Monthly Archives: July 2010

Taking the stairs

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The coffee is kicking in this a.m. and I was struck by the points-of-view represented in two links shared by people I follow on Twitter. I happened to open these links in succession.

The first (shared by KM blogger Jack Vinson) is a thoughtful piece from John Bordeaux of Bordeaux Associates: On Change, or Why They Hate You. The second is a video link shared by Michelle Frisque, who I know as a graduate student in the Master’s Program in Learning & Organizational Change at Northwestern University. It’s an example of using design (and fun) to change people’s behaviors – in this case, encouraging people to take the stairs rather than an escalator.

Take a look at both. Ok: Now discuss.

Greatness = working outside organizational boundaries + advocacy

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I’ve just started reading Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits (thank you, Leigha Kinnear) by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant. Among other things I am struck by the methodical approach the authors took to understanding what really makes a difference (impact-wise) in the nonprofit world. Anyone who writes as transparently as Crutchfield and McLeod Grant about methodology is ok by me.

Normally I just tune out of any book/article with “the # practices of high-impact [fill in the blank]” because it’s someone just spewing opinion. But in this case, the research approach appeals to my geeky side. There was some serious thought put behind how (and why) to look deeply at success cases.

What prompts me to write so early in my reading was this item:

Greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organizations than how they manage their own internal operations. - From Forces for Good, p. 19

First, this resonates with other themes that have struck me (see this post, for example). But it also strikes me because the authors clearly spell out in the warmup to their book that they were underwhelmed by the state of existing research on how social entrepreneurs and successful nonprofits really operate and deliver impact in our current environment (e.g., let’s exclude nonprofits that are working off the momentum initiated by some philanthropic visionary 80-100 years ago). The general approach to looking at nonprofit operations is via the lens of successful commercial enterprises — and really, how satisfying (or applicable) is that?

Basically, the authors say: Successful nonprofits are a different species. We need to look at how they survive within the environment with open eyes, and learn by observing. What I say is, yep. And how about we turn things around: Rather than try to see nonprofits through the lens of “best” commercial enterprise “practices,” how about we look at successful nonprofits and say — this is where all organizations should be headed?

And that brings me back to the “working outside their boundaries” as a focus vs. “internal operations.” Truthfully, there is a shift there that is worth contemplating for any type of  organization. I suspect that the organizational capability to truly collaborate broadly produces residual benefits related to effectively engaging stakeholders and society in general. Just a thought.

The second bit that inspired me to write this is the notion of advocacy. The authors write about successful nonprofits being able to both advocate and serve (in the sense of providing programs and services). What strikes me here is that the key point is about advocating with authenticity. If I am providing programs and services that truly help me understand issues at the ground (user, consumer) level, then who better to advocate for addressing the policy issues that stand in the way of progress?

It’s the difference between spewing opinion and having a thoughtful point of view. We need more of the latter.

From Digital Habitats: Communities and different orientations of learning

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I recently finished reading Digital Habitats: Stewarding technology for communities by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White and John D. Smith. It’s a gem of a book in large part because of the three authors’ deep expertise in communities-of-practice. But they are also models, in my mind, of what it means to be reflective practitioners. There is much how-to in this book, but the how-too is deeply rooted in why and context.

The book is largely designed to aid practitioners who are the technology stewards for the communities-of-practice they serve. It is filled with very practical tips for stewardship, from selecting or matching the right technologies for the community’s needs, to taking the pulse of the community’s readiness to adopt new technologies, and to managing the change process.

One of the highlights of the book for me is the discussion on the different orientations that communities tend to use for learning together.

Communities learn together in different ways: some meet regularly, some converse online, some work together, some share documents, some develop deep bonds and some are driven by the mission they serve. We say that these communities have different orientations toward the process of learning together. An orientation is a typical pattern of activities and connections through which members experience being a community. - From Digital Habits, p. 69

The authors then go on to define and describe nine different orientations (and these are not mutually exclusive): meetings; open-ended conversations; projects; content; access to expertise; relationships; individual participation; community cultivation; and serving a context (e.g., inside a single organization, cross-organization, public mission, etc.). For each orientation, the authors define community activities that are clues to the orientation; “signs of life” indicating the orientation is healthy; key success factors; questions to consider; and technology implications.

Outside of the attention to detail paid to unpacking these orientations, what I am struck by is how useful these orientations are in providing a language for “what we are seeing” — in the sense of ethnographic observation. One of the challenges that we all deal with in defining how work (or shared interest) activities really get done is in respecting the social, nonlinear, complex, situated nature of the actual practice of these activities. Through these nine orientations, the Digital Habitat authors provide a very workable language for helping to better understand communities-of-practice as the really are, and then to translate that understanding into solutions to ensure the “signs of life” within the community are strong.