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Possibilities for N2Y3

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N2Y2 certainly brought together some amazing people from various domains to work for social change. Nonprofit entrepreneurs, technologists, foundation representatives, venture capitalists, and those that support and critique them converged in one space. This in itself is indisputably important and valuable. What to do within that space to best foster the emergence of good things might be a little more complicated and debatable.

21 projects voted in through popularity polls online.

What worked for me:

  • Fun, friendly, interesting attendees
  • fame factor of some of the attendees (though not of the speakers)
  • divergence of interests of attendees, panelists, and projects
  • splitting up of the awards among all
  • silly wooden nickel voting, playfulness, general energy of the event
  • location
  • warmth and friendliness of the staff, organizers, and others
  • speed-geeking the projects (I heard others suggest how this might uplift projects strong in communications while showing unfavorably groups that don’t communicate well or have ineffective speakers—to my thinking these things are important to the success of a project. It might not be ideal, but it is true.)
  • backpacks. t-shirts. I used to handle promotional stuff, so I am pretty clear how cheesy it all is. I still love coming home with good stuff. Call me a sucker.
  • The logo. I love the character wrapping her arms around the 2. It really worked for me. In fact, the graphics on everything looked swell!
  • Back-channel chatting is terrific. I love it. I want to see more of it.

What didn’t work for me:

  • Panel discussion divided by social impact (I didn’t get much sense of what the social implications of any of the projects I listened to), economic sustainability (let’s push nonprofits to become social entrepreneurs?), and technology innovation (it was already clear who knew their technology).
  • Voting process done by one round rather than winnowing (repeated rounds of narrowing down).
  • Lack of transparency about voting outcomes. With the overall winner of the event being MapLight—an organization about money and political transparency, it was pointed out to me how incredibly ironic that the event coordinators themselves weren’t showing how many tokens each group collected.
  • I never figured out which of the panelists was going to moderate which panel. So I missed seeing people like Lucy Bernholz!
  • organizations there that did not get much opportunity to be visible, I was pleased to see the Bring Light presentation. It was much more interesting that the Cisco exec talk (though Cisco were fantastic and gracious hosts!).
  • Superficial efforts to be cool—stickers we could place on our name tags to show whether we had attended which of the three area panels. It didn’t seem to mean anything to anyone I talked with. The overabundance of printed materials. Wasted paper. The “tag” boxes in the upper corner of the 21 projects in the booklet—it would have been better to have a space for me to put my own tag cloud together.
  • The elephant in the room—there is, even here, a generational gap in understanding technology and cultural innovations. It isn’t the tools, stupid. Yes, know the tools, create good tools, indeed. And people use them. There was a clear divide of people who “get” what web 2.0 is about, and people who are buzzing about it and don’t understand the cultural shift. And there are some marginal people who understand there is a change, but they can’t move from intellectually grasping it to wholeheartedly being it. I didn’t see much movement to change that.

Advice:

  • Take advantage of what is best about the projects. Clearly there is something valuable about each of these which others could learn from. For example, Genocide Intervention Network really gets the cross-portal identity management piece. YouthAssets really understood how to create a flow system. How can they share what they are already doing well or figured out as an advantage? Let the audience participate and generate a list of 1-3 core advantages and then have the org explain a little about each of them. Was a projects innovative edge about social impact (new way to impact more people better)? Was a projects innovative edge about technology (new technology or new use of technology)? Or was a project economically innovative (new model of creating monetary and resource flows)? Let the strong ones in each issue speak on that issue…and be paneled by experts that can push their edges even further.
  • Good Capital, YouthGive, Lucy, and others, in my mind, should have gotten 5 minutes too somehow…though that could be a time management issue.
  • Perhaps there could be a better equating of tokens to funds received.
  • Outlaw buzz words OR tally keeping on words like community and collaboration. (Yeah, I know, I would be in trouble pretty quickly, as I love these words too.)

Foundation and Capital Voices

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I have found foundation representatives here at netsquared. However, I have not heard from them publicly. I think foundation representatives have a lot to offer to emerging nonprofits and technologists as they are trying to gain clarity and grow. Similarly VC folks have wisdom and questions that can help prime projects for receiving funding and building viable business models.

Also, I would like to see more nonprofits and technologists putting pressure on foundations to consider expanding program support beyond granting to blended offerings of loans and other investment tools that support emerging social purpose organizations and projects.

We need to be surfacing the resources we each have, acknowledging our own needs, and sharing together to make more and more good things happen.

Resources Lost

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Still here at netsquared. Looking around at the audience in this economic sustainability session…and I think we are not capturing the resources that are in the room. When someone is sitting not far from me that is with pledgebank, and yet we aren’t talking about pledging…or Bring Light, who sponsored the event, doesn’t get to share how they work…these 21 projects need to hear about tools in the room that they don’t know about.

Here is a project–what can each person in the room bring to it to move it forward? And what collectively do we as a group think would be most valuable from that.

Interesting question from the moderator: he asserts that some nonprofits simply suck. One of the panelists retorted that the trick about that subjective judgment is WHO gets to make that call. I wonder how valuable even figuring that out is! When talking about services that cost a certain amount to be able to do–and that cost is fairly unrelated to number served. Grassroots.org for example has a certain cost that doesn’t. I imagine, increase significantly whether they serve 5000 or 7500. It isn’t worth the sorting process which becomes a trade-off–the value of being an open provider gets compromised by being some judgment making organization.

This is one of the values I really appreciate about Catalytic Communities. They share projects from any community leaders who have innovative solutions. Those leaders get to decide what is innovative. I think that can really resonate for people who are skeptical of the power aspect of subjectively choosing who gets in and who gets out.

Netsquared N2Y2

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San Jose at Cisco for the Netsquared N2Y2 event thanks to Omidyar Network and the Omidyar Network Community.

We had speed geeking mixed with a Yahoo and Cisco talk the first part of the day. The speek geeking was appreciated by some as making it easier to get a sense of projects (as opposed to reading about them online). However others felt like the presentation might impact voting bubbling up personalities rather than worthy projects. I didn’t feel strongly either way. There is clearly a very broad spectrum of people here in their understanding of what Web 2.0 is about and how to use it.

Collaboration is a buzz word that half the people speaking it don’t understand.

I have been most impressed by Genocide Intervention Network. The young energetic man speaking about the organization, radiates 2.0 behavior and thinking. He talks about tools and practices that build identity for their participants/members. I would love to see more of the projects here learning from the GI net model.

The event itself could be much more collaborative. I would love to see more collaborative practices and exercises. What about rewarding those who identify an area for improvement AND suggest what to do OR offer the necessary resources to move forward. Maybe we should be acknowledging attendees with collaboration stars or something. What does each person here have as a resource to contribute? Where can we post to each project what we think would help them? How do we incentivize the flow of resources in ways that could not happen any other way than through THIS event? How do we reward those who are modeling what we collectively perceive to be the leading edge?

How do we amplify the good things?

Attending Barcamp Portland

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Barcamp Portland. We started Friday night with networking and the creation of our sessions. I met some great people including Kara from White Lotus Design. Kara and I have similar haircuts and had on similar shirts. We decided to find out what else we had in common. Definitely a lot more than these superficial things. We posted sessions on User Interface and on Mapping/Visualization of Information. I hope we get to work together more.

I also met the owners of Cubespace and realized that they were the folks in Portland that my friend Lisa Tracy had wanted me to talk with about the Collaborative Building project for Chicago. We touched base and committed to reconnecting at a less hectic time. I took every brochure and pamphlet I could find of theirs.

It was great to see “old” friends as Habib Rose, Aaron Nelson (Meyer Foundation) and Ray King (AboutUs). It was also great to make new friends like ms James Keller and Dawn Foster. Despite there being a heavy imbalance of men to women, I still found myself yammering with the ladies more often (and yes, James is a gal with great style!).

Saturday, I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions on graphics as well as Habib’s session on Network Weaving and the Network Weavers Network. However, my favorite sessions were probably Community Collaboration with Dawn Foster and Web 3.0 with Peter Mui. The Web 3.0 conversation ended up being a follow on to the community discussion. We talked mostly about currencies–as an option for how we might compensate people who make contributions but are not working “within” organizations that give them pay or health benefits. It was a great opportunity to present the material Eric Harris Braun has been working on from Open Money.

I also look forward to connecting to LaVonne Reimer. I spoke with her only briefly. She also has much wisdom and experience to share on creating the Collaborative Building, at least as it may relate to her Open Technology Development Center.

I forgot to mention, of course, that I attended with onetters Lewis Hoffman and Ethan McCutchen of Grass Commons.

Thriving with Complexity

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From simplistic thinking to embracing complexity…writes Dave Pollard.

He states:

There are ten things to remember about complex adaptive systems (which include all social and ecological systems):

  • It is impossible to know ‘enough’ about such systems to prescribe blanket ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ in such systems: There are too many variables. A one size answer never fits all in such systems.
  • The wisdom of crowds is essential to even a basic understanding of such systems: The more people involved in understanding, thinking about, and making decisions about such systems, the more likely those decisions are to be effective….
  • Such systems are unpredictable: Because there are so many variables, many of them unknown, it is folly to even attempt to predict what will happen, even in the short term….
  • Many of the variables in such systems are uncontrollable…
  • In such systems, prevention is difficult but better than a cure after the fact…Prevention requires imagination, and unfortunately we live in a world (especially true in large organizations, where imagination is actively discouraged) of terrible imaginative poverty….
  • In such systems there are no ‘best practices’ or ‘best policies’: Every situation in complex adaptive systems is unique. Trust the people closest to that situation to know what to do, don’t try to impose some practice that worked well in some completely different context (though telling a story about that practice might help those closest to the situation decide whether it could be adapted to their situation)….
  • In such systems, great models can spread but they usually can’t be scaled… If you don’t understand why this almost always fails, re-read Small is Beautiful.
  • There is a tendency for those working in such systems to presume ‘learned helplessness’ of customers and employees: …And failure to engage customers and employees in co-producing the product is a tragic waste of great opportunity. The key is knowing how to engage them: Not through passive questionnaires or surveys, but through conversations, stories, and presenting the ‘problem’ to them so they can help you appreciate it better and then address it….
  • In such systems, genuine decentralization is almost always a good idea: That means pushing out real authority along with responsibility….
  • In such systems, networks outperform hierarchies: This is a corollary of the other nine tenets of complex adaptive systems. Information, ideas and working models spread faster and more effectively peer-to-peer than up and down hierarchies.

Networks. Adaptive Systems.

Listen. Learn network theory. Go read Valdis Krebs white papers, and understand how power works in networks, and how smart communities work. Then grab Linked. And wait, there is more. On top of that add some understanding of incentives and acknowledgment. Now you have basic tools for creating healthy flowing adaptive systems. It isn’t enough. It is a great start.

Let us weave these networks to deal with the complexity around us, moving, flowing, growing. Let us thrive together.

Listen. Trust. Flourish.

Acknowledgment Tools

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I just had a fantastic conversation with Eric Harris-Braun of
Open Money. I am really excited to share this with you. Eric has started talking about currencies in a new way. He talks about wealth acknowledgment.

Open Money, of course, is a group of people (Micheal Linton, Jean-Francois Noubel, and Eric Harris-Braun) working to open up currencies.

Open Money is still in development on the tools (anyone want to help on this open source effort?). But soon to come will be a widget that can be put on any webpage that will be connected to a system tracking these acknowledgments–whether that is reputation or more traditional forms of transactions.

This is a critical piece we have been looking for–a tool independent of the particular implementation. So it doesn’t matter if you are using a Drupal site or anything else, you can use this system for tracking one or more currencies/acknowledgments. Also, this is a critical piece in the sense of explaining currencies in a way that is graspable to many. Eric said that after years of trying to explain currencies to people, he is finally able to get people to understand and, even better, get excited about using currencies/acknowledgments.

We are also talking about how acknowledgments help facilitate network weaving, helping make more dense networks.

I will be opening a conversation on Omidyar.net for open discussion of what they are doing. I will put it in Targeted Currencies group. (Arthur Brock and Eric are good friends of course.)

I would like to see two things come together, so let me know if you are interested in either or both extended conversation around this breakthrough or the development of the tools and implementation of them in spaces like AboutUs.org, Hooze.org, and CatComm.org among others.

Let me know if you are interested in continuing to learn about this powerful way of transforming our world together.

Growing Leaders

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Who is a leader? Who is not a leader? What qualities do nurturing leaders hold?

Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible — the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family. Virginia Satir

I don’t think leaders are people who tell other people what to do. I think they are much more nurturing than that. To me, a great leader is someone who maximizes the abilities and actions of those around them. They aren’t focused on problems or on overcoming problems. They focus on bringing out the absolute best in the people around them, so that the whole team can use their talents to achieve something wonderful together.

Leaders ask: “What is this person’s best qualities, and how can that best serve this effort?”

Extraordinary leaders ask great questions that assume the competency of their team. They are not fault-finders. Leaders give attention to what works and strive to create more of it. That is not to say that great leaders deny difficulties. It takes a certain degree of accepting what is and flexibility to adapt to the environment.

Leaders ask: “What is working here, and how can we model that to achieve success in other areas?”

They seek evidence of progress in small and large ways. While hurdles may arise, a leader offers positive feedback to what is going well. They believe in their team’s ability to be successful to the extent that they assume success is imminent. As if it is already arriving not as possibility but as destiny. For example, they think in the following form: “We are going to put a man on the moon, how are we going to do that?”

Leaders ask: “If we step into the future and achieved our goals, what did we need to do now for things to turn out successfully?”

That doesn’t mean denying that there is hard work to do and complexity to relationships. Great leaders create safe spaces for real heartfelt teamwork and personal discussion. They model connected and genuine conversation showing their care and compassion for their teammates.

Leaders ask: “What can we do here to honor the whole beings with complex lives who are driving this work forward?”

Real leaders, in my mind, don’t strive to be seen as heroes. They give time and opportunity for feedback. They don’t expect themselves or others to be flawless, and they have real curiosity about where there might be room for improvement.

Leaders ask: “What could I be doing better to serve and nurture my team?”

Leaders show they feel accountable to their team and their goals. And when successes, large and small, are achieved, extraordinary leaders share the glory.

Leaders ask: “How can I celebrate the contributions of the team members?”

A debt of gratitude for training received and research done by Tim Hallbom in noticing and developing these key attributes in leaders.