New, Only 4 geeks, want it, need it, hate it

I was doing some digging for a presentation about what is new in technology and what works within my organization when I realized an interesting cycle that things seem to go through. I doubt I am the first to see this, but here is my thought.

When a new (soon to be useful) tool comes out, people are excited cause it's new. But often only the true geeks run out and get it at first. Then examples come out about how useful or effective it is. Then everybody wants it. Then somewhere along the lines it transforms from want to need, but very quickly after need, it seems to build a growing group of people who hate it.

For example the telephone. The first people got one, but had noone to call. Then the number grew. More people wanted it. Then it was a need. Now I hate answering the phone cause it is just another sales man or I am just busy doing nothing.

Email - loved it till spam and overload
Internet - loved it till too many ads and porn
Even good old snail mail is useless - ads and bills
Cell phones - Love the freedom, but they can find me anywhere
Television - Fun, but nothing to watch on over a million channels
Electricity - need it for everything hate paying for it
Computers - Awesome, but do I have to spend so much time on them

But then as I thought that through, it is not the technology that is to blame for us eventually hating it. But then during that hate or need it phase, there always seems to be a push for change or invention\innovation of the next big thing.

Applying this back to the theme of my blog though. How does this apply to my nonprofit being successful for so long without pushing technology? Well many of our orgs have the same approach of we will wait till others already do it. Our organization is a people to people org so the drive to be cutting edge tech probably will never happen. But since we have had this wait and see approach while the rate of tech change has exponentially increased we have missed the boat a few times over.

Anyway, hope to be able to post next week. In the meantime here is a funny (if youre a geek) article about robots:
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/robots/dn8490

Anonymous on Facebook? just for fun

Taking a break from any real content or post this week to share that I am now anonymous on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=663365016&ref=mf.

I joined the NTEN and NPTech groups and made a friend already, Deborah Elizabeth Finn the Cyber-Yenta herself of the ISF. Thanks Deborah, I only wish my blog was as amazing as yours.

Interested to see if an anonymous presence on Facebook will expand who reads this random blog.

Other Random cool things to share:

Using Facebook and MySpace for Advocacy and Fundraising: An interview with Carie Lewis, HSUS - cool blog entry from Wild Apricot

Not sure this is cool at all or even ok that someone so popular is giving in to so much advertising and PR work, but Guy Kawaski does a Facebook Friday with a new app each week.

corporate IT vs nonprofit IT - seeking quality improvement

Six Sigma, is that a phrase that you would hear in a nonprofit? I am not sure, but I know it would be rare in the org I work for. It seems that we dont strive for excellence as much as we could. Corporations are always seeking ways to be more effective and efficient, even if it means a monetary investment. While I see less willingness of nonprofits to make the same efforts, granted this may be due to a lack of funds to invest (or are they just using them wrong?).

One of the things I am proud of my organization for doing right now is taking the time to improve and clarify our mission. Rather than adding on more things to what we do and trying to expand, instead we are rethinking how well we do our core focus. Have we forgotten who we are? We plan to stop doing a few things if it doesnt make sense to our mission, even if it brings in needed cash. We want to focus our time and efforts more purposefully. Yet, amidst this change, there is no talk of updating our systems, staff tech skills, IT infrastructure or the tools we use to do the work. We will just work harder and longer, it doesnt matter if we see our own families. Lets just get the staff to use those pens faster, order more paper, spend more time filing, etc.

Anyway, what is the solution? I think one big change that is needed is for CEOs and leadership to be more open about admitting they dont understand technology and if they do understand it, admit their organization needs help.

Corporate IT vs Nonprofit IT part 2 - toys vs real impact

Toys vs. real impact. It seems so easy to find articles about nonprofits and technology that are fun stories or unique uses of technology. It seems so easy to find articles about corporations and technology that prove real benefit and direct impact. But can you find articles about nonprofits and technology that prove real benefit and direct impact? Or articles about corporations and technology that are fun stories or unique uses of technology?

Again, I understand there are huge differences in focus, types of staff, spending habits and drive for mission vs. profit. But why does this appear to be so extreme?

The nonprofit I work for has zero information and almost nonexistent interest in finding out about how technology plays a role in success beyond the fun new applications. When they talk about what makes a healthy organization they list fiscal management, building maintenance, high quality leadership and good financial development (fund raising). But please dont mention technology, that is just implied.

Conversely the conversations at corporations seem to brag about their technology prowess, effectiveness and efficiency.

For example, if you visit news on search CIO, you will see stories of companies using technology to in very strategic and tactical ways.

Conversely if you try to look for similar nonprofit technology stories, first you will have a hard time finding a site like that. Not like the ginormous number available for the corporate world. But I guess look at techsoup or nten , you will mostly find innovation and cool stories, not a lot on real strategy or tactics with real success stories highlighted. I give lots of credit to people creating great resources on strategy and tactics, but where are the organizations bragging about the real impact technology has had on their core operations, not the innovation but the everyday stuff.

No idea if I made any sense or anything close to a real point today, but I tried.

Random coolness:
Deborah Elizabeth Finn points out: Beth's weekly summary of nonprofit technology memes is always a delight, but this week's is especially full of good stuff. You can check it out at:

"NpTech Tag Summary: Exphones, Death by Powerpoint, and Facebook Causes How-To"
<http://beth. typepad.com/ beths_blog/ 2007/08/nptech- tag-summ. html>

Cool article (corporate about role of CEO) from McKinsey

Corporate IT vs Nonprofit IT part 1

OK, so my title says part 1, not sure how many parts this will be but I know it is more than one. So here we go.

Why does there have to appear to be such a HUGE gap in corporate technology and nonprofit technology understanding. Over the next few blogs, I will ponder why there appears to be such a large gap in the articles I read on nonprofit tech sites vs the corp tech sites.

First a caveat, I do understand that there are enormous differences in the focus and resources of corps vs nonprofits. We may not need the same level of spending and high tech gadgets, but why do many nonprofits appear narrow in their technology thinking?

OK, so my first example. Right now almost all of the corp tech sites are pushing for business process management or aligning your technology with your business:

Business alignment remains a top priority for IT executives. James Champy offers CIOs advice for turning IT into an integral part of their business operations, and no longer just a service center.

While the nonprofit tech sites are still just offering advice on how to convince your Exec Director why technology is important.

10 Things Every Nonprofit Executive Needs to Know about IT

I am not knocking the content of the above article, I think it is beyond great and should be a must read for every Exec or manager in my organization.

But what I am saying is that maybe a large part of my struggle is that the leadership in nonprofits are so fired up about mission that they lose any understanding about running the business of the nonprofit. Now I have seen the opposite, nonprofit has great mission, hires new exec from for-profit to focus on business and nonprofit looses mission focus. But that is not what I mean. I think that nonprofit leaders often only think of technology as another mission or communications tool, so they never acknowledge the importance of their business technology.

So as an example the org that I work for did not include technology in our new strategic plan and mission focus because it was CEOs and execs that were creating the vision. So now as they go through the next phases of planning, technology is an after thought.

But if you look at the corporate side of the house, the execs get it. They see that solid business practices supported by the best technology creates a foundation that delivers EFFECTIVENESS and well as efficiency.

So I vote that nonprofits continue to be less effective and only use tech as a gadget and not bother to focus on their core business practices supported by solid technology. It gives people like me something to do.

Anyway, cool random things:

Blog from Isoph on online learning, thought they would have done this sooner though. But great content already!

Beth Kanter continues her blog quest for world domination and awesome information. Now she shares a gem about creating demonstrations!