Nonprofit blog exchange: King Jason

Posted on by

Sporadically, I take part in the Nonprofit Blog Exchange Virtual Event, which basically involves nonprofit / third sector blogs writing about each other to create networks and promote the movement more generally. This time I’ve been allocated King Jason’s blog. No, not a little-known monarch operating as a trustee, but a web designer and IT specialist working in the nonprofit sector over in Australia. Called Jason King.

It appears that Jason used to be in London, not unlike myself, and given that SSE is also looking Australia-wards currently, this seemed all too appropriate. Having overseen the redevelopment of SSE’s website last year, these types of resources can be invaluable…particularly when there is little resource / capacity / knowledge within a (relatively) small organisation. It’s amazing how important IT is to an organisation these days and yet, how often little attention (and money) is given to it. Jason has a good example on his blog of an organisation whose website went down overnight: Quick decisions when a charity’s website went walkabout. I’ve seen even large organisations in our sector be undone by things as simple as domain name renewal, never mind the complications of DNS, MX records and the rest (which I seem to spend half my time sorting out).

But there are some great resources out there, if people get to know about them. Primarily, I’d mention the ICT Knowledgebase in the UK, and Idealware and TechSoup in the US. But it’s useful to get a more grassroots-y, personal view of things, which is where blogs like Jason’s can come in. Particularly as the format lends itself more to interaction and asking questions. If you’re working on a third sector website, or on a redesign, then checking out Jason’s post on Give your website a health check is a good start to ensuring accessibility and its status for search engines, for example. And commenters have left some extra tips as well.

Certainly I’d recommend it to anyone with responsibility for their charity or social enterprise’s website, especially if they are in Australia, as he’ll inevitably be more connected to events and resources in that location. Keeping informed and keeping connected are what it’s all about in this sphere, and anything that helps you do that has got to be valuable.

Friday round-up: Newman, NCVO, NVQs and Neuroscience

Posted on by

Swift Friday round-up of all things socially entrepreneurial and enteprising:

– Hot on the heels of Liam Black leaving Fifteen (see previous post / here), another leading CEO of the sector, Penny Newman, has announced she is leaving CafeDirect and is, ‘open to offers’. Form an orderly queue. We’re yet to hear whether her leaving do will feature as many Brazilian dancers as Mr Black’s….

– OTS launches its Grassroots Grants programme, being administered by the Community Development Foundation, who are now seeking local partners. It’s an interesting scheme (matching philanthropist money to create endowments etc) and badly needed given the dearth of early-stage, grassroots funding; read Phil Hope speaking about it here

– More on John Elkington and Pamel Hartigan’s book, The Power of Unreasonable People, on Social Edge

– The piece above talks a fair bit about failure in this context, and this is a good article in the New York Times about failure and its relationship to (successful) entrepreneurship of all types.  Why is failure not (always) a bad thing? "Failure underscores the need to take chances…Success can breed complacency…and Failure can force you to rethink every assumption".

– NCVO have launched a new third sector jobs site: NCVO JobShop 

– I love a bargain, and I love buy one get one free (the BOGOF staple), but I never thought it would apply to laptops. And now to houses. Is this some sort of embedded giving? CSR? Philanthropy? Something else entirely? Do we care as long as it works?

– Muhammad Yunus has a new book out, called "Creating A World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism", promoting his concept of social business, a kind of reasoned, philanthropic, patient investment model.

– 75 tips on becoming a better networker. Particularly enjoyed no. 12: "Walk like you know where you’re going". True in life as well as networking…

– Enjoyed this post by Mike Chitty about  learning / development. He quotes a manager he’s working with, who said "All of our managers have been through the NVQ level 3 in Management –
but they are still unable or unwilling to recognise and manage
under-performers" Mike goes on to add comment that seems spot-on to me:

"This shows the dangers of pursuing qualifications – rather than
pursuing performance. We seem to be trapped in a public policy for
vocational education and training that puts qualifications above
practice. We are getting a more qualified workforce – but not necessarily a more able one."

– A bit of light relief (ok, not) in the form of this article, the Neuroscience of Leadership, which is more interesting than it sounds: basically discussing how our growing understanding of the brain and cognitive functions can help us manage and lead organisations better.

– An international database of eco-labels to help the consumer navigate their way through the chaos…

– Harvard Business School on "Putting Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector" which is very good, methinks.

– For those in the health sector, Entreprenurses is likely to become a good and useful resource, if a terrible neologism. Dave Dawes speaks sense on this stuff.

– And finally, in honour of yesterday, a cartoon from Hugh at Gaping Void (click to open up):

Iloveyou

Eco-friendly office printing

Posted on by

Inspired by Greenpeace’s new EfficienCity, I have been trying to cut down on my printing in the office; although we do all the stuff you’d expect (double -sided, re-use of one-sided, recycling cartridges), my big problem was with widows and orphans…the unwanted few lines + images which cause you to print another page.

Delightfully, I can recommend GreenPrint World, a free bit of software (endorsed by a whole range of US eco non-profits) which you select as your default printer. It basically introduces on extra stage between pressing Print and the printer starting to whirr; at this stage it offers you the option of cutting off extraneous pages, removing images (great for website ads) and removing unnecessary text. Best of all, it keeps a running total of how many pages you’ve saved, and how much money this has saved you/your organisation. You can use it in your office if it’s not for ‘commercial’ purposes, and use it at home as well.

Takes a bit of getting used to, but very useable once you get going. Their special font, on the other hand, I’m not quite as sold on….but you can’t have everything.

(Un)reason and exuberance: social entrepreneurs

Posted on by

Heading down to Cornwall today, I was aware I had the chance to do a fair bit of reading and listening, so had stocked up on papers, research and podcasts. Flicking through Society Guardian, it was interesting to
read about how an area I was heading straight towards (Pool near Redruth) was facing a challenging dilemma about its regeneration. Flicking further on brought me to a piece by John Elkington on his (and Pamela Hartigan’s) new book, The Power of Unreasonable People, which I’d commend to you.
The title for the book comes from the George Bernard Shaw
observation that "The reasonable man adapts himself to the
world…[whereas]…the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world
to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man".
Elkington says that, by this definition, most social entrepreneurs are
unreasonable and, indeed, many have been dubbed ‘crazy’. Certainly, they tend
to challenge held norms and the status quo, be that on a local, regional, national
or international level, and can be viewed as mavericks.

But it rather depends on one’s view of being
unreasonable. The cartoon accompanying the article has a helmeted motorcyclist running over
a cat and sticking his fingers up at two passing (and suitably open-mouthed)
locals; he has "Hell’s Social Entrepreneurs" written on the back of
his jacket. Now, that made me chuckle, and is obviously an extreme take on the
article, to say the least, but it does demonstrate one side of being
‘unreasonable’. What’s interesting to me is that many of the successful social
entrepreneurs we work with and meet tend to be eminently reasonable: fair,
persuasive, equitable, just, sensible and wise. They are backed with evidence
of need, proof of impact and make the case for support / investment well.
Indeed, to achieve success, they have to bring the community with them and
build relationships: stroking the cat, rather than killing it.

I think what Elkington and Hartigan are getting at (I
know, I should read the book…and will) is the combination of persistence and
passion that makes these people do-ers. As he writes in the article, "A
can-do attitude is much more likely to succeed than "don’t do",
"won’t do" or "can’t do" mindsets". Whilst on one side
of the line, a combination of pragmatism and realism, or what might be called
over-reasoning, can lead to caution, status quo and a cynical "won’t
change" attitude, being the other side of the line, which combines strong
motivation, passion and belief with a persistent pragmatism, is what being a
social entrepreneur is all about.

As an aside, Rob Greenland has recently posted on his
blog about how social entrepreneurship seems to be getting more corporate,
blinged up and glam (particularly in London); what he calls
"irrational exuberance". I mention this, not only because it connects
to the debate on reason (note ‘irrational’) but also because Rob and several of
his commenters remind us how broad this movement is: whilst the Guardian
article talks of Davos, Clinton, Gordon Brown and multinationals’ interest, Rob
reminds us of the grassroots social entrepreneurs battling for social justice
and to change their (local) world. There are unreasonable reasonable people in
the long tail as well.

Why SMART goals are MT

Posted on by

No matter what type of organisation you work for or lead, the acronym SMART will most likely have crossed your path several times by now. For me, it’s popped up in government tenders (“demonstrate how your deliverables are SMART for your programme of work”), funding applications (“your project outcomes should be SMART”) and several times within SSE, be that operationally or strategically.

So what does it stand for? Well, this is where the problems start, as there are a few variations. The most widely accepted seems to be:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-based

But the A can also be for Attainable, the R can be Relevant or Results-oriented, and the T can also be Tangible, depending on which management bible or “how to act SMART” guide you read.

While investigating effective goal-setting in one-to-ones, I ran across the Manager Tools podcast, and these posts about goal-setting and why SMART is anything but. This made much sense to me, and chimed with some stuff I’d previously thought about this widely-used tool. Their objections include:

1)  You don’t need Specific, because if your goal/target is measurable, it must be specific (enough) anyway. Let’s get rid of the S.

2) Achievable and Realistic are virtually the same. If you make the R Results-oriented, that’s pretty much there in Measurable. And who’s going to set, or be allowed to set by their line manager/colleague, a goal that isn’t Relevant? That’s the R gone.

3) The same applies to Achievable / Attainable. If someone is setting a Measurable goal or objective, and they’re putting a deadline on it (Time-bound), then why would they make it unachievable? It’s in no-one’s interests to do so, either the person who has to achieve the goal, or the line manager who wants the organisation to achieve the goal. And so, A is gone.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us MT, people. And full of clarity and focus. As long as we use Time-based (or Time-bound, which I prefer). Tangible makes little sense to me: a) because how can you touch your goal / achievement and b) because how can you have a goal that isn’t Time-based (i.e. without a deadline)?

So it’s Measurable and Time-based. And if you select a Measurable and Time-based goal, you’ll find it is pretty SMART as well. That’s because MT is the heart of SMART.