Click to See Larger Image and Full Data by Marc Smith

How do you measure your network to learn how to improve outcomes?   That was one of many questions raised at during a Twitter Chat last week around the #sm_re hashtag.     The chat was a prelude to a convening on April 25th at the Robert Wood Johnston Foundation of  40 thinkers and practitioners, bringing diverse perspectives and expertise into discussions to develop measures for evaluating the impact of social media on philanthropic outcomes.   I’ll be participating in the session, as part of the context setting by giving an overview of themes in my book, “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” co-author with measurement guru KD Paine.

The chat, moderated by Kami Huyse, and included RWJF staff Debra Joy Perez (@djoyperez), assistant vice president, Research and Evaluation, and  Tina Kauh(@tinakauh), program officer, Research and Evaluation, covered some stimulating questions.   Here’s a curated transcript of the chat that I pulled together.     But for this post,  I’d like to dig into one of the questions,  ”How do you measure your network so you know if it is growing stronger?”

This is a question that is hard to answer in a Tweet or two, and in fact we devoted to an entire chapter to the topic in the book – “Understanding, Visualizing, and Improving Networks.”   Of course, with anything you measure, you have to determine what your goals and success means:

Important to think about network goals, and what being a network member means #SM_RE

— Victoria Dougherty (@VJDConsulting) April 18, 2013

Once this is established, along with goals – the methodology to measure your network relies on having a baseline methodology and using Social Network Analysis.   The latter can be a very geeky topic, requiring expertise in statistics, understanding social network analysis terminology, and hard to master software.   That often intimidates nonprofit folks (including me), but it doesn’t have to be that way.    There are low tech tools and online (low cost or free) SNA tools and great resources like Marc Smith at NodeXL

I’ve been teaching workshops, training other trainers, and developing curriculum on “networked nonprofits,” literally around the world, and one of the first topics we address is understanding your network.   This comes from my first book,  ”The Networked Nonprofit,”  co-authored with Alison Fine.  Understanding and mapping your network is one of the indicators in my “Crawl Walk Run Fly” maturity of practice model and looks something like this:

Click to see larger image

I use low tech tools first – paper, markers, sticky notes, and sticky dots.    Participants spend time working together to draw their networks — people and organizations who are important to reaching their organization’s outcomes.  They are asked to visualize the relationships – and who players are both online and offline.   I also ask them to identify people who are “hubs” – those with lots of connections and those on the “edge” or could be a bridge to new connections.  Also to show the relationships to different clusters (related people or organizations) and nodes (a person or organization).

Here’s a collection of network maps from a couple of recent workshops – and you can see how they use color to show differences as well as different types of lines to show the relationships.

Ventura County Community Foundation - March, 2013

GuideStar India - Networked NGO Workshops - Packard Grantees

Radio Bilingue

The last drawing/map  is from a peer learning group of Packard Grantees that I am facilitating based on “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” from Radio Bilingue.   Since the goal is for participants to learn and adopt these practices,  they are given “recipes” to do the mapping and then share with colleagues.

Community Foundation of Monterey County

Once participants do a low tech drawing, we move to explore some of the online mapping and SNA tools to visualize online networks.  The map above is a visualization of the Community Foundation of Monterey Twitter following using TwitterMap.  It is also a fun way to visualize your Twitter network – and there are some great free apps to do that.

NodeXL and Marc Smith

In 2009,  I was lucky enough to take a social network analysis workshop using a SNA free plugin for excel called NodeXL with Marc Smith, a sociologist specializing in the social organization of online communities and computer mediated interaction.  (I wrote about it here).    He has set up the NodeXL gallery that is collecting visualizations of different networks online using the tool, especially social network maps of people tweeting with a particular hashtag.  For example, he ran a map of the #gpf13 hashtag that illustrates the network talking about unlocking data in philanthropy.     Marc did a map of the Twitter hashtag for #sm_re (see first image above) and got on Skype to discuss it how one might use a network visualization as a way to measure the strength of a network.

In order to really understand the social network map of people tweeting the #sm_re hashtag during the chat earlier this week,  one has to look at it in context.  The map above depicts everyone who was tweeting during the Tweet Chat.  Let’s imagine for a second that this chat was the beginning activity around forming a network to spread best practices about social media measurement in advance of the meeting next week, and maybe might include other activities.   For all intents and purposes,  this could be the “baseline” depiction of the network.     The next steps would be to get “snapshots” of the network during activities along the way and look at how the network has evolved and changed.

The missing link is understanding what patterns in the network mean – and how those are interpreted against the network goals – in this made up scenario – to spread best practices and knowledge around social media measurement for philanthropic outcomes.  With me?

Marc shared his expert knowledge  and here are some notes.

Click to See Larger Image

What is the shape of the network mean?

Marc showed the slide above that illustrates the different shapes of networks.    The #sm_re network is shaped like an “in group” or a community.   Where folks are well connected to each other and there are pockets of nodes on the edge, etc.   The other patterns illustrate different variables such as whether the hubs are just broadcasting their tweets vs engaging and responding – and whether or not there is just a relationship between the hub and the nodes or whether the nodes are talking with one another.     The overall shape of the network could, perhaps be mapped to a specific outcome or result.

What do we see in this #sm_re map?

You can find a description of the details of the map here, but two top line observations:   There are hubs and islands.

Hubs:   The sunburst shapes are hubs.  These are people or organizations that are strongly connected within a network.   If you look at the map of people tweeting the hashtag, #sm_re – there are two  big hubs.  These are G1 and G2.  There are two smaller hubs G4 and G5.   The overall donut or galaxy shape means that these people are a community around the subject-matter and may be linked in other networks or communities.

Islands:   These are the Twitter users who are not connected to others or the Hubs.    Sometimes these are referred to the “edge” or “periphery” of a network – people not well connected to the network or “weak ties.”  These are arranged in military style in G3.

One SNA concept that Marc shared  comes from Ron Burt and it is about “Bridging VS Bonding Social Capital.”   So one strategy is to look for places where people are not connected to one another and make a connection.  This is a role for hubs or perhaps “network weavers.”    Making connections strengthens the network bonding, but it is also paradoxical.   If you become too much of a tight knit network, then it can lead to stagnation because you are not bringing in new ideas or people.

The map can help us hone the practices we use on Twitter for building the network and perhaps help improve the outcomes as illustrated in this slide from Marc’s presentation.

Social network analysis maps are useful for helping you understand your network, developing a baseline visual, and identifying strategies for making your network stronger.

Have you mapped your network?   What did you learn?  What tools did you use?

Click to See Larger Image

Note From Beth: I recently keynoted the Social Good Brasil conference and one of the other speakers was Simon Mainwaring who gave an amazing keynote about social branding.    His talk resonated with some of the ideas around how nonprofits can use a network mindset and leverage the professional networks of senior leaders of nonprofits.   He agreed to riff on the idea and write this useful post.

As a long time reader of Beth’s blog, I am very excited by the release of Beth’s new book, Measuring the Networked Non-Profit. One of the important issues she raises is “how do you balance a personal brand and an organizational brand to best serve its strategic goals?” They can either work in opposition or complement each other depending on your priorities. In truth, however, your ability to effectively blend the two turns on how you frame your role within your non-profit organization.

When an organization leader – non-profit or otherwise – has a hierarchal outlook in which he or she sits at the top of an organization disseminating information to its employees and community, using social media to build a personal brand can be perceived as self-serving and even competitive with the higher purpose of the non-profit. If, however, that leader deeply embraces their service role seeing themselves as the chief celebrant, rather than celebrity, of their donor community, their personal brand becomes an extension of the non-profit’s higher purpose. For inspiring examples we need only look at Doug Ulman, Melinda Gates, and Beth herself, each of who provides the shoulders on which others stand to reach greater levels of social impact.

To execute this more balanced and productive approach to personal branding within your non-profit organization, it’s critical to integrate social media on three levels:

1. Leadership: There are several reasons to build a strong personal brand to help support your non-profit brand. First, by building your personal brand, you develop the social media fluency and a critical understanding of the relationship dynamics between your organization and its donors. Second, refining your personal brand will force you to find your own voice and align it with the core values of the non-profit. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the development of a personal brand will serve as a powerful permission slip for everyone within your organization to exercise social media themselves.

2. Employees: As an extension of his or her personal brand, a non-profit leader should also provide training to their employees to ensure the necessary skills sets across the organization. This will allow the organization to spread the load of content creation and distribution evenly across all employees and to provide the opportunity for each employee to inject their own passion into the personality of the brand.

3. Community: Finally, leadership and employees must engage with their community on an ongoing basis across different media channels focusing on the how and where their community likes to be reached. For example, younger donors may prefer to see the impact of their donations through photos on Instagram or short 15-second Viddy videos, while older members enjoy data-driven blog posts, white papers or podcasts.

When a non-profit leader frames their role as one of service, and when social media is integrated across these three levels, your donor community will enjoy a consistent and purposeful brand experience. That’s when you strike the most effective balance between a personal and organizational brand, and truly unlock the power of social media to leverage the connective tissue between people to serve a purpose higher than ourselves.

This week, Simon Mainwaring, Fortune 50 consultant and New York Times selling author is launching the We First Social Branding Blueprint that shows non-profits how to use social media to build their reputation, fundraising and social impact. Simon reveals the most effective strategies of the smartest brands in the world like Nike, Coca-Cola and Starbucks, so that you can use them to build your non-profit. Order your Social Branding Blueprint now and receive an extra online access pass FREE to give to a non-profit colleague. Plus, if you order this week only (November 15^th – 21^st), you’ll receive TWO free tickets to the Social Branding Seminar in Los Angeles, California in March 2013.

I just published a blog post over at the SSIR blog called “Bringing a Network Mindset to Board Development.”    If you thinking about combining a network mindset with social networking tools, you and your board can recruit both the best talent to join your board and the people with the best networks. Having a robust, well-connected network can help your nonprofit find new resources, get new ideas and inspiration, and be more effective.  My blog post shares some ideas about how to do this and would love your comments and ideas over at the SSIR blog.

Keo Savon, the young Cambodian woman supported by Measuring Networked Nonprofit book royalties

I’m thrilled to announce the publication of my second book, “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit:Using Data to Change the World,” with co-author and measurement goddess KD Paine.     The book is about how nonprofits can measure and improve results from leveraging their networks.   The frameworks and tips we outlined were field tested in real-time as part of my work as Visiting Scholar at the Packard Foundation with 60 of their grantees who participated in a peer learning/focuss group and contributed many of the case studies.

The book also has a social good purpose.  I am donating my royalties to support the Sharing Foundation‘s college education program for young people in Cambodia.  My family is sponsoring Keo Savon, who we met this summer in Cambodia.  She is second year engineering student and by supporting her education she will have better economic opportunities.     By purchasing a book, you will not only help your nonprofit improve its program impact, but you will changing the lives for young people in Cambodia.

I’m blessed that I am able to combine my passion for teaching nonprofits how to embrace networking for social change results with my desire to make the work a better place.    As many of you already know,  I have been raising money for a decade for the Sharing Foundation that supports young people in Cambodia.   I’ve done this through social media, winning some of the early online fundraising contests.    I also donated my share of the royalties from my first book, The Networked Nonprofit, to support the Sharing Foundation’s college education fund.   The money went to support students like Maneth, an IT major who now teaches computer lessons in the orphanage where my children lived.

We are honored to have Laura Arrillaga-Andreeseen, Author of Giving 2.0, write the foreword and it articulates from the donor perspective why nonprofits need to embrace measurement and learning.

I could not have written this book alone, especially as a reformed measurement phobic.   KD Paine taught me the joy that is measurement.     We were also lucky to have a talented editor, William T. Paarlberg, who guided us in the polishing and revising stage and who made go through a 10-draft revision process for each chapter.   We had an all-star team of nonprofit, philanthropy, and measurement experts as peer reviewers who helped make the book more useful.

To help those who need to learn to laugh at measurement, not fear it, I commissioned Rob Cottingham to create cartoons that capture the essence of each chapter’s advice.   (There were numerous times when I snorted my latte from laughing so hard!).   The early reviews are starting to come in and like these two from Simon Mainwaring and Geri Stengel capture the essence of the book.

October is book launch month with events taking place in across the country.  Check the web site to find an event near you or use the contact form to suggest one in your city.

• Buy a Copy of the Measuring the Networked Nonprofit
• Attend a Book Event this month as part of our book tour
• Share of photo of yourself with the book on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook and use the hashtag #netnon
• Stay tuned to our blogs as we share more stories about how nonprofits apply the advice in the book and I’ll keep you posted on Keo Savon’s studies

Thank you so much!

Note from Beth: Last week, I wrote about the launch of LinkedIn’s Board Connect tool that helps nonprofit identify potential board candidates through searching the networks of their board members on LinkedIn.  In the comments, there was some thoughtful discussion about best practices for identifying, screening, and cultivating board members.  Geri Stengel who has written guest posts about LinkedIn on this blog offered to share some tips.   An excellent addition to my collection of curated LinkedIn resources.

5 Ways to Make LinkedIn Board Connect Work for Your Nonprofit by Geri Stengel

With nearly two million nonprofit board seats open, good board members are hard to find. Most nonprofits know that looking for board members can be time-consuming and frustrating. I’ve been there, on the hunt for people who have the expertise and passion to make a positive contribution to the nonprofit I care about.

I have served on two boards, including  Governance Matters, which strengthens boards in NYC through advocacy, education and resources. Now I serve on the board of  Praxis Housing. We provide housing to the chronically homeless who have HIV/AIDS, mental health issues, chemical dependency, and other special needs.

Praxis is expanding its six person board to 11. We knew what skills we wanted and tried all the usual ways. In the past, we had success with BoardServeNYC, a United Way initiative; referrals; direct asks, among other tactics. Recently we started asking umbrella organizations, such as legal and nursing associations for help recruiting board members. Many of these organizations have programs that match their members with board opportunities.

But we still were not  finding the board members we needed. I’ve been a fan of LinkedIn and believed it could be used to fill the gaps in our board that we still had. This was my chance to put my teachings to work for Praxis. And the timing is right for nonprofits to take advantage with LinkedIn’s recent announcement of LinkedIn Board Connect, which makes one its premium services available at no charge. It allows your organization to search for professionals to join your board. Although the recruitment process for Praxis board members isn’t finished, I’ve learned a lot!

For those nonprofits who are intrigued by LinkedIn but don’t know how to get started using, here’s the lessons I’ve learned:

1.) Know what you’re looking for: The Praxis board discussed the expertise that is most crucial for us to have on the board. We also wanted to increase the diversity of the board. If you haven’t evaluated your board before, you can use this board tune up kit, produced by board coach Michael Davidson, as a starting point. Evaluating your board is something you should do regularly but must done before setting out to find new board members.

2.) Build Your Network Before You Need It: Board Connect is free to one person on the nonprofit’s leadership team, but if that person doesn’t have a critical mass of connections (500+ is best, 350 will do), your connections are not going to lead you to a big enough pool of people to find the perfect match. Don’t despair! A board member or a consultant may have a critical mass of connections. If necessary, pay for someone to have a LinkedIn premium account so he or she can do the search and outreach for you. Chances are you won’t need to pay for the service for more than a few months. Or, better yet, use this as an opportunity to get connected to others on LinkedIn.

3.) Experiment with your search: Don’t be afraid to play around a bit and try different search parameters. For Praxis,combing geography (a 10 mile radius from Praxis headquarters) and skills (legal, real estate, and HIV/AIDS expertise) with keywords such as “homelessness” and “volunteering” that might indicate an interest in our cause, limited the pool of people who came up in the search results. So I dropped the words homelessness and volunteering from my search.  Marc W. Halpert, a LinkedIn trainer, helped a Connecticut nonprofit search for board members. He found that using keywords related to its mission was critical.

4.) Email directly or use InMail: Halpert found the right people for his nonprofit client among his first degree connections. I found them among my second degree connections (people who know people I know). With first degree connections, you can send an email directly; you don’t need a premium LinkedIn account. For second degree connections, you either have to ask someone to make an introduction (this is time consuming and leads to a much lower response rate) or you need to use LinkedIn’s InMail service. Happily, Talent Finder, a premium service, is provided for free to nonprofits as part of Board Connect.

5.) Build relationships: While approaches to candidates can’t be cut and dried, my typical process was to start with a 10-minute phone call. If the candidate seemed interested, I arranged a breakfast or lunch with Svein Jorgensen, CEO of Praxis, and other members of the governance committee. Candidates were then encouraged to visit one of the organization’s shelters to meet clients and staff. Since we’re breaking ground on a new facility in the Bronx on October 23, 2012, we invited everyone to this.

All the prospects said they were flattered by my outreach. Interestingly, several also mentioned that they had been thinking of volunteering for a nonprofit so my timing was perfect.

The overall recruitment process will take three to four months and will result in adding two or three members to the board of Praxis.

If you have questions, Halpert, Maria Semple, and I will be doing an interactive webinar about nonprofits and LinkedIn on Tuesday, October 2  from 3-4pm EST. Join us! We’ve all got tips about making LinkedIn work for nonprofits.

About the Author: Geri Stengel is founder and president of Ventureneer.com, which connects nonprofit execs, social entrepreneurs, and socially responsible small business owners with the knowledge they need to make the world a better place and to thrive as sustainable organizations.

LinkedIn announced Board Connect, resources that helps nonprofits transform themselves into networked nonprofits by finding and recruiting board members using a networked approach.  Leveraging their own networks as well as their board members’ networks, nonprofit leaders now have free access to a premium LinkedIn feature that lets them search for and connect with professionals who meet the needs of their organization on LinkedIn.

The idea is simple, but powerful.   You and your board look at your professional networks and connections on LinkedIn.   Board Connect lets you zero in on the right candidates with the right networks and knowledge for your nonprofit.   You can contact them through LinkedIn and the interface has tools to manage your search.

If you have ever served on a board or if you are an executive director who has had to manage their boards, you know that adding new board members isn’t always an easy process.   Typically,  there is a discussion like “We need someone who has x skill.”   Then everyone goes through their mental Rolodex and that process is repeating.   Then comes the screen process that sometimes can take the skills of an investigative reporter.  Board Connect changes all that.

Using Board Connect on LinkedIn allows you see past first connections on LinkedIn, check out a potential candidate’s knowledge and their connections.    It streamlines the process.  But, if all board members add their networks,  this produces a richer set of potential candidates.  And, remember,  you are not just adding a board member, you are also adding their network.

As part of the board connect program, nonprofits get free access to a Talent Finder account (valued at $1000/annually), an exclusive LinkedIn education webcast (with tools and tips to use the account), and membership to the Board Connect Group on LinkedIn.   You can sign up here.

But don’t be a fool with a tool.  In a recent interview with with Alnoor Ebrahim, associate professor and faculty chair of the “Governing for Nonprofit Excellence” executive program at Harvard Business School, on Forbes online blog, he suggests that nonprofits should be looking for tough love from its board members.  Nonprofits need board members who are willing to take their organization’s leadership to task, to ask tough questions about performance, and to keep the organization focused on mission.  It’s also important that the Senior Management view the board as a place to get critical and unvarnished guidance, to say “Here’s a problem that’s keeping me up at night. Can you help me think through it?”   That’s something that a LinkedIn profile alone won’t necessarily tell you, making the screening process all the more important.

Your organization may also need to educate leadership that this LinkedIn can be a valuable strategic tool for governance, recruiting staff, and connecting with donors.  Here’s some steps.

Here’s my curated list of resources about how Networked Nonprofits Can Use LinkedIn for additional tactics and examples for nonprofits.  Also see this interview with Meg Garlinghouse on Forbes.

Has your organization used LinkedIn to develop its board or part of an organizational networking strategy that leverages professional networks of staff and board?  Share your story in the comments.

“New Skills for a Complex World” was the theme of the seventh annual Nonprofit Management Institute, a two-day conference for several hundred nonprofit leaders sponsored by the Stanford Social Innovation Review and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) earlier this week.    I had the honor of being on the faculty to do a master class on leading networked nonprofits.  But I also got the opportunity to learn and hear Rob Reich, associate professor of political science, Stanford University, and faculty co-director, Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS) and Lucy Bernholz, visiting scholar, Stanford PACS present their research in a talk called “New Skills for the New Social Economy.” This post shares my notes from that session along with a reflection about my session and some resources.

The New Social Economy

This session was a high level view of what is happening in the ecosystem in which I do my work.   I heard some many big picture connections to the work I do or rather improvise on the ground, that I know I’ll be mulling over and thinking about what they shared over the next few months.  In fact,  Lucy has been terrific in finding new ways, like Branch, to use the social tools to facilitate a global brain around these ideas.

Let’s start with a definition first.   The new social economy includes all the ways we use our private resources to create social good.   It is using private goods for social good reasons.     Rob started off with some observations about the young people he sees in his business school classes.  It used to be twenty years ago that the “do gooders” would go off and take lower paying jobs in the nonprofit sector.   And, those who wanted to make money would head to Wall Street.     That’s changed.  They want to combine both.   That they have a “Do good where ever attitude.”

There is a blurring between the for-profit and non-profit sectors.  They shared a slide (see above) about new models we’ll see that combine both – especially the “not invented yet.”    The point was that nonprofits can expect to have competition from these different entities for dollars.   [ And those that don't already have business plans, should probably go read this book by David LaPiana]

Lucy talked about how technology is driving the shift to a social economy and picked out a few themes, pointing out it is not the technology itself but how we use it.    She highlighted the impact of crowd funding platforms and the technology to collect, visualize, and share data.

She also said that the pressure of measurement is not lessening and the drumbeat is getting louder.     But that nonprofit sector has struggled for decades about whether or not they could demonstrate impact and there are lots of comparisons between sub-sectors.  And the sector is getting better at measuring social change and that there has been a lot of progress in the way the sector measures and reports on big social change outcomes.  But expect how you report and measure impact with the social business sector.  The social business sector has shared metrics and understanding of being data-informed.    That changes the conversation for nonprofits.

She touched on some of the implications for staffing and governance.  It also will change the types of skill sets that nonprofits will need now and into the future, for example “Data Analysts.”  There are also governance implications with new expectations for transparency and new norms of accountability given the growing influence of  rating intermediaries like Great Nonprofits and Charity Navigator.    If you want to dig into more of this thinking, I suggest you get a copy of Lucy’s toolkits for nonprofit leaders.

I did an interactive master class on networked leadership and the practices of becoming a networked nonprofit for over 300 nonprofits seated at round tables as the last session of the day.   My training craft and what I have been teaching in train the trainer’s sessions around the world – how you blend content with engagement, both online and offline.    I was challenged when I walked into the room and saw a podium, two large screens, and microphones set up in the middle of  a sea of tables.   How could I efficiently use movement, interaction with peers, and report outs without wandering around Oprah style?   [I improvised a technique in the moment that worked for the layout of the room that I will share in another post]

When the people, formerly known as the audience, get to participate,  you always learn something.   Here’s a couple of themes that come up from a few of these nonprofit CEOs:

• Looking at Aggregate Professional Networks of People in the Organization: I’ve been hearing Meg Garlinghouse of LinkedIn talk about “filling structural holes” in networks and shared a couple of those ideas.  Why not have look at the connections of your staff/board in LinkedIn related to achieving a goal or even just to recruit new board members.     The room was silent.   I asked if their silence was skepticism and asked for anyone willing to come to the mic and push back.    There was more silence and one CEO made their way to mic ….

He said,  ”I’m a CEO and I don’t want my staff connecting with my board on social networks.  I want to control the communication between staff and board.” I was taken aback by his forceful tone of voice.    I responded with how do you know that they aren’t already connecting on LinkedIN and quoted Clay Shirky,  ”If you are concerned about loosing control, stop – you’ve already lost control.”     I spoke with the CEO one-on-one to probe further and learned that he wanted board to focus on strategy and not get involved in micro-managing.   I explained that the idea of looking at your aggregate networks was to look for gaps related to strategy – not facilitate communication about management issues.

• Social Media Not As A Job, But Organizational Skill Set: One CEO took to the mic and shared how their organization is getting results with social media and how he is also presence as himself on social networks.   But, he was having trouble getting others to participate, mentioning that he had 70 twenty somethings on staff!     His question:  How do get everyone on board?    I spoke about the need for a social media policy – that was actually discussed in the organization, not biolerplate produced by some online tool, having brown bag lunches, setting up friendly competition and contests inside, and most important of all – start with a small group of internal influencers.   First start off with who is everyone using these tools outside of the organization and is interested.

Does everyone in your nonprofit participate in social networks including the board?    What are the benefits and challenges?

I’m so excited!  My second book,  Measuring the Networked Nonprofit, co-authored with KD Paine, will be launching in October!    Expect to hear more about where to hear us speak about the book or come toast us at a book party shortly, but in the meantime  you can pre-order the book now!

I will continue my training and teaching practice and will be leading a peer learning network through my work at the Packard Foundation and also other places.    Next up is a workshop  I will lead at the Stanford SSIR’s  Nonprofit Management Institute.  In my next book,  we introduce a framework called “Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly” to help nonprofits figure out what incremental steps they need to take to get to the next level of networked nonprofit practice. It is designed to help them understand and measure the nature of the change process as they move through it.  The model  indicates areas where organizations should focus time and learning to move to the next stage.   I will be using it in the workshop.

I wrote an overview of the model over at the SSIR blog, but have also developed a detailed assessment tool that you can download for free and use along with the book.

But, do come and join the discussion over in the comments at the SSIR blog.  Is your organization leading with a network mindset?  Is your organization making the transformation?  What level is your organization?  What do you need to get to the next phase?

As part of my work plan as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,  I have the pleasure of working with  networks of grantees to design and facilitate peer learning exchanges on networked nonprofit practices and using social media effectively.    One of the networks I’m supporting are the grantees in the   Friending the Finish Line strategy.  This peer learning exchange is designed to help state-based groups to be more effective in engaging their networks toward covering uninsured children.   Just like message consistency, storytelling, and interviewing skills, proficiency with social media like Facebook and Twitter increases their capacity to make change happen for children in their state.

I’m working in partnership with Spitfire Strategies.  The peer learning exchange offers one-on-one coaching for 16 state organizations that work on children’s health care insurance, monthly peer webinars, and a face-to-face workshop.    This technical assistance design is a balance of expert support with peer learning and an intentional strategy for building the network’s capacity.   As with all the capacity building projects that I’ve designed, it is based on a framework and theory of change.

Assessment Framework and Theory of Change

The framework is a social media maturity of practice model called “Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly” Maturity of Social Media and is featured in my next book, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit.  We used to help us design the program, determine process outcomes, and help us evaluate participant’s progress.  For each phase, there are specific criteria and indicators that an organization will develop.    We are tracking progress against a baseline.

When we started the project, most were in the crawling stage, so there was no place to go but up!    When did its first face-to-face convening, participants had just started to communicate with key audiences — we looked at the aggregate Twitter followers and Facebook fans at the beginning and at the end of the second year – and there has been dramatic increases.    This comes from participants integrating social media with advocacy and communications strategy and to learn from each other along the way.   One of the successes was how most participants are learning to balance the strategic with the spontaneous of social media as described in this blog post.

Over the past year, participants have been getting comfortable with social media skills, being strategic, making them a habit, and first steps with measurements.  But these are steps to bigger outcomes for this network – such as making sure there is health care for all children.   Having a theory of change that illustrates the steps towards these bigger outcomes is critical as well as indicators.

Advocates get better at communications – proactive/planning, partner engagement, message discipline

Written social media policy
Strategic integration into children’s health advocacy
Written social media plan
Use of editorial calendar
Use of counting metrics

Advocates have more partners or better partners, more or better relationships with reporters, and more or better policymaker relationships
Increase reach on social media channels
Cultivate “super fans”
Increase engagement on social channels
Support national partner Facebook chats, blog carnivals, and other networked advocacy activities
Amplify peers’ efforts

Communications have more impact

Social media content mirrors other channels
Solicit and share stories

Key influencers take action, including media

Advocates get more attention from policymakers
Lawmakers repurpose key messages

Training Design

This peer learning exchange has monthly conference calls that balance expert content delivery with peer sharing and making a commitment to put ideas and recommendations into practice over the month.   It also includes a face-to-face workshop where there is also the same balance.    This year’s session was piggy-backed with the annual meeting, so the training came at the end of 2.5 intense days of meetings.     The design incorporate many interactive learning techniques to ensure that participants were actively learning and sharing, and not falling asleep!

It takes time to develop a solid organizational practice in social media, so we wanted to celebrate those small victories.   We created a deck of cards with mini-case studies showing examples of how these state advocates had strategically incorporate social media into their social media plan.   For example,  the All Kids Covered has been using the timeline features to create milestones for legislative victories.   We distributed the cards and had participants pair up with peers to learn more about their successes.   This type of active exercise gets people moving,  serves as an icebreaker, and also is an efficient way for the group to share a lot of useful practical learnings.

The skill building sessions focused on content optimization for integrated social media channels and working SMARTer with social media – time saving tips.   For the integrated content strategy,   we begin with some principles for an effective content strategy – techniques for coordination, creation, and curation.    The ideas were interspersed with examples from participants who shared “Living Case Studies.”  This generated useful tips and suggestions on how to manage an editorial calendar and content strategy process.   How do you facilitate others on staff to create content when they might not be have strong content skills?    What tools do you use to manage the your editorial calendar and content creation process?

We did a “Fish Bowl” exercise where several volunteers brainstormed an editorial calendar for the month of September, while the rest of the group observed.  If one of  the observers wanted to participate, they could tap a “fish” on the shoulder and sit down.  This is a good exercise because participants are applying some of the ideas and also come to the realization that sharing each other’s editorial calendars can make their work easier.    I facilitated the group with specific prompts for social content optimization.    This will was followed by a presentation to share those tips drawn from recent research reports:

Ten Types of Content We All Love
http://www.famousbloggers.net/content-types.html

Buddy Media: Twitter Optimization
http://www.buddymedia.com/newsroom/2012/06/buddy-media-twitter-tweeting-best-practices/

How To Get More Likes and Shares on Facebook – Based on Research
http://mashable.com/2012/06/19/how-to-get-more-likes-shares-on-facebook-infographic/

Tips for Optimizing FB Content To Get Into Newsfeeds
http://blog.getpostrocket.com/2012/06/7-easy-ways-to-increase-your-pages-edgerank/

Making Use of the Timeline Features
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-timeline-marketing/

This session closed with a reflection of how they could apply tips and recommendations and use measurement to further test these ideas.

The other skill building session was a session on working SMARTer on social channels – What are the time saving techniques?   But, more importantly how could they save time working as network.     I set this up as a series of online exercises focusing techniques like setting up Twitter lists, curating content from other Facebook pages, etc.    Making the work flow part of the workshop is always a good idea, especially set up tasks.

The last section of the workshop was focused on having participants start thinking about their work plan for the coming year.   Each participants comes up with specific work plan of what they will accomplish based on the overall outcomes for the program.  This second year will be focused on getting participants up on the next level, with an emphasis on building the network and amplifying each other’s work through social channels.

Developing a solid and effective practice in social media and building a network, that is integrated, strategic, and part of the organization’s DNA – takes step and intention.    Having a measurement framework, theory of change, and good instructional design to encourage peer sharing and interaction is key.

This year a lot of my work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation is working with grantees outside of the US.    I’ve just returned from leading a training for Population and Reproductive Health grantees from India.   This was the launch of a peer learning group called  “The Networked NGO,” based on the ideas in my book, The Networked Nonprofit.    The four-day intensive face-to-face training was for senior level staff and their social media staffers.  It marked the start of  a six month peer learning exchange where I, along with colleague Stephanie Rudat will work remotely with grantees as they implement an action learning project to put techniques into practice and facilitate organizational change from the inside out.

We are working very closely with  V.S. Chandrashekar, India Country Advisor and his talented  team members,  Ms. Anupam Shukla and Ms. Monica Wahengbam.

This blog post includes some reflections on the instructional design, delivery, and insights that I hope will inform the field building discussion taking place over at the Packard OE Program site.

1.   Program Design

The program design is based on the last six years of delivering social media training sessions and incorporates refinements that I’ve learned a long the way.    I have designed and delivered trainings that were short-term, one-time sessions such as a half-day or full-day workshop to more intensive programs that incorporated face-to-face, peer exchange, action learning projects, and monthly meetings that took place over a six-month period.  The value of doing an extended peer learning exchange is that participants get the opportunity to put the ideas in practice and apply what they learned.

Typically, during a workshop or training with heavy-content delivery (such that is required with technology) the workshop leader or teacher is providing support around “ready” and “set” phases or what we call planing and strategy as well as best practices.    The peer learning sessions that follow focus on the “go” – that’s when the workshop leader becomes more of a coach as the participants actually use what they’ve been taught and compare notes with their peers.   I feel the learning is richer and more sticky.    Peer exchanges help participants not only form good habits, but they also naturally start to collaborate and work in a networked way.

When you design a capacity building project based on peer learning and is focused on topics that will require transformative organizational change to apply skills and knowledge,  it is important to have a realistic and clear idea about what constitutes success.    Not thinking this through at the beginning can spell disaster, especially if there are unrealistic expectations and you are working in places where connectivity is a barrier.

This project has identified the following definitions of success:

• A Peer-to-Peer Learning Exchange

Grantees will engage in peer discussions about integrating social media effectively into their communications strategies and will learn from each other – from challenges and missteps as much as from accomplishments and wins – so success means organizations sharing both.

• Networked NGOs and Social Media Integrated Into Organizational Communications

Through the 4-day workshop in-country and subsequent online and conference calls, grantee organizations will start to embrace the practices of Networked Nonprofits and begin to institutionalize social media strategies and integrate them into their broader strategy for communications on population and reproductive health or girls and girls and women’s empowerment.

• Grantees Implement A Modest and Realistic Action Learning Pilot

Social media practices are just that – they get strong and stay strong with practice – so success means consistent application and learning. With facilitator’s guidance, grantees will design and implement a small action learning project. But smart is as important as strong, so success also means deliberate integration of social media strategies with the organization’s broader communications plan and learning from doing in small steps.

• Purposeful Measurement to Inform Replication

Grantee organizations will measure what matters. Social media can be filled with  metrics to track results. But not all metrics are equally valuable, and choosing the measurements that matter can be complicated.  Even more importantly, the practice of connecting measurement and decision-making will help organizations improve practice and results, and document value. Success means using metrics to learn how to improve practice effectively, both to identify obstacles and track progress.    The action learning project will be designed to help grantees build a habit of measurement, reflection, and organizational learning.

These definitions have informed the curriculum, instructional design, peer learning design, and how we will measure and learn along the way.  The specific indicators of program success are below and were identified with input from participants:

• 100% of participants will develop an integrated and measurable social media strategy that furthers their communications work in population and reproductive health that aligned with institutional goals
• 100% of participants implement a process and write a social media policy that addresses organizational adoption issues
• 100% of participants implement an action learning project that uses measurement to help improve their practice, share insights with peers, and identify opportunities to amplify each other’s voices through social media

The four-day workshop has a different theme for each day as follows:

Day 1:  The Power of Networks
Day 2:  Integrated Social Media Strategy
Day 3:  Practical and Tactical Social Media
Day 4:  Action Learning Projects,  Communicating After Workshop, and Managing Our Attention

2.   Participants Own Their Learning

It’s one thing for an instructor to let participants know what the intended outcomes and learning objectives are for a training, but for true impact participants need to own their learning agenda.     One technique that I learned from Cheryl Francisconi, director of the IIE Addis-Ababa Office in Ethiopia, last month in Rwanda, was to allow time and space for participants to articulate their hopes and fears.    The beauty of this exercise is that it allows for any concerns or skepticism to be voiced and honored.      I was amazed at the transformation in the room during the first day – from health skepticism of social media to seeing its value and importance as integrated communications strategy.

3.   Learning Networks Are Built With People and Reciprocity

While the training was geared for organizations to become “networked ngos,”  it is important to recognize that networks consist of individuals and organizations.   Also, networked learning or peer learning is a person-to-person learning and therefore it is important to establish connections and points of reciprocity during the face-t0-face session.  One of my favorite introductory exercises, is to to build a “ME to WE” network based on individuals knowledge and what they hope to learn.     The exercise helps people get to know each other as a professionals, plus it is another example of visualizing a network with sticky notes.   It works best when you are working with a group of participants who work in the same field and may already know each other.

We also use it an opportunity for participants to get on Twitter as an individual and how to use it as a personal professional learning and branding tool.    In India, the line between personality and brand is not strict as it is in the US – and the identities can be fluid.  We demonstrated and showed how Twitter can be used to connect with colleagues and extend a brand or campaign.      We encouraged participants to Tweet their reflections using the hashtag we set up for the group.    And, how to connect with colleagues in their field.   This is something that nonprofit professionals are just beginning to explore.

4.    Replicating Networking on the Ground Online and Connecting to Strategy

The central thesis of the Networked Nonprofit is that nonprofits should work more like networks than isolated institutions. After we create a shared network based on individual’s knowledge and skills, we move to the organizational network maps. Participants create a poster of their networks, view other the network maps of others, and then do a debrief. The exercise usually takes 90-120 minutes in the afternoon, but participants were so engaged they didn’t want to stop for tea. The big ah ha after viewing the maps on the wall next to each other is that these NGOs had strong and vibrant networks established on the ground. As Pushpa from GuideStar India remarked, “It is very exciting to see the potential of seeing our NGOs become as connected online and through social networks because it can help us accelerate change.”

On Day 2, we take a deep dive into understanding how to develop an integrated social media strategy, beginning with an exercise that helps participants really define what success means.   Many nonprofits are so quick to jump into the tactical of social media and skip over defining success.   One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from working with KD Paine on my next book, “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit” is the important of defining success.  We devote an entire chapter to it and the workshop exercise is based on this chapter.

The morning also includes sharing the principles of successful social media, a talk that I have been giving and refining over the past 5 years and changes with new trends and developments in social media.   We also do a session of with case studies from the participants country or subject matter area.    The case studies method allows participants to identify best practices and collect ideas for their strategy.    The morning culminates with work on the strategy, identifying goals, SMART objectives, audience, and how to measure.     These are done as posters and placed side-by-side to network maps.     This was the first time I had intentionally had participants place both together on the wall and seeing these visually connected made for a more insight discussion.

The afternoon of Day 2 on strategy is focused on strategic web presence and integrated content strategy, with an introduction to content curation.     I used the “Fishbowl” technique for an exercise to help participants experience what it is like to brainstorm ideas for an integrated content strategy.    Four participants sit in the center and use sticky notes and a strategy template to generate ideas for content for different channels.   Anyone observing can tap someone in the shoulder replace them in the inner circle.    Since participants were from organizations working on similar content areas, this helped everyone.

5.   The Importance of Energizers Throughout

I strongly believe that people should not be left in sitting their seats with their laptops open for a training for more than 30 minutes at a stretch.    It puts people to sleep and it isn’t very healthy.    When I present content,  it is done in an active way – participants get to move around, stand up, walk around, and move.   Moving gets blood to the brain, getting blood brain helps people take in new ideas.     We also did fun and creative after lunch energizers.    On the first day, in honor of being in India,  I played a YouTube video of a well-loved Bollywood number called “Chaya, Chaya.”

After a lunch on Day 2, we shared an American classic dance, the Chicken Dance.

We held the training in a beautiful hotel in Delhi, The Claridges, which had a double three floor staircase.   We made people go up and down the stairs three times before settling in after lunch.

6.  It Isn’t Enough To Tell People About Best Practices:  Hands-On, Brains-On

On Day 3, we covered the best practices of using listening, Twitter, and Facebook, with ample time to practice.   I always begin with an orientation exercise that allows participants to draw from their own knowledge of what they already know and what they want to know about the tools.  This is important because there is so much to learn and it can get overwhelming.      I do a variation of  ”speed dating,”  each person creates a name tag with a first name and last name the name of a platform or tool they know about or have questions about.  Then each person gets to speak with another participant for 7 minutes and we do 6 or 7 rounds of speed dating.

We integrate both the best practices and hands-on activity.      Moving from telling, showing, discussing and to actual hands-on practice.    Typically, the practice activities are not just the boring set up steps of the platform, but setting up people’s networks.     I was inspired by a technique used by Sarah Mapes in Colorado for new Twitter users that makes it fun for them.  I wrote about the practice of  Team Tweeting here.   Using this concept, we set up Twitter scavenger hunts to explore lists and users in the reproductive health field as well as to practice tweeting.

When integrating hands-on,  I use a technique called “Laptops Up/Laptops Down” – so when it is laptops up time, it is time for participant to practice their skills together.  I encourage social learning together as I have observed many young people – this helps transfer knowledge.     I ask for “Laptops Down” when I need the group to give their attention to the screen or to debrief the skill.      When participants were working on practicing skills on the wiki or Facebook group, the platforms we will use to communicate after the session, we did a walking around debrief so participants share what they did on their own laptop.  This keeps the training active and helps people attend to the learning.

Since we are trying to build a network of learners, it is very important to encourage participants to be the leaders and teachers.    In some of the debriefs,  I have a participant lead the debrief or instruction.     Once the “teacher” steps aside,  the participants are often very capable to teaching each other.   This is the holy grail of a peer learning group – one that builds it knowledge and share it and is not reliant on the “expert.”

To support participants during the 6 months following the workshop in their action learning projects,   we use several platforms – private Facebook group,  webinar, and conference call.    I learned that while Webinars and conference calls are very familiar to many people in the US,  it is not a common in other places in the world.   That’s why we do a lot of practicing of the conference call platform – we hold a mock conference call and debrief the experience.   We also have participants dial into the webinar platform for a section of training and debrief in the Facebook Group.

7.    Closers to Consolidate Learning

Closers are essential to helping participants consolidate their learning and make a commitment to continued practice.   I have people do silent reflection on sticky notes and I also do a closing circle – and have each person pass an object and speak briefly.   I learned this technique from Cheryl Francisconi, director of the IIE Addis-Ababa Office in Ethiopia, last month in Rwanda,who uses a stone that has been held by many people.  I improvised and had participants pass around a flower.   Someone remarked that we have invited the “Flower Mic”

Finally, each participants receives a certificate, books from a colleague,  and a gift of chocolate from San Francisco!

All in all, a very exciting launch to a peer learning exchange.      Following the session, participants mentioned that they found it very engaging, were not bored, and did not fall asleep after lunch.   The proof will be at the end to see how participants do against measurable objectives.  So stay tuned.

Designing effective training is a both a science and an art form,   what was the most effective training you attended and why?

For the past ten days, I’ve been in Rwanda, Africa.  I was honored to be a trainer as part of the launch of the ACE Leaders Project, a program developed by the Institute of International Education Sub-Saharan Regional Office and supported by the Packard Foundation.   The project is under the visionary leadership of Cheryl Francisconi who is the director of IIE’s office in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and has vast expertise in developing, designing, and implementing transformative leadership programs for several decades.

The project mobilizes leading women’s organizations and key stakeholders in four countries in Africa – Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda to develop and launch a Women’s Leadership program and network.    The organizations have extensive experience delivering leadership programs, especially for young women and experience advocating for women’s issues, including reproductive health.   The group will working together over the next three years, meeting regularly face-to-face in the different countries as well as work together online.

In addition to working with Cheryl,   I was also honored to work with master trainer  Kalyani Menon-Sen, an International expert in Women’s Rights and Gender Equity.   My role was to deliver components of the Networked NGO curriculum – sessions on network mapping, challenges assumptions about networked ways of working,  as well as training on how to use the online collaboration platform for their together moving forward.   My sessions were integrated into the various leadership, visioning process for women’s rights,  curriculum development, and evaluation methods modules throughout the week as networked and social media skills were not the main focus.

The design for this project was very different than my accustomed way of  designing and delivering the Networked NGO trainings and social media skills.   My experience so far has been to develop curriculum – mostly focused on technology that is adapted in different countries by local organizations.   This design was a participatory process and was intended to provide an opportunity for deep reflective process.   I have read a lot about these methods, but you cannot really under it until you experience it.   Needless to say, I learned a lot!

Most of the training days took place in rural Rwanda on Lake Muhazi – which was a beautiful place.   Internet connectivity in this very rural area was a challenge – which is why the last few days of the training sessions were held in Kigali so participants could get some hands-on practice.

I modeled a lot of different methods for doing “digital documentation” using a digital camera, a flip camera, PPT, and word documents – that could be loaded on a USB stick for participants to take away with them as well as a private wiki once we had Internet access.     This was a incredible opportunity to focus on the documentation side – without feeling rushed to get everything online.

Here’s a few facilitation techniques that I learned from documenting the session.

Cheryl lead two “transfer-in” exercises that are essential for a group to get to know each other and build trust.     We gathered in a circle and were asked to pick an object from nature that Cheryl had collected from Lake Muhazi.   We were asked to reflect on how the objective represents Women’s Leadership and to find a partner to discuss our observations and get to know each other.

I had an opportunity to meet Ms Kathambi Kinoti from the Young Women’s Leadership Institute in Kenya.   She selected an orange flower from the “nadiflame” tree because to her women who are leaders stand out miles away – just like the orange flowers on this tree.    She shared examples of women leaders in Kenya.      When we came back to the circle, we had to introduce each other and the other person’s object.

The second exercise was done in small groups and a report the whole group answering the questions, “What are your hopes and fears for the program?”   I learned later from Cheryl that she has conducted this exercise for many leadership programs throughout Africa and had learned it from her mentor, Birgitt Williams, who is an international expert in holistic leadership and design of participatory programs.

Kalyani lead a session on visioning social transformation for gender equality and women’s rights.    The exercise is called  “The world we want to see”  and is 3-step exercise where participants use pictures, not words in order to push people to think in concrete terms rather than fall back on vague generalisations and familiar jargon.    The exercise started with having each organization draw a circle and pictures inside of the circle that represented problems and challenges or major barriers to gender equity in their country.    The drawings were placed on the walls and participants got to view them.

The next step was for participants to draw another circle  draw another big circle with pictures representing how the world might change for the positive.  The two worlds were placed side-by-side and participants were asked to draw arrows and label the interventions.  Participants debriefed by walking around.     Kalyani lead a session in plenary, making observations on the representations and the key point that organizations working on these issues need to be connected — working in a way that I would describe how networked nonprofits work.

Fish Bowl Exericse

Kalyani also facilitated a participatory curriculum development process using different techniques.  The photo above shows the “Fish Bowl” technique.   I’ve only observed fish bowls in larger sessions, but this was done for a small group of approximately 20.     A table of four people were seated at the table and given the task to brainstorm different concepts for the curriculum.    The rest of the group observed, but if they wanted to participate could tap the shoulder of anyone seated and join the table.

I facilitated a session that introduced networks, networking, and the Networked NGO. I facilitated a mini-world cafe session where participants reacted to different statements about the use of social media and networked approaches – that was about challenging assumptions. For many reasons, social media is not at the core for many of these NGOS – and it was important to discuss.

Field Trips and Real World Experience

The training also incorporated “Field Trips” visits to bring the “real world” into the learning.    We visited the Genocide Memorial (I’ve written a post about this for tomorrow) and visited with Women Leaders in the Rwanda Parliament.   Rwanda leads the world with the highest percentage of women in high level positions.   Much as been written about the impact of more women in Parliament.   Participants had an opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from Women in the Rwanda Parliament.     The meeting and visit to the Genocide Memorial was used as a starting point for a reflective discussion about women’s leadership.

I came away from this training having learned an enormous amount about new ways of delivering training, the African context for using social media and networked approaches, and of course, connecting with some amazing women leaders and their ngos in the region.

My friend and colleague, June Holley, has written a much anticipated book, The Network Weaver Handbook.  If you are interested in building networks or working as Networked Nonprofit, you need this book right now!

The Network Weaver Handbook is designed to give you skills and resources you need to build effective and innovative networks.  The handbook offers advice and resources for those who just starting out to those involved in well-established networks.   The book gives you the basics of networks and network building and moves on to more advanced topics such as scaling networks and transformation.

A network weaver is someone who is aware of the networks around them and explicitly works to make them healthier. They do this by helping people identify their interests and challenges, connecting people strategically where there’s potential for mutual benefit, and serving as a catalyst for self-organizing groups.    As June points, the role is multi-faceted -and has four different roles – Connectors/Catalyst,  Guardian,  Coordinator, and Facilitator.    In the books, she describes each role and the specific skills required.    She also includes her famous “Network Weaver Checklist” that helps you figure out how to inspire people in your network to become network weavers while improving your own practice.

In many sections of the book,  June offers fantastic stories and resources on how to use social media to support and build out your network.     As she points out, increasingly the Internet has become the platform of networks – and of interaction and self-organizing.     I love how she points out that one of the most important behaviors needs for a successful network approach is “learning how to learn.”    And that as networks evolve and grow,  you experiment with different tools and then spread the knowledge of how to use the tools to the rest of the network.

What I like best about the book is that the narrative is accompanying by terrific reflection questions and worksheets so you can easily adapt all the wisdom shared in the book.  It is also packed with resource lists and stories.   To me, this creates the perfect book to help guide your practice of building and working within a network.

At this year’s NTC, there was a lot of discussion about innovation and nonprofits – so I was particularly interested in Chapter 10 which is about Innovation and Transformation in Networks.    It covers concepts essential to understanding how innovation happens and explores some simple practices to introduce to your network that may lead to innovation.    June offers some frameworks for creating a network culture that supports innovation, how to identify innovation assets,  how to tune-up the network for innovation, how to train and coach people in the skills and processes required for innovation, and structures that support innovation.

If you are need to understand how networks work and grow – and need to develop and hone network weaving skills – this amazing handbook will give you what you need!   Order it here.

Day 2: Certificates Awarded To Senior Staff Attendees

This year a lot of my work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation is working with grantees outside of the US.    Last week, I had the pleasure of working with a group of Population and Reproductive Health grantees from Pakistan on a peer learning group called “The Networked NGO,” based on the ideas in my book, The Networked Nonprofit.    The four-day intensive face-to-face training was for senior level staff and their social media staffers.  It marked the start of  a six month peer learning exchange where I, along with colleague Stephanie Rudat will work remotely with grantees as they implement an action learning project to put techniques into practice and facilitate organizational change from the inside out.

We are working very closely with Dr. Yasmeen Qazi who is the Pakistan Country Advisor and her very talented team members,  Dr. Iftikhar Soomro and Seema Zameer — all of whom understand capacity building programs. organizational change, and technology.

This blog post includes some reflections on the instructional design, delivery, and insights that I hope will inform the field building discussion taking place over at the Packard OE Program site.

1.  Program Design

Peer Learning Exchange: Theory of Change

When you design a capacity building project based on peer learning and is focused on topics that will require transformative organizational change to apply skills and knowledge,  it is important to have a realistic and clear idea about what constitutes success.    Not thinking this through at the beginning can spell disaster, especially if there are unrealistic expectations and you are working in places where connectivity is a barrier.

This project has identified the following definitions of success:

• A Peer-to-Peer Learning Exchange

Grantees will engage in peer discussions about integrating social media effectively into their communications strategies and will learn from each other – from challenges and missteps as much as from accomplishments and wins – so success means organizations sharing both.

• Networked NGOs and Social Media Integrated Into Organizational Communications

Through the 4-day workshop in-country and subsequent online and conference calls, grantee organizations will start to embrace the practices of Networked Nonprofits and begin to institutionalize social media strategies and integrate them into their broader strategy for communications on population and reproductive health or girls and girls and women’s empowerment.

• Grantees Implement A Modest and Realistic Action Learning Pilot

Social media practices are just that – they get strong and stay strong with practice – so success means consistent application and learning. With facilitator’s guidance, grantees will design and implement a small action learning project. But smart is as important as strong, so success also means deliberate integration of social media strategies with the organization’s broader communications plan and learning from doing in small steps.

• Purposeful Measurement to Inform Replication

Grantee organizations will measure what matters. Social media can be filled with  metrics to track results. But not all metrics are equally valuable, and choosing the measurements that matter can be complicated.  Even more importantly, the practice of connecting measurement and decision-making will help organizations improve practice and results, and document value. Success means using metrics to learn how to improve practice effectively, both to identify obstacles and track progress.    The action learning project will be designed to help grantees build a habit of measurement, reflection, and organizational learning.

These definitions have informed the curriculum, instructional design, peer learning design, and how we will measure and learn along the way.  The specific indicators of program success are below and were identified with input from participants:

• 100% of participants will develop an integrated and measurable social media strategy that furthers their communications work in population and reproductive health that aligned with institutional goals
• 100% of participants implement a process and write a social media policy that addresses organizational adoption issues
• 100% of participants implement an action learning project that uses measurement to help improve their practice, share insights with peers, and identify opportunities to amplify each other’s voices through social media

It is also important clarify these expectations with participants.  We did this on Day 1.  It followed a presentation of the program design where we facilitated an exercise and discussion about their hopes and concerns for the program.    On our monthly calls, we will be measuring progress based on these indicators.    I’m sure issues will emerge, but hoping to find out what works and what doesn’t and discuss openly with participants as the technical assistance and action learning projects unfold!

2.    Design for Organizational Reluctance

An important design consideration is the selection of participants.      For this project, participants were carefully vetted, avoiding organizations that were in a leadership transition, had other organizational priorities to address or did not have the capacity to apply the skills or knowledge.   The latter includes a lack of a formal communication strategy or staffing limitations.

The program was designed for two participants per organization, a senior level staff and the staff person who implements social media.   Focusing peer learning exchanges on one group or the other doesn’t go quite as a far nor can it effectively overcome reluctance and get at transformative change within the organization.    In addition, as part of opting into the program, the CEO or Executive Director had to sign a letter of agreement that clearly articulated the time commitment.

The workshop lasted four days, with each day devoted to a specific theme:  1)  Networked NGOs, Networks, and Change from the Inside Out 2) Integrated Social Media Strategy 3) Effective Practice and Techniques 4) Action Learning Pilots, Measurement, and Remote Support.    The senior staff participated with social media staff for the first two days and then the social media worked together (without their bosses present) for two days on the practical and tactical.

During the training,  I put “red” dots on the name cards of the senior staff and “yellow” dots for social media staff.     Since the curriculum addressed organizational barriers head on and different scenarios about sharing control or organizational concerns,   we started to talk about  the different “red dot”  and “yellow dot” challenges when it comes to using social media in an organization.     We did a lot of role playing and scenarios as well as concrete work on developing their social media policies.   In addition to the tactical and skills instruction we did with the social media staff on Day 3 and Day 4, we also covered how to manage time and work efficiently – and how to best provide support for the strategies.

Peer Synergy is also important — and for the next six months we will have two tracks for the peer groups.   We will work with the “red dots” on developing the social media policy and strategy as well as working with the “yellow dots” on their action learning project.    I’ve worked hard to incorporate the principles of leveraging peer learning that the Monitor has begun to codify through interviews with me and other Packard grantees and providers working on peer learning projects.

3.   Dealing with Connectivity Issues, Remote Work, and Use of Social Platforms

A lot of more of my work recently has been with nonprofits in countries where Internet connectivity isn’t as robust as is in the US and where even electricity can be a problem.    Over the past 20 years of providing capacity programs online, I’ve  faced my share of bandwidth challenges.     That’s why we will not rely solely on online channels to facilitate discussions.  We will use SKYPE out which is more rebust for monthly conference calls, scheduled for business hours in Pakistan so participants can use the Internet connection at their offices.   We are recording the calls so those that face electricity/connectivity problems can download it as a podcast and listen to the recordings later – and view slides/ notes.

In addition, we will be using a wiki to showcase learning and a private Facebook group for daily contact and “just in time” support.   I selected the latter because all participants are on Facebook and can access it on their mobile phones.  As part of the face-to-face training, we spent a day introducing participants to the different platforms and because we had wifi at the training, integrated using it as part of the exercise report outs.      We are also using a Facebook group for daily communication.  The Facebook daily check-ins in-between our calls are to provide support and facilitate discussion

3.     Create A World Fusion Curriculum

All of my workshops are customized design, so I know how to infuse the participant’s voices – whether it be their own living case studies or examples from NGOs in their country or field.    I was very lucky to work with Stephanie Rudat on this project who has spent a lot of time in Pakistan training Youth Activist NGOs to use social media.   Her knowledge of the country and the culture made it easier to localize the curriculum.

However,  it is important to have a mix – examples from other fields and countries.    If participants can see themselves in the case studies and examples, there is less resistance.   If you can expose them to examples from other fields or countries, then it broadens their horizons.    You need that for new ideas, innovation, and fresh thinking.

This mixture  was embedded in every aspect from the instructional design – from icebreakers to reflection exercises to presentation content, examples, and frameworks.

For example, on Day 2 we covered strategy and social media integration.   The curriculum includes the  ”Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly”  framework that I developed over the past couple of years and is included in my next book.   There is also an self-assessment exercise.   However, to localize it,  Stephanie incorporated Pakistani imagery, including a photo  of Arfa Karim, the youngest female Microsoft ‘expert’ in Pakistan, to represent fly.  She was very famous in her country although, sadly she recently passed away from complications of a seizure.

Also on Day 2, we shared examples of Networked NGOs from different places in the world as well as used a case study exercise focusing on NGOs in Pakistan that had used social media effectively.

We even localized and mixed up our energizers and icebreakers.   On the first day, we all sang “Dil Dil Pakistan,” a well-loved song that most people from Pakistan know.

But on Day 2, we shared a famous dance from America (The Chicken Dance) and made everyone do it after lunch so they were energized for the afternoon.

4.      Design To Build A Community of Practice

Throughout the four days,  there were many opportunities for peer interaction and group exercises designed to build trust, identify common points of experience and knowledge, and opportunities for reciprocity.    On Day 1, since the theme was networks, we created a knowledge network of our existing knowledge and desired knowledge areas using a visual facilitation technique with sticky notes.    I was impressed with range and breadth of strategy and tactical skills of people in the room.  There was a lot of synergy and points of reciprocity.   Having this network map on the wall during the whole training, let us as the trainers acknowledge the expertise and knowledge in the room.

That’s important because after the training is done, the participants will need to have grown in their comfort and skill levels to proceed without.   My indicator of success for capacity building and training projects is that I’ve put myself out of a job.

Building on the theme of networks for Day 1, we had participants draw a network map of their networks as is suggested in the Networked Nonprofit.  This exercise is very useful because after participants create their maps,   they’re taped on the wall, and participants give feedback using sticky notes.  Then each group presents their map as we do a walk around the room.    This exercise not only leads to places where peers can share knowledge, but since it is an organizational lens – it also opens the door for ideas for networked approaches.  It almost always naturally leads to discussion about how to amplify each other’s voices using social media.

What I loved about this exercise, is that after Stephanie and I modeled taking photographs and sharing on our Facebook Group or Twitter,  participants started to also document digitally.  We were able to thoroughly document the exercise here.

We had participants begin to work through their social media strategy, but to encourage insights about how to leverage a networked effect, we had them create SMART objectives as a gallery. Using this visual techniques, allows participants to give each other feedback and also see points of connection.

On Day 3, when it was time to focus on more time on teaching the tools, we started with an opening exercise designed to help identify those in the room who had knowledge.   Participants made name badges using selecting tool names for their first and last name.   They had to create name that represented a tool they already knew and one they wanted to learn more about.   Then we did several rounds of speed dating which allowed for a lot of peer to peer help on using tools. One participant told me that she never learned so much about social media in so short a time.  The power of peer knowledge at work!

We had wifi in the room and participants brought their laptops – this give us the opportunity for open lab time or what I call “shoulder to shoulder” learning.  We spent half of Day 4 introducing participants to the various platforms we would using to keep in touch over the six months as they implemented action learning projects.    For example, the wiki, where participants will keep journals, we had them do some of the exercises related to designing their project on the wiki to learn how to use it.     This helped us identify participants who were already comfortable with the wiki and we put them to work teaching the others.

5.   Integrate Practical Use of the Tools for Reflection, Network Weaving, Getting Ideas, Follow Up Work

We incorporated hands-on time and shoulder to shoulder learning from Day 1.  We started by introducing Twitter as a networking and professional development tool and succeeded in getting all the senior staff (red dots) tweeting by the end of Day 1.     At different points in the day,  we took “Twitter breaks” for reflection or networking.

And, if questions emerged about a specific case study or example we shared – we would point out that they could tweet that person and ask them the question.   This happened when we shared some examples from the American Red Cross and participants tweeted their questions to Wendy Harman (who answered).

We introduce the Facebook Group on Day 2 so that both senior managers and the social media staff could add themselves.  Then we incorporate the use of the Facebook for reflection exercises and to capture some of the knowledge that was shared in the room.     For example, for one exercise, we had participants document their contribution to the “me to we” networked exercise.

6.   Design for Reflections and Connections To Actual Work Experience

It is really important to build in plenty of time for reflection so participants can connect what they are learning in a workshop to their work experience. A workshop that simply attempts to stuff content into people’s brains is highly ineffective.    The curriculum incorporated “overnight” reflections everyday as well as many exercises to help process what they learned. On Day 4, we incorporated some role playing exercises that helped participant learn about being efficient with social media or managing situations where control issues might occur.   This was an area that I improvised on the spot based on what I hearing the room – and again I realized the importance of not only teaching the how-to of how the tools works, but to understand how to integrate a new way of working into your daily routine and manage time better.

7.  Make It Fun, Celebrate

I believe strongly that professional learning can be fun and it can be more effective that way.   We engage our learners in many different ways – from role playing, games, interactive exercises, interactive presentations,  self-directed learning, drawing, teaching others, and having conversations about the topics.

International trainings tend to be longer because participants may traveling from different locations.     That’s why it is good to have different moving around exercises.   One that I use when people get tired, is to have them stand in a circle and we toss a ball. But, I usually bring a “ugly” doll.     It makes a game out of learning – and keeps people involved.

We also gave awards, certificates, and chocolates as well as surprise and humor to keep everyone involved.

I am looking forward to the next six months of working with this amazing group of Packard Foundation grantees half-way around the world.

What has been your experience designing capacity building programs?  Discuss here

Social Media Master Class

As part ongoing work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,  I am designing, facilitating, and delivering workshops with Compasspoint.    Last week, I had the great pleasure of presenting a one-day workshop with colleagues Holly Minch, JD Lasica, Janet Fouts, and Susan Tenby.   The session was designed a mix of strategy with a deep dive into content, measurement, Facebook, and Twitter.   The overall goal was to provide participants with a combination of insights and practical tips to help them be effective.    This face-to-face master class and mini-workshops will be followed with a smaller peer learning group that will meet regularly to compare notes as they put the ideas into practice.

Program outcomes:

• Guidance on developing an effective integrated social media strategy to support your mission
• Practical frameworks and guidelines for effectively developing an integrated content strategy and measurement practice
• Best practices for effective use of common social media tools: Facebook and Twitter.

The workshop was hosted by Compasspoint and its  partner Thrive, The Alliance of Nonprofits for San Mateo County and with the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Morning Session

The morning session focused on social media strategy.    The first part of the workshop shared “Campfire” stories.     I kicked it off with some new stories about Networked Nonprofits – and how they apply the principles of being a networked nonprofit (transparency, public learning, experimentation, social culture,measurement, and simplicity) to get results.  Next,  participants did a self-assessment,. using the maturity of practice model (Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly).   I always try to do an extensive participant survey prior to the workshop to uncover the knowledge in the room and used a “living case study” technique.  Participants become part of the workshop curriculum and share their experience – which seems very appropriate for a social media training.

And, of course, it helps to have free stuff to give away to motivate people to share their stories.   I always come to workshops with some books to give away.   Brian Solis was kind enough to send me two copies of his new book,  The End of Business As Usual, to give away.  (My review of this excellent book is coming in the next weeks).

For the second half of the morning, I shared “Eight Habits of Highly Effective Networked Nonprofits” with some exercises that help people see that by taking small steps, they can achieve success.

• Aligns social media with their communications strategy and objectives
• Scales social media by empowering everyone in the organization and integrating social into work flow
• Monitors, listens,  and researches the people in their network
• Gets feedback and start conversations about their work
• Masters of relationship marketing
• Curates content to capture attention  from their network in an age of information overload
• Works with free agents , champions, and influencers to  spread their mission
• Learns from experience and data

One of my favorite exercises is to get folks to take a minute to think of a question or conversation starter related to their communications goals or programs.    Most people easily come up with a  question.  Next I ask, do you have a half-hour to brainstorm 30 questions that you can ask your network as part of your Facebook content strategy?   Most, if not all, raise their hands.   Then I tell them they are well on their way to a Facebook content strategy.  (Usually a huge sigh of relief in the room.)

I recently took a workshop on visual facilitation with David Sibbet.   As part of my learning journey to put these ideas into practice, I’m integrating visual techniques into my facilitation repertoire.     Two things I did.   I have a Facebook “Like” rubber stamp that I use to stamp an index card or “like” button.  I ask folks to listen and jot down any ideas that they hear and like.    I also use giant sticky notes and encourage people to write their burning questions and post them on the wall.    This helps me make sure that I’m answering folks questions, plus I photograph them and post on my Facebook page.   I usually get fantastic answers from FB page fans – and the content encourages interaction!

After lunch, colleagues Holly Minch, JD Lasica, Janet Fouts, and Susan Tenby lead mini-workshops.   Here’s their materials with a few notes of new tricks and tips that I discovered.

This session covered the  best practices for planning and implementing an integrated content strategy.   Once you’ve identified your objective, audience, and messaging, you need to repurpose and re-imagine content across channels including email, social sites, mobile, web site, print, and mainstream media. This session shared techniques and tools for making that process efficient.   My favorite tip was that Holly shared her  Editorial Calendar Template spreadsheet.   That’s the biggest problem we have with content strategies – getting organized.

Janet Fouts shared Facebook best practices for the ultimate nonprofit Facebook page.  She covered how to design, recruit fans, drive offline actions, content strategy, and measurement techniques.  She also shared a number of pointers about  how to use events, and Facebook ads to drive engagement.   With the demise of export.ly,  I was sure happy when she told me about “Facebook Friends to CSV.”  

Next was Susan Tenby from TechSoup who did a mini-workshop on Twitter. I was presenting with JD Lasica during the same time, but during the break she told me about “Socialbro” that help you track and identify influencers and retweets.

JD Lasica and I co-facilitated a workshop on measurement. I shared KD Paine’s basic steps. To make it fun, my presentation took on a Halloween theme and I brought candy to throw at people who answer questions or share their insights. I started with a spectragram, asking people to line up in the room – telling me whether they loved or hated measurement. It was an interesting insight to learn that the people that don’t like measurement are those that feel they’re not really doing anything with data they collect. Those that are excited by measurement say they are because they learn something!

JD Lasica took on a tour of a couple of measurement tools. It was fantastic. He has a write up here. Finally, I took people into the new Facebook Insights for a quick tour.

Participants gathered together at the end of the day to reflect on what they learned and identify small steps to put into practice. I have them write these down on 3×5 cards and use it as a raffle. Always good to identify one step.

The next step from the workshop will be to facilitate a monthly peer group where the participants to put what they leaved into practice, one small incremental step at time.

What’s your best tip or tool for using social media effectively?

Flickr Photo by Lululemon

The discussion about the recent changes on Facebook has focused mostly around what it means for individuals, particularly the tension between openness and  privacy.    Many people are wondering what it means for nonprofit brands  using Facebook as one of their marketing channels.   So are people like me who do coaching and training on how to use Facebook effectively.     It makes no sense to freak out.

When I create training, I always take a  ”principles” approach.   While the specific tactics and techniques for a tool may change, the concepts generally hold constant.    Over the years, as I have watched Facebook roll out features and changes,  it seems takes a predictable pattern:   the big announcement, hype,  backlash, more tweaks to the platform, experiments by users/organizations, and learning what works.

One of the principles is to listen,  learn, and adapt and stay informed.  That is what a lot of us are doing.  We’re trying to understand  what continues work and what doesn’t and evolve practice.     You need to be nimble and not blindly follow a template because it worked in the past.      Measurement and learning are now more important than ever for success.

Focus on Engagement That Leads To Action

The Facebook “Like” button will morph and include  more actions.    According to this post from All Facebook,  these actions might include:  Want, Buy, Own, Listen, Read, Eat, Watch, Work Out – whatever developers create.   Each of these verbs would describe a type of relationship between things that exist in what Facebook has up until today called the Social Graph (our connections) or now what is being called the “Open Graph.”

For nonprofits,  some app developers, like Causes, are already envisioning types of nonprofit supporter actions on Facebook, such as Give and Pledge, which will allow them to prominently feature higher-value actions amidst the sea activity posted to Facebook everyday.

It is important to have a good understanding your target audiences’ decision-journey or ladder of engagement.   Don’t just stop at reach or awareness and don’t just focus on the number of likes which will become meaningless.   Organizations need to think about what motivates supporters to do something that moves the needle on their outcomes.

Gloria Huang from Red Cross said in a comment, “These changes are an opportunity to use our org’s Facebook presence to inspire actual action, rather than just “liking” posts.  This puts even more pressure on us to figure out how to bridge the gap between digital and real life. For example, if someone cares enough to add an app from the Red Cross that publishes an update whenever they give blood, it’s that much more important for us to thank and reward that donor once they actually show up at the blood center.” The Red Cross uses a ladder of engagement to move people beyond the likes on Facebook from awareness all the way to volunteering.

Brands have the opportunity to use apps to tell their story.  According to David Armano, Executive Vice President, Global Innovation & Integration:

“Facebook’s latest moves add up to three things: personalization, mobilization and amplification. For users, Facebook will allow users to further personalize how they want to share their lives to friends and connections. It also means doubling down on a better mobile experience. To brands and businesses, the revisions mean their interactions can be more effectively amplified IF they work really hard at high quality content and/or leverage paid options such as sponsored stories. From a business perspective Facebook is seeking to become the social layer that is woven throughout the Web.

The changes stress the increasing importance a “brand’s voice” in that it will need to be even more meaningful and add value to Facebook users. Companies who broadcast irrelevant information will be easier to tune out vs. those who genuinely connect with customers etc. who in turn reward them with engagement and amplification. In Facebook’s latest iteration, it becomes more about quality over quantity.”

Integrated Marketing and Communications Campaigns

Last month,  I shared a case study called “Facebook Likes Are Not A Victory” that told the story of how Momsrising uses an integrated communications strategy and measures success.    Momsrising goes beyond the “like” and uses deep engagement to inspire results – actions that take place offline as well as online.  And, that is how they measure success. This advice still holds true.   Momsrising does not look at the number of fans as an end point – and neither should your nonprofit.

Another example comes from a presentation that Carie Lewis from HSUS did in June,   “Beyond the Facebook Like.   They do not focus getting as many fans a possible, they’re focused on engaging with their network and inspiring them to take some form of action.

Relationship Building Is Even More Important

The news ticker, that streams all updates by all your friends will be important for brands, but not in the way you think.  It won’t be able getting your brand’s Facebook page wall updates into the ticker, but the actions your fans take on your page that end up on the ticker. (The ticker is a box on the side of the interface that provides a scrolling list of everything that is happening inside your social network. Coupled with this is some smart technology that figures out which stories are “top” and puts those (and only those) inside the main news feed.)   ClickZ has called this feature a way that Facebook will be friendlier for brands, and it’s easy to see why.    According to a post from ClickZ:

A lot of the content from brands that consumers like will end up in here as well. Most likely, a consumer does not want to see daily information from a brand on Facebook. What would end up happening, then, is that content would be hidden from view, unless you clicked over to the “most recent” tab on the screen. Which is to say that a lot of the posts that brands were putting up were never getting seen.

Also, given that the new openness of Facebook and serendipity of being able to see everything our friends are doing (and their friends), using multiple channels for engagement of our networks is even more critical.   But not to just share your message, but to truly engagement people by sharing stories – your networks stories, shining a light on those who are making a difference, saying thank you in person and creative ways — all the good principles nonprofits have been using to build relationships with stakeholders.

The new skills are learning how to be a good community manager – and focus on relationships with people, not tactics on specific platforms.

As this all evolves, I suspect that the number of fans will be truly meaningless.   It will be harder to cut through the clutter if you are simply contributing to the clutter.    A Facebook strategy isn’t just about  recruiting fans, but  deeply engaging people, building relationships, and leading them to action – but doing this through different channels.

Another change, is that people will be able to interact with your Facebook wall content without having to like your page.     This means that engaging content will win.

I posted this link on my Facebook Page and it prompted some great discussion about how some nonprofits are going to start rethinking what they’re doing.      Instead, keep calm and take a listen, learn, and adapt approach.

Some things to consider:

• Ask your team, what are the results that you want to achieve?  How can Facebook support your organizational communications, marketing or program objectives?
• Facebooking for, and engaging with, a nonprofit organization is now about meaning and resolving issues. How can your nonprofit improve the quality of posts, tone and managing the creativity of the your organization’s image and its engagement style?
• Read what analysts and pundits are saying about the changes and how brands are responding.   I like to follow what Mari Smith has to say – for example – here is her post about the privacy implications.
• Watch what other nonprofits are doing and emulate – but be sure to test new ideas in a way that you can learn and improve.

What is your organization doing to learn and adapt its strategy to the new changes?

Source: Social Media Propaganda Posters by Aaron Wood

As part of my work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,  I’m facilitating several peer exchanges on the topics of measurement, social media, and networked nonprofits.   This is feeding into my  work on a book with KD Paine on that topic.

Last month I had the pleasure of facilitating another peer exchange for Packard grantees who are children’s advocates and was thrilled to have Momsrising co-founder Kristin Row-Finkbeiner share some of the secrets of how networked nonprofits approach social media measurement and practice.

MomsRising is one of the best living examples of a nonprofit born as Networked Nonprofit, a  simple, agile, and transparent organization that work more like a network than a single isolated institution.   Like all Networked Nonprofits,  Momsrising values simplicity and the ability to leverage its network while engaging and building relationships with people and organizations to get results.

It comes as no surprise that Momsrising embraces measurement and learning.  It is embedded in the way they work and their organizational culture. It has fueled their growth from zero members in May of 2006, to over a million active members—moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, and uncles—today! And, they do not count “likes” on Facebook as victory.   Instead, they identify key organizational results areas and associated metrics to define successes and failures.

Their key results generally include:

• increasing the movement size by increasing membership
• garnering attention from all media through creative engagements
• getting policies passed
• working with aligned partner organizations
• increasing capacity

They know that to get results they cannot solely rely on social media tools.  They use results as a guide for designing and implementing rapid responses as part of their multi-channel citizen engagement campaigns.   Take for example how they responded last month to the ongoing budget negotiations, when  tens of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare were put on the table.

Momsrising wanted to demonstrate to Congress that there was a grassroots constituency that supported Medicaid and dispel a misperception that while Medicare has a strong constituency, Medicaid did not.

Momsrising knows from years of message testing and research, that to change minds about an issue, wonky stats fall flat.   But stories resonate.   They identified a rapid response goal of getting the stories dozens of moms who benefited from Medicaid and who could put out a strong defense for the program in the media.

Using a story collection landing page on their site, they urged their members to share their stories.   They collected over 500 stories from 43 states about how Medicaid was helping families.   They curated the best ones that illustrated their message and re-purposed these stories in to all their action alerts across channels.  This generated over 100,000 letters to Congress about the debt ceiling and the importance of Medcaid.

Masters of the multi-channel approach, Momsrising’s other tactics included hand delivering “story books”, hard copy compilations of the stories to Congress and the White House.   They also place these stories as letters to the editors in traditional newspapers.   Notes Kristen, “Social Media channels like Twitter and Facebook are important to us because we share those stories directly with targeted members of Congress. We post specific stories on targeted legislator’s Facebook Walls or we @reply them on Twitter. We’ve found that there are less filters between us and Congress when we use social media channels. While they can easily ignore our emails and phone calls, sharing the story directly with them through social media channels – they have to respond.”   Recent studies have shown that 64% of  Congressional offices use social media to gauge public opinion.)

Another key result area is to bring about policy change to create a more family-friendly nation.  Last month, Momsrising was invited to bring moms to the White House to talk with policy staff about their experience with Medicaid.   The White House  blogged about power of people’s stories.

As a follow up, these members to wrote a blog post about their experience.    Says Kristen, “The after-story is just as important because it will often get picked up my a traditional media outlet like NPR or “tradigital” media outlet (blogs) such as the Huffington Post.

As a Networked Nonprofit, they understand  simplicity and have not built a complex nonprofit with its own policy department.   Momsrising  focuses on what they do best – outreach and organizing moms – but not in isolation.   Momsrising  works with dozens of advocacy groups to extend their network without pulling themselves off task. Kristin said, “Our expertise is in working with our moments and powering the movement.  We don’t go out on anything solo, we rely on partners for policy analysis and many other things.”

The process of setting key results and collecting key metrics to measure progress is only half the battle.   It is the process using the data to make decisions and getting member feedback.

Momsrising holds a weekly staff meeting nicknamed “Metrics Monday.”   Each program and campaign staff person reviews their reports in preparation for a group conversation about what actions to reinforce, how refine messages, and other improvements.    Says Kristin, “Our dashboards have multiple views – a high level view and the ability to drill down into specific campaigns – this informs our discussion.”

An important part of the mix is the use of member feedback – both qualitative and surveys. “We are in dialogue with our members to figure out what works, what doesn’t.   The metrics keep us focused on our mission of building a movement for family economic security, while listening and engaging with our members breathes life into our movement.”  As a Networked Nonprofit, they understand the importance of learning loops when working a rapid response environment.

Momsrising also understands that learning leads to success.

• Fail: Some experiments bomb.    Momrising staff gives themselves permission to kill each other’s projects  or tactical ideas that were brilliant at the time but simply don’t work.  They do this with humor to remove the failure stigma and call it a “Joyful Funeral”  Before they bury the body, they reflect on why it didn’t work. Any staff person can call a Joyful Funeral on anyone else’s idea.

• Incremental Success Is Not A Failure: They do a lot of experiments and set realistic expectations for success.   Many times victories happen in baby steps.   They know from experience that many of their campaigns that incorporate social media lead to incremental successes, small wins or small improvements.

• Soaring Success:     Some experiments, actions, or issues will see dramatic results – beyond the organization’s wildest dreams.   For example, an interactive educational video ended up garnering over 12 million views and hundreds of comments and lead to thousands of new members signing up or taking action. Kristen says, “That type of success does not happen every day, but we need to try for that kind of success every day. We can only do it if we kill things that don’t work.”  They also analyze game changing successes to make sure it can be replicated or wasn’t an accident.

What are your organization’s key results?  What are the best metrics to measure those?  How do you use this data to guide design and implementation of your communications strategies?

Click Through to Flickr for Attributions

In our book, Networked Nonprofit, we describe the principles for becoming a networked nonprofit – a nonprofit that is simple, agile, transparent, and works more like a network than an isolated fortress.   Networked nonprofits are experts at using new media (social media, mobile, and other emerging technologies) to spread their missions, design and scale programs, communicate with stakeholders, or inspire behavior change.   Their impact is to make the world a better place.

Yesterday, during a webinar for GuideStar, the question was how does our organization put these high level concepts into practice?    How does your organization avoid falling into the trap that  a networked nonprofit is just about using  tools and platforms?    Your organization needs to think holistically.    If you don’t have a developmental model, you won’t  know where to start or how to prioritize your time.  Or as Inga Broerman, Guide Star VP of Marketing said,  “You won’t know what to say no to.”

I’ve been experimenting with a practice model that I’ve been using over the years and was able to crystallize some of my thinking into  “Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly” that I’ve been testing for designing training workshops and peer learning projects.   It is a self-assessment that a nonprofit could use to determine the level of their current social media practice and think about getting to the next step or a tool that a coach or trainer could use.       The title was inspired by a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr:

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

The Networked Nonprofit Practice Model

Putting the Networked Nonprofit ideas into practice and using social media and other emerging technologies will only be success if nonprofits take small, incremental and strategic steps. In this model, there are four different levels of social media practice:  Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly.   One level is not better than another; it is just where the organization is at with respect to becoming a networked nonprofit and agile at using social media and other emerging technologies.

It is important to note that it takes months, if not years, to reach the highest level of networked nonprofit practice. Not every nonprofit will go through the levels at the same pace due to organizational culture, capacity, or communication objectives, program design and target audiences.

Crawl

The nonprofit is not using social media or emerging technology or is not using it consistently.  The organization lacks  a robust communications strategy or program plan that can be scaled using a networked approach.  “Crawlers” are not just smaller nonprofits, but may include larger institutions that have all the basics in place, but lack a social culture or is highly resistant to change from a command and control style to a more networked mindset.

These nonprofits need to see inspiring stories of similar size and type of nonprofits and from adjacent practices.  For some, the first action step is to develop a basic communications strategy or program plan.  Once in place, the first social media step should be listening and enhancing the web presence.

Some crawlers may already  have a robust program plan or communications strategy in place, but are facing adoption challenges to working in a networked way.     The first step is a discussion encouraged by leadership about the issues, followed by codifying the rules in a social media policy.    The nonprofit must set up a robust listening process, integrating listening on social channels as part of program or communications planning research.

Walk

The nonprofit is using one or more social media tools consistently, but it is not strategic because it isn’t linked to a communications strategy, campaign, or program plan.    Also,  best practices on tools and techniques are part of the organizational skill set.   These organizations may need assistance developing a social media strategy to support short and long-term SMART objectives and to carefully identify the audience.

Walkers have internalized listening and are able to use the data they collect to improve  engagement and content best practices.   The nonprofit also needs to focus on one or two social media tools, going deep on tactics, and seeing tangible results.   Avoid spreading the organization’s resources too thin.

In addition, leadership may not fully understand social media and networked ways of working.   Often, a “Return on Investment” argument surfaces.  The organization must implement a small, low-risk pilots that can collect stories and numbers to help leadership better understand the value and benefit and costs.

The organization identifies low cost ways to build capacity internally – from using interns or volunteers effectively and integrating social media tasks into an existing job description.    Staff members evaluate current job tasks and identify what they don’t need to do in order to make time for social media and other emerging technologies, all with support from leadership.  They also must look to people outside their organization who they have connected with on social networks and enlist their help.
The nonprofit’s social media policy formalizes the value and vision for social media use and networked approach and encourages “outsiders” or free agents to  help with implementation.   The organization integrates simple measurement techniques and learning as an organizational habit that helps improve practice and documents results from the beginning of every networked approach.

Run

The nonprofit uses one or more social media tools and is strategic, but the problem  is scaling.  Building internal capacity may mature to a point of needing a half or full time staff person who serves as a community manager, building relationships with people on social media or new technology platforms. he networked approaches or social media is not in a silo or guarded by one person or department. This person also works internally as a network weaver or trainer to help other departments or individuals on staff incorporate the use of social media to support the organization’s programs. T This board is also using social media as part of its governance role.

The nonprofit effectively integrates social and emerging technologies such as mobile across all communications channels.  The organization has strong capacity in content creation as well as repurposing or remixing across channels.   The organization has also developed deep relationships so its crowd is inspired to create and spread content.
For program strategy, the organization uses techniques like crowdsourcing to get feedback on program design – whether it is help design a pilot, feedback on an evaluation, or rethinking of a program. The organization has adequately engaged and built relationships with key  influencers whether organizations or individuals.  The organization has codified and shared its program work flow and has made all program tools and materials available so its network can assist with implementation.

Organizations in this category also need to focus on using more sophisticated measurement techniques , tools, and processes.   This may include benchmarking, shared organizational dashboards, and linking results to job performances for larger institutions.

Fly

The nonprofit has mastered everything at the running stage and internalized it.    The organization has created a culture of public learning for both individuals and the entire organization.  The organization uses data to make decisions, but leaders understand how to lead from the heart as well as the head.   The organization has documented and shared dramatic results with its stakeholders and peer organizations.   The organization is part of a vibrant network of people and organizations all focused on a social change outcome that makes the world a better place.

Also, as with all frameworks, the reality is messy.  It might hard to for an organization to fit the profile in anyone category.     It is simply a method to for a trainer to assess or  nonprofit to self-assess their level of practice and figure out how to the next stage.

Where is your organization in this framework?  What does that look like?  What do you need to know, do, or have for success?

When we apply a network mindset to the way we work – whether as an individual or as part of a network strategy,  we believe that value is created through our connections, interactions and building relationships.  That’s social capital and it does have value.   The impact,  longer term, is innovation or the result of the network in action.

Let’s focus on the very first steps.   Once you or your organization views the world with a networked mindset, then you need to visualize the network.   There are many approaches and visual analysis tools.  Let’s look at the ones  that allow you to see the current relationships and potential ways to weave them on social media and social networks like Twitter.    There are many tools to visualize your Twitter network.   While they are fun (and addicting),  they are most useful if you set aside some time to not only generate the visual, but think about what does it mean for your current practice.

The discipline of noticing your own practice in adopting a network mindset is important.   This has been the most important lesson for me in shifting the way I work to a more networked approach.  It doesn’t happen overnight and it takes daily practice.      One efficient technique is to spend five minutes of your day at the end reflecting.  What if you used that five minutes of reflection, to visualize and understand your network?

The 5K Visual Browser is one tool that help you see connections between the people you interact with on Twitter.   Based on what I could figure out by staring at the visual that the app generated about my network (see above), this Twitter app lets you search a Twitter user name and it will show you who they are having conversations with and who is connected.   You can click on any given user and it will show their connections.

The visual at the top shows the people who I’ve been connecting with on Twitter in the last week or so.    A number of those on the visual are connecting with the E-Mediat Project,a networked capacity building project in the Middle East and more recently colleagues from TechSoup Global Summit who are partners on the E-Mediat project.

E-Mediat Twitter Network

I’m leaving on Friday to travel to Beirut as part of the eight-day Train the Trainers component of the E-Mediat project.   The first day of training is this Sunday and we’ll be covering networked approaches for NGOs and social media trainers.    The participants include in-country teams from six different countries: Jordan,  Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.   On each team, we have master trainers, training center coordinators, and social media advisors.    As part of that first day, we’ll be creating individual and collective  network maps.

In addition to my own map above,  I generated maps of the social media advisors on Twitter to look at their networks and connections.    It is interested that we do not yet have many overlapping connections.

For example, Rami Al-Karmi, Founder and CEO of Shabakat, Al Ordon (JordanNet)  and is serving as the E-Mediat Strategic Adviser for the Jordan In-Country Team.   Among his many accomplishments, he runs the very popular “Tech Tuesdays” in Jordan where Arab social media geeks meet up regularly.   His organization’s name, Shabakat, translates into the word “network,” and is a terrific example of a  Networked Nonprofit in the Arab world.

Rami Al-Karmi, Founder and CEO of Shabakat on Skype during meeting January

Last week, I facilitated an interactive keynote in Seattle at 2011 Tech for Good Leadership Summit sponsored by Microsoft Community Affairs, in partnership with NPower Seattle.    By all accounts, the event held the space for peer learning.

It was great to see long-time colleague from NPower Seattle Peg Giffels who I met ten years ago when she first joined the staff.   I was presenting a strategic technology workshop at one of their conferences.   I got to meet the dynamic NPower Seattle executive director Alison Carl White who talked passionately about her organization’s mission and programs.  I also got to catch up with more recent NPtech colleagues San McColloch, Erica Mills, and Peter Drury.

NPtech Colleagues: @zanarama Zan McColloch Lussier @ericamills Erica Mills @seattledrury Peter Drury photo by Akhtar

Akhtar Badshah, Senior Director of Global Community Affairs for Microsoft kicked off the day with  an interactive presentation about the trends in technology.   He didn’t do the “sage of the stage” thing,  he gave ample opportunities for the audience digest the ideas he shared as well as engage them in conversation.     Alison Carl White from NPower Seattle has a good summary on her blog.

There are people who just want an expert on the stage to share their wisdom.  They don’t want to engage, reflect, or hear what others in the room are doing.    I just don’t like that style because prevents deeper sharing of insights.    On the other hand,  people do want those tips and best practices.    So, letting the knowledge out in the room is a balancing act of peer interaction with expert insights.   So, how can you do that in a keynote with several hundred people in the room?  It’s a design challenge.

1.   Don’t Just Research Your Audience, Make Them Part of the Presentation

I used a brief pre-survey where I was able to collect information about success stories, challenges, and current social media usage.   I incorporated examples from people in the room and then asked them talk about it.    As the facilitator, you have design questions so they illicit stories.

The survey asked participants to share a story that illustrates how social media has brought value to their organization.  I’ve asked this question before, but this is the first time I had so many stories that it was hard to narrow it down to a few.   I used a “living case study” approach – doing an interview with them to share how they achieved their success.  This generated some fantastic insights:

Foundation for Early  Learning shared a story about how they used social media channels to spread awareness about a funding program and how it resulted in getting the information to a wider audience – a 33% increase in traffic and downloads of the information.    When asked to share how they achieved their success,  they told the audience about the importance of doing homework in the form of listening and setting realistic expectations for results.

Northwest Harvest Food Bank used its social media channels to mobilize supporters to give food donations that ended up breaking a Guinness Book of World Records.   While you could visit their blog, Facebook page, and Twitter stream to see how they engaged and mobilized their supporters, the hidden gem came out when asked, “What was the secret to your success?”   They had a partnership with a number of other hunger organizations and advocates who worked as volunteers to share the word of the drive through their networks, leveraging a networked effect.

Museum of History and Industry ( MOHAI) uses social media to engage with Seattle residents whom they would not be able to connect with otherwise and have a say in how history is being interpreted.    The video is part of a series of  “MOHAI Minute” videos on Youtube.   The woman in the mouth of the Alligator was in the room.  She told the story of how she created the videos herself initially, but when they started to catch on, she documented the results.  She was able to go to her boss and get some more resources in the budget for social media.

Seattle Symphony created flashmob and promoted it with Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter effectively.  It directly increased ticket sales.   In this living case study, the staff person from the Seattle Symphony shared how they did conversion tracking.    I asked her where they got the idea for doing a flash mob.   She mentioned how useful Twitter is for connecting and following peers to get ideas to evolve pilots for social media initiatives.    What is remarkable – as busy as they are getting the Symphony on the stage, this staff makes time for on the job informal learning through social media.

Photo by Microsoft Global Citizenship

2.   Use Metaphor or Inspirational Quote that Sums Up Your Key Point and Use It Throughout

Over the past year as more and more nonprofits are embracing social media, we are starting to see different levels of practice or “maturity of practice.”    On Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday this year,  I came across a quote that offered a good metaphor for such a framework:

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

I created an assessment framework that a nonprofit could use to determine the level of their current social media practice and think about getting to the next step.      I explained the model and had people discuss it with their peers and then we had a full group discussion about where people were and what was needed to get to the next step.   The full group discussion allowed people at different levels to share their experiences.

Twitter Advocates

3.  Use Twitter to Bring More People Into The Conversation

The conference hashtag #watech4good was used to encourage people both in the room and not in the room to Tweet – and ask questions.   I appointed two Twitter advocates who live Tweeted the discussion and also verbalized questions and comments from Twitter, providing a link between online and offline.

4.    Give Them A Couple of Practical Tips or Insights To Solve Their Problems

The survey asked participants to share their great social media challenges.   These boiled to do:   Lack of strategy, capacity issues,  adoption issues, and lack of measurement techniques and approaches.    I used their problems to share a few points about how to begin to address those challenges, holding the space for other participants to add their knowledge.

What people in the room were most hungry for were tips and steps on listening and measurement.   After my keynote, I was to tweet a few good links to help people get started, something they could read back at the office.

Actionable Social Media Listening for Nonprofits
Social Network Analysis Tools for Social Media
Get Your Social Media Strategy in Shape: Spreadsheet Aerobics
How Feeding America Uses KPIs to Measure Social Media
A Roundup of Social Media Measurement Resources for Nonprofits

To do keynotes that illicit peer learning on a large scale takes careful design.  Most of us – when faced with a presentation – only think about content, we don’t think about ways to spark interaction.   It’s a challenge to shift from focusing on your “getting your content out” to “how to spark insights from the audience,” but well worth doing.

See my guest blog post at the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog

This year my birthday (Jan. 11) was very special indeed and not only because the date had all ones: 1-11-11. But, I’ll get to birthday fun in a minute.

I spent my part of my birthday giving a presentation at the Packard Foundation Program Forum on translating the Networked Nonprofit into the Networked NGO.  The presentation was an opportunity to share some insights about working internationally and from sharing the ideas from the book  from trip to Kenya/UK last November.  Did they translate or were they lost in translation?  It also gave me an opportunity to share some stories about my experience as Visiting Scholar over the past 6 months coaching grantees in becoming Networked Nonprofits.

I’m keen to learn and improve my practice about training and developing curriculum for NGOs in different parts of the world.  I’ve had the opportunity to work in Canada, Australia, Cambodia, Romania, India, UK, and Africa and enjoy the extra dimension of understanding different cultures as part of the instructional and learning process.

One thing I learned is that is okay to do “real-time translation,”  and to be transparent about.     It takes a different mindset – not one of  “here the knowledge I’m going to fill you with.”  Instead, you have to listen, learn, and adapt your content and co-create a new understanding together.    It is also important to a mixed delivery and adhere to simplicity.

I got a chance to meet Stephanie Lai, who works at the Packard Foundation and is a member of the YouTube Symphony.  A cellist! In the video above, she talks about her love of music and philanthropy. Her introduction was filmed in the courtyard of the foundation. (My Australia friends should definitely watch the whole video, as the orchestra will perform in Sydney and Stephanie as a particular affection for wombats.)

It was a fun way to spend part of my birthday! 

Reflection on your past practice is a great way to start a new project that builds on the same skills and ideas.   Rather than go into cut and paste mode, it is an opportunity to create something new or scale.   I’m now interested in the question of how your scale a networked capacity building approach around social media.  

In 2011,  I’ll be the lead for Zoetica on a NGO/social media train the trainers project in the Middle East, sponsored by the State Department and others and has multiple partners.   IIE is managing the project.   We’re at the very beginning of the developing the curriculum and I’ll be sharing my learning and more details as they unfold. Transparency is one of the ideas and, of course, we’ll be modeling this.

As you can see,  my birthday didn’t go unnoticed (perhaps it was over 300 birthday wishes I got on my Facebook Wall), but my new friends sang Happy Birthday to me in Arabic and taught me how to say Thank You.  I’d like to say Shokran to everyone who made my special day wonderful.

A few other things I learned during our first planning meeting.  That there is an Arabic translation of the phrase  “throwing pasta at the wall.”   Which means you are experimenting or brainstorming and you don’t know if these ideas will stick.    No, it isn’t “throwing humus at the wall,” – it translates literally to throwing flour at the wall.

Also, there is no direct translation of the word “nerd” in Arabic, but the term is understood by people there to mean “someone who is really smart.”

So, stay tuned as I explore internationally training models  and networked approaches to capacity building.