TheIncubator: musings on the social sector

Blog Envy

I'm experiencing a little bit of blog envy.  Take a look, for example, at White Courtesy Telephone.  I think it looks pretty cool.  Or even Future Leaders in Philanthropy, which is less flashy, but still customized and slick.  And I begin to wonder, is my rather un-customized blog....boring?  Does it matter?

I'm also wondering about my wiki (which is in development, but soon to be released).  I was tweaking and tinkering with it the other day and realized that it's not even half as cool looking as the Davis Wiki, or even the Tax Almanac (which, by the way, did an excellent job at formatting a MediaWiki software driven wiki--doesn't happen often).  And now I am suddenly concerned that my humble wiki will suffer from its lack of pizazz.

Now, you may remember my musings on identity earlier.  I still wish that we could shed preconceived notions of one another that are based on appearance, but I am still grappling with the concept of the role that apperance-based identity plays in life.

The thing with appearance-based identity is that is part of branding, which in turn helps signify content.  By understanding what content is being offered, people are able to make the decision as to whether or not to interact with it.  And quite frankly, if you are interested in social issues, then you definitely want people to interact with you.

Plus, when you are able to customize your wiki or blog, it offers a unique-ness to your product.  Since we are all unique people, shouldn't our communication vehicles reflect that? 

So, if my wiki looks cool, looks slick, looks professional, is it automatically upgraded in the eyes of potential users/readers?  Is it important to maintain a unique brand to differentiate your conversation from the rest?  Will my blog or wiki be overlooked because does it not look the part of the cool-kid crowd?   

The General Public Hearing about Innovative Philanthropy--Does It Happen?

Several days ago The Happy Tutor blogged about President Jackson's State of the Union address.  It got me thinking.  In some ways, it does not surprise me that people outside the world of philanthropy or the nonprofit sector do not fully understand what charity is doing, and has the possibility of doing, in the world.  There's not much media coverage about the initiatives that are truly making great impact.  There is, of course (as there well should be) more coverage about oversight and abuses.  I know that I'm not alone in wondering if there could be more press coverage about the positive and innovative ways that philanthropy is engaging with the world.  Could there be more press coverage about how philanthropy is attempting to move beyond the old, stodgy bureaucracy of prior days?

Anyway, I was thinking about compiling some sort of annual report that chronicles that year's round of innovative philanthropic efforts.  Does something like this exist?  Could it be circulated beyond the boundaries of philanthropy and nonprofits?  Would someone, like The New York Times use it?  (The NYT, by the way, does have a philanthropy section that does have a section on philanthropy)

Blogs, Discussion, and Charity

In the December 7th issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, there is an article by Peter Panepento titled Blogs on the Rise: Online forums about charity offer advice and discuss controversies.

The article explores some bloggers in the social sector who are currently using the vehicle of the blog to create discussion about philanthropy and non-profits.  The use of these blogs range from one person's opinions about the sector (independent from his/her employer), to blogs that articulate a voice of the company, to advice-giving.  All have a purpose that's important to contributing to the social sector by initiating various forms of discussion and idea-sharing.

Independent Opinion Blogs
One such blog, which was coverd in the article, is Albert Ruesga's White Courtesy Telephone.  White Courtesy Telephone is independent of Ruesga's employing office, the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, and as such is investigative and probing.  Interested in challenging field assumptions and digging for (perhaps) better ways to do things, Ruesga wonders if such blogging efforts would "be able to decentralize and democratize intellectual and moral authority in philanthropy and thereby enrich the conversation of the field?"  I would like to chime into his musings.  Every field, every business, in fact, needs to take time to objectively look at how things are done, what needs to be done, and challenge themselves to take one more step forward.  The field of philanthropy is particularly interesting in its need to do this considering the driving force behind the field is helping others.  By not striving to push the field to new heights and possibilities, who is  really feeling the negative effects?  The poor, the needy, the disease-inflicted--those who REALLY need such innovations and compassion.

Voice of the Organization Blogs
Blogs don't have to be envelope-pushers to have an impact, though.  They can also serve a very practical purpose in serving the members of the organization, as well as its clients.  James Fruchterman's blog, Beneblog, gives another voice to the company that he leads, Benetech.  It started out as a way to talk to employees about what was going on within the company's walls and has since evolved to include a grander scale of scope.  Fruchterman now includes his ideas, advice, and opinions on business practices and issues within society.  I think what's interesting about such blogs is that they are about engagement--engaging with those who work with you, engaging with your clients.  It can be very easy to wrap yourself up in the world of your private office and assume you know what your employees and clients think, need, and want.  Even if you conduct surveys and read research articles about all of that, what is actually better than engaging in dialogue with those that actually matter?  And that can happen with a blog--you can elicit closer-to-home responses through such engagement.

Advice-Giving Blogs
Other blogs, that are very worthwhile looking at, are those that offer advice.  Some authors are in the field and describe their best and worst practices, others are consultant or financial gurus who are sharing their expertise through their blogs.  The Agitator, authored by Roger Craver and Tom Belford, offers insight on direct marketing for non-profits. 

The point is that any of these blogs create the kind of engagement that is possible and should be taken advantage of.  The way that technology and culture is moving necessitates that those interested in not being left behind contribute and interact with the world beyond their singular perspective.  The great thing about blogs is that they have a more informal, accessible tone, which stimulates conversation and connection to others.  The great thing about blogs is that they encourage active participation with readers.  This opens the dialogue up, allows you to gain other perspectives than your own, and breaks down some of the hierarchy of "professionalism" that can interfere with innovative thinking and reaching your clients.  Sartre talks about amateurs vs. professionals, favoring amateurs who have the ability to remain outside the bureaucracy that can poison thought.  Including "amateurs" in your discussion can yield incredibly fruitful discussions with surprising results. 

One of the difficulties with blogs is that in order to be used to their full potential, users would ideally post comments in them.  The article mentions several of bloggers lamenting the fact that not as many readers actually post, which is a little disappointing.  In order for a blog to increase its reach and fulfill it possibilities, those types of interactions will be necessary.  Perhaps with time, as people grow more comfortable with blogs, this will happen

Listed in the article, which I too will post, are a bunch of blogs that may be interesting for you to peruse:
The Agitator
Beneblog
The Charity Governance Blog
Donor In Site
Donor Power Blog
Don't Tell the Donor
Gift Hub
Redeeming Hope
Trent Stamp's Take
White Courtesy Telephone

What's the Big Deal with Identity Anyway?

This is not really very related to the social sector, or maybe it is, but. Well, I have to say I'm fascinated with people's fascination with their own and others' identities--or the outward manifestations of it. We have the competing adages, "Don't judge a book by its cover" and "First impressions matter most" [or whatever it is, it is my less favored adage of the two ;)]. A lot of this comes down to outward adornment. And interestingly, as people study idenity and it's presence on-line, it is the outward adornment that is scrutinized (colors, pictures used, font style, music included). I guess for me, I just don't think of my outward adornment as shaping my identity. My face is an integral part of my identity, surely, and definitely. But my clothes? Not so much. Even my hair is not that integral to what I identfy myself as.

Truthfully, I'm not all together sure as to what shapes my presentation of myself to the public, but I find the obsession with the adornment as identity a little odd, for some reason. Perhaps it has some biological root--animals have outward adornment to identify and stay away from their enemies and to stick together for preservation purposes with their own kind. And in the identification of flora--how are we to know what is healthy or poisonous save the outward appearance?

But we're all humans, and no amount of changing the outward adornment of our species is going to change that. It seems that our clothes, and hair styles, and whatever else alienates us from fruitful relationships with those that we percieve to be so different from us. It's rather sad, really. And it's really interesting to notice how much of an obstacle outward adornment can be to a simple conversation.

Could an online community be a place to shed some of these obstacles since we cannot see each other and pass judgement on what the other is wearing? I'm not sure, because, as mentioned, the online communities push their own signifiers of identity. I've even started doing it with my color choice, the (all of two) music preferences that I've listed. I guess I am hoping that it can be a place, nonetheless, where a little of that may be shed, and we can start having conversations with one another and seeing where that could possibly lead us....

Cross-Sector Dialogue: Where's It Happening? #1

This list is not (I hope) complete, but I thought I'd start compiling a list of places, nooks, and crannies where there are conversations brewing that cross-over the lines of feverishly-held identity. I know that it is human nature to develop an identity and associate with a group of people who have like-minded objectives; and that people are very defensive about those identities. But I want to search out those places where people can leave a little bit of their prejudices, self-preservation, and utter devotion to only their own thoughts behind, and entertain a conversation with an "other". So, I'm on the search.

My first thought was of wikis. The collaborative authoring efforts are extremely interesting for information sharing. Now, I did just realize that there is still a difference between information sharing and dialogue. The two are not inherently the same, so something like Wikipedia is not what I'm after. I'm looking for something that encourages a bit more interactive dialogue.

Ok, here's one, it may be a bit of a stretch, but it's a start: FluWiki According to FluWiki, the purpose is "to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health agencies....But no one, in any health department or government agency, knows all the things needed to cope with an influenza pandemic. The world is filled with competent others who are likely to have credible and useful information about some aspect of each of these tasks." So here, there is a cross-sector dialogue between the public, the government, and health agencies about the topic of flu pandemics--with the idea that such dialogue can increase a knowledge base as well as knowledge flow. There also seems to be a discussion forum (I'm a little confused as to the navigation and it took a round-about way of getting there, but it does seem to exist) where users can maintain discussions with each other.

Why Flu Wiki is worth mentioning: I'm not sure how much actual cross-sector dialogue actually happens, but the point here is that there is a place where it is encouraged. With a defined subject matter, but an undefined user-base, people of all opinions and theories are able to exchange their views.

Now, for a side note. In the middle of my writing this post, I came across a blog titled, eastwikkers: a group blog on technology, communications, and the place where they meet , who launched a project titled, "33 Wikis". "33 Wikis" is a compilation of "best-practices in wiki-based collaboration". This is, in fact, where I discovered FluWiki. And their process of compiling and posting on these wikis spurred me to do it in a similar style--instead of searching for all the wikis I kind find and including them in one post, I will continue the search and post them, with different numbers in the title. (whew, that was a long sentence, was it hard to follow? I can do that sometimes). So I'd like to steal their methodology, if I may, and use it to list my places of cross-sector dialogue.

"The Strength of Weak Ties"

I wanted to go into a bit of history about this concept--"The Strength of Weak Ties" (this is actually a formal theory that was well articulated back in 1973 by  American sociologist, Mark Granovetter).  This concept has to do with how information spreads within a community.  In the 1973 piece, Granovetter asserts that each individual's social community consists of close friends (strong ties) and acquaintances (weak ties).  An individual's set of close friends, most of whom probably know each other and have many possible lines of communication and relationships, creates a densely knit network.  The set of acquaintances is a low-density network, and the relationships between an individual's various acquaintances may be low or (for the moment) non-existent.

As each individual's set of "ties" is comprised of other individuals with their own set of "ties" and networks, the acquaintance (the weak tie) of Individual A is not merely a random friend, but rather a bridge between two networks of densely knit social networks.  And, in fact, these two sets of closely knit friends may not be connected to each other, save that weak tie between Individual A and his/her rando friend, Individual B.  I may not know John, but I am close friends with Sally and Sally is close friends with John, and Sally may set me up with John at some point.  I may have never met John, if it had not been for Sally.

Things get interesting as you start to examine the way that information flows between these densely knit groups of close friends and low-density networks of weak ties.  As Granovetter suggests the "individuals with few weak ties will be deprived of information from distant parts of the social system and will be confined to the provincial news and views of their close friends.  This deprivation will not only insulate them from the latest ideas and fashions but may put them in a disadvantaged position in the labor market, where advancement can depend...on knowing about appropriate job openings at just the right time."  What's really sticking out at me is the word deprived.  Before jumping into this issue of depravity, I want to share what Granovetter goes on to say--"The macroscopic side of this communications argument is that social systems lacking in weak ties will be fragmented and incoherent.  New ideas will spread slowly, scientific endeavors will be handicapped, and subgroups separated by race, ethnicity, geography, or other characteristics will have difficulty reaching a modus vivendi."

I find this issue of depravity to be really fascinating.  And I'm sensing that it is hitting a nerve in the state of the nonprofit world.   So, to re-articulate in terms of the nonprofit word, what Granovetter is saying: nonprofits either tend to talk either only within their own organization (this seems to be fairly true with my current organization) and/or only with other nonprofits.  Maybe there's a little "outsider" voice that's represented through a board member.  Within these insular worlds, some really good discussion is being had, I'm sure.  And there are some interesting possibilities for partnerships, ideas, and approaches to dealing with the problems that nonprofits address.   But, there is little discussion with those outside the immediate, densely-knit community of nonprofits--even with the not-so-distant relationship of the philanthropist.  Rarely with a for-profit business.  But to not talk with for-profits, with philanthropists, with the government, the media, or the community at large, nonprofits are starving themselves of very relevant information and opportunities.  And with the internet, it really couldn't be easier--in theory. 

For your reference, here's a little diagram illustrating weak and strong ties in a social network:

Understanding the Dynamics of Social Network Sites and Nonprofits

in reading some writings about social networks, the importance of "weak ties" is often cited.  having a larger, looser network--one that has more weak ties outside of the core network--results in a space in which new ideas, innovations, and discussion occur.  new ideas, innovations, challenges, different approaches all help to make up that fertile ground where change may occur.  but it seems rather lacking in these communities who actually do wish to be agents of change.  rather, the nonprofits seem to love to only run with themselves.  i guess it's safer, and easier to trust and open up.  the artist circles seem to do that, too.  last week i went to a Bad at Sports round table discussion at ThreeWalls,called "Where in the Art World is Chicago." (i'm looking for the link and will post it once i find it).  There seemed to be a lot of limiting definitions thrown around and the fact that the whole room was filled with like-minded folk kept the discussion also limited--in the fashion of remaining in the comfort zone of like-minded notions of what is and what should be.  some people did bring up the fact that there wasn't a diverse cross-section of others involved in the discussion--others that would be relevant:  the uber-commercial gallery on Michigan Ave, the respected gallerist who does not show Chicago artists, the rich philanthropist....while participants still engaged each other and challenged each other, it's hard to question all the facets of the Chicago art world when not all are represented.

that prompted me to wonder about definitions.  they are central to our world, to our identity, to our progress, but are they, in fact, limiting--at least in terms of trying to activate social change?  or at least the way we define our audience and thus the "other", are those interested in social change preventing it from happening on a larger scale partly because of those definitions?

and that leads me to my other thought about  audience.  it's easy to surround yourself with like-minded folk.  and obviously people want to associate with those that think like them, hold the same beliefs and values, but in the interest of social change, is this healthy?