David Wilcox has an interesting post on the aftermath of an "unconference" he attended. He notes: But ... after all the buzz, what happens next? And does that matter? The question pops back into my mind after writing again about one of Policy Unplugged's buzzy events, this time at NESTA and focussed on innovation and collaboration. It was a terrific mix of people ... and I think for those involved... Read more →

The conversation about technology stewardship in the nonprofit sector has been swirling around for awhile now, led by Nancy White and others far more knowledgeable than I and it's one that continues to fascinate me. Last week, Emily Turner of World Grows Wide wrote an excellent post that I think shows exactly what technology stewardship looks like in action: An ironically perfect example, I think, was when I had a... Read more →

So by now you know that David Wilcox and I are sponsoring a Social Media Wiki Carnival this week to add to the knowledge and tools we're trying to develop for nonprofits in our two wikis. We offered a number of ways to contribute your expertise, but here's another one that I thought of. Pick a page or two (or 10) in each of our wikis and take a look... Read more →

Beth Kanter wrote yesterday about the recent growth in blogs maintained by nonprofit techies, linking it to my earlier posts on creating a climate of learning. She points out that: What's great about this type of blogging is that a) encourages self-reflection and personal learning that contributes to organizational learning b) encourages a sort of peer dialogue. It got me thinking about how to make this kind of blogging for... Read more →

Well gang, as promised, the Social Media Wiki Carnival has opened for business. We can't promise cotton candy or a ride on the ferris wheel, but we can promise some good information! So what is the Social Media Wiki Carnival? Well, it's something that David Wilcox and I hatched at Beth Kanter's suggestion. From now through Sunday, David and I are asking for your help in building our wikis--SocialMedia A-Z... Read more →

Last month I mentioned that Rallyfan of Random Thoughts on Life and Work is mapping work processes at his nonprofit. First they conducted surveys and now he's at the interview stage. He reports: Here is what I have discovered so far: One of our processes is tallied three different times. Many of the “exceptions” that we handle could have been dealt with before reaching us if technology was implemented differently.... Read more →

The other day I was musing on strategies for encouraging an organizational climate of learning. Here are two more: Help staff create learning plans. Use ePortfolios Creating Learning Plans Steven Forth has a great article on learning plans, which he defines as: . . . a set of learning objectives (that) identifies the resources needed to achieve these objectives, indicates what constitutes evidence that the learning objective has actually been... Read more →

Awhile ago, Allan Benamer of the Nonprofit Tech Blog talked about nonprofit staff as knowledge workers and how technology and work processes need to support staff whose value comes primarily from their ability to make effective use of knowledge and information in working with customers. If we're to fully capitalize on the promise of a knowledge network, then staff need to have the tools, resources and supports necessary to truly... Read more →

As promised, I'm taking up Kivi's blogtipping challenge. The brainchild of Easton Ellsworth at Business BlogWire, blogtipping is a first of the month "tip of the hat" to three blogs you want to give exposure to. You name three things you like about the blog and provide one tip. This time I want to highlight "smaller" blogs in the nonprofit world that I like but who don't have the same... Read more →

In my recent Web travels I came across an interesting draft paper from 2003 that's still very relevant today. It talks about "the other 80%"of learning. That is, 20% of learning in organizations is a result of formal training, while 80% occurs through informal learning. Yet organizations put more resources toward developing formal training options. One piece that struck me in this paper was the notion that "people love to... Read more →