07:24, 27 December 2008
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The December 19 broadcast of
This American Life, called "Ruining It for the Rest of Us" (episode 370) featured an interview with
Will Felps, a professor at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands. Felps designed an experiment to see what happens to a group or organization when a bad worker joins a team. Felps had volunteers working in small groups on a task. One member of some of the groups was an actor, unknown to the rest of the group. He acted like a jerk ("This is never going to work. This approach is wrong."), a slacker ("I don't feel like doing this. Let's just wrap it up and go.") or a depressive ("This is too hard. I just don't feel motivated at all to do this"). Within 45 minutes of the actor in his role, most or all of the rest of the group started behaving like him, and the group either didn't finish the task or didn't performed it as well as the groups without the actor.
I was hugely interested in this study because of
my own experience in working with groups, face-to-face and online, either as part of a project team or in making a presentation to a group. I have often referred to what I call the
saboteurs who sometimes show up in such groups, bent on derailing the effort or, at least, asserting some point of view that establishes them as a force to be reckoned with. These aren't people who just dissent or disagree (I'm one of those!) -- saboteurs enjoy bringing proceedings to a halt, particularly if the group has been working without them for some time, and often have a hidden agenda (for an unstated reason, they want the project or presentation to fail). In my experience, saboteurs often reveal themselves with this opening line, "Before we go on, I'd like to take a step back for a moment..." They then comment about how the project or activity or approach is unworkable or not appropriate, but with no real specifics about what is wrong. My favorite saboteur line: "This approach is too Western" -- without any specifics to back up the assertion, nor any specifics for what could make the approach more "Eastern" or whatever direction it is they prefer.
There are all sorts of business gurus touting
the benefits of group work -- and people like
myself touting
online group work. There is also lots of information on how to deal with conflict in groups when that conflict is based on misunderstandings, cultural differences, lack of information, etc. Unfortunately, no one is talking about how to deal with saboteurs in group work, on or offline, except, apparently,
Will Felps. I look forward to reading more of his research!
Jayne Cravens
07:38, 22 December 2008
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I would love to replace my
Tech4Impact email newsletter entirely with this blog. But I can't. When I tried to switch over to the blog entirely, the subscriber outcry was immediate and unanimous -- DON'T. Turns out all the blogs and media stories that no one uses email anymore are highly exaggerated.
I started migrating from email to the web to read
online discussion groups several years ago, such as those via
YahooGroups and
GoogleGroups. In the last year, I've started signing up for updates and blogs from various organizations via
RSS rather than email, and have noticed a significant reduction of email clutter. Email, for me, is becoming the way to communicate one-on-one with people, rather than a way of reading newsletters or discussion groups. Based on my own experience, and listening to all the blogs and stories about Web 2.0, I thought it might be that way for others as well. I was *wrong*. Good thing I asked first!
So, my advice to nonprofit organizations:
don't abandon email entirely. For instance, if at all possible, give your newsletter subscribers the option of receiving your updates via email *or*
RSS. There are still many millions of people in love with email. I still love email.
Don't base everyone's Internet preferences on your own!
Jayne Cravens
07:36, 19 December 2008
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Recently, I was an online audience member for a live presentation by
Mobility International USA (MIUSA) regarding
Volunteers with Disabilities Serving Internationally (special thanks to the
National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange for allowing me to participate in this normally
AmeriCorps-only event).
Creating an environment where all staff, volunteers and paid staff alike, people with and without disabilities, will feel welcomed and fully-supported to contribute is something I'm dedicated to in any place that I work. But that dedication often meets with a lot of resistance in aid, relief and development work. I have been quite disturbed at how reluctant so many that work in aid, relief and development and that place people in developing countries are to hire people with disabilities. These agencies aren't bound by the laws of the USA, where such discrimination is against the law. It doesn't matter to the staff at such agencies if the best person for a role happens to be a person with a disability; such candidates are often automatically discarded. They also seem to tune out any information about the
advantages of involving people with disabilities
specifically in development work. But I keep plugging along...
MIUSA offers a free booklet to view online, "
Moving Towards Inclusion: Stories of People with Disabilities in International Development," that documents success stories of inclusion of people with disabilities in various development activities, not just as recipients of service, but also as volunteers and paid staff. It includes a former Peace Corps volunteer giving
a step-by-step account of how Peace Corps Bangladesh made its program more inclusive, and how
The Trickle Up Program, which implements microenterprise programs world wide, became more inclusive of people with disabilities.
Jayne Cravens
05:23, 18 December 2008
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When you announce something online, be prepared for a reaction -- perhaps not exactly the one you want.
The Salvation Army in Chicago is promoting volunteering and donating for its organization by using
a video on YouTube that features Chicago landmarks and local news anchors. One of the places the agency announced this was on a group on
LinkedIn, saying, "instead of going to a bell ringer in front of your favorite department or grocery store, donations can be taken online in the comfort of your home or office."
Katherine Watier was not impressed. In both a response on the LinkedIn group as well as via
her own blog, she criticizes the Chicago Salvation Army’s effort, saying there’s a good chance that no one will see such. She notes that the organization forgot a lot of basics, like including the keywords "Salvation Army Chicago" in the title of their video or the description. She details many simple things that would make this a much more effective campaign reaching many, many more online Chicagoans.
This brings to mind two things: that your organization needs to be ready for
online criticism. And that your organization needs to learn from that criticism -- Watier criticized, but she also offered details on how to quickly, realistically make the campaign much more effective. Has the Salvation Army implemented these changes? Not that I can tell...
07:26, 14 December 2008
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The fabulous
Beth Kanter is much more of a cheerleader for online social networking (OSN) platforms and
so-called "Web 2.0" technologies than I am. While
I believe very much in their potential, I also believe that most nonprofits are NOT getting the promised returns for the time and investment that participation in such takes. I read Beth's blog faithfully, as she keeps up-to-date on what organizations are using online social networking (OSN) successfully, as well as research regarding such -- there's no better resource for knowing what's working for nonprofits regarding Web 2.0 -- but it's also worth keeping in mind that no one is profiling the organizations who haven't had much return on their investment with such tools, and nonprofits that haven't had much success aren't exactly lining up to tout failures.
In one of her
recent blog entries, Beth references
HP Labs: Twitter Under the Microscope, a research report that, as Beth notes, points out that "while social networks like
Twitter can connect us to lots of people, we can only really develop deeper relationships with a small subset." She notes that this concept is known as the
Dunbar number or 150 to be exact. In other words, despite someone having a large number of links in their "network" via an OSN platform, users actually only communicate regularly -- or have
real interactions -- with their own smaller subset of real "friends" or close associates.
So glad she helped bring this report to the world's attention! The
HP Labs report's findings should come as no surprise to anyone. Remember when the Web first started being embraced by nonprofits, many of whom thought a large number of web visitors would instantly translate into large numbers of donors? The reality proved MUCH different, and it's why I don't take large numbers of "friends" listed on anyone's online profile too seriously. To me, this report confirms everything I say on my web page about the value of social networking to nonprofits and
how to evaluate the success of such activities. In other words, use the tools, but don't lose your perspective on what participation and interaction really looks like.
Jayne Cravens
07:25, 9 December 2008
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Marketing and public relations is never just one person's responsibility at an organization, regardless of everyone's job titles; everyone at an organization will interact with other staff, partner organizations, potential supporters and the general public at some point. Therefore, everyone needs to be able to talk or to write clearly about his or her own work and that of the organization overall.
Building Staff Capacities to Communicate and to Present is a new resource on
my web site that describes various activities I undertook to improve the communication capacities of Afghan government staff while living Kabul in 2007. This resource links to various slide presentations and materials used for this endeavor in Afghanistan that can be adapted by others in different countries and situations. Included is a workshop on helping women in strict relgious cultures to cultivate their presentation and public speaking skills, a workshop and tip sheet to help staff write better reports, and a slide presentation to help staff take photos in the field that will serve a variety of communications and reporting purposes.
Jayne Cravens
07:16, 8 December 2008
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Per some exchanges we had via email regarding my web page
Evaluating Online Activities and my belief that online action should create & support offline action for it to be something of
real benefit to nonprofit organizations, Andy Fryer's December Hot Topic is
Exploring Online Social Networking. Together, at the end of his blog, we asked nonprofits to answer several questions:
- Is your organisation using OSN sites to promote itself? Which ones and how?
- If you have a profile on an OSN platform like FaceBook, is it your personal profile, or are you speaking as a representative of your organisation?
- What benefits have you seen from your organisation's use of OSN, or your use of it as a representative of your organisation? What benefits are you hoping for?
- Have you seen an increase in volunteers as a result of your activities? in donors? in clients? in event attendees?
- Have you met with others at your organisation to strategise about your organisation's OSN activities, so that these activities are a part of regular marketing activities, volunteer recruitment and support, client support and funding drives?
- Do you look at the OSN profiles of volunteers, clients, donors and others? Do you use OSN for screening purposes of new volunteers? Have you seen anything on a supporter's profile that's made you uncomfortable?
- Does OSN create any problems for you in keeping your personal online activities and your professional activities separate?
- Any ideas where OSN may head in the future?
- Any other thoughts you would like to share?
To respond, visit the
OzVPM December Hot Topic.
Jayne Cravens
07:37, 6 December 2008
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I have no interest in college football. American football bores me. I grew up watching sports: American football, basketball, baseball, and the Olympics. But American football always left me cold.
Michael Hurd, a very dear friend, published a book last year,
"Collie J" Grambling's Man with the Golden Pen
, about the former sports information director at college football powerhouse
Grambling State University. I only recently read it.
I had never heard of Collie J. Nicholson, who was considered a legend in his time by every sports figure who knew him, black or white, and whose name inspires awe among those know about black college football. And while I had heard of Grambling, I cared about it about as much as I cared about American football.
I loved this book. Anyone who works in public relations or marketing, or wants to, needs to read this book, particularly people who feel that their communications efforts are woefully under-funded. What Collie J. did with no Internet, no fax machines and barely a budget is a lesson for anyone
now who wants to know how to sell a program or build a brand, particularly nationally or internationally. This was a man who didn't spend his time whining and complaining about what he didn't have or how many challenges he faced; he was undaunted in his task to sell Grambling to the USA and, indeed, the world. He was relentless in his efforts. He was an opportunist, in the best sense of the word, and he made things happen through persistence, vigilance, a huge amount of hard work, and constant networking in-person and on the phone and via whatever tools were available to him back in the day. He was an utterly dependable, honest person that everyone knew they could trust to do the best job possible. Collie J. worked in an environment at Grambling that encouraged him to be innovative and to take risks -- he was allowed to experiment and dream big -- VERY big. And because of his abilities and the support he received, his achievements as sports information director are nothing short of stunning. Jaw-dropping. As a professional in communications myself, I found myself jealous of the support Nicholson got from Grambling to do his job, and the environment in which he worked, where ideas were thrown out no matter how big, no matter how fantastic, and were sincerely considered and, more often than not, supported.
If you have a marketing, public relations, communications, advertising or journalism major in your life, or someone working in any of those fields, buy them this book. If they aren't an American football fan, they can skip the game accounts and scores -- I did. But Collie J.'s strategies, planning, press releases, dreams -- don't miss those, because in terms of advice, they are golden.
Jayne Cravens
07:57, 5 December 2008
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Those Aussies love getting me up early in the mornings.
Today, I again
presented live, online for a group of volunteer managers in Adelaide, South Australia, this time for the Annual Congress for The Office for Volunteers. I presented via
iVisit, a free online video tool, from here in my home in Germany.
Presenting online to a remote group is relatively easy. The group needs:
- a computer with fast Internet access, hooked up to speakers that can be turned up loudly and be heard clearly by everyone in attendance (the audio clarity is as important, if not more, than the video)
- an iVisit account, which is free (or great familiarity with another free package that I can easily download). I prefer iVisit, because it's always performed better than Skype, and is much smaller (takes up less room on your computer)
- for video: a projecter/beamer, to display me as I appear on the desktop of the group's computer so that the whole group can see me (but, again, audio clarity is as important, if not more, than video clarity)
- a microphone that is either hooked up to the group's computer, so that each attendee can come to the mike with questions, or, a microphone hooked up to the room's PA system, so that I can hear questions
- to rehearse with me at least one week in advance, to ensure your computer and connection is working, to ensure the audio quality on your end is very clear for the entire room
- to set up several minutes before the presentation is to start, to ensure we start on-time and there are no tech or audio issues
I may only see the person who asks a question, or I may see the entire group, depending on how you set up your webcam.
I also ask that,
before my presentation, the meeting's facilitator provide the group with:
- information about me (brief biography) and my web address
- a brief review about what the presentation would be about
- details on how questions will be asked (for instance, in the first presentation, people took turns sitting in the "hot seat" at the front of the room,, and the facilitator either pushed the talk button for them on the computer, or showed them how to do it)
If you would like to arrange for me to
present to your group from here in the comfort of my own home in Germany,
contact me. But please don't make me get up at 6 in the morning...
Jayne Cravens
07:21, 4 December 2008
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Building community among volunteers has been on my mind for a while now, especially of late. I've never understood why so many organizations think of volunteers only as resources to get work done, instead of as investors and as part of a real, sustainable community of supporters that will contribute well beyond expectations, if cultivated and supported to do so. It doesn't mean more work for a volunteer manager; it means a different way of working.
It's been on my mind in particular regarding
online social networking sites -- too many organizations are focused on getting large numbers of "friends" rather than working to build a
real community of supporters among these "virtual" links, people who become volunteers, activists, donors, event attendees, even clients.
Susan Ellis uses
her December "Hot Topic" to say that, during the holiday season, "the challenge for volunteer resource managers is how to redirect the traditional one-way giving model into
community building – moving from concentrated holiday events to year-round support and looking
inside a neighborhood or organization before looking outside for volunteers." If you work with volunteers,
you need to read Susan's thoughts for December!
07:20, 3 December 2008
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In addition to researching and compiling
information about online mentoring for many years, and helping to create online mentor programs, I have also had the pleasure of serving as an online volunteer mentor on several occasions, including:
Mentoring someone online takes
real time and commitment. The work required for online mentoring doesn't happen only at the most convenient time for the volunteer.
I have learned a lot by being a part of these online mentoring programs and
share my experiences and advice for online mentoring here. The page includes a more complete list of my online mentoring experience, as well as how to find such experiences yourself.
For more information on setting up an online mentoring project, see the
Virtual Volunteering Project's online mentoring resources, still the most comprehensive available.
Jayne Cravens
07:53, 28 November 2008
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I'm intensely interested in
how rumors and myth derail humanitarian efforts -- or affect our understanding of various events, both current and historical. So yesterday, as I watched CNN reporters trumpet again and again how easy it was for "ordinary people" to find and disseminate information regarding the Mumbai attacks via various Internet tools such as blogs and
Twitter, as well as cell phone text messaging, I wondered how long it would be before CNN started reporting unverified items from these Internet sources and ended up repeating things that would turn out not at all to be true.
I think it took approximately 15 minutes after that thought before a reporter started retracting some of the things being reported online that CNN had repeated. Suddenly, cyberspace wasn't such a great example of "citizen journalism" after all.
In
CNN's own story about this online phenomenon today, they admit that a vast number of the posts on Twitter amounted to unsubstantiated rumors and wild inaccuracies. As blogger
Tim Mallon put it, "far from being a crowd-sourced version of the news it (Twitter) was actually an incoherent, rumour-fueled mob operating in a mad echo chamber of tweets, re-tweets and re-re-tweets... During the hour or so I followed on Twitter there were wildly differing estimates of the numbers killed and injured - ranging up to 1,000."
Sometimes misinformation is bad, or even worse, than no information at all. As with any communications tool, when it comes to instant networking tools like blogs,
Twitter, and cell phones,
use with caution. And TV journalists -- please re-read your journalism 101 text books.
UPDATE: Amy Gahran has posted
Responsible Tweeting: Mumbai Provides Teachable Moment that includes four excellent tips for people who want to micro-blog the news as it happens. It emphasizes checking sources and correcting information that you have found out is incorrect, and cautions journalists to remember that everything you read on the Internet or your cell phone isn't necessarily true (how sad that they even have to be reminded...)
03:46, 28 November 2008
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The
XO Laptop is a very special kind of laptop, the result of many years of work by the
One Laptop per Child Foundation and its various supporters for children in the developing world. It's about the size of a small textbook and made with a rugged plastic exterior. It has built-in wireless and a unique screen that works in full color or black and white to make it readable under direct sunlight for children who go to school outdoors. Its power consumption is very low--the XO uses only about 4 watts of power, while most laptops use about 40 watts. This means that when there's no electricity, it can be recharged with alternate power sources like solar power. This laptop is not expensive, big, heavy, fragile, power-hungry or dangerous -- it can't be any of those things to be of service in the developing world.
XO comes pre-loaded with free and open-source software that allows children to write, draw, surf the web, record audio, images and video, edit music, undertake basic computer programming, and undertake distance and sound-wave measurement . Currently, there are XO laptops in over 30 countries. When the laptops arrive, school attendance goes up, teachers download lesson plans from the Web, kids teach each other how to use the machine and everyone has greater access to knowledge.
Why give a laptop to a child who has no running water? People asked the same question about education once upon a time. Yet, what has been found over many years of providing aid and development activities is that teaching children to read means that they won't be hungry in the future. Raise the knowledge of a community and you raise everyone's living standards. To deny even the poorest of children knowledge is to hold them back for life.
You can give a laptop -- or even give one AND get one for yourself -- through
Amazon USA, or
Amazon UK.
07:45, 26 November 2008
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Back in July 2006, I started a thread on the
TechSoup Volunteers & Technology forum about
rejecting volunteers because of their online activities, per a story at the time that
Peace Corps had pulled an invitation for a candidate for a placement after officials read an article in which he stated an opinion regarding government policy that they felt could get him, and other volunteers he would serve with, into trouble while on assignment.
I revived the thread today per a
recent CareerBuilder.com survey that says employers are checking job applicants' online profiles on sites like Facebook, Brightfuse and LinkedIn. Twenty-two percent of employers say they use social networking sites when evaluating job candidates, and an additional 9 percent intend to do the same soon.
What about nonprofits, NGOs, charities, etc. regarding volunteers -- do any of you type a new volunteer applicant's name into Google.com and see what comes up? Have any of you decided *not* to accept an applicant as an a volunteer because of his or her online activities via an online social networking site such as MySpace or FaceBook, or things he or she has said on a blog or web site?
Answer by posting a comment below,
emailing me directly, answering on the
the TechSoup Volunteers & Technology thread, on
UKVPMs, or on
OZVPM.
Jayne Cravens
23:41, 25 November 2008
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Ethan Zuckerman has written a
terrific summary of a panel discussion held recently on
the role of the blogosphere in authoritarian/closed societies. This is a must-read if you work in the developing world trying to develop civil society or political involvement, or are working to promote human rights. Take 15 minutes and read this!
07:59, 25 November 2008
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Hundreds of "friends" on an online social networking site. Thousands of subscribers to an email newsletter. Dozens of attendees to a virtual event.
Those are impressive numbers on the surface, but,
so what?
If those numbers don't translate into more volunteers, repeat volunteers, new donors, repeat donors, more clients, repeat clients, legislation, or public pressure, they are just that: numbers. For online activities to translate into something tangible, online action must create and support
offline action.
Evaluating Online Activities: Online Action Should Create & Support Offline Action can help organizations plan strategically about online activities so that they lead to something tangible - not just numbers.
Jayne Cravens
08:13, 24 November 2008
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The
Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) compiled a quiz to measure American civics knowledge. US elected officials scored abysmally, with an average grade of just 44 percent. Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent. The average score online for this quiz during November: 77.9%. My score: 93.94 % -- I missed two (I'm a history and politics nerd)
Here's the quiz.
Do a search on
Yahoo News, and you will see that this quiz has generated a
lot of media buzz.
What about developing an online quiz regarding
your organization's focus -- women's health, local history, childhood immunization, environmental issues, etc. -- posting it to your web site, encouraging people to take the quiz, and then reporting how people did via a press release to your local media, or even the national or international media? You could use the results to show the need for your organization, or even the impact of your organization, depending on how you conduct the quiz.
10:15, 22 November 2008
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16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence - this international campaign originated from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for
Women's Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates, 25 November, International Day Against Violence Against Women, and 10 December, International Human Rights Day, in order to
symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including 29 November, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, 1 December, World AIDS Day, and 6 December, the anniversary of the
Montreal Massacre.
UNFPA is a part of the campaign, as is
UNIFEM,
WHO,
Amnesty International Canada,
Amnesty International USA,
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD),
As someone who has experienced domestic violence first hand, this is a very personally important issue to me. Please be a part of the campaign: add information about it to your blog, participate in local events, support your local domestic violence shelter, and read more from any of the aforementioned web sites to learn more about this important, under-reported issue.
07:14, 20 November 2008
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Laurie Moy, an esteemed colleague and good friend, and Alanna Wong, are Master’s students at
American University in Washington, DC. For their
final project presentation for their Children in International Development course in the
School of International Service, they did a web site, rather than a slide presentation. This means that their project, "
The Invisible Population: Refugees with Disabilities in Jordan," is shared with
everyone, not just classmates and the professor, and will live long after this class is over. It didn't create more work for Laurie and Alanna -- rather, it created a
different way of working.
Whether you are working on a school or university-based project or a work-based project, consider sharing your work or project development online. Unless there's a concrete confidentiality issue that requires the activity to be secret from the public, there is no reason not to. You can write about it in your
blog or an online social networking site, create a section of a web site to talk about the activity, or even create a web site or blog devoted solely to talking about the project.
Why share your work and project development online? You will network with other people working on similar projects, which can help you more quickly connect with helpful resources and can help your project be even more thorough. It also helps build awareness for and raises the profile of your organization and for YOU. You don't have to go entirely public if, for some reason, you feel that's inappropriate: you can keep the updates internal, available only via an Intranet (this can be as simple as a private
YahooGroup of your
volunteers). It's
marketing and reputation-building through sharing and openness with a larger community. It's not more work; it's a different way of working.
A few years ago, I shared my Master's Degree research and resources regarding
theater as a tool for development (specifically, the factors for success in such). No one told me to do it. But putting information about my project and my progress online brought me in contact with all sorts of people and resources that helped me with my project. It saved a huge amount of time for me, and helped further build a brand for myself regarding
my work in development. And for a while, it was the number one resource on
Google if you searched for:
Theater for Development (now it's third or fourth). I never tried to make it prominent resource, but by merely putting up a basic web site, I attracted a lot of excellent resources and contacts.
Jayne Cravens
07:18, 19 November 2008
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Is your organization committed to welcoming
everyone to its web site? Providing equal access to your web site is every bit as important as providing equal access to your nonprofits services, right?
Your organization's web site should follow the guidelines of the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for web accessibility. In addition,
U.S.A. Section 508, an amendment made to the Americans with Disabilities Act, requires that Federal agencies' electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. The U.S.A. Section 508 guidelines do not
currently require nonprofits, universities and other organizations to make their web sites accessible, but what kind of message are you sending to the public, your clients and your donors if your organization does not comply?
For tools to help you with web accessibility, go to Google and type in
Is my web site accessible
You will then retrieve a list of a variety of resources that can help you with accessibility issues. Also, ask your web site manager if he or she understands accessibility standards and how accessible your organization's web site is; request a report based on the
W3C and
Section 508.
Also see
Knowbility.org, a national nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas working to ensure barrier-free I.T.
Jayne Cravens
