scale in our work.  In those conversations, we realized that we probably had some good examples to share and case studies to provide; but we also realized that there were many, many more people we wanted to be having the conversation with! That’s what led us to start the Global Scale wiki, and we hope that you’ll join us…

With this wiki, we are aiming to create a resource for NGO practitioners where guidelines, lessons learned, tips, links and other help for ‘scaling up’ effective programs can be found.

Today, we’re hoping that by sharing this invitation via the blogosphere (and the corresponding tweets and emails) that you’ll share your ideas and enthusiasm with us – and join us on the wiki. Check out Bonnie’s announcement, too!

Join & Contribute

This wiki is a community learning space, where we recognize that we are all still learning, testing, and experimenting; and where we are all in a position to share and learn.  We hope you’ll take this as an open invitation to jump right in with your own case studies, lessons or best practices and also comment if there are questions you hope others can address.

Visit the Global Scale wiki to dive in today: http://globalscale.wikispaces.com

Looking forward to sharing with you there!

I think this has been a great experiment in eating our own dog food: the people who advocate for the use of social media, having to come together and work via social media.  Part of my post includes the three areas that I think are most crucial in achieving success of a project like this.

Some of the the hardest parts of the project so far for the organizer (Beth), from my perspective, include:

• Managing participation of topic-related experts as the list of participants grows over time (and perhaps after the most applicable topic for him or her passes):  As more attention is given to the project across the blogosphere and elsewhere, more people who want to contribute sign on to the wiki.  It’s great to get more people involved, but it can be difficult for an organizer to be managing so many different areas of interest and expertise once the project modules are underway.
• Maintaining a natural flow or progression of topics within the wiki:  Working wikily can sometimes mean that too many side conversations and tangents turn into stranded pages or that pages get started for a topic that seems important but folks lose track of it.  Maintaining an orderly flow of information has really kept this project wiki to a manageable and navigable resource.
• Making it easy for very busy people to contribute beneficial information and knowledge efficiently: If you create it, they won’t necessarily come. Or, if they do, they may not hang out long and contribute. People, even if they are the ‘experts’ in the topic, are busy. A very effective approach is to send an email or Twitter message (or any other tool you are using to ping the participants) that asks a specific question and links to the exact area where you want the information entered. Basically, think of ways to make it hard for your participants to NOT contribute!

What do you think?  Check out the full post on the SSIR blog and share your thoughts on projects you have participated in that required remote collaboration in a wiki, or other examples of eating your own dog food!

Week 1:  Why Should Your Nonprofit Embrace Social Media?  (or not?)

Learn about basic social media concepts and principles, as well as the situations in which social media would or would not help your organization.  Here is a great presentation that introduces social media.

Week 2:  Thinking Strategically About Social Media

Learn about the key ingredients you should use for putting together a great social media strategy, how social media strategy relates to your organization’s other internet and communications strategies, and more!  You can even check out the example group exercise I contributed for creating a social media strategy!

Week 3:  The Social Media Ready Nonprofit: Dealing with Resistance

Learn about the signs of resistence in an organization, how to get organizational buy-in for social media strategies, and which policies are useful for dealing with social media in an organization.  Week 3 collaboration and contribution is happening now – join in or learn more!

What have been some of the hardest obstacles to over come in getting buy-in for social media at your organization?  Were the main evangelist, or did you have partners?

It’s great to see more and more foundations adopting policies around open source software and grantmaking and using/developing with open source themselves.  I wrote about some of the decision-making around connec+ipedia as a guest spot over at Tactical Philanthropy.

Head over there to read and comment on what you think about this process and project.

“What if there was a place where we could all exchange what we learn as we go about our daily business? What if nonprofits could see the data and information that foundations use in their due diligence process? What if organizations and people could easily determine which foundations’ interests match their project goals? What if foundations could quickly see what groups are working on an issue they are investigating? And so on…

Well, we are building such a place. A place where people and organizations can connect about subjects and places. A place called connectipedia…”

connec+ipedia is, in my opinion, an awesome new tool that will change the way many people think of wikis.

Reason #1 – The Wiki Way
It is a wiki, yes. But it is a wiki that has database capabilities and functions in a more complete definition of the wiki way. What’s the wiki way? Well, as Ward Cunningham (the man who invented wikis and who spoke at our public launch event on Tuesday) explains, what makes wikis really different is that they incorporate what isn’t yet created. You can make links to topics that don’t exist. A link to something that doesn’t exist? Yes. Exactly. A way to create a placeholder and a reminder that there is more needed here or this item is important but not fleshed out yet. By clicking on that link, you are redirected to create that page. When you incorporate database functionality into a wiki, the opportunity to further this idea is even greater.

Reason #2 – Nonlinear
I have seen many examples of wikis that try to be very linear. What do I mean by this? Well, they want to create a wiki that is very structured (traditional) and appears like a standard website, as far as navigation tabs, site map, layout, etc. connec+ipedia is nonlinear. It has content divided by People, Places and Things. But, content also exists in the intersection of these categories. So you can go to a card for after school programs, but you could also go find after school programs + Portland, OR, and so on.

Reason #3 – Community
Wikis are inherently a community of users (regardless of size). connec+ipedia takes this to a new level. It exists to connect you to information, not store the information. So, with so many links to organizations and projects, the community creates a pull for those who are linked to but not using the tool to engage, at least so far to make sure their information is correct! Many nonprofits and foundations (public and private) from around the region are already listed in connec+ipedia. It has the unique capacity for connecting topic areas with funders who support them and organizations doing the work. It is encouraging to the community grow to use the site in this way and ensure that information is correct – keeping people connected!

I invite you to check it out! connec+ipedia is free, open source tool. It runs on WagN which you can learn about here.

Like many foundations, MMT has been building a “knowledge management” system to archive information in an accessible way to help us be the best grantmakers we can be. But we’ve been approaching this task with a bigger end in mind.

Why, we asked ourselves, would we set up a system that only MMT could use when the need for good information is shared by other foundations… and nonprofit organizations and public agencies and official decision makers and citizen volunteers and… in fact, everyone working for the common good?? Wouldn’t that be a smarter investment for us to make?

What if there was a place where we could all exchange what we learn as we go about our daily business? What if nonprofits could see the data and information that foundations use in their due diligence process? What if organizations and people could easily determine which foundations’ interests match their project goals? What if foundations could quickly see what groups are working on an issue they are investigating? And so on…

Well, we are building such a place. A place where people and organizations can connect about subjects and places. A place called connectipedia…

Want to know more? Want to see connectipedia in action? Want to find out how you can be part of all this? Attend the public launch event at:

2 – 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 10
Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center
aka Ecotrust (second floor conference center)
721 NW Ninth Ave.
Portland OR 97209

We would love you to be part of this event and celebration. Several renowned geeks will be there! We’re not requiring folks to register, but if you plan to attend, please send a quick rsvp email.

If you can’t make it to Ecotrust, you can still participate in the launch. We plan to webcast the event so anyone in our corner of the world can make time for connectipedia. (More details about the webcast to come.)

After June 10th, connectipedia will be open for busines!

I’m extremely excited about the unveiling of this wonderful tool.  If you are in Portland, you can attend the event in person per the details above.  If you are elsewhere in the world, you will be able to attend remotely via the web and be right in the thick of things with us.  I’ll be sure to post details about connecting remotely as soon as they are made available.  I can’t wait to have you join me in using this terrific new tool!