Location: London, UK

Topic: Fostering Innovation and Enterprise

Description: The Indigo Trust and Institute for Philanthropy, working closely with The Omidyar Network will convene this conference on how the developing world is using information technology to improve social outcomes. This conference is unique in bringing together leading private and corporate philanthropists with leading grassroots talent. Our aim is to help philanthropists and the donor community understand what information and communications technology can do to improve philanthropic interventions across all sectors in the developed and developing world.

Related Links:

• Indigo Trust
• Omidyar Network
• Institute for Philanthropy
• Blog post with remarks
• Hashtag: #giveandtech
• Social reporting links

• Tracy Fullerton – Electronics Arts Game Innovation Lab
• Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History
• Elaine Charnov – The NY Public Library
• Jason Eppink – Museum of the Moving Image
• Syed Salahuddin – Babycastles

Elaine Cohen: The New York Public Library

100 Years of the flagship library in New York. Goal of the centennial project was to shine the light on the library’s resources and get new audiences engaged in the collections and connected to the curators and staff. Research libraries have been facing daunting challenges in the digital world, but not everything is digital in research and the library really wants to connect people with the curators and staff that can help them. Staged a major exhibition celebrating the spectrum of what is in the library, public programs partners with The Moth. Trying to engaged the teen-to-twenty-something who normally may not use the research library. They thought, wouldn’t it be interseting to create a game to get people in the library who may not have ever come?

Find the Future: The Game

Find the Future was the overarching theme of the projects. Involvement from the curators and staff to develop 100 quests that the public could participate in on the night of the 20th. An overnight at the library, only 500 people – over 5,000 entered and many more were viewing the site etc. During the period that the 500 were selected, they learned a lot about how various social networking tools could be used as they saw participants start partnering up and organizing themselves for the game. There were pregame efforts, during the night, and post-event where people joined up and have continued networking. 70 teams of about 7 people each were sent on various quests like writing about loyalty based on the Pooh series in the library. What made the game so unique is the social element – the game designers spent a lot of time writing about the participants and their visions for the future on postcards and distributing them throughout the night, giving them to random participants so they were prompted to seek out others.

The result was an 800 page book of narratives, pictures, stories, and much more that will now be part of the library’s collection. People are now coming to the library to see it as it includes content by all the 500 participants from that night. So much of the project was really about convening social groups and we see it continuing.

Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History

For years we have been producing digital media to fulfill our mission of educating the public about science and history. We are trying to change the visitors’ experience at the museum as well as ownership of what is in the museum, break down the walls between the public and the museum. My focus is on how children learn science.

Learning Science by Design

The opportunities for engagement now include exhibitions, digital space, and education. The goals include learning made personal, extension of experience onsite and online, and access for all learning and lifelong learning – underlying all of it is innovation in learning. Within our exhibitions, we have a focus on creating very dynamic, interactive opportunities. The Brain exhibition, for example, has a table where people can work together to put together the pieces of the brain neuron by neuron. It provides an opportunity for learning but also for strangers to connect. In our digital space, we have a new innovation called the Explorer. It is an app for iphone that started as a way for way-finding but is more: it has personalized tours, it has games, etc. Visitors can challenge themselves, each other, etc. The education work has three areas: ology (their first online game space for kids), Urban Biodiversity Network (mobile and networked, youth-driven) which brought together kids from around the world and the Bronx Zoo where kids created eco-stations around the zoo and the Museum explored if this kind of game/engagement helped kids actually learn, Virtual Worlds Camp (happening this summer in the second pilot) 3-d virtual worlds where kids will spend 2 weeks researching under seas environments, building their animals/characters, and so on. In the future, Games in Exhibition that then extend online and in class, expanded out of school offerings including space, bio-luminescence and other areas, and expand into AMNH in school partnership programs.

Jason Eppink – Museum of the Moving Image

The museum was founded in 1981, opened in 1989. Since 1989’s Hot Circuits exhibition of arcade games, they have always had arcade games on display, and all playable. In 1995, they offered downloadable ROMs to export the games. Digital Play commpared and contracted console games with arcade games. Real Virtuality had two games that were on display that augmented reality. We are also planning a big exhibition for next year.

Syed Salahuddin – Babycastles

Babycastles is New York’s first independent video arcade. We wanted to created a space where people could get together and talk about games. There are a lot of places online where people can meet up, have game jams, etc. but there wasn’t an offline space for that. When we first started babycastles, we had no idea there was any kind of community in NY for it. They knew of a few people but it was nothing like the communities on the West Coast. We started out in Queens and within a month or two had 50-60 people coming. We wanted to put arcades everywhere: museums, public spaces, insinuations, etc. Our first arcade was in the basement of Silent Barn and it cost about $650.

“There’s not much I can tell you about this game because I’m confused completely,” said Paul Cox, a first-time visitor to Babycasteles, as the attempted to navigate a game called “The You Testment,” based on Noah’s Ark. “It’s actually a blast so far.” – The New York Times

Next they were invited to start The Arcade Returns to 42nd Street, popup gallery. It game them the chance to expose people to independent games at a larger scale – we had walk-in traffic, etc. One man came in that was 82 years old and said he’d never played a video game before – he was given a controller and taught how to navigate. It lasted for four months. We started a Kickstarter that was pretty successful and were able to buy new hardware, etc.

“For the opening exhibition at a temporary space near Times Square last year, Thu Tran, the inimitable maestro of the IFC show “Food Party,” turned a former storefront into a veritable zoo of brightly-colored furniture and cabinets. In painted wood and styrofoam, it was a masterful and whimsical refusal to answer that pesky question of whether games can be art. here was a kind of proof that you don’t have to choose.” CNN

“Many of the games at Babycastles don’t fit the traditional definitions of the medium; they veer closer to artistic experiementation than they do to mass-market viability.” – New York Times

Future Babycastles is in Williamsburg, just opened. And the next location will be at MoMA where they are teaching a 10 week digital media course about building arcades and will actually build one with kids.

Questions and Discussion

Tracy: When we speak about cultureal spaces, we are really talking about caging and preserving culture. I wonder if you might speak to the excitement and interest in games from your perspectives:

Ruth: the excitement is in the potential. Your comments are close to our heart – as an institutions we make decisions every day about how people are going to engage. We want to focus on experiences and the experience of culture is an interaction, that’s why these places need to be live. There is potential for creating a game for that experience, especially with the participants.

Elaine: In terms of the compassion, and as an organization that collects and preserves, we wonder how to engage people into the real thing while also translating that real thing into the real world. We have one of the copies of the Declaration of Independence, so people can engage with the real thing but also think about the things in the 21st century that inspire them. We want to work with the real, tangible history, but draw on all the technologies and forms of play that get folks involved and excited. That’s one of the goals of research institustions and cultureal spaces in general.

Tracy: Games are about subverting a system. And here we have places where we are preserving and saving important things and then we say wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could invite people in to play. I do think it’s great to invite play into those spaces.

Elaine: We invited some people in to create a game about the museum, Accomplice, that is like real-time Clue. We think it works, it is still piloting, but that’s a big risk for an instituation.

Tracy: The problem of showing games in public spaces, it is problematic. Games, if they aren’t public events, then a lot of times they are meant to be played for longer periods of time on one’s own. Going through a public space and stopping for a few minutes to observe doesn’t work for a game.

Syed: When I went to PS1’s exhibit, it took up an entire room, the walls were the actual screen and you literally walk as you are in the side scroller. It was a beautiful exhibition, but no one was playing it. There was a facilitator there that would play it and she played it all day. But people felt weird playing with her. I’ve seen that happen before.

James: The best exhibition game I’ve seen was because all of these people were willing to play. So people were willing to try, others would watch and learn and then when they played they could get further and those watching would learn and it just helped collectively get through the game.

Tracy: When we were developing The Night Journey, we got two sets of pay testers over a few months and I thought of it as a V: gamers who were interested in experiemental play, people who had visited a gallery in the last few months – people who were far away from each other in the comfort zone of the game. They would wait for you to tell them what to do. Through the course of a lot of play testing and simplification, we got to the place where there was enough simplicity that the truly non0game playing public could pick it up and do something meaningful and the more sofisticated game-players could do something more deeper but equally engaging.

James: Yeah, it’s all about context. When someone is playing Grand Theft Auto, they have a good idea of how the controller works and they’ve gone past lots of learning but someone in public space hasn’t worked through everything with the game to know what to do.

Tracy: The questions of really of usage and usability and appeal start to sound like questions we might not normally ask when we talk about museums and preservation.

Ruth: Public spaces become known as the places where people interact with each other and where it is safe to interact. That’s the doorway into the 21st center. There’s so much knowledge and information that they are intimidated when they come in the museum. So, finding games and interactions that make it easy for people to engage with the information.

Elaine: The media often undermines the role of games in institutions as showing them just as scavenger hunts and not interaction and personal exploration of learning and information.

Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

Topic: Keynote; Technology and Community – Strategic Options for Building Movements

Description: Try as we might to do everything ourselves, our campaigns, our programs, and our missions rely on the community for success. Technology can help us engage with our community, in real-time, throughout our planning process and in the process of changing the world. Engaging our community, online and offline, can generate the momentum we need to build a movement. And there’s no stopping a movement!

Related Links:

• MyCharityConnects
• CanadaHelps
• Conference agenda
• Net Change week
• Slides and notes
• Video of presentation

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Report Release: The 2010 Nonprofit IT Staffing and Spending … – "Nearly 1,200 nonprofit professionals filled out the latest annual survey, sponsored by NTEN and The NonProfit Times, providing us with another year of benchmarks and data concerning: salaries, outsourcing, recruiting, organizational structure, and other aspects of Information Technology practices in the nonprofit sector. One of the findings that stood out to us: Only 40% of respondents reported that their organization has some type of formal technology plan. And much less than that (22%) reported that their organization had ever evaluated Return on Investment (ROI) of technology projects or programs."
• World Bank’s Mapping for Results launched – Check out this deployment of the Ushahidi platform for digital storytelling and reporting: "This weekend at the World Bank annual meetings the World Bank launched their new Mapping for Results platform. The initiative visualizes the location of World Bank projects to better monitor project and impact on people; to enhance transparency and social accountability; and to enable citizens and other stakeholders to provide direct feedback. All 79 IDA countries, the lowest income nations, are included with the geographic locations of projects, financing, and sector identification such as water, transportation, governance, etc. There are also indicator data including maternal health, infant mortality, malnutrition, poverty, and population. The tool is meant to openly share and visualize the operations of World Bank financed activities down to as local a level as possible and compare these with actual need and monitor the effects over time."
• Conversation is the New Attention – "This article is adapted from their SXSW 2011 talk, Toss the Projector: Redefining the Speaker/Audience Dynamic. In the talk, Tim and Chris unveiled Donahue, a new experimental tool designed and built by Arc90 and Behavior Design which tears down the wall between audience and presenter, allowing the audience to interact directly with the presenter’s ideas to begin a conversation."
• 2011: The Year the Check-in Died – "Early last year, "checking in" was the cool new craze. No visit to your favorite tech news site could be had without getting buried in a tsunami of articles about Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, BriteKite or a myriad other startups. The big guys quickly followed suit: Yelp introduced "Check-Ins" while Facebook launched "Places" and most recently, Google Latitude updated to incorporate check-ins and check-outs. But here's the thing: the trends aren't actually that good."
• Hey, Let’s Fix The Internet – What do you think – can we change? Change the internet? Change the way we associated with others on and offline? This post has me thinking about many different perspectives on community organizing and community engagement and I'd love to hear what it triggers for you!

—–

Aashika Damodar & collaborative technology for social impact

Every day I field questions from organizations and community groups looking to use facebook, Twitter or YouTube.. Most all of these groups are excited and enthusiastic but are coming from the wrong direction: focusing on the tools first. Our programs, services, and campaigns are successful, instead, when we focus on the community first, and that’s why Aashika Damodar’s work impresses and inspires me.

Survivors Connect is an organization supporting activists and building survivor advocacy networks using collaborative technologies to end modern-day slavery and human trafficking. Aashika, the founder and executive director, starting learning about and looking for ways to support the community of survivors when she was studying Anthropology and Political Science at University of California, Berkeley: “When I was in college, I learned of a labor/sex trafficking case right across from my dorm.  I myself was also almost a human trafficking victim for the purpose of forced marriage in India. By that point, the issue of gender-based violence and trafficking had crept into so many facets of my life, prompting me to make it my life’s work to end it.”

Building programs and services to support a community means not just learning about the problems they face, but understanding how technologies can help make a difference. Aashika admits to being “a big tech-enthusiast by hobby” and she “found that the anti-slavery movement was lacking in terms of participation in this field, as well as innovation.”  According to Aashika, “It is these very same technologies that often enable transnational human trafficking; so I felt that I needed to get involved in this way to make our activism smarter, and innovate on both the “process” and “product/software” frontlines.”

The Survivors Connect online platform includes various opportunities for those wishing to report abuse, take action, or otherwise support the network of activists, and relies on a variety of collaborative technologies, from data mapping to online seminars, SMS-powered communications to an online community network. Different regions around the global have a very different level of access than those in North America or Western Europe. Recognizing which tools are available to your community can make the biggest impact on your project’s success.

“It has always been quite interesting to me that in many parts of the developing world, there is near ubiquitous ownership of mobile phones,” explained Aashika. “Here is really where the innovative thinking began. Communication tech, in a sense, is shrinking us as groups while increasing our ability to connect. Why not use this to work on preventing some of the most egregious human rights abuses in the world?”

Taking advantage of mobile technology, Survivors Connect created SMS: Freedom which connects individuals and communities with experts and resources via text messages. In this way, information about scams or risks can easily be distributed to communities, or reports can be shared throughout the network.

“The experiences and stories of survivors were and always are my call to action,” Aashika told me. “They are the strongest souls Ive ever met. Survivors of various forms of slavery give us a glimpse of how the broader crime of human trafficking works, and just how much is involved.” And it isn’t just Aashika that survivors are inspiring; through Freedom Connect all members of the global network fighting slavery and human trafficking are invited to create profiles, share calendars, create groups, share resources and join together in discussions.

Most importantly to the success of Aashika’s work, is her ability to remember that it is not about the tools. Survivors Connect is not just an online platform and network working to end modern-day slavery and human trafficking, but a place to continue to learn and inspire—the technology is simply a tool for letting us connect and communicate. “We will not win the fight against slavery and human trafficking with egos, but with open and understanding hearts and minds.”

>> Learn more about Aashika and Survivors Connect today: http://www.survivorsconnect.org

In 2008, Aashika graduated from the University of California, Berkeley; she is now working on her Masters in Philosophy in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK where she’s a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.  Her honors thesis from UCBerkeley won the Ronald Frankenberg Prize and the Sylvia Forman Prize from the American Anthropological Association; it was also published in the 2010 Project Censored Journal.

How you can create an online collaboration space!

Working people and communities around the world can make sharing information and even just communicating a difficult task. Like Survivors Connect, maybe you want to share the stories and work from your community. There are various tools available, though, that make public networks or even private collaboration easy and efficient.

Top Tools for Collaboration

Tips for Collaboration Online

If you want to replicate some of Aashika’s success bringing people together online, here are the top 5 tips you need to keep in mind:

• Evaluate your Community: where are they, what kind of access do they have, and what are they looking to do?
• Evaluate your Capacity: how much time do you have, what kind of technical experience do you have, what resources are available?
• Evaluate your Goals: what do you and the community want to accomplish, what do you want to do today and what do you want to do in a year?
• Try Something First: don’t be afraid to jump in and give a new tool a try; if it doesn’t fit your needs, then move on!
• Build on Success: if something is really working, analyze what it is and why to see if

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril, and Potential of Networks – This new report from the Knight Foundation and Monitor Institute explores engaged communities: "Ten years ago, a tiny web site asked people to volunteer to write their own encyclopedia. Today, Wikipedia is the most widely used reference work in the world. Rapid advances in digital media and technology are changing how we connect to information and each other. The way we engage in public dialogue, coordinate, solve problems—all of it is shifting. New networks are emerging everywhere. It’s exciting—and frightening. What is this new network-centric world? What does it mean for community change?"
• The US will use Twitter and Facebook to issue terror alerts – "The U.S. government is working on a new warning system to replace their oft criticized five-color coded terror index, and according to a new document obtained by The Associated Press, they're turning to Facebook and Twitter." How do your social media channels fit in your organization's emergency communications plan?
• Repair Interview: Joe Solomon of 350.org on Climate Change and Building a Movement – "Social Media Coordinator, Joe Solomon took some time to explain what 350 really means, talk about transforming community inspiration into political power, and share a story about how his work with 350.org inspired him in ways he never imagined." Check out this terrific interview with Joe – I'd love to hear your ideas, reflections and stories about how you are inspired to make change!
• Mobilizing online communities in the Face of Disaster: Tips … – "On the 12th of March, one day after the tragic earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan Ichi – Hiroyasu Ichikawa – the NetSquared Local organizer from Tokyo sent an e-mail to our NetSquared Local Organizer listserve asking for the best practices for mobilizing online communities in the time of a disaster. In the weeks that have followed, Ichi’s e-mail provoked a series of responses from all over the world. In this post, we hope to voice many of the tools, resources, and tactics that have been shared, in hopes of encouraging others around the world to get involved with the digital relief efforts."
• 6 questions to prepare you for a social media crisis – "In social media, the disasters people talk about most are fundamentally crises of public relations. These fall into two types: crises that originate in social media, and crises that originate offline. In the era of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, both types of crisis require a rapid, social media response. Looking at the most recent social media crises is one way to think about the kinds of challenges for which you need to prepare. But social media has a way of ensuring that each crisis is different from the last, so if you’re prepared to handle a YouTube meltdown, you’ll probably get served with a FourSquare nightmare. That’s why it pays to look for principles of online crisis management that will be relevant in the long run."

Presentation

Let’s start at the beginning: what is “community-driven social impact” anyway? All of the words probably have different meanings to each of us, but as a term, I mean programming, services, media events or campaigns that emerge from the needs, actions and involvement of the community. CDSI is not something that you thought up inside your organization, even if you thought it up with your community in mind or at heart. It means honestly that the ideas, shape and even strategy came from the community and you as the organization are the ones to support it or nurture it.

But, like many strategies or best practices, it still isn’t right for every organization. First, CDSI requires the right culture; unless your organization, board and staff are going to honor and support an idea that emerges from the community, there isn’t any point in trying to use CDSI strategies. Instead, the community will feel cheated or lied to.  It also requires capacity/staff to make connections and support the community. If there isn’t any capacity to “hear” the ideas, especially since they aren’t usually given directly, then even a well-intentioned organization won’t have what it needs to make the programs or events the community wants. Often times the community’s ideas or needs are shared in ways that require translation, of sorts—someone that can bridge the community and organization, listening to the conversations and identifying the opportunities for the organization.

What’s the foundation of CDSI? You can see CDSI in many things, and most clearly in grassroots organizing or any non-organization led action. The needs and goals of the larger community are listened to by someone or a group of people and they create opportunities for action, service, and change.  But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t real opportunity for organizations to act that part. Especially with the increased use of social media tools to help community building activity around causes or specific organizations.

So, what is that opportunity? Think of it like this:  In “Community-driven Social Impact,” the driving is up to the community; but you can act as the vehicle and event the map for those “drivers.”  Using CDSI strategies and leveraging social media, you can harness the power of the network towards your mission.

Strategy

What are those strategies? Well, you’ll find that much of the work that involves your community, whether it’s building up the community, working on engagement, listening, evaluation, or anything else, involves strategy that goes in a circle. Not exactly as simply as the goldfish, but one that after a few steps feeds back to the beginning. From listening, to creating to evaluating and then back to the listening again so that you can modify and then evaluate, and so on.

The first step: Who’s your community? What are they like: what are the demographics, the data, the stories? Where are they: which platforms or tools do they use and when do they use them? What kind of action and interaction already happens, and what actions or interaction are they looking to find? Whether it seems important in the moment or not, it’s really valuable to make a list or chart or picture, whatever you want, of all the information you have about your community. The more you list and share, the more you’ll start to see patterns or clear paths emerge.

The next step is finding the sweet spot. To do that, you first identify what your community wants to do – what it is coming together around, whether it’s an event, an action, or a movement.  Next, identify what you want to do, what your organizational goals are.  Those two “wants to do” will overlap and that gray area is the sweet spot. It’s important to remember that not everything your organization wants to do or achieve, matches up with with your community wants to do, and vice versa. The key is that that’s okay!  Maybe you provide services, and your community doesn’t want to be providing those services, but they are happy you are doing so. And maybe the community wants to endorse a specific candidate, and your organization doesn’t. But both the community and your organization want to see certain laws passed, things improved, programs created or groups supported.  That’s the sweet spot where you can count on focusing CDSI energy.

After you know who your community is and what they want to do, you probably already identified which tools they’re using. You can compare the tools they are using with the goals in the sweet spot to see if any will help reach those goals or if there are more appropriate tools to start using.  Don’t ever go for a new, shiny, cool social media platform or tool simply because you’ve heard others talking about. Know where your community is and what tools they want to use, and use those. At least if you plan on interacting with them!

Lastly, you’ll want to identify what roles are needed.  Just like throwing a party you need to have someone making food, someone pouring drinks and someone else showing people where the bathroom is.  Just because your network is excited for the party and wants to come, it does not mean that the party can just happen. Someone has to host, someone has to clean up. If your organization has the capacity to do that, there’s a great chance a good party can happen – especially if you’re willing to leave the punch and party games to the community and the natural leaders that emerge, allowing for ownership of the party’s outcome to be shared with the guests, and not just your organization.

Best Practice

That’s a pretty simple four steps for being strategic in CDSI. But what are some best practices? This is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote quite a while ago that compares the roles of gardeners and landscapers in the context of community building. The idea is that as an over all best practice, you want to strive to operate in a way that supports the natural directions of the community, without trying to shape that growth. Here are 3 ways you can operate as a gardener: no short cuts, know your community, and strive to be replaced.

The Gardener creates an ecosystem open to change, available to new groups, and full of fresh opportunities to emerge naturally.  The approach is focused on organic collaboration and growth for the entire community.  The gardener is simply there to help, cultivate, and clear the weeds if/when they poke up.

No Short Cuts

Not taking short cuts means to lead by example:  interact with the community the way you want other organizations and the community members to do.  It’s like the golden rule for community engagement.  I like this picture for this point because often mother ducks will bring up the rear, supporting the ducklings and swimming along side them, instead of shooting ahead and expecting them to keep up.

Another way to not take short cutes is to operate in public.  This means don’t build it in secret and then “launch” it  – regardless of whether it’s an online space, a program or a campaign. If it is really something that is coming from the community, you can’t just take the idea and run; you’ll want to co-create it from idea to implementation.

Lastly, not taking short cutes means asking for feedback and participation from the start. As I said earlier, often the ideas you have come from conversations or learning about the community and not from a specific recommendation (though you may get some of those, too!). So, you’ll want to share what you’re learning and thinking in  real time back to the community so you can find out if you’re right on, or way off the path.

Know Your Community

Knowing your community. Part of doing this well is letting your community know itself. That means don’t take credit where it isn’t yours, highlight the leaders and contributors in the community, and making connections across the network.

Knowing your community also means knowing your role in the ecosystem. It’s important, as I mentioned earlier in the strategy steps, to identify what your role or roles are as the organization and stick to them. Once you start spreading out, you squeeze out room for others to grow and develop or even to explore what’s possible.

Knowing your community also means you help it grow. Sometimes that means making mistakes. Hopefully they are tiny and harmless, and that you’re there to learn alongside the community.  But, it’s just to say that you are in it just like the community is, and not everything we try in life works smoothly. Instead, design for growth and sustainability from the start with lots of room for feedback, evaluation and iterations to continue developing and redeveloping.

Strive to Be Replaced

Striving to be replaced can be a tough one for most everyone. It isn’t exactly in our nature but it is key to the ethos of a community builder. One way to work on supporting your community to not need you managing the program, platform, or whatever else is to encourage interaction without you. This touches back on letting the community know itself. If you’re making connections and supporting conversations across the network, you’re helping the community create strong ties that will not require your time and energy to maintain.

Striving to be replaced also means rewarding and spotlighting leaders. Positive reinforcement is one of the best leadership development practices you can build into your work across the board, whether it’s online or offline, on your facebook page, newsletter, annual fundraiser or neighborhood events.

Lastly, the only way you can really operate in a way that prepares your community to take over for you is to share your toolbox. This is a lot like operating in public but that you are sharing the tools you use and the strategies you use. You can model behavior all you want but if no one can tell what tools you are using to be so successful, there’s no way they can jump in and help man the ship.

Case Studies

Events: NetSquared Camps

Community Driven Social Impact strategies for events – let’s look at the NetSquared Camps pilot. NetSquared had for a few years held a global conference in donated space in Silicon Valley and invited members of the community from around the world to come together offline to learn and share and build.  It was great; the community loved it. Well, they loved the chance to get together offline and build things together, learn from each other and so on. They didn’t love when the government wouldn’t give them a visa to visit the states, or when the costs for international travel around the whole world were too expensive. So, we started listening and asking questions to learn more about what they really liked and what they didn’t need from the old model. And in collaboration with our NetSquared Local organizers, we created and launched the Camps pilot which allows Local organizers to opt-in, receive support and a bit of funding, and get all of our resources and branding to hold regional events that create the same opportunities for convening and collaborating as the global conference did, but without the high costs for travel and logistics.

Campaigns: 350.org

350.Org is a terrific example of a CDSI campaign. When it emerged from the community, it wasn’t an organization at all but a group of people uniting under the call for 350PPM actions and legislation. Using 350 they rallied supporters around the world and it eventually became clear that longer-term “organizational” management could mean more integrated and impacting work from the community.

Media: Connectipedia.org

An example of CDSI media is connectipedia. This resource for funders, organizations and government agencies in the Pacific Northwest was created by the Meyer Memorial Trust in response to the need to capture, share, and retain knowledge from program officers and nonprofit staff that retired their experiences and knowledge with them when they retired from work.

Workshop

Now for the Social by Social game! I created this game in collaboration with my Social by Social co-authors, David Wilcox and Andy Gibson. We’ve modified it and created various versions, depending on whether it was to be played within one organization or with a group (like at the NTC), in just 45 minutes or over a longer period, and so on. This is the abbreviated version and I’m happy to work with you if you’d like to explore other iterations of the game that you can use with your organization.

Step 1

Be sure everyone has a playing surface:

We are going to start in the top left of your grid. You’re going to have about 5-10 minutes for this section so don’t feel rushed. Write down anything and everything you can about your community. As people start to finish at your table, start sharing what you wrote with each other as you’ll probably start to think of more things to add!

Step 2

Great! Now, let’s work on finding the sweet spot! Use the upper right corner of your handout to start identifying the goals shared by you and your community. Again, I’ll ask that you share these with each other as you start to finish.

Step 3

This next part is where it gets fun. I’m handing out cards to each table and you’ll need to share around. These are just to get you thinking so if there is a tool you want to use, you’ll see there are blank cards too.  The numbers represent the level of capacity needed to use the tool, and for the use in this game, I’m going to ask that you use 10 or less so that it’s realistic. Again, feel free to discuss at the table both if you have questions about the tools and which ones you’re choosing.

Step 4

The last section of the grid is for roles. I’m passing out another set of cards to help get you thinking about the roles you may need but note there are always options for other ideas.

Now, I hope that going through that exercise helps you create a framework for talking about projects and ideas, and reinforces that you can in fact discuss social media and technology tools in a strategic way – so long as you put the community and your goals first! We (those in our organizations passionate about technology) also, often, don’t have a way into conversations with people in other departments or with organizational leadership; this process can help you ensure that you can start those conversations by putting the goals and community that everyone in the organization is working towards and with at the forefront of your appeal.

Thanks again to everyone who participated at the NTC! If you’d like to use the game, just let me know and I can help you adapt it for your group!

Libraries: The Oldest New Frontier for Innovation

When it comes to innovation in civil society, there is nothing that can match the speed and ingenuity of communities that come together to make a change, develop a tool, or feed a need. “Innovating at the speed of communities” relies on a few core principles, but underpinning all of them is the concept of innovating WITH, not FOR the community.  I want to start, first, with a story…

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Minnesota Council for Nonprofits annual conference; and after my presentation, I spent a couple hours speaking with folks from various nonprofits, vendors and service organizations. I told one woman that I’d be headed here next, and she said, “Oh, I used to do the library makeovers for Target – I love libraries!” She then went on to explain the library program she used to work with at Target and how rewarding it was for her to get to support libraries in schools around the country. It sounded great, until her last comment: She told me that it was a really important program, because libraries are the heart of the community…well, in elementary schools at least. I was pretty surprised that she’d qualify that statement and so I asked her why she didn’t think libraries were the heart of all communities; and she just said, well, maybe they used to be.

That conversation is a perfect example of both the kinds of conversations I have had countless times when talking to people (whether they work for a library or not) about the future of libraries as well as the frame I’m using for this talk.

Why Community?

So, why community? Why focus on that instead of content, or knowledge or information or anything else? Well, at least in my opinion, the definition of a library includes the community – those that come every day, those that come to events or use the services, and those that haven’t yet engaged. As I mentioned when I started, in order to be positioned as the heart of the community and to continue evolving our services, programs, and thus our relevance, we need to think about how we innovate or work WITH the community, and not just FOR the community. That word change supports co-design, it encourages collaboration, and it ensures engagement.

There are a few core elements of the way communities work that we can learn from as a model for innovation as well.

Communities are flexible. “Membership” isn’t official and moderated (beyond basic rules of engagement) and as such can change all the time, but so can the focus and the operations. Because organized efforts are based on goals and the work or process itself, it’s easy for communities to iterate or change at any time and remain flexible in the decisions and steps created towards achieving those driving goals.

Leadership and decision-making come from adoption not from executive authority. If there’s an idea that the community is behind, and a project or plan that’s adopted (whether it’s a new way of operating or a new tool), then it moves forward, regardless of “who” thought it up or campaigned for it. Adoption is something we’ll come back to later as well.

Instead of grant deliverables or profit, passion and impact are the bottom line motivators for change. Obviously “profit” is a slippery slope, but in most scenarios, it isn’t the community at large that would financially benefit off of change. It’s that distance from financial consequences that let communities put best interest and opportunity ahead of other influencers.

Communities share, pass on, and constantly expand a collective wisdom and knowledge from experiences, events, movements and legacy. In an organization, when someone leaves, that knowledge is lost, but with a community it is shared so constantly and knowledge sharing is built into the way communities operate, that it is harder for information to disappear.

Community-Driven Model

Organizations, whether nonprofits, institutions, human services, or even ad hoc groups, can harness these elements of communities and use a community-driven model to design programs and services as well as create a platform for collaboration, and reposition themselves as the heart of the community. We can provide a map, the vehicle, and even the road snacks, but the community needs to be the driver. When we take over the driving, we move the community to the backseat and lose the opportunity to go where the community wants.

Before I talk about strategic elements of the community-driven model, I want to share some key conditions that need to be in place to ensure a library or any other organization can move to a community-driven model.

Principles

Working with the community, working with anyone for that matter, requires a great deal of listening. But in a community-driven model, you can’t just listen for the sake of learning. You have to go beyond that and listen for action. Listening takes many shapes and what you “hear” comes in many forms and from many directions. The ideas, questions, requests, and needs that you hear regardless of how direct they seem, should provide you with the inspiration and impetus for either new programs, services or offerings or ways to change those that you already have in place. If you aren’t in a position to take action based on what you hear, there’s little purpose in listening or trying to use a community-driven model. The community will see that you aren’t making changes, aren’t communicating, and aren’t collaborating and will disengage.

Building on that listening, and supporting you in taking action based on what you hear, it’s integral that you have the capacity to change. There may be many things you do and provide that the community loves. There may also be things that the community wants you to change – and those may not be limited to a specific service or program. It may be larger than that. And without the capacity for change, the actions you take and the integration you can achieve with the community is limited.

Not only do you need to be listening and taking action, but as an organization, you need to have a culture that supports collaboration. Without one, you’ll be impaired further along the road as you start trying to implement new programs or services or innovate the way you work because you will be taking on all of the responsibility, management and work. Collaboration in the community-driven model doesn’t just mean you invite the public to meetings about what you’re doing, it means they are invited in, invested in, and share responsibility for the work you’re doing together.

Communities use adoption as collective decision making and prioritization. As such, adoption can be used as a currency, measuring the worth of your programs, services and opportunities. Those that aren’t adopted are prime targets for iteration and evolution and great places to start involving the community in creating changes that result in adoption and use.

All of these principles and community-driven practices all require communication and transparency. The community knows you’re listening because you are consistently sharing back what you hear and what might be possible. Your capacity for change and the opportunities to collaborate are visible through open communication and public information. You work with the community in a transparent process of engagement so community members can see when they might want to get involved, when they aren’t interested, and when there’s room for change.

These principles all underpin the degree of success you will have with your community engagement and integration. They also create the foundation for a community-driven strategy.

Community-Driven Strategy

As I’m sure many of you already know, much of this work, whether it’s building up the community, working on engagement, listening, evaluation, or anything else, relies on a strategy continues to come back around to the planning elements and through to evaluation, over and over. Not exactly a simple circle, but a cycle that after a few steps feeds back to the beginning. From listening, to creating to evaluating and then back to the listening again so that you can modify and then evaluate, and so on.

Who’s the community?

The first step: Identifying your community. That may sound simple, like “my town, or my campus, or my organization.” But think about it in more detail. What are they like: what are the demographics, the data, the stories? Where are they: where do they go and how do they get there? What other services do they use or organizations do they work with? What kind of action and interaction already happens, and what actions or interaction are they looking to find? Whether it seems important in the moment or not, it’s really valuable to make a list or chart or picture, whatever you want, of all the information you have about your community. The more you list and share, the more you’ll start to see patterns or clear paths emerge.

Where’s the sweet spot?

The next step is focusing on the right goals. I like to refer to that as finding the sweet spot. To do it, you first identify what your community wants – to do, to achieve, to create.  Next, identify what you want.  Those two “wants” will overlap and that gray area is the sweet spot. It’s important to remember that not everything you want to do or achieve, matches up with with your community wants, and vice versa. Maybe you provide services, and your community doesn’t want to be providing those services, but they are happy you are doing so. And maybe the community wants to endorse a specific candidate, and you don’t. But you can share a vision for the kind of community you want to support and create together.  That’s the sweet spot where you can count on focusing energy.

Which technologies support the work?

After mapping the community and identifying shared goals you can focus on, you can start identifying the online tools and technologies that the community (especially when you break it down into segments) already uses, for what, why, and how. You can compare the tools they are using with the shared goals in the sweet spot to highlight opportunities already in place to start more strategic communications or use of those tools and beginning targeted engagement. Don’t ever go for a new, shiny, cool social media platform or tool simply because you’ve heard others talking about it. Know where your community is and what tools they want to use, and either use those or build them together. At least if you plan on interacting with them!

What roles are needed?

And finally, you want to identify the roles needed to create, facilitate, and implement the programs and services you design with the community.  I used the car metaphor earlier; another that works is to think of this as throwing a party. You need to have someone making food, someone pouring drinks and someone else pointing out the bathroom.  Just because your community is excited for the party and plans to be there, it does not mean that the party can just happen. Someone has to host, someone has to clean up. If you have the capacity to do that, there’s a great chance a good party can happen – especially if you’re willing to leave the punch and party games to the natural leaders that emerge in the community, allowing for ownership of the party’s outcome to be shared with the guests, and not just your library or organization.

We are at a very interesting time – with shifts happening locally and globally, governments changing, and new paradigms emerging. Such times create roles beyond the creation and implementation of programs, services, and institutions. But roles that will decide how we move into the future. For communities to change, they need a catalyst; are libraries ready? In order for change to be realized, we need vision for working toward shared, real goals; can libraries do it? To shape our future, communities need support to build and distribute power; can libraries support that?

Community-Driven Technologies

What are the technologies that support community-driven engagement and models of working? Well, they can be anything, really. Internally, take inventory of all the various assets you have, from servers to websites to software. Also think about access – access to resources and information, as well as access to partners and other organizations.

Externally, map all the various technologies in play already and that could be put to use. Whether it’s social media platforms or content that has captured the interest of the community – from citizen journalism to video storytelling.

Barriers

When put into straightforward terms like this, community-driven methodologies sound pretty simple. But at least for the libraries I have talked to, there are some major barriers standing in the way of operating in a model like this.

First, the fear of succeeding, of actually being the heart of the community. I often hear things like: If we promote our space, everyone will try to come here; if we promote our services, everyone will try to use them. Maybe it’s just a matter of changing our perspective, or maybe it requires an actual paradigm shift. There’s a communication breakdown at play – not about promoting events or programs but about promoting possibilities, proving the library is open for what people want it to be.

Another barrier is the idea that we are all so different. I have heard before: I’m a university library, so I can’t learn from or build on the work from the community library because it is just so different here. I agree that every organization, city, region, and culture have differences that make us unique. And I’m glad we do. But when it comes to creating libraries of the future, we can’t limit the places where we take inspiration or we limit the options for collaborators and innovation.

Lastly, I have encountered a damaging dedication to a form of the membership model that’s outmoded. Libraries that say: we serve our members in the given community (whether that’s a city or a campus or anything else). Libraries that survive and thrive are ones who let go of the mindset that our members all have library cards.

Examples

Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had about the future of libraries doesn’t start with a discussion of how we use the library now, or what the library means to us today. Instead, the conversations start with “I wish that I could” or “I’d love to use my library for” and then exploring the way libraries support our lives and work regardless of how we may perceive them today. So, I want to share a few ways that I personally want to use my library.

Libraries + Work

I work from home. I occasionally head to a nearby coffee shop to work for a change of atmosphere. But what I really love to do is hot desk, or work for the day from a friend’s office that has an extra desk space. I only have my laptop and my notebook with me, so all I need is an outlet and the wifi password to get to work. I do it because the ability to work near others working, helps me focus and keep at it, but it also means that when I need a short break, the people around me are working on very different projects or work in different fields. The organic conversation often highlights new ideas or examples that I otherwise would never know about, and can even generate new collaborations and projects by finding ways to team up. I’d love my library to be my coworking space.

Libraries + Learning

I have a few topics that I am passionate and knowledgeable about and happy to teach or help others interested in learning more. With platforms like School of Everything and the Free School, I’m willing to sign up and put on small classes or provide training for free. But it happens in a vacuum. I might have someone contact me, ask for help with their project, and we meet at the café for an hour or so. And then the following week, I get the same request from someone else. I’ve love for my library to be both a physical and an online learning community. A place where I can post topics and hold classes to share my knowledge with the community.

Libraries + Networking

For libraries to truly be the heart of a community, they need people coming in, all the time. But work hours aren’t necessarily the times that generate the most interesting networking opportunities for the community. I spoken with various libraries who, when they learned about the NetSquared Local program asked why they couldn’t participate – and I told them that of course they could! The NetSquared Local program is a network of groups around the world, currently 80 cities in 26 countries, that hold monthly events focused on technology and social impact, and the topics vary from group to group depending on what’s most interesting to the local community. I think there are also some great examples to be used from the way museums have used social media to boost attendance via the power of social networking – whether it’s through special offers for the mayor on foursquare, late night events for networking and exploring the space, or community-generated content about the services and programs and even physical space. I’d love to be able to use my library as the network hub.

Libraries + Media

As someone that works with community groups on citizen journalism and other content or media creation projects, I know there’s a surplus of content available that’s created by the community and often valuable to the community, but often not known about, not accessible, or otherwise lost. Libraries have a great opportunity to collaborate with the community media organizations whether it’s a department within the school or it’s a nonprofit or public media organization, to integrate community-generated content into the archives and catalogues of the library, ensuring that more knowledge and content can be accessed and circulated.

Innovation Today

Built on top of Library Cloud, ShelfLife visualizes library stacks. Users can search, browse and otherwise navigate the library with this interactive system. Most importantly about this project is the fact that Library Cloud and ShelfLife open up the possibilities of what can be done through APIs and innovative uses of data.

The University of Amsterdam converted an existing 27,000-square-foot library into a public space that had no visible books to accommodate the 1,500 to 2,000 students who come to the library every day. Books are stored in other repositories or depots and the space is instead focused on work and collaboration.

The Making a small world smaller forum builds on a proposal jointly developed by the State Library and RMIT University, which explored how a new center at the State Library could use elements of social enterprise, community development and social media to increase Victoria’s intellectual and social capital. The proposal would bring together RMIT students, industry partners and staff from the Library to develop programs that focus on the socialization of international students, facilitate entrepreneurship among young leaders in regional Victoria and engage local secondary students in innovative activities.

Getting Started

I know that much of this was abstract and theoretical, but you will be talking about engaging your communities, co-designing the libraries of the future for the next three days. Before I close, I want to share a few principles you can start using today as you go to sessions, and right away when you get back to your work.

Let the community drive: As the organization/institution, you can provide the map, the gas, and even the car, but the community needs to be the driver. That will ensure passion and impact can go into steering, knowledge can help guide the way, and if no one wants to drive you have a pretty clear answer to adoption!

Stay in the sweet spot: There’s an area that I like to call the “sweet spot” that is where the institution’s goals and the community’s goals overlap. That’s where you can collaborate, harness the most passion and energy from each group and operate flexibly knowing you care about the same things.

Share the spotlight: Remember, you’re not driving. Your staff shouldn’t be in all the leadership positions nor should all the responsibility for moving a project (or program or service or tool) forward with development fall only on your shoulders. This is an opportunity, again, to gain adoption, harness passion, and ensure longevity.

Operate in loops: With community-driven design, there’s no linear path, instead the cycle is really that: a loop! Once you come up with a plan, and you test it, you then evaluate it and rethink it, and then iterate on the plan, test it, and come back around to evaluating it. Anytime in there you can make changes in direction or function and it’s okay, because you will get to plan, try and evaluate as you go.

Think big: Not just big, but bigger than you. Think of plans and services that are larger than your organization or your reach. The community is, inevitably, larger than your staff, your target audience, etc. So, if you want to be community-driven and operate nimbly, keep your goals big enough to guide you there!

Libraries & Community

This might sound silly, but I want to show you something. In order for this to work, you all need to close your eyes. If you really don’t want to, that’s okay – but trust me, it’ll be just for a second. Go ahead, close them.

When I talk with folks at libraries, regardless of the size or the affiliation, about the opportunities for integrating and working with the community, I always hear push back or complaints that they don’t have anyone in their community that’s interested in getting involved, or that they haven’t seen a single person try to engage or heard from anyone that wants to do that. When I ask how they know that their community isn’t interested, they say that they just haven’t seen any proof. But, right now, you have your eyes closed, and you can hear me. You don’t need more proof than that to trust that I am really still here, standing at the podium, talking to you. It doesn’t matter what I look like, or if you can see me from where you’re sitting or not. You can still hear me. And we can still work together.

You can open your eyes.

Thanks

Thank you for having me here and inviting me to be part of this conversation with you. I hope that you’ll share examples from your library, ask questions that others can weigh in on, and continue discussing the way we build libraries that carry us into the future.

Slides

Resources

• http://techsoup.org
• http://www.techsoupforlibraries.org/
• http://librarylab.law.harvard.edu/shelflife/index.php
• http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662561/what-happens-to-libraries-in-the-post-print-era
• http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/about-us/media-centre/leading-minds-gather-discuss-state-library-social-enterprise-centre
• https://amysampleward.org/2011/02/10/new-on-ssir-innovating-at-the-speed-of-communities/
• https://amysampleward.org/2010/06/29/community-driven-social-impact-presentation-game/
• http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/11/09/kim-dulin-and-david-weinberger-hacking-the-library/

Thanks again to Stephanie, Shannon and Paul for inviting me to be part of the conference and putting on such a valuable opportunity for the community!

The Evolution of NPTech: Where we came from, and [maybe] where we’re going

To talk about the evolution of nonprofit technology we really need to pick a place to start, because the beginning could be anywhere. For this conversation, we are going to start with the frame of the analog paradigm and move forward from there. For perspective, I imagine you immediately ask where are we on this roadmap right now: We are in the social space. And in each of these we will talk a bit about tools, tactics and strategies. And we will also get to start talking about the options for what’s next, or as I refer to it, a more holistic paradigm. So let’s dive in!

Analog Paradigm

In the analog way of working, we have some really beautiful pieces. We also have a lot of moving parts, a lot of maintenance, and a lot of (or perhaps, too many) options. We don’t, though, have a lot of efficiency or shared information. In our analog world we are too focused on processes that aren’t scaleable or shareable – meaning we have a lot of meetings, we write things down on paper, and when someone that wasn’t in our meeting or isn’t in our town needs to collaborate with us, we have to invest in catching them up and recreating the work we have already done.

Analog Tools

What this means for tools, specifically, is that we don’t actually like technology. The tools in an analog world fulfilled a specific function but did not influence our planning or programs. We thought about technology as something that took time, required a lot of maintenance and work, and was usually best kept confined to as few staff members as possible.  Technology in the analog period was usually defined only as hardware or software, it looked like desktop computers and a server room, and it got as much attention from the organization as a whole as the employee handbook.

Analog Tactics

As for tactics, well, we mostly relied on “proven” or “successful” efforts; lessons learned from other organizations working in an analog paradigm like government, unions, and churches. We sought out case studies or examples that reinforced much of how we already operated. We also approached best practices from a blind perspective that if it worked for someone else, it would work for us. Part of what defined our work in the analog period was the lack of nuance or specificity that will come into play later. For example, knowing that a certain message or call to action, or even type of service, worked for one organization in one community translated to other organizations as a packaged up and ready to repeat solution.

Analog Strategies

In the analog paradigm, our strategies did not include technology. We had simple goals, and defined our metrics only as they related to grant deliverables or obvious data, like: we will launch programs in 3 schools, or we will feed 500 families. Technology was not something we considered as a strategic option or as something that could support our programmatic strategies; technology meant simply “IT” and was left to those with IT in their title.

Digital Paradigm

Obviously, when characterized in such simple terms like these, it’s obvious where the analog approach limits us and our work. But, lest we repeat history if we think the digital paradigm will solve things!

After the Internet became more than an online super highway crowded with signposts, we moved into a much more fast-paced and interesting period: the digital paradigm. In many ways, we just reversed the analog approach, holding too tightly to digital technologies, applications, and online communication options. Instead of leaving technology out of our strategies, it became the strategy.

Digital Tools

In the digital period, the changing landscape of “tools,” meant that many of us were diagnosed with shiny object syndrome. There were so many new platforms and applications that provided tools for everything from communications to fundraising, outreach to development, and much more. But, the tools were emerging so quickly that many didn’t know how to approach them, there weren’t any policies in place; so, the Internet, except for the long-standing signposts, were viewed as toys or distractions and often banned from the workplace. Our focus on new media in the digital period also meant that we started to forget about the technology tools we already had in our organization: the hardware, software, databases, servers. We even forgot about our own website at times. The realization that another organization was using a tool, seeing another group’s profile on any given platform, or hearing a colleague at another organization mention something we hadn’t heard before were all causes enough to compel us to register, download, or log in.

Digital Tactics

With an over inflated focus on technology tools in the digital period, tactics and strategies lost much of their distinctions. A tactic is using a tool for a specific purpose. Well, during the digital period we viewed the use of a tool for a given or sometimes un-defined purpose as a self-contained strategy. All we needed to say was I heard they were using facebook; or my son has a YouTube account so I’ll have him set up ours. Much of our use of various platforms and specific applications was exploratory, understandably. But, it was without much of the real documentation needed to help others – whether in our organization or not – navigate similar areas. We didn’t even really have the language to use to create documentation, or, at least we didn’t think we did. We assumed the digital space was all new. We thought that there would need to be new tactics for making impact and new calls to action. And, most detrimentally, we thought those tactics would be defined by the technology itself.

Digital Strategies

One strategy that emerged as a popular trend during the digital period was the “ask for forgiveness, not permission” approach. Staff felt that often the only way to try new tools, engage with the public who were already adopting and investing in online platforms, and stay on top of the fast-moving digital space was to go around rules or organizational policies. If facebook was blocked, then start working on facebook at home. If you could provide enough evidence that it was worthwhile, then organizations would relax policies to allow for just those adventurous enough to circumvent the rules to now be allowed to use the tools. We went from technology belonging to the IT staff, to new media belonging to the young intern, web savvy communications officer, and so on.

And when our attempts at engaging communities online or creating profiles on various new media platforms didn’t work the way we wanted, we excused that failure with newness. The digital period converted many whole hearted believers, but it also made many others even more worried about our programs, services and grant deliverables. And after a while, the polarized views of whether our digital focus was working or not meant something had to give.

Social Paradigm

And something did give. We realized that as much as our analog view held us back from integrating technology into our strategies, so did we also limit our impact by putting technology first. We had experienced a digital land-grab; putting up profiles and setting up accounts in the “if you build it, they will come” spirit. But, it wasn’t long before our profiles and accounts seemed eerily similar to the online signposts of before. We had run at the digital space in a panic and forgot a major component: the community.

Thus, we entered the social period. The magical kingdom in which offline and online worked together, where strategies that were proven in one place were re-imagined in new ones. The focus now, instead of on the work we did, or on the tools we had, was on the people we could work with and serve. And most importantly, this is when we start to see the way our work is not only accomplished by us, but in tandem with the community.

Social Tools

The social period saw a more balanced weight across various kinds of media. This was when, as organizations and not just select staff, we recognized the value in collaboration across organizational departments as well as with our community. We also recognized that there were analog tools and technology tools, and that they may just go hand in hand. We continued to use the tools that emerged in the digital period, and continued adopting new tools; the difference was that we left the land-grabbing to early adopters. Now, we evaluated tools based on who was using them, and how. We looked at case studies that showed which tools were used and how, and especially to what end. We were also honest about how we used tools and organizations began making it public who was behind that wall – For example, a bio on Twitter might say “responding to your questions here are Amy and Claire” or a blog may include short bios or links to the staffers contributing.

Not only were we open to trying and learning, the social paradigm also included the emergence of toolkits – resources organizations created either to support community members taking on our mission and our work, or in the form of documentation for other organizations looking to replicate our efforts. At TechSoup, we’ve worked on a number of toolkits, including the Community Organizers Handbook where NetSquared Local organizers from around the world share their experiences and recommendations in the same place as organizational information and templates all to support knowledge sharing across the network, help new organizers get their groups established, and provide examples and resources to anyone else looking to build community whether they are connected with our program or not.

This is also the period when honest case studies take the forefront. Previously, we had examples to refer to during both the analog and digital periods, but the examples that were promoted were always the successful anomalies. The fundraising campaign that will probably never be replicated, the citizen engagement effort that relied on a whirlwind of perfect timing and serendipity. In the social period, we see case studies emerge about programs or campaigns that aren’t successful because we start to treat our use of technology as a shared success. For example, a recent website called AdmittingFailure.com highlights the examples of those opportunities where we can learn from what didn’t work.

Social Tactics

In the social period, we realized that not only do our tools focus on conversations and human connection, but our tactics should also be people-powered. Regardless of our cause, we can have activist-oriented calls to action, resources for individuals looking to support our work in their own way, and metrics for engagement not just hard numbers. The social period is a time when we start to relearn the separation between tactic and strategy. We put facebook back in it’s place as a tool, explain to our teams that we have a community engagement strategy that includes various kinds of community groups, various types of content, and will use multiple tools. The tactics are created based on those limited moving parts – overall strategy and goal, the audience and the content. We can stop saying that facebook is our strategy and start saying that facebook is one part of our engagement strategy. What are we doing there? Oh, we have a few key tactics: daily content, conversation starters, and highlighting community members.

Social Strategies

And what are those strategies? In the social paradigm, we recognize the need for both online and offline to be part of our work. Our strategies are focused on clear goals and metrics. We use all of our technology – from the website, to the database, to facebook – to evaluate our efforts, monitor the community, and create data-driven strategies. With metrics that cover both traditional measurement to real engagement – from the number of people that receive our emails, to the number of people that take action in emails related to congress, from the number of events we hosted in a year, to the number of events about our cause that were hosted by anyone in a year – being data-driven means we ensure our strategies are successful because we can make decisions based on what the community tells us.

In the social space, we operate with the understanding that, just like the community, a strategy can also change. We build in evaluation and communication check-points to the way we engage with our community, in the same way we do to our overall strategy. For example, we may ask our enewsletter list or our Twitter followers what we don’t talk about that they wish we would, or what’s really interesting to them lately. In the same way, we create flexible strategies so that if we launch a program and no one responds, we can iterate and change it, and continue to move forward.

The social paradigm period is the one we are in now. We have a lot that we can still improve and we aren’t yet ready to emerge into the next period, though, we can see it around the corner. Today, the sessions will focus on using tools, identifying tactics, and creating strategies for engaging with your community and successfully operating in the social paradigm – that includes creating integration between on and offline, that means operating in a networked way. But, I want to talk a bit about where we can go from here. And I hope that some of these principles and ideas, though maybe just beyond where your organization is now, will help you navigate the distance between now and what’s ahead.

Holistic Paradigm

Next up: the holistic paradigm. For those that can’t tell, this is a picture of a clock on the face of a coffee maker. The holistic period represents not just a balance, but an integration of technology with the way we work. This means that the data-driven approach emerging in the social period is strengthened – we don’t just monitor and measure data, but now we let our community do so, too. For example, why track how many events are taking place for our own reporting only? We can keep the numbers public both for how many events, but also for how many attendees; is it a fundraising event? Show how much money is being raised! Is it an event to get out the vote? Show how many people are pledging to participate!

From another perspective, there’s the side of our data that translates into APIs, maps, and info graphics. In the holistic paradigm, we recognize the value we create for ourselves by putting our data into an API so that we can use and reuse it all we want, and recognize that doing it in an open way like this means we create value for the rest of the network by giving them access to our hard work. For example, the Social Actions API pulls together volunteer opportunities and social actions from over 60 different sources – that way we can all re-purpose calls to action from across the web. We will have maps telling the stories of our impact for us (for examples of this already in use, check out google earth’s nonprofit stories). We will leverage the real time Web so that we know what’s going on, and our community can take action with us.

Holistic Tools

In the holistic paradigm, we have an opportunity as organizations to both create and support the creation of the tools we need. Remember the digital period, way back in time, when any tool that someone launched – be it for profit, for a lot of profit, or for compromise – was a tool we felt obligated to register for, create a profile on, and otherwise try to adopt? That was a silly time. If, as organizations using tools and often investing a whole lot of time, money, and energy (not to mention social clout) into, we should be collaborating to call for the tools we want, and then use them. I’ve talked before about a time when we are open about the actions, transactions, and functionality we want and outline it clearly for vendors or technologists to build, operating with the agreement that if we call for it, and it is built, that we will use it, and going forward we will continue to have influence in the direction it evolves. There is no reason we should, as an entire sector, have to change the way we operate in order to use a database. In a holistic paradigm, organizations and end users will work together with technologists and vendors to create and maintain tools that help us all meet our mission.

Holistic Tactics

In the holistic paradigm our tactics also evolve to be framed in terms larger than they were before and open for use by more than just our own staff. In a holistic paradigm, our programs and services and even our fundraising are community driven. This means not only do we monitor and measure data as we started doing in the social period, but we also listen to our community, and listen for action. We ask what we can do, we ask about what is already being done, and we ask how we can work together. Being community-driven, like data-driven, relies on the permission and support to take action based on what we learn. If we take the time to be an active part of our community and hear about the issues and opportunities our organization’s programs or services could address, yet aren’t given the authority to start working on addressing those issues or options, then we lose our ground and our momentum.

In a holistic paradigm, we also recognize the tactical differences between working with our community and working beyond that. In the social period, we began exploring the network – mapping it, evaluating it, testing it. We ask for our supporters to spread our message to their communities, tapping into the network for help. Our communications changed, the words we used changed, the calls to action changed all to try to engage the network. The difference between a community and a network is that you can know your community and be part of your community in a much more real, tangible, and even permanent way. The network is all those that are connected to you through the community. Many of the nodes and groups you don’t know and maybe not even share similar goals. The network is great for responding in crisis or times of needs, the network is also great for distributing opportunities to support a large movement or cause. But with day to day communications, with strategic planning, with programs and services that improve our city and our state and eventually our world, we focus on our community. We know they are invested, we know what they care about, and we know we can work together.

There’s a similar difference between another tact that emerged in the social paradigm period: crowd-sourcing. How many people here have heard of crowdsourcing? How many have tried it? Okay, how many here have tried community sourcing? The difference, like with communications, is that when you launch a crowd-sourcing contest or campaign, you are trying to get ideas or submissions from the network, the crowd – from people or organizations you don’t know. Community-sourcing is when you launch a contest or campaign to your community. You can assume more about shared context, you can also expect a higher investment in the outcome. Lastly, you can also expect higher collaboration over competition. For example, the NetSquared Challenges have tapped into the global NetSquared and TechSoup global community, created opportunities for Project teams to not just get visibility for their work and possibly win cash to fund development, but find others working on similar technologies or on similar goals and join together to code faster, grow wider, or otherwise collaborate instead of compete.

Holistic Strategies

In the holistic period, we will definitely see strategies evolve. If the changing environment of our tools and tactics are any indication, then our strategies are in for a major shift. Not only can we move from openly sharing what works and what doesn’t, something that we saw in the social period, but can build on that sharing to ensure our goals create frameworks for collaboration and significant impact.  For example, this means strategies that are focused not on feeding the homeless in our city, but on ending homelessness in our city. By evolving our goals in this way, we create opportunities for other organizations, other service providers, as well as community members to collaborate with us toward actual change.

The Sweet Spot

Yesterday, I had the chance to run a workshop with the leadership institute graduates. We played a round of the Social by Social game and it relies on this notion of the sweet spot. Regardless of what our organization does, we have a certain set of goals. Our community, similarly, has goals. But they aren’t the same. They probably shouldn’t be the same! There are aspects of our work that the community doesn’t really care about or at least doesn’t care to be involved with. And the same is true for all that the community wants – some parts of it we just don’t want to get involved in. For example, maybe our community is rallying behind a specific politician, and we are working towards a piece of legislation. We aren’t going to join with each other on these specific goals – but bettering our state, well that’s the sweet spot. The sweet spot is where our goals overlap. And it’s the place where we can invest our time and our energy knowing that we are all rooting for the same end. Identifying the sweet spot is an integral part of community mapping and engagement planning. Knowing the areas that you and your community both care about can turn your campaigns, your communication and your engagement efforts into successful community-driven work.

Roles

When working with community groups and organizations on operating in a more holistic way, I often get asked about the changing roles or skills that they need to think about. Many of these things may already be part of your organization and it’s just a matter of identifying the skills and assets already in your staff but maybe just not tapped into yet. Some roles and skills will be identified as the sector as a whole starts moving in this direction and we can more clearly see what’s needed. At this stage at least, to help get us into the transition, we need translators. That means translating or liaising between the organization and the community, as well as between technologists and end users, and even between community segments. We need leaders that are not our executive staff (sorry directors!) and leaders who are not within the organization; the more people who step up into leadership roles and take responsibility for real impact then the more legitimacy we have as an entire community towards building a movement and creating the change we want. We also need catalysts. Whether they are vendors like CauseVox, openly asking for what the community needs in a fundraising tool and building towards the response, or they are individuals that take a photo or shoot a short video that they share with the world changing the conversation about an issue or an event.

Resources

But we need new resources, too. Shared, collective resources. How many people here can imagine sharing your database, even just to one person not in your organization? Well, what about a database that you could share just the names and emails and selected actions with the other organizations in your field who have pledged to work at the movement level along side you? That’s what groups like 1Sky, 350, and others fighting for change on the issues related to our climate did. That’s not to say that the world has your email address if you joined one of those organizations; but instead it let’s each organization know you’re already in the network and which organization you joined with so the rest don’t bother you with more emails and they can all work together to share petitions (and get much larger responses) and to share calls to action. We will need our technology resources and our knowledge resources to evolve in a holistic way as our tools, tactics and strategies do.

Paradigm Shift

Elevating our work from a single program in a single geographic area into a movement is going to require a lot of hard work and will definitely not be easy, especially for institutions that have existed since the analog period. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as clear cut as finish one and start the next.

If we’ve learned anything in this social period from looking at back at how we got here it’s that we need to remember that as strategies change, missions evolve, issues emerge, the role of technology remains as a tool. Technology is not what we build the strategy around, but what allows us to implement the strategy.

In a holistic approach, we are going to see a shift in even the way we operate, what an organization means, what a campaign looks like. Global campaigns may be ignited by an individual. Organizations can emerge from a successful campaign. Movements will be created by organizations putting goals ahead of branding. 350 is an excellent example: people around the world used a tag “350ppm” to start uniting their content whether it was blog posts or analysis or videos. That tag then became a rally point that brought people together and supported a community to emerge. As actions and energy built, an organization was formed. The community still led the way, though, from the local to the global level. And it wasn’t until this autumn that a fundraising appeal took place – the first time the movement had asked for money in the years it had been coordinating efforts around the world. 350 is a great example not just because of the organic and purpose-driven way in which it grew and eventually an organization was formed, but also for the idea that together, as a movement, we really are better, stronger, faster, louder. But, even a group like 350 will see change ahead as we move as a sector towards a holistic paradigm.

Starting the Shift

I know that was a weighty talk – with a lot of lofty forecasting. But, everything I said, I believe is at least an option for what is ahead. I also believe that if we do move to the holistic paradigm we will make much more lasting impact. So, before I close, I just want to share some of the things we can all do today to start moving the sector off the cliff, I mean, um, forward J

We learn much more and much faster when we openly ask questions. If you’re asking questions now, ask more of them. How can you help, what are others doing, what does your community need and want, where is there opportunity for collaboration?

In the social paradigm now, as I said earlier, we are creating toolkits and sharing resources. But, to move towards a holistic approach, you will need to share your whole toolbox with your community. If you have resources or access that you keep locked up, then there’s no way your community will be able to help you or carry that work for you.

You share stories of your impact so people can be inspired, they will give, and they will join you. You can share your data in the same way – data, especially when shared in full and put together can tell many stories.

It might sound silly, but striving to be replaced is a core element to working with your community and operating holistically. Sharing your toolbox and asking for opportunities to collaborate are precursors to handing over parts of the work to the community (whether it’s your organizations work or collectively held responsibility for change).

Focusing on shared goals means concentrating on the sweet spot – there’s a lot that can be achieved in that space.

I included the idea of letting others lead not as a reinforcement of the striving to be replaced idea as much as an opportunity to make the invitation explicit that you are invited to let go of the shiny object syndrome you came down with back in the digital period and feel confident following your community to the appropriate tools and supporting community members in asking questions and sharing ideas.

One more time, before I go, I’m going to say that we should focus on the community. I know, I’ve probably said it enough.

And lastly, seriously, ask for help. There is no better feeling than being the one that could help and you can extend that offer to your community, to colleagues, to other organizations.

I hope that by sharing these thoughts I can extend the invitation to all of you to join me in thinking about and starting to move us all closer to a paradigm and a way of working that matches our goals for creating a better world. If you have questions, ideas, additional examples or resources, please add them to the comments here for the benefit of others! Thank you.

Slides

Resources & Links

Organizations

• http://techsoup.org
• http://netsquared.org
• http://www.mncn.org/
• http://nten.org

Community Mapping and Planning

• http://amysampleward.org/2011/01/20/diy-community-engagement-metrics/
• https://amysampleward.org/2010/06/29/community-driven-social-impact-presentation-game/
• https://amysampleward.org/2010/03/14/crowdsourcing-community-vs-crowd/
• https://amysampleward.org/2010/07/21/designing-programs-to-build-community-case-study-with-charity-technology-trust/
• https://amysampleward.org/2009/08/06/online-community-building-gardening-vs-landscaping/
• https://amysampleward.org/2010/04/16/from-ning-to-causes-to-ideablob-why-we-need-a-new-way-of-building/

Primers and Publications

• http://socialbysocial.com
• http://thrivable.wagn.org/wagn/Book+listening