Designing for Civil Society

Blog (and organisational) obituaries

 

Beth Kanter has a blog obituary post enhanced by this great image. Beth writes:

Did I scare you! No worries ... this is not a blog equivalent to a myspace suicide note. Just a pointer to an interesting post from Michael Gilbert on his authentic organization blog called Organizational Obituary -- that I have morphed into:
Write down your blog’s obituary. How would it read if your readers were to write it? How would it read if other blog's in your field were to write it? What would the world look like if your blog didn’t exist? If you were to stop tomorrow, who would miss your blog and why? Have you made any real difference for your readers?

I like Michael's original too:

Write down your company’s obituary. How would it read if your stakeholders were to write it? How would it read if other organization’s in your field were to write it? What would the world look like if your organization didn’t exist? If you were to close tomorrow, who would miss you and why? Have you made any real difference for your stakeholders?

Good question - but how often is it asked in the nonprofit and public sectors? Competition usually kills off weaker companies (for good or ill) but too often the nonprofit and public sector response to possible closure is just a fight for funding without sufficient thought about whether a changing environment is offering some important messages. A few too many blogs in the world isn't too much of a bother. Lots of redundant organisations fighting for territory (and public funds) is another matter. But then I'm just a freelance, and used to uncertainty. It must feel different inside.

Moving to a new site

In future I'll be posting at Partnerships Online, a brilliantly-conceived combination of blog and wiki developed by the team at Headshift. Lee has said some kind things about my content, and I'm delighted to return the compliment on the technical front. I've posted a welcome item that offers a tour of the site, and an explanation of how it works.
Thanks to anyone who has contributed comments or trackbacks to this site - or just dropped by. I hope to see you at Partnerships Online. I have reposted a lot of the content from this blog, categorised into topic pages.... so if you missed earlier posts you may find something of interest there.

Before I move on - what's been useful here?

I've rather stalled on blogging over the past few weeks because I'm developing a new site, about which more shortly. I'm moving a lot of the items from here across, and planning more of the same.... uhhh, but pause a moment. Isn't this a good time to get (with slight trepidation) some feedback?
If you can offer comments below, or email me directly david@partnerships.org.uk, it would help give some direction, and hopefully a further burst of energy. Thanks to those who have already provided comments and trackbacks... it makes it all worthwhile. As someone said, bloggers need an audience.

Beyond blogs, and wikis, and other hot stuff

Lee Bryant of Headshift has provided a terrific review of developments in social software over the past year or so in his piece Blogs are not the only fruit. Too much good stuff to try and summarise... it is a must-read. I confess to a little bias because I'm working on a new combined blog and wiki for my site, developed by Lee and colleagues - so I know they deliver as well as philosophise. More on that shortly. Lee's review also generously cites many of the key people in the field, which further enhances the network effect.
Over on the excellent Digital Divide site there are 10 reasons why nonprofits should use RSS by Marnie Webb.

Window wiki - the new low-tech discussion tool

Last week's Blogwalk 4 yielded a new tool (for me anyway) of the Wiki Window. I was a bit late arriving, and bloggers had been discussing issues that can arise in getting blogs and wiki introduced in companies. The upper room of the Old Crown pub in London's New Oxford Street didn't offer easy wall space for the Post-it notes, so reasonably enough they were posted on the window, topped with the title Window Wiki. It was a bit more, well, transparent than a flip chart.
Some of the items were about blogging as such (every bloggers need an audience), but many others were more general... improved networking...risk...vulnerability...need for commitment to share...culture change. It struck me that blog and wiki discussion had indeed provided a window into a set of issues around change - something I also picked up in discussion about the technology trap.
The whole day was a wonderful opportunity to explore these issues with people from different backgrounds and jobs. A bit of tech crept in - and very useful it was - but my sense was that the value of blogging (and bloggers) lay in the way it enabled individuals to make more of a difference than might be expected in large organisations, and small, and explore in the process all the issues that change and innovation brings. We walked as well, of course, and there are a few more pictures here of our more physical exploration of Bloomsbury. There's another metaphor in there somewhere, too.
More on blogwalk from those who were there
Update: Suw has now transcribed the window wiki

Technology traps corporates and nonprofits alike

It seems that the technology trap - believing new stuff can fix old problems - afflicts corporate, nonprofits and individuals alike. Last week's Blogwalk 4 discussed introducing blogs and similar collaborative tools to companies, and an old diagram I showed seemed to resonate, and I said I would put it online for those interested. The point of it is that you need to deal with cultural change as well as technology change at the same time. If you try and bring technology in without commitment from the top, regard to working practices and so on, you'll get resistance... or lots of systems that don't work. And if you try and innovate without using appropriate tools you could be frustrated in your purpose.
The diagram was originally developed with colleagues to help contain the enthusiasms a few years ago of nonprofits for the latest technologies, or (more often) to suggest they did have some value. You can find the full explanation here.

Questing for a combined blog and wiki

Despite the summer inertia I have managed to do some thinking about development of this blog and other older sites, and I've come to the conclusion I really need a combination of blog and wiki. I'll use the blog to do short newsy pieces, and the wiki for longer articles with decent menus. The flexibility of this arrangement, and its simplicity of use, will of course then allow me to pull in the best of material from the Partnerships Online and Making the Net Work sites, and easily add to the heap in ways that are creative, productive and navigable. It's really so obvious someone will have done it already, and there'll be plenty of guides or even hosted packages. So I thought.

Sorry about the break, just Getting Organised.

One excuse for a five-week gap in blogging (to myself anyway...does anyone else notice?) is that I need to Get Organised about blogging. Slim down the categories, update the blog roll, investigate how technorati works and so on. Also set up better ways of finding and linking stuff among the growing heap of items, and providing better navigation to the longer pieces. Then there's what to do about two earlier sites on partnerships and community technolology that I have neglected for ages. Do I really need a separate blog on games? Organising all that should hold things up for another few weeks, because there's no point adding to the muddle is there?
I suspect this inertia is really a case of the August blight I face most years. August is a silly month to go on holiday, isn't it, because everyone else does so it is crowded and expensive. Since Ann and I are both freelances, we are theoretically free to arrange our lives as we like (subject to clients). So why not take breaks other times, and use August to catch up on all the Organising when the demands of projects fall off. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. I end up worrying that I haven't got enough work lined up for the autumn, and fretting that I ought to be meeting people who are, of course, doing the sensible thing and taking a holiday. My to-do list clogs up with Organising activities that I can't tackle because I haven't enough of the more interesting things to do to to get my energy levels up.
It wasn't so bad this year, because we did take a couple of weeks off in Northumberland and Derbyshire. But then if you go away there's all the stuff to clear up when you get back, which makes it difficult to Get Anything Done... and who wants to read blog items about holidays anyway? Thank goodness September is here, and a sniff of autumn (the serious time of year) can't be far away.

Ranting and reporting from WSIS

Andy Carvin, who heads up the Digital Divide Network, is currently making good use of personal media in reporting preparations for the next round of the World Summit on the Information Society. He writes "Just in case my blog entry didn't capture the chaos from earlier today, here are some videos of the civil society plenary in which Tunisian human rights activists fought with other Tunisian representatives over the human rights caucus document that was supposed to be delivered to the WSIS prepcom plenary." Fortunately later sessions were more orderly. The videos are avi format so look as if they are straight from a stills camera, showing you don't need to carry a lot of kit. Elsewhere on his blog Andy offers a clickable map of his travels, audio, and a feed from a Yahoo discussion group.
There's always plenty of rhetoric at these events about the personally empowering potential of technology, but fewer participants practising what they preach.
Earlier item on WSIS

Where best to meet online facilitators: in the cafe

I spent a great couple of hours yesterday with online community-builder Nancy White and friends, as she paused on her way from work in Armenia to home in Seattle. I don't know if community-builder quite covers Nancy's many skills, but that was at the core of our conversations.
It was one of those occasions where the surroundings were fairly mundane - noisy cafe in London's Festival Hall - but the result for me was old ideas clarified or dumped, and new ones generated. Here's a few - not to be attributed to Nancy, who may or may not agree. As the excellent facilitator she is, she encouraged us to bat things around, rather than holding forth herself. In the midst of it we did pick up that Armenia is big on barbecue, and that despite limited connectivity many people are really keen to use the Net for social benefit. I suspect part of that may be the Nancy effect, however.