This is Seth Godin at his disruptive best – speaking at last year’s NextGen:Charity conference on the topic of “Embracing Risk & Failure in Philanthropy”.

Most charities are part of the charity industrial complex, he says.

Ouch.

This is not an opportunity for you to put some “cool internet toppings on your factory-based charity mindset.” The internet is a connection machine, and charity:water, Kiva, Kickstarter… they are getting into the connection business.

Clever ways to interrupt people are fine, but it’s not the future. This is “not about pouring money on top of your traditional system.” This is about your desire to make connections.

Do you care enough to put it out there and have it not work? The changes that we’re looking for are impossible to imagine… until they work.

Listen to Seth for sixteen minutes. It is worth every second.

#ngc11 will take place in NYC on 17th and 18th November.

It is refreshing to witness many of our oldest charities embracing technology and the social web like toddlers finding the space to play and make new friends.

The complexity of the problems we face in the world out-paces the ability of any individual organisation to address them. Many people are now asking whether organisations working through networks could do better, and this was a constant theme through the day.

For example, should we give more focus to finding alternatives that tap the power of networks such as ‘crowd-funding’, which not only bring in money, but it also power the community?

Crowd-funding has found itself in the spotlight since President Obama’s election victory in 2008, and I shared in the excitement of Tom Thirlwell, CEO at Big Balls Films, as he showcased the crowd-sourced film peaceBOMB, the money for which was raised in 30 days by over 100 people using the Kickstarter platform. All effectively became ‘producers’, and will get a name-check in the finished film; in Bob Dylan flipping cue cards-style.

Other themes were transparency, and how more of it is inevitable, whether we like it or not. Charities should expect it. Soon.

Ditto, charities as “sensemakers” – mashing data with storytelling – a topic that Peter Wanless blogged about this week.

Technology is driving a sea-change in peoples’ expectations of communication, with many now expecting charities to be as open with them as they are with their own relationships.

This is something ‘netroots’ charities like the Child’s i Foundation instinctively do well, using stories to illustrate impact and encouraging its supporter community to share what they have done with their friends.

However, this change in tone and posture appears much more difficult for many charities – those “not hardwired” for digital – as another speaker, Martha Lane Fox, put it.

I, however, remain an optimist and it was repeated more than once at Activate that this stuff is ’90% people, and only 10% technology’.

That’s down to us then.

In my talk I said we had designed our organisations for divisions, rather than for connections. Think about it; not only have we built silos, but we still call them ‘divisions’. I also repeated a line from my post last month:

Loyalty to a charity brand is being slowly augmented by a closer affinity with charity employees.

I’ve observed how it helps to develop the thread between a charity’s values and my own experience of that organisation – as I learn a little more about the individual daily contribution of those charity people I follow on Twitter (and who I might then meet). These ‘weak ties’ become stronger over time – more textured – and many eventually form bridges that connect us. But as Anne McCrossan (with whom I am fortunate enough to collaborate) writes in her post reflecting on this week’s event, charity leaders have been slow to appreciate how this connective tissue can create a compelling point of difference:

Job descriptions remain fixed, corporate reputations struggle with how to accommodate and integrate personal profiles into their own, the scope to build on the kind of affinity that can reshape organisational structure so it’s more fluid is limited. Hopping over the walls of internal departments to contribute to initiatives is often regarded as too provocative and challenging to the status quo.

Zappos – the online shoe and apparel store – expects each employee to “develop and cultivate the brand,” and shy away from any formal written guidelines, since their CEO, Tony Hsieh believes these are “too limiting and not aspirational enough.” We need to convince people that what they are doing has value. Of course some people – like Euan Semple – appreciated all this a long time before I did.

HCL Technologies in India has created the employee passion indicator – an instrument to establish what employees get most excited about. It might be financial reward (for less than half), recognition, advocacy, and so forth. Each employee gets a ‘traffic lights’ report indicating green, orange or red for the ‘fit’ between their own motivational factors and the requirements of their role. This helps them and the company to find the best match.

At Foviance, my friend Richard Sedley had the idea of sharing the business ‘lifestream’ on a blog. Elsewhere, SAY Media use employees’ images of their extra-curricular passions to start a conversation. I love what ihmmedia have done here on their ‘people’ page (thanks to @RobmDyson for this one), and I smiled with Heather Taylor as she shared her excitement at receiving her BBC staff pass.

So far these examples are all from the corporate world (but you get the idea).

Here come charity:water (who else?) to the rescue. They ’big up’ their people (including interns) via a meet the staff category on their blog, and use photos to capture the heartbeat of their young and dynamic organisation – such as when sharing the delight of receiving a poem or a visit from a young fundraiser in the office.

One last one. Now I have no idea whether the stunning new visual identity of the MIT Media Lab carries over into practice, but the intent is breathtaking (you really need to follow that link). Translate this to your charity: passionate and creative people from all kinds of backgrounds coming together, inspiring each other and collaboratively making change. Now imagine that branding extending out to those not on the payroll.

All this goes way beyond ‘employee engagement’; I’m thinking more ‘employee emancipation’.

What do you think?

I’m now about to jump on another train to try and persuade a group of Big Charity Finance Directors that this is something worth focusing on; that there is value in the ‘who’, as well as the ‘what’.

Anyway, here’s my presentation from Monday.

Much of the value in the stuff we call social media stems from its immediacy. Your employees now have the ability to report and share what they are experiencing right in front of them. In real time. In the moment.

Earlier this year I was excited to read this post on the Ushahidi blog – and in particular this snippet…

“…imagine getting a continuous flow of stories in near-real time that allows people to see needs as they emerge and act on them.”

In a frenetic world defined by more and more things competing for peoples’ attention, you need to be in that ‘flow’, where you have a better chance of catching people ‘in motion’ – when they are ‘goal orientated’.

I often show this slide to illustrate the point.

Where is all this leading? Well, Lucy Bernholz eloquently stated recently that philanthropy is the business of passion. I love that. That passion can also fade if you don’t know your own place in the story; if you hang up your passion with your coat every morning.

Way back – before the web was invented – my experience at Oxfam was that some of the best stories were locked in the ‘audio-visual unit’ (although I preferred to call it The Story Room). Two decades later charities still have a tendency to ‘save’ a great story for some future purpose (rather than sharing for maximum impact). In practice this often means it is buried among the fluff in the annual report, or (sometimes) devalued with a free plastic pen in a piece of direct mail.

Stories move people – and communications is about making stories real, urgent, and compelling to move people to act. You and your charity’s supporters are inextricably linked so create opportunities to bring you all closer together. Bridge the gap through participation with story as the connective tissue.

Make participation central – not just content – otherwise this is all just a sideshow. Your mission doesn’t want to just sit on paper – or even a static web page.

I guess I’m imagining something similar to the business lifestream Made by Many created for when a whole bunch of employees attended SXSW in March. They aggregate photos and tweets captured on employees’ iPhones using the Instagram app, and weave in blog posts that update dynamically and in real time. The Made by Many crew have created something visceral; a delivery system for their stories. They are active participants and put in their true selves. This may be the future of digital engagement: intimate and packed with multiple ‘light-touches’ across multiple possible touch-points.

In a charity, this kind of behaviour can inspire others who emotionally invest in you. Especially given loyalty to a charity brand is I believe being slowly augmented by a closer affinity with employees.

We are hard-wired to do this. We just haven’t had the toolkit until now. But just as we transition towards a more digital life – somehow behind the firewall we unlearn and grow more compliant and uncertain that we have something to add that will be valued. We lose confidence.

I view much of what I do now as helping to build the capability for ‘flow’ within charities. Working alongside Anne McCrossan we see the potential for organisations to make connections that move people and share the stuff that ‘tingles’; the kind of organisation that makes people want to respond and contribute.

Anne is fond of repeating these words from Maya Angelou, and they seem appropriate to include here…

“People will forget what you said; people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Are you ready to move from ‘busy’ to ‘flow’?

Photo by Michael Hartford available under a Creative Commons license

1. You are now pretty good at using digital marketing techniques to push your charity’s own content tactically, but what are you doing to bridge the social divide between digital marketing and something that looks more genuinely like a commitment to meaningfully participate in the networks that are already out there?
2. More charities are finding they can reach more people to talk about what they do. But by the same measure, more people are also discovering they can make a difference without you. So how can you address this using social media when people have less attention than ever?
3. Social media provides a platform for you to earn trust by telling specific and impactful stories that are shared in the moment through online and offline networks to fuel action. The deeper value lies right there. Do you agree?
4. Be prepared and engage your detractors. Not all of them, but where this is merited; Remember, a networked world is not always fun. Is your organisation engaging at this deeper level?
5. The world is changing faster than we can reorganise. How comfortable is your culture with stopping trying to get all its ducks in a row and embracing the messiness of the social web – and does this matter to you?
6. Don’t build thicker walls between career silos. We all ‘communicate’. We all have it within us to be fundraisers. Especially those not on the payroll. Is a new kind of volunteering on the horizon that can recognise and reward good people wherever they are?
7. People mistake the fundraising potential of the web with the sea-change it is bringing to peoples’ expectations of relationships and communication. But charities are still structured for ‘transactions’ rather than for participation – yet less than 1 per cent of time online is spent transacting. How does this fit in with your charity’s operating plan?
8. I am not at all sure that in the future, people will share the same affinity and allegiance to big charity ‘brands’ as my generation has shown with sustained loyalty. Our focus now should be on finding alternatives that tap the power of networks such as ‘crowd-funding’, which not only bring in money, but it also power community. Will this have implications for charities as we know them today?
9. ‘Donors’ can only give of their money. New online tools are offering people the ability to mobilise their social networks around peer-to-peer portfolio lending and other forms of contribution. I can foresee how groups of people will engage around a portfolio of small, tangible, impactful interests rather than direct debits. What could this spell out for the way charities do things?
10. What does your campaign celebrate? Are you setting up a culture that celebrates sharing, collaboration, collective action and trust? Or are you celebrating donations, staff size, media attention and individual credit? What are your metrics?
11. The tools are not useful unless people adopt the social behaviours to go with them. Is there evidence that social media is changing the language and tone of your communications to accelerate the delivery of your mission? How much should communications be geared to incoming communication, as well as measuring column inches? And how might this affect the shape of your communications department?
12. Breakthroughs in giving are now just as likely to evolve from multi-layered gaming technology as from within your fundraising department. If the charity sector is truly innovating – why aren’t we seeing roles being created that couldn’t have existed five or ten years ago? Are you ready to reallocate resources and budgets, and grow people into new roles?
13. How much can we avoid silos? We need to accept that it’s OK to make a noise about the work you do, to use your own networks to reach out and make connections with anyone, anywhere, and uncover people who may be looking for an opportunity and who share the same goals. Just as we must break down silos within charities (and re-organise into smaller units), we must also link arms across ‘sectors’.
14. Do you hang your passion up with your coat every morning? What can charities do to foster passion in their cause socially?
15. What are the barriers? What’s holding you back? Take the initiative. Today. You will get pushed back, but find the guts to do what you need to do. Are you ready to shape the future of your organisation… or is it going to be down to someone else to do it?

What do you think?

Social media may fail to deliver the campaign result our planning meetings had pre-determined. Instead it may just unleash the kind of promising connections and surprises we ourselves are unable or unwilling to embrace. All relationships ebb and flow, often for a reason, and sometimes for no other reason than we are too busy, do not care, neglect the obvious… or simply fall out of love.

Consider our failure to expose our ‘meeting culture’ to the same rigorous demand for immediate return we ask of social media. The stuff we call social media actually lifts a mirror and reflects back on our own impatience to listen, to give more time to what other people want.

When contemplating the failures of social media, we first need to look at ourselves.

Anyway, enjoy the clip – or enjoy it all over again. It includes the immortal line:

the first ‘follower’ is what transforms a lone ‘nut’ into a leader…

The full transcript of Derek’s talk is available here.

where key figures in charity communications have teamed up to produce a snapshot of the most significant communications trends of the coming decade.

So, these are my five ‘future practice’ trends:

• The term ‘social media’ will sound just as dated as ‘information superhighway’ does today
• Fragmentary movements of citizens – some global, some local – will mobilise around single-issues, seeking alliances with social change organisations, which they believe can help bring the change they want
• In the web of ‘flow’, charities will catch people ‘in motion’ – when they are ‘goal orientated’ – and will give them the tools to reproduce messages through their own networks
• Websites will become much slimmer, with the focus switching to curation, aggregation… and amplifying the 000’s of ‘small actions’ of others
• Smart organisations will evolve their workforce for a networked economy and will trust a passionate community of employees to build relationships online using different platforms for different objectives

Here’s the deck.

It needs to be said that ‘digital’, and all the new stuff that we call ‘social media’, isn’t really the point; relationships are the point. Same as it ever was.

And yet so much has changed. Charities now need to reach out to people in a way that isn’t just ‘marketing’ and catch people ‘in motion’ – when they are ‘goal-orientated’; meeting people where they are, in real-time (or near real-time), around what is interesting to them. It is no longer a question of simply delivering content to people; it’s about your convening power to help people discover each other to help make the change you both want.

The trouble is, by treating social media as just another ‘channel’, in-house departments are often completely unprepared when people ‘answer back’, and struggle to make the required change in tone and posture. With a few exceptions, our sector does not have a great track record when it comes to distributing trust to staff and many organisations have created a bottleneck as communication is funnelled via a handful of staff. Social media has become just another silo.

We really need a much broader (and deeper) organisational alignment around supporters. I want everyone who works for a charity to be seen more as assets and advocates than as cost streams to be subsidised. This seems to me to be even more sensible as we are challenged to do more with less; charity leaders have a passionate community right under their noses: their own staff.

I agree with Will McInnes who is convinced that eventually…

every member of staff [will] need to have some level of responding power and be empowered to use social media to communicate and build relationships with the people around them.

I think that this is inevitable and irresistible, but is your charity ready to create new roles, re-train, and reallocate resources and budgets?

Today is her Beth Kanter’s 53rd birthday and she is asking her trusted network to join her to raise funds for the Sharing Foundation, and help send some young people to school, where they belong. In Beth’s words…

Many children in Cambodia do not go to school because their families lack the $10 for a uniform, required for school attendance. And even though $10 may seem like nothing to us, it can make a world of difference for a Cambodian child. We have hundreds of kids who need uniforms – so let’s help as many as we can.

I’ve met Beth in person only once – in February 2007 – but we have collaborated a number of times. I’m just one of a whole bunch of bloggers writing posts today about Beth, her cause, and her influence. (Amy, Stacey… great idea).

I’ve donated. Not just because of Beth (and her family), but because Cambodia holds a special place in my heart, too. Twenty-one years ago I managed a small team at Oxfam UK which coordinated (with the BBC) The Great Blue Peter Bring and Buy Sale for Kampuchea (as it then was), which raised in excess of GBP 1 million.

If you can, please donate to Beth’s cause on Facebook.

And Beth… thank you for leading by example.

I captured this awesome cloud during a short family holiday in Northumberland last week. I like it a lot.

I guessed it was cumulus congestus but checked with Gavin Pretor-Pinney of The Cloud Appreciation Society:

“Yes, indeed. With a crisp summit like that, it had yet to mature into a Cumulonimbus, at which point the top freezes and looks more blurry. It’s a beauty.”

Feel free to use the larger version for presentations (or whatever).

We’re asked what five things we do every day (or almost every day) to stay mentally healthy. So here goes…

• Listen to a TED talk. I do this often – or more accurately on those mornings when I answer my daily five o’clock alarm call, which if I’m honest, is about two or three times a week. TED talks typically last 20 minutes and rarely fail to inspire. My all-time favourite is Ken Robinson’s witty and moving rallying call for creating an education system that nurtures creativity. Genius.
• Explore Flickr. I first fell under the spell of the Flickr photo-sharing community in 2004, and in my opinion there is still very little on the web that can match it. Every day I look to see who may have viewed my own photostream and then click through to Flickr Explore. There’s no greater pleasure for me than attempting to capture the beauty of the world around us, and my family in it – even with my little compact camera. We live in a visual world that is becoming more and more visual, and if you’ve yet to experience Flickr, then perhaps this is the perfect place to start.
• Day dream. Whether I’m sitting in a favourite chair, looking out the window of a moving train, or on the seashore, or at the summit of the Tor, daydreaming is my #1 tool for creativity and I although I may not allocate time for it, I do it every day without fail. I cannot really plan for it, although I surround myself at home, around my desk, with physical things, often tiny things, each with a special memory attached to it. For example, take the tiny screw with the now infinitesimal fleck of turquoise paint. Looking at it instantly transports me back to 1991; it had slowly loosened itself over the course of a bumpy 12-hour journey on a ‘chicken bus’ from Guatemala City to Flores. Near our final destination, it had dropped into my lap. I decided to keep it. One day, if I ever write well enough, I might tell the whole story. I was almost daydreaming there for a minute.
  I should add that I also daydream on purpose, with a purpose; often to play out positive scenarios that I wish to happen that day, or in the future. In my daydreams I replay good times past, and imagine the good times still to come, when even the world’s injustices may be put right.
• Listen to music – or more particularly, an anthem. Current favourite is Sigur Rós epic Hoppípolla, which packs a real emotional punch, especially now I associate it with a short film I watched at an Action for Children charity event in October.
• Be generous. I’m not certain of it, but I think I’m a pretty generous sort. I never expect anything in return, but it nearly always comes anyway; often when I least expect it, but when I have most reason to be grateful for it. Tools like Twitter make it easy to share and reward you in spades for doing so. And it only takes a minute to reciprcate. I’m reminded of something Guy Kawasaki once said: Eat like a bird; poop like an elephant. Finally… being generous can be as easy as making someone smile, or sharing a laugh.

After finishing this list and glancing back at what I have written, it becomes obvious to me that all of it helps me stay grounded, and to keep my balance and perspective.

I went for a brief walk in Clifton on Saturday afternoon. You can view the slideshow on Flickr.

You can’t fake genuine emotion. Barack Obama connects and inspires. Did you see the tear-streaked faces of those gathered in Grants Park in downtown Chicago on Tuesday night? They were not mere spectators, but active participants as Obama called for a shared vision of the future – using We, not You or I as a subject.

Photo: David Katz/Obama for America. Licensed under Creative Commons on Flickr

Very seasonable, I thought! Also, my most ‘interesting’ photo on Flickr, according to Flickreenos, with just shy of 10,000 views.

This neat little video is part of Colalife’s submission to Google’s Project 10 to the 100th - a call for ideas to change the world.

Kudos to Simon Berry and the distributed Colalife team, for this one, and their intelligent and relentless campaign.

Just this morning, Mark Charmer of Akvo alerted me to a United Nations University study, which says providing sanitation and safe water is the top route to reducing world poverty.

Please join the Colalife group on Facebook; 6,391 members… and counting.

Imagine… a humungous aggregator of all the positive good that millions of people have done today. The tiny, but not so insignificant acts of kindness and philanthropy, which if joined together would add up to one heck of a powerful narrative for a more just world.

Bad news happens fast and travels fast, while a good story can take much longer to blossom and bear fruit.

Where are the stories of the courageous people who through their own efforts, or with a little leg up such as a Kiva loan, overcome their material poverty to create a brighter tomorrow for themselves and their communities, one person at a time.

There’s a lot of doom and gloom around at the moment. Even the last item on the late evening news – the one that is intended to make us forget the previous 25 minutes of bad news – well, even that has recently dropped off the end of the bulletin. It seems it’s all bad news.

Bloody hell, why can’t those news people get some perspective. Can’t they find just one, simple but remarkable thing that someone, or some group has done today with real and lasting social impact? Did they bother to look?

If you’re reading this and work for a charity – this is an invitation to demonstrate the positive impact of your work, more than you do today. Don’t tell me what £50 will buy for ‘someone like’; show me what £50 has achieved. Better still, let me watch a video of a ‘real person’ that will bring me to within a heartbeat of your work. I’ll even donate towards buying a new computer, if you show me that the old one was used to empower a network of activists to make a positive difference.

I do not want to feel remote, guilty and helpless. I want to feel inspired and involved in making good stuff happen, right now.

We all want to be part of a good news story. Good news begets more good news.

And remember, today something good did happen. For a start, thousands and thousands of people participated in Blog Action Day.

Maybe it’s because I’m a glass-is-half-full kinda guy, but please tell me some good news, and I’ll gladly pass it on.

What are your ideas for making the good news more visible?

I was going to write about something else for Blog Action Day. I was going to write about Save the Children’s Kroo Bay and DfID’s bloggers. I’ll mention them, because they’re worth your attention.

I’m shortly going to be doing some work with Global Giving UK, to embed some more good news around the social web.

I know this is simplistic, and I’d never have dreamt making this sort of comparison when I studied Development Economics two decades ago.

But wait a minute, when other, less powerful nations needed bailouts in the past, weren’t these accompanied by stringent conditions? At the same time the rich nations exalted the “invisible hand” of market capitalism, they also attached “conditionalities” to the loans called “structural adjustment programmes“. The poorest suffered the most. The bankers and government ministers did OK.

Of course, I’m not surprised by these double standards. It just leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Gordon Brown advocates a “new global order, founded on transparency, not opacity”.

We do need a new global order. One based on fairness, equality, and justice for all. Not this.

Top row, left to right Porthcurno beach, Mousehole harbour, Rockpool play at Sennen Cove,
Middle row Sennen Cove surf, Logan Rock from Pednvounder, Looking towards the Minack Theatre,
Bottom row Pednvounder beach, Atlantic shower, Window onto the Atlantic

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Burma Campaign UK

Thanks to Joanna Juber – the charity’s Digital Engagement Manager – for inviting me to speak on a range of topics I will be blogging about over the coming months. Fundamentally, how technological innovation has always necessitated institutional innovation and how charities need to learn to be agile (the technology won’t slow to their pace).

Here’s the link to the presentation on slideshare for those of you picking this up in your feed reader, with the caveat that one or two slides make less sense without the narrative.

On my way back to Somerset on the train, I read that E. L. Doctorow once said writing a novel is like “driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

It struck me that this is much like the journey we’re all making with social media. Charities need to learn to be agile enough to get into driver’s seat, and brave enough to take the wheel and move out of second gear. It’s going to be an interesting ride. Baggsy be the co-driver.

I’m particularly looking forward to introducing Hoop MD, Sean O’Halloran who will talk about the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP). Sean has a close family link with the project.

MAP is funded by the Wellcome Trust, and is led by Professor Bob Snow at Oxford University. Malaria is one of the world’s biggest killers – but it is preventable if the right steps are taken. MAP charts the prevalence of malaria throughout the globe, and Bob’s team eventually want to make real time data available online.

Sean is as excited as I am about the creative potential of social technologies to mash up and interpret the data (through mapping, visualisations, etc.) and will be joining us at 2gether on Wednesday morning to frame the enormous challenge of eradicating malaria and perhaps bring some new energy to MAP with a big dose of collaborative thinking.

That’s just what 2gether is all about.