Standalone Technology Strategy Is Dead. Long Live Stand Alone Tech Strategy

Every now and then I read something which sends me in a time machine chuckle.  I think to myself, "Self, haven't you read this already, like 20 years ago?"

"The days of building a standalone technology strategy are over."

This is the final line in a post on Outsource Magazine.  The idea is some orgs have moved all of their tech to the cloud, so there are no systems in house requiring tech support. SO hey, we don't need no stinking standalone tech strategy. Let's just completely integrate our tech plan into other areas.  It'll be great, THEY say. Everyone will help drive tech strategy and it will rock, THEY say.

I say get over it. The need for a standalone tech strategy still exists even if all of the systems are in the cloud.
If you have more than one system, who will think about integration?
If you have devices to access the cloud, who will think about those?
If you have staff using the technology, who will think about support and training?
If you want to re-engineer processes, who will do the mapping, solution planning, etc?
If you have new features released, who will think about how to use them?

I could go on and on. Not to mention, the need for someone to step back and have a vision for technology across the org.

Let's jump back to 1993. This model about Strategic Alignment from Venkatraman summarizes things for me.  We will always need technology thinking to happen from four different perspectives.

You can read about the model, but in essence it shows a need for technology strategy to:

1. Start with Business Strategy, drive process, end with tech implementation 
2. Start with Business Strategy, involves IT in definition, end with tech implementation
3. Start with IT Strategy, suggest Business Strategy change, end with change process
4. Start with IT Strategy, implement tech, end with change process

There are real needs for each of these types of strategy and without a standalone tech strategy to harness, drive and push these, how well do you think things will end? I picture a skyline consisting of a city of half built buildings without a tech strategy.  As long as you are in the middle of the city with your eyes down, getting the daily work done, you never notice the buildings don't get finished. But someone stepping back to view the horizon can see it clearly.

Emerging Technology Decisions (Nonprofit Examples)

This article was originally posted in Dimensions (a journalist publication from the National Catholic Development Conference). I redid a bit for a better read on a blog and threw in some pictures for fun.


I have a few stores I enjoy shopping at, but those stores also seem to know exactly how to get me to buy things I don’t want or need.

• The hardware store has amazing sales and rebates on items which drive me to spend more time in the store, buy things and return for more when I get the rebate. 

• The big box warehouse I shop at encourages me to buy everything in bulk. So an impulse buy turns into 30 items I don’t need, instead of 1. 

• Then there's my favorite gadget store, they have the coolest things I never knew existed and the kid in me just wants to buy them. 

I think it is pretty easy to relate how we evaluate emerging technology to how we shop, which may result in efficient use of funds or unused technology. We need to have a purpose and framework to evaluate emerging technology.

Emerging technology is the wrong thing to focus on. It is only a means to an end. The real end goal of emerging technology is to drive innovation. So it makes sense to follow the steps for Unleashing Innovation. Luckily MAP for nonprofits, Idealware and NTEN have created a great resource to walk you through Unleashing Innovation. I will refer to the steps they have outlined and would encourage you to go read the full report. But I want to use some examples of how to approach emerging technology with two nonprofits I have personal experience with.

The steps from the Unleashing Innovation resource are:

• Understand your Needs - Assess the things you could be doing better or differently 
• Know what Technology is available - Take time to educate yourself about the technologies available (resources like Idealware and NTEN can help) 
• Connecting the Needs - What is the catalyst or driver for exploring emerging technology 
• Make the Change Happen - Get leadership support, staff buy-in and drive adoption 
• What Success Looks Like - Define the planned outcomes and how you will measure it 

First a quick overview of the two organizations:

The Cara Program

I am the Manager of Technology at The Cara Program. The Cara Program is a workforce development organization focused on homeless or nearly homeless. We help them get and keep a job. We use a series of transformations classes, internships at social enterprises and professional development to prepare our students. Then a team of staff work with employment partners to identify job opportunities and match students to ensure a right fit. This is followed by a team of staff to stick with the student throughout the first year of employment. The culture is one of innovation, data driven decisions, tolerance for risk and ongoing change.

Leap of Faith Arts Ministries

My wife is the Executive Director at Leap of Faith Arts Ministries, a nonprofit focused on using arts to worship, and I volunteer to help them with their technology. Leap of Faith:

• Much smaller and has limited resources.
• As a Faith based organization their culture is rooted in their beliefs and impacts all decisions. 
• As a newer, smaller organization their tolerance of risk is less and they need to focus on building a stable base. 
• Their staff consists of an Executive Director, Dance Director and instructors, this small team has to focus their efforts on running the program.

These two orgs are different enough to illustrate how to approach emerging technology.

The first step is to understand your needs. 

The Cara Program	Leap of Faith Arts Ministries
Stable technology infrastructure, strategic technology plans, formal business process management and sophisticated data analytics. They have needs to improve their workflows, innovate programs, build sustainability and drive long term change.	The technology needs are more focused on operations and supporting a smaller staff with limited budget.  They have needs around creating efficiency, enabling communication, increasing awareness and establishing a stable foundation. This is the best time to involve others from your organization to build buy in during adoption.

This is no different than my example of the stores I enjoy. If I wander in to browse, without knowing what I need, I may leave with some cool stuff I will never use. Offering samples at the big box warehouse is no mistake, it purposely feeds on our impulses. Knowing what you need before you go to the store can help avoid the impulse buys. Now the exception may be if your need is to get new ideas, going to a store to browse and explore is a great idea.

The second step of finding available technology can happen in a number of ways. As a volunteer I help Leap of Faith Arts Ministries know what technology is available to them. They also belong to an organization called More Than Great Dancing which allows them to learn from similar orgs about the technology they are using. At The Cara Program we have a technology team of three staff, each taking time to learn about their perspective areas, as well as leveraging a group of volunteers in a Technology Advisory Committee. This committee provides an outside perspective and additional insight into emerging technology.

The trickier third step is connecting the technology to the need. It is easy to fall into the shiny object syndrome with emerging technology. You see an awesome technology and an opportunity, so you jump in and try it out. But having an opportunity is not the same as connecting to a need. Every organization needs to allow room for experimentation and pilots, however there should be a strategy behind it to avoid ending up with a collection of unconnected tools.

The other danger with emerging technology not rooted in a real need is experiencing a hype cycle ending with an unused toy. The technology hype cycle from Gartner shows the excitement when it is new, which quickly declines then levels off when the tool meets a real need (often way below the peak it originally reached).


I don’t buy too many things on a whim in bulk at the big box store. If I am going to try something new, I buy it in smaller quantity to try it out. And I know what my family typically likes, enjoys and needs before I go. Then I base my shopping on our budget, upcoming plans and what we already have. Much easier than trying to pick the right technology to meet the need and make sure it is useful.

Making the change happen is the fourth and toughest part of this process, especially if you haven’t done your homework in the first few steps to include your organization. A key to this step is defining what success looks like before the technology gets implemented. At The Cara Program a key to our adoption has been tying it to documented business processes and needs, taking the time to understand how we will use it before we buy it has been very effective. We also try out technology in small pilots while steering mission critical technology to integrated technology. At Leap of Faith it has been important to make all technology as easy to use as possible since there is no tech support. All technology is tied directly to a function, while balancing the faith based culture and limited resources. The innovation is really driven by cost savings and efficiency.

To close the loop (final step) you should compare the outcome to what you thought success would look like. Did the technology have the intended impact? Is the original need being met? Have things changed? Is the technology being used the intended way and is it sticking? This is a time to ask these questions.

Innovation driven by emerging technology can be a powerful way to radically change the way a nonprofit meets its mission and changes the world. It provides new ways to do old things, new opportunities and new ways of thinking, but without context on how you will use them or how they are needed in your organization, they will just be shiny toys. The way you approach emerging technology needs to be unique to your organization, goals, culture and mission. Be sure to read the full Unleashing Innovation resource to learn more about this process, then make it happen!

Is Adoption today's implementation?

When I first started in technology, you needed technical aptitude and were forced to follow the parameters set by the tools. Technology projects were focused on the hardware needs, installation and setup. You needed to follow the implementation plan and then stick to the manuals.

But times have changed, many technology projects require very little technical knowledge and hardly focus on the tools at all. The strategy, process, buy-in, training and organizational change overshadow all of the technology.

The transition from inserting disk A to logging into the cloud, building software to leveraging platforms, hardware constraints to nearly limitless storage, code to config, wired to wireless, heavy tech skills required to consumerized tech, and on and on...   It isn't stopping.

Sidebar soapbox: just cause all this tech is changing doesn't mean tech staff are going away. Wrong. The demand is growing. Tech staff know how to integrate, match to process, innovate, configure, manage, train, drive strategy, select platforms, see the big picture, and on and on... It isn't stopping

Back to my point though. Adoption of technology in an org is now more important than implementing it. It isn't about installing it, it is about getting it understood. It isn't about the tool, it is about how it is used. It isn't about the email, it is about the message.  It isn't about the social media, it is about the conversation.  It isn't about the system, it is about the culture surrounding it. It isn't about functionality, it is about how it serves the mission.

Anyway, I think you get the point. Most technology projects are not about implementing the technology, they are about the organizational change required (ADOPTION!)


Luckily enough, the awesome, smart people over at Exponent Partners (who we worked with to adopt Exponent Case Management on Salesforce) wrote an amazing paper all about the adoption process! And they did it in a way which would be tough to recreate here on my blog. SO GO DOWNLOAD THE ADOPTION RESOURCE!

Then be sure to read this awesome article from Peter Campbell on a very similar topic! 

I did a presentation about this for Dreamforce regarding adoption of Salesforce for The Cara Program. So to have a bit of fun with it, I first did a parody of Bruno Mars Lazy Song.  My video recreation of the song is below along with my presentation.

Driving Organizational Change Dreamforce 2014 (Salesforce) from Steve Heye

Tech For Small Orgs!

photo from Sergio on Flickr

Having spent the last few years helping Leap of Faith Arts Ministries with their tech has spurred new thoughts on what it means to be a small org.

I think we have heard the pleas of "not enough money", "not enough time", and "not enough skills" so much that we become numb when we hear it. But these challenges are real. Using those challenges as excuses to have no technology plans is still not acceptable though. Even the smallest nonprofit should have a technology plan. Even if it is a napkin with a list of tech they use, vendor info and when it should be replaced.

SO my challenge to all small nonprofits is to stop focusing on your size and challenges and look at the opportunities you have. This video does a better job explaining it, I think...



SO what is the action you should take?
I would start with training the person who will be your technology decision maker. (note, I didn't call them your IT staff. I said technology decision maker. Even if you don't have IT staff, every org needs a formally recognized technology decision maker.)

• Tactical Technology Training from Idealware
• Nonprofit Tech Academy from NTEN
• Book: Accidental Techie from CompassPoint
• Book: Managing Technology to Meet your Mission from NTEN

Here is my full presentation about tech for small nonprofits:

If you are interested in seeing an example list of technology from a small org, you could read my post about the tech Leap of Faith uses. It is a good example of priority in spending tech dollars.

The other awesome part of small nonprofits? Even a $25 donation goes a huge distance. If you found this info or my blog helpful, consider donating to Leap of Faith Arts Ministries!

Mission Tech Planning - The Interviews

A big hello to all of my blog readers! (all 3 of you)

I am excited about the attention Missional Technology Planning has been getting! Love it!

I even get to give the presentation here again in Chicago, you should come, everyone is invited:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/501-tech-club-chicago-lunch-n-learn-tech-planning-smack-down-tickets-12209403655

But if you are one of my new blog readers or just haven't been paying attention, you might be thinking: What is the Missional Technology Planning Steve is writing about?

Well you are in luck! Here are two video interviews I did back at #13NTC with MAP for Nonprofits! So go grab your org's mission statement, the strategic plan and some popcorn and watch these!

NOTE! Please forgive my look of exhaustion and hat head. I think I should have left the cowboy hat on... These interviews were after a string of presentations and I had no idea what I looked like.

 


And now that you know what Missional Technology Planning is, Are you ready to use it?

Due June 22! Tech Session Suggestions needed for #15NTC!

Social Media and Communications session suggestions out number the tech and tool session suggestions in mass quantities.

We need your help to get the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference to have a better Technology focus.

Here is some of the feedback that is listed on the NTEN website about what people are looking for:

• 58% of respondents identified as nonprofit managers or directors, 17% coordinator/associate level, 17% as executives, and 8% as other.
• More than 63% describe their level of tech adoption in relation to other colleagues as journey level (knowledgeable and experienced in a few areas), 34% as apprentice (have some knowledge/experience in a specific area), and about 3% as novices (new to it all).
• What topics did they hope to learn about? 52% identified communications as being a core interest area and 42% named IT as their priority, followed by leadership (34%) and fundraising (30%).
• 59% mentioned a preference for sessions featuring technical how-tos, 52% wanted to focus on programmatic uses of technology, and 40% requested content about management strategy.

I suggested sessions on:

1. Making Technology Decisions
2. Help Desk or Service Desk, either way IT should be a partner

I would love to see some others that have experience suggest some of the following:

1. Working with technology consultants - how do you pick?
2. Using a managed network vs hiring your own network admin
3. My favorite Network and technology management tools: what do you use to monitor your network, run help desk, measure bandwidth, review capacity, audit security, etc?
4. Data mining and dashboards
5. Office365 vs Google Apps
6. Back to the basics on Project Management
7. The value of a technology committee (project review, peer advisory, etc)
8. Best practices in desktop support\management
9. BYOD and other policies needed for todays tech
10. Governance of all kinds, data, process, etc
11. Choosing a CRM
12. What differentiates today's Fundraising Software
13. How to manage data when you use so many different cloud based or free tools

Anyway, that is just my initial list, I am sure you have ideas, so go suggest them now!

But before you do! Be sure to read this awesome post from Peter Campbell about how to suggest a session.

Then go to NTEN and suggest your session! Before June 22, yeah, only 11 days left.

4 Easy Steps to Missional Tech Planning

This post is a follow up to a Tech Planning Smack Down: Behind The Scenes post on the Community IT blog about a Session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference. Be sure to go read that post first!

Intro

A silver bullet for technology planning does not exist. There is no right way to do it for everyone, your job is to find the way which works best for you today (might be different later).  But it actually goes even further, you may have to use multiple technology planning methods to build a single plan. We will walk through Tactical, Strategic and Missional technology planning.

In order for technology to meet staff and organization needs, support the organization’s strategic plan and provide innovation for program delivery and mission impact, it will need to implemented in a range of ways. Each style of technology planning requires different information, people, time, resources and skills. Each of them is also used to create different plans over different periods of time.  The first key is to have an overview of each type of planning; Tactical, Strategic and Missional.

So first an overview of each type.

Tactical: focuses on using quick timelines with small teams (even one person) to get all of the technology working correctly, establish a replacement plan with improvements and begin to address problems, not symptoms.

Strategic: Shifts to meeting the operational and strategic needs of the organization. Relies on cross-functional teams with a need for business process changes, staff training and change management. As strategic technology improves it gets tied to and even can be integrated into the organization’s strategic plan.

Missional: Scope shifts beyond the goals and plans to the mission and vision of the organization. This often requires expertise, insight and collaboration from outside the organization. Identify gaps between your ability to meet the mission and the capacity of the organization, then march technology to the gaps.

Make It Happen

Just understanding the types isn’t enough though, you have to know how you create and implement the plan too. But the real trick is that there is no one right way to do the planning.  Here are just some ideas, but you have to make it your own.

There are plenty of resources out there to show you how to do the tactical and strategic planning. I would suggest reviewing the Tactical Tech Planning course from Idealware, attending the Nonprofit Tech Academy from NTEN and reading the Unleasing Innovation paper from MAP Tech Works.  You should also consider working with a consultant to run the process and bring in outside expertise.

But I have not found as many which focus on the mission focused technology.  Which is why we ran a session on it at the 2014 Nonprofit Technology Conference.  So here is our idea on how to do it. (Lindsay Bealko from Toolkit Consulting and Andrea Berry from Idealware were key in planning and running this)

Who: Pull together a diverse group of people from inside and outside of your org with a wide set of experiences and expertise (including some who may not know your org well, but understands the cause). Have this group break into small teams and the activity we did in our session.

1. Mission or Vision Statement
Review your mission and\or vision statement and look for the phrases or concepts which:

• extend for many years
• exceed the capacity of your org
• requires collaboration across the sector
• reflects the big hairy audacious goal of the org

2. Identify the barriers
What stands in the way of acting on or in completing the selected part of your mission or vision statement? Create a list of these barriers.

3. Brainstorm with technology
Use a set of cards with different types of emerging and core technologies (prepare these cards ahead of time).  These cards should have a range of things from e-learning, emails, websites, mobile apps, text messaging, tablets, computer labs, CRM, big data, wide area network, etc.

Have the group brainstorm possible technology approaches to each of the barriers you identified in the second step. To make it tougher we had the group pick the technology which seemed like the least likely match. Challenge the group to look for ideas which do not rely on staff intervention, extend past the reach of the org, have a direct impact on constituents, etc.  Come up with your own rules for the group based on your style, culture and cause.

4. Bring it back
You may or may not come out of this exercise with a real and actionable idea to act on. But what you will get is a whole new conversation. Find a way to collect the info and then build on it.

Presentation Slides:

Here are the slies from the presentation.

Tech Planning Smack Down! Tactical Vs. Strategic Vs. Missional from Steve Heye

What I learned at #14NTC (NTEN Nonprofit Tech Conference)

People were the best part of #14NTC, which always seems to be true. I met so many new people and got to see so many I have known for years!

Kudos to the NTEN staff for a great event and for keeping a smile on their faces the whole time! (or close to the whole time)

Weds, March 12

Pre-Conference: How to Succeed in Technology Failure without Really Leading (check out the slides)
I was on the panel for this session, but learned a bunch of things before and during the session from the other amazing members of the panel.

• Awesome report from Standish group on project success\failure
• Creating a shared vision of success: • Everyone must have a shared understanding of what success looks like • Without it, you cannot get to a successful outcome • Senior leadership with tech fluency and IT leadership with mission fluency • The entire organization must be involved 
• If leadership manages technology like Captain Picard where there is no discussion, it is just "Make it so," your tech staff will stop being creative and innovative.
• If tech staff doesn't take the time to learn the business, programs, mission, etc., they won't be able to help the org's goals.
• Investing in your tech staff is key. Don't spend all of your budget on an outside consultant and leave your staff without any training. I added a quote I heard about investing in staff: "What if I invest in staff and they leave? The real question is: What if you don't invest in staff and they stay?"
• Rose shared how she used the IT Alignment Model I had a role in creating, plus talked about the value of doing an alignment assessment.
• Great conversation between the leadership staff in the room and the IT staff in the room on how to improve communications-collaboration. Leadership should give IT seat at the table, give authority, share mission information, involve tech early, learn to involve tech in problem solving instead of order taking, etc. Techs should stop using geek speak, learn about the business, stop over-complicating policies, involve users in decisions, 
• Talked about how to fail without collapsing the whole org. Learn to identify level of acceptable risk, do pilots, control the scope, build in go/no go checkpoints, set realistic expectations, etc.
• Accountability and Authority are key elements to a successful project, consider using a decision making model like RACI.
• Good quotes:
• “Unfettered Quasi-Illuminati Fueled Social Engineering Conducted by Out-of-Touch Foundations Seeking Self-Aggrandizing Strategies.”
• "Obfuscate stuff with Gobbldy Gook"
• "Reviewing old tweets is not the best way to figure what staff knew after they leave"
• "Funders need to leave room for failure to allow for success"
• "IT Alignment doesn't happen because it is too easy for nonprofits to say "We Don't Have the Resources" or "I Don't Understand the Tech""

#NTCBeer!
I learned about the value of taking time to be social, this may seem easy for me, but it often isn't. I find ways to stay busy and avoid social events. It was proven worth while when a couple people from #13ntc approached me and we both immediately remembered a personal connection we had shared the year before.

Thurs, March 13

IGNITE! Plenary
I heard so many people just loved the Ignite Sessions! It was a fantastic way to kick off the conference:

My heart went out to Sue Anne Reed in the Ignite session! She showed amazing bravery sharing her personal stories of hard challenges, life lessons and outlook on life. She really stole the stage and engaged the audience, plus provided great thoughts for everyone to consider in their own life.

Huge THANKS TO Peter S. Campbell and Dahna Goldstein for being brave enough to bring part of Scope
Creep The Band into reality!

Here is a portion of my ignite session in a pre-recorded format:




Head in the Clouds: Real world experiences and recommendations for moving technology infrastructure to the cloud. 
Whether you’re working with a provider or building your own, moving to the cloud is an important step that takes planning, staff and dollars. This panel discussion looks at the whys and hows of moving to the cloud, as well as how two organizations approached their moves to the cloud.  Session specifics will include strategic planning, cost-benefit analysis, infrastructure planning, migration paths, best practices and more.

• The cloud is not just one thing, need to understand some of the different models out there -- public, private, hybrid. Public are outside your network, often big services such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure. Private cloud is a function provided within your own firewall. Something you manage and control. Hybrid - moving to the cloud isn’t a binary choice. Can combine some services in cloud and others on-site, and integrate them.
• Meeting user expectations are good reasons to consider cloud services: availability / access / mobile
• Cloud combined with virtual desktop can create equal access to all tools across staff & org.
• Cloud contracts are CRITICAL to read! When you migrate off, how do you get your data, in what format and when?
• A few things for smooth cloud move: do homework, build a team, communicate vision, plan, test, distinguish need v want,

Marriage Counseling for IT and Communications: Get Better Results Together
From strategy planning to case studies following implementation, gain insight into how a strong partnership between IT and Communications can create a smarter, more sophisticated approach to your communications. (The Amazing Peter Campbell playing the role of IT)

• Leadership must take a role in breaking down silos between IT & Marketing. Too often org chart & leadership builds tension.
• Create a regular format for Communications and IT staff to meet on an ongoing basis
• focusing on business goals gets everyone pulling in one direction. Take out the personal and advance the mission.
• Make help desk process as easy & fast as possible to make tech friendly to mktg & more
• View tech support as relationship not as service to users
• Tip to have better relationship with IT  -  don't wait for computer problem to be in touch

Fri, March 14

Disrupting the Nonprofit Sector
 If we are going to truly solve the world's toughest social problems and obtain the necessary resources to do it right, we need to examine how the nonprofit sector can evolve to create more innovative and efficient organizations. This involves disrupting the nonprofit sector as we know it today.  Drawing from Allyson Kapin and Amy Sample Ward's book Social Change Anytime, Everywhere, topics will range from 'Thinking Like A Start-Up' to exploring 'Reducing Competition and Consolidating Resources.'

• Interesting idea: charge for a service, but refund the money if they show up. 
• Striking that most orgs invest less than 3% in #nptech
• Disappointment=reality minus expectations. A key to innovation is realistic expectations & know when to quit
• Grow a culture of "we all succeed together" & "we all fail together." Don't allow all compliments to go to any one staff person, nor all of the blame (including leadership).
• Need to delineate between Fail & Screwing Up. Accountability still needs to exist. 
• Be purposeful on how much you experiment. Create innovation budget (not just dollars, but risk tolerance too)
• Using run, grow, transform is a good budgeting framework to distinguish operations from innovation http://shar.es/RZndS 
• Saying no to an opportunity, even when money is tied to it, let's you say yes to a better opportunity
• If you want to spur change in your org, but you have no authority, figure out who influences the influencers in your org
• Leadership should be cheerleader of staff ideas, not be the creator of all ideas.

Network Security for the Non-Profit: Beyond PCI Compliance
This session is for nonprofit tech professionals who have an interest in network security. Learn about various security options that scale keeping in mind limited time, expertise and budget.

• Security matters b/c "damaged reputation/donor lack of confidence in organization could be catastrophic"
• “you can transfer risk to a vendor…but you can’t transfer responsibility for your data”
• Look for ways to tie your security plans to ongoing strategic & capacity needs.
• Patching is 95% of the battle
• definition based security is on its way out b/c threats are so dynamic, that means heuristics are the new it.
• Ken shared a ton of tools and ideas on setup as well, but it is impossible to show without his presentation. (Here is a link, but not sure it will work)

Requests for Proposals: Making RFPs work for Nonprofits and Vendors
This session is for people who either purchases software and services as well as people who provide such things. RFPs are controversial, with good reason: a poorly written RFP does little to help the buyer or seller forge a successful transaction or engagement. (The Amazing Peter Campbell Presiding). Read the great session notes to see more, bunch of my notes in there.

Sat, March 15 (how did both of my sessions end up on Saturday?)

Balancing Project Management and Business Process for Long Term Success - I Presented
Business Process has invaded my career, my life and now my dreams. I will be sharing my experiences plus a lot of thoughts on Methodology, plus Betsy will bring her PMO skills to the table. I don't think I have ever seen a session like this one at NTC, it will rock.

Read the good session notes for this one too! To get an example of part of my session, you can take 10 minutes and watch the video below or check out the slides. NOTE though, the video misses our main point of the session, which was how to make Project Management and Business Process a part of your everyday work, not just during projects.

View the slides!



Tech Planning Smack Down! Tactical Vs. Strategic Vs. Missional - I Presented
THIS WAS FUN! I haven't presented with Lindsay in YEARS, but we make an awesome and fun team, this will not be boring or a slideshow! This will get you thinking and involved. Seriously though, you will learn all new ways to approach your boring, old tech plan.

View the slides.

Read the session notes, but they can not accurately describe the amount of fun we had in this session. Nor can they accurately describe the type of thinking we encouraged in the audience.

SUMMARY

All in all, it was a great conference! I was so excited to hear so many people talking about how to match technology to the mission throughout the conference, it's like music to my tone deaf ears. I think the key point I learned this year, was to keep pushing to learn more, each time I feel like I get comfortable with a topic I find out there is so much more to know. NTC serves to solidify my love of the #NPTech community, so many knowledgeable, generous and passionate people! Let's get out there and use the tech to meet the MISSION!

City of Chicago inspires my thinking around Tech

I recently attend an event hosted by LISC where Brenna Berman (CIO, City of Chicago) presented their plan to use technology to impact Chicago and it really got me thinking.

They have Five Strategies (paraphrased below from my notes):

• Next generation Infrastructure
• Every Community a Smart Community
• Efficient, Effective and Open Government
• Civic Innovation
• Technology Sector Growth

Brenna spent a chunk of the time talking about making every community a smart community.  Smart communities is an effort already in progress with a few Chicago communities but will be rolled out to more.  The initiatives are:

• Broadband access benchmark
• Scale up smart communities
• Free public WiFi
• More low cost broadband
• Youth tech education
• Digital training
• Digital excellence activities
• Public computer access
• Education resources

This struck a topic I love! IT Alignment. There is an understanding of the need to balance the people, process and tools in these initiatives. Making change in Chicago is an enormous task with the politics, diverse communities, unions, corruption, etc... The conversation at the event fascinated me to no end, I was surrounded by smart people with real questions, possible solutions and a desire to collaborate to have an impact.

What I really latched on to was the balance of infrastructure and policy with community needs and people. They understood the "build it and they will come" won't work. Providing infrastructure, computer labs, wifi and Broadband isn't enough, they need outreach, training and creative ways to get the tech into people's homes in ways they will actually use it.

I have just started to become aware of amazing technology innovation in Chicago through efforts of 1871 to provide space for startups, Starter League helping startups succeed, Chicago Maker lab offering 3d printing, Chicago Tech Academy build tech skills in our youth and i.c. stars focused on technology workforce development opportunities (actually I have know i.c. stars for a few years, they rock). Those are just a few, I know there are many more I am missing.

To me, much this is a great example of how to use technology directly to impact the mission. Technology can spur new opportunities, new ideas and new ways to change the world.

Read an article about the Chicago Tech plan

Or visit this set of deeper resources, including a video about the plan

Just my ramblings, sorry if this doesn't have a single point to it, just a collection of notes and thoughts I wanted to share.

In 2014 Don't Let Tech Turn into SOS. #TechRevival

SOS - Save our Ship (ok, it doesn't really stand for that, but we all recognize SOS to mean something like it)
or
SOS - Same Old Stuff (or SOSDD- Same Old Stuff Different Day, yeah, I know most people say something besides stuff)

If our Tech Language and Management is centered on SOS, we will fall into the following traps.

Distress - If DISTRESSED times are the only time we talk about our technology, it will be nearly impossible for technology to have a real impact or make real change. It is seen as a necessary evil, instead of opening new potential.

Save Us - If the Tech Team is only included or called when things are broken, all we can do is treat the symptoms. In addition, IT may be seen as the creator of the problem, so they had better fix it now, which does not allow Technology to thrive.

Helpless - If SOS is called for technology and IT help always fixes it for you, how does staff ever learn from it? Give someone a fish, feed them for a day. Teach someone to fish and they end up spending all of their money at Bass Pro, err, I mean they can feed themselves.

BUT the worst of all is...

Ambivalent - Once users could go either way with your technology, take it or leave it, you are in real trouble. You don't want to hear things like:

• "Go ahead and change the tool, not like it matters, you will just change it again later..."
• "Nice Tool!" (secretly scampers off and continues to use work-around)
• "You are the IT group, just tell us what to do and make it work."
• "Our technology is fine, but I don't need it to accomplish my goals."

So what are we supposed to do?

Have a Vision and Share It!

You need to be able to tell the story of how technology is benefiting your organization and how you plan to improve it.

What if you asked an org about what they accomplished in 2013 and they answered:

"We answered our phones 11,123 times, turned on the lights each day we worked, paid our bills, had 50 staff show up each day they were supposed to and shook 4,234 people's hands."

If that seems messed up, then why do we talk about our IT like:

"Network is stable, 2,456 help desk tickets completed, 4 major projects completed on budget, 99.99% uptime, implemented 7 new tools." 

Who cares.

A real strategic technology plan. I strongly believe a Strategic Technology Plan aligned with your mission can make all of the difference. Especially if you turn it into a short digestible, visual document to be shared with all staff. 

The key is to be able to express the impact on staff efficiency, process effectiveness and new opportunities which came from your technology. What changed because of the technology you implemented?

Communicate it. Change the tone of communication about your technology, get the positive message out there. Paint a picture of the potential future.

Yeah, I know what you are thinking.  We are hesitant to share our future technology plans, because things change so fast and we aren't sure we will be able to do it all. To me the key for this is to focus on the direction and strategy, not the timeline and the tool.  

Here is what I like to do:

• Share the specific projects coming in the next year, WITH specific goals on how it will change how we work and improve our organization.
• Describe the long term strategy by talking about the philosophy and focus over the next 4-6 years.

Example:

• Next year we will implement a new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Our goal is to replace many of the manual processes tracked in Excel and decrease the paperwork needed. We will be improving our intake process to allow our admissions team to focus on the client, limit multiple data entry points and not be as distracted by the tools.
• Over the next five years we will be looking to move systems to the cloud to shift internal support staff to focus on users, centralize staff collaboration tools to clear clutter and improve communication and look for ways to improve our business processes to better leverage our tools.

But the only way you can do the communication above is to be able to back it up with a Strategic Technology Plan.  You need to have the conversations about priority, upcoming projects, long term vision and have buy in with your plan before you can share it.

So a technology plan is more than just a document needed to manage your projects, it is a key to making technology a force for good in your organization.

Start 2014 right with a technology plan. 

New to Tech Planning? Read this article from Tech Soup!

Ready to add mission and strategy to your tech plan?

• I would suggest reading my resources about IT Alignment  (and if you need help, let me know). 
• Then complete the IT Alignment Assessment to identify areas to add to your Strategic Tech Plan.

Bringing Tech back to #NPTech, 10 Nonprofit Tech Twitter Tweeps to Follow

Social Media, Marketing and Fundraising all rely heavily on Technology. But when I think nonprofit TECHNOLOGY, Social Media, Marketing and Fundraising does NOT cover it all. Warning: Heated Rant Brewing, resisting urge to....

Anyway, when I think Technology, I think about Technology. You know, like Tech Strategy, Project Management, Business Process, Networks, Infrastructure, Telephony, Software and you know things like computers. A life before people named an expert in Facebook a Technology expert, they are a communications expert manipulating technology, not a technology exert. Arrgh, rant brewing, must shift to list.

My Twitter list of Nonprofit TECHNOLOGY Tweeps to Follow (#NPTech). (Would love to add more women in tech to this list, but here is a FANTASTIC list on Fast Company):

John Merritt @Johnmerritt - Of course I listed the Godfather of #NPTech and good friend of mine to this list first. He doesn't just know his tech, his veins are actually CAT5 cables.  IT Alignment is his game.

Peter S. Campbell @peterscampbell - You may know him from his best Project ever, #NTCBeer. But he is the "Go To" Tweep for anything related to to nonprofit technology. He is the CIO @ Legal Services Corp, but has worked at Earth Justice and Goodwill as well.

David Krumlauf @dkrumlauf -You won't find a nicer person with such a dedicated heart for NPTech. He embodies the best parts of our #NPTech community. His roots are in infrastructure and telco. He fights for technology funding to be a higher priority for foundations. He is one of my heroes.

Richard Wollenberger @RichatPAT - Fearless Leader of our NTEN IT Director Community of Practice. Director, Information Technology at Parents as Teachers.  In IT since 1987, love managing the process/supporting a nonprofit. It means something to come to work everyday supporting kids and education.

Matthew Eshleman @meshleman - Nonprofit Technology Consulting. He gets IT. Great resource for tech alignment, project management, business process and more.

Jonathan Berglund @jlberglund -  IT Director at Children's Hunger Fund. He knows his tech and has 15+ years of experience managing technology. Helped build a couple of IT Departments with small data centers, directly supervised developers, network admins, and support personnel, developed and supported an application with over 10,000 users, and managed IT budgets between $200-300k and capital projects upwards of $100k.

Rose DeFremery @rosedefremery - Rose may have recently entered the dark side and joined social media ranks, but is still a nonprofit technology expert in her heart.

Deborah Elizabeth Finn @Deborah909 -Nonprofit technology strategist. She live to bring resources and needs together.

John Kenyon @jakenyon - John may be well known for his amazing understanding of communications but he is also fits right in with the technology crowd and gets the core technology strategy.

Ash Shepherd @NPTech_Ash - Although he dabbles in social media, his NPower technology consulting background makes him a strong contender in #NPTech.

Robert Weiner @robert_weiner - Nonprofit Technology Consultant and always helpful. He gets that process

I would throw myself on this list @steveheye, but it seems self serving and the people I listed have taught me everything I know. yes, I know it is 11. Who should I add?

1 Yr. Anniv. at The Cara Program - Nonprofit Workplace Reflections

Excited is an understatement of what I felt when I got the call for a job offer at The Cara Program! The HR team was probably making some jokes about my giddiness on the phone. And here I am a year later and none of the excitement has worn off. Sure, my job has challenges and so does every workplace, but looking over the last year, I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity.

Tech Work Tied to Mission. From the first day I have been immersed and involved in the strategic process and mission discussion. There is a strong understanding about the potential for technology to deeply change the way the staff and org works to meet the mission. This is what I was searching for. I have had a passion for IT Alignment with mission for years! You can see this in the IT Alignment resources on this blog.

Leveraging volunteers. The Cara Program incorporates volunteers in the expected ways including mock interviews, training, sorting donated clothes, etc. But it goes much deeper than that. We are always using volunteers in much deeper and strategic ways. They have helped us create our SROI calculations, plan new social enterprises and run events, plus we can't forget our Tech Advisory Board (TAB). The TAB has helped us find tech resources, review our RFP process, plan governance systems and offer unending advice and support to our tech team. People willing to give their time, support and advice like Lance Russell, David Krumlauf, Rich Whitney and Jonathan Cook have taught me so much and are there when I need them.

IT's about People. The best experience and strongest learning has come from learning from the other staff at The Cara Program. Depth of knowledge, dedication to mission and passion are in such abundance it is impossible not to get swept up into it. What continues to surprise me is how much of my job and the role of technology revolves around people.

Personal Growth. It is common for an org to do an annual review and performance plan, The Cara Program does it also. Where it is different for me is the empowerment and meaningful involvement for staff across the org. Everyone is pushed to grow and do more, while encouraging a true work\home balance. Affirmations is core part of everything, we all take time to affirm other staff for their honor, passion, achievement, innovation and integrity. Yet at the same time, we are all encouraged to give feedback and go directly to other staff with questions, concerns or even to push back a bit.

So what would I share as advice to staff in nonprofits?

Find the Fit. Look for a cause you believe in and a job which fits your skills. But here is where I learned somethings. Just because you love an org, love the cause and can do the job, it still may not be the right one for you. Personality and culture make a huge difference. Does the org culture allow you to be who you are and shine?

Don't be afraid to change! So many of us get attached to an org and feel like if we leave they will never survive (or maybe we won't). This is NOT TRUE! Sometimes staff turnover forces an org to address problems it didn't know existed because you were so good at hiding them. I am not saying you should become an job hopper and ditch out when things get hard. But if you have hit a career ceiling, don't enjoy the role, you can see your role isn't helping or it looks like the org won't grow any more with you in this role, don't be afraid to move on. There is life in the next job and other orgs doing amazing work! You need to take care of you, because sometimes the org isn't.

Size Matters. Having worked for at the National Office and Metro Office of a large org, then moving to a smaller mid-size org, I can tell you size makes a big difference. The types of challenges, resources, staff and work effort are radically shifted.  I can not say which is better, you have to experience it to understand it. A large org has more staff and resources but 6 people have to approve the color of the donate button on the website. A small org may have limited staff and resources but one person can drive the website without 6 people debating fire engine red versus apple red. I love the energy, passion and the depth of involvement of ALL staff in a small org, every staff person is important. At times, I felt like a nameless cog in the bigger setting.

Anyway, this post was meant to celebrate my one year anniversary at The Cara Program. Since taking this job, many parts of my life have improved and changed. It is amazing what a positive, passionate work place can do to change your life and career. Don't settle for a job making a difference for others and not for you. I have had more calls, emails and connections in the last few months about nonprofit careers, jobs and such than ever before. My genuine excitement for my org and job has led people to ask about my journey. I am happy to share, if you want to connect with me. NPTech rules!

Go BIG or go home (is mission the price for BIG though?)

As a teen every summer I spent a week at a camp meant to build values and leadership. My first years we had about 60-75 people. You had the chance to meet everyone. It was a close knit group and there was no hiding. This small group of people changed my life. I fit in.

But leadership wanted bigger impact and more kids! They had big plans and the only way to get there was more money and more kids.

My first few years, we had to earn our way to camp. We had to complete volunteer hours, attend fundraisers and be active in our local club.  But since we earned our way there, it meant so much more. We felt a sense of ownership in making the camp the best possible experience.

To get the bigger numbers quicker, you no longer had to earn your way. The hope was to get kids there, then show them the way. But the kids were not invested, they were there to have fun.  Suddenly there were more problems, which led to more rules. This of course led to more kids trying to get around the rules. All sense of trust and responsibility was lost.

With the rapid growth also came crowd mentality over individual expression. With the increase in attendance came a shift of ownership, now the staff had to be in change, just to keep control. It was no longer our responsibility to have a good experience. The staff now had to entertain us and if isn't fun, the staff were blamed.

In my opinion, mission was the price we paid for growth.

I often wonder if this is a common challenge for nonprofit technology staff. 

Do we look to increase efficiency, build capacity, innovate, help staff, and expand our organization through technology without considering the impact on our mission?

As technology staff are we connected enough to the mission to know the impact of our projects and plans?

A 6 Year Technology Roadmap. Are you crazy?

As I approach 9 months at my new job, I am getting closer to completing a 6 year Tech Roadmap.

I have told a few of my IT colleagues and many of them say the same thing: Are you crazy? How can you plan 6 years into the future. Tech changes way to fast. Or I get the question about how do I have time to do that? Well. I make time, go back and see my post about urgency versus priority.

What is a Tech Roadmap? I don't even know if it is a real term. But here is what I mean. It is a summary of the overall direction and identifies what we will focus on.

I am not planning every IT project and every step for the next 6 years. I am just setting a direction for our course. If you only do planning once a year, you will end up making progress. But if you put together enough straight lines with small turns, you can still end up going in circles.

Things will change. I don't expect everything in my Tech Roadmap to go perfectly according to plan. Staff will leave, budgets will change, priorities will shift, etc., but you still need to know your long term direction.

Think of it like your career:

• You go to school, to get the right degree in anticipation of getting the "right" job. You talk to counselors and get expert advice. 
• You read up on the job market. So you make plans and set a direction. 
• You have a life plan! 
• Then college life happens as you try to live out this plan. You start to have life experiences, things happen. 
• But hey, you stick with that degree, cause it's still what you want.  
• Then you get the first job, which is where plans usually change. 
• Suddenly it isn't what you expected or you stop planning because you are too busy working

This is where I hope our Roadmap helps. The Roadmap will provide long term direction, while allowing for a typical annual Strategic Technology Plan. How do you know if your one year plan is the right one without seeing how it fits over the next few years? How do you know your large projects are in the right order? How do make the big decisions in technology?

Some examples of what is in my Tech Roadmap. 

• Move from a heavy internal network to hosted solutions where appropriate
• Move from data repositories to workflow management tools
• Move from scattered internal communication to centralized, easy to access intranet
• Move from a stable-secure network to a tested, documented, monitored network
• Move from limited tech policies to governance in data, process and tech planning

The tech team brainstormed these types of directions for all of the different areas of Tech we will focus on. Then we thought through some of the initial projects for the first 2-3 years. We also examined where we need to shift culture, influence staff, build competencies, etc.

Then we shared this with our CFO as an early draft, not a completed, format, finalized document. It was meant to spur conversation, which it did amazingly well. We had deep conversation and thought through impact. 

Why 6 years? Well it started as a 5 year plan, but one of our amazing Technology Advisory Board Members suggest we match our Roadmap to our Tech Replacement Cycle which is planned at 6 years for some of our network equipment.

Anyway, if you ever want to debate the value of my 6 year roadmap, I am open to it.

Urgency kills Priority, don't let it kill your Impact

So at my new job I have been working on ways to prioritize projects and daily work to move things forward. You know, good old strategic tech planning.

One of the things we did was we took a couple steps to formalize how people access the IT help desk. Nothing fancy or new, just a simple policy. One of the keys to me though was asking users to set a priority for the ticket; High, Medium or Low. I defined these terms in the policy something like;

• High= interrupts business for multiple people, impacts finance, etc.
• Med= interrupts your ability to work,  no work-around, etc.
• Low= everything else

I also asked for any associated deadlines, details, screenshots, etc.

But here is where things got interesting quick. And before I say anything else, I am not trying to say anything bad about our staff. This just seems to be human nature.

Requests came in, but the priority seemed to be driven by when they needed it done, not by the impact or importance. Because things get more important when you are faced with urgency. I need this by 1pm today, I am working on something for a Board Member that is going to be here in 30 minutes....

This is not a big deal when it is the occasional request, which is true for my org. They are typically good about leaving time and being purposeful. But this really got me thinking about the difference between urgency and priority.

The trick is that if you have too many urgencies, you can get to the priorities. This is where a help desk process can really help. 

Track IT! If you are tracking all of your requests and work, you can look for these trends. You can see repeat requests each month at a deadline and anticipate them. Then make a change to your technology to address it. Automate the report.... Follow up with that department, ask them to request earlier... Simplify the tool to allow self help....

Expectations! Setting expectations in your help desk process will help drive the change needed. Tied to the priorities in our help desk process was a service level agreement. We plainly tell our users how quickly to expect support based on the priority of the ticket. The service level agreements will range from org to org based on available resources. And we told the why, to allow us to balance projects with big impact with the daily urgencies.

Definition! Taking time to write a policy, enforce it and define all terminology is not easy or fun. But is important. Simple definitions and ongoing conversations have a real, lasting impact on culture.

Address the problem, not the symptom. Not a new idea. Focusing on urgency will keep you focused on the symptoms.

We are also looking to formalize our tech project request, our tech project steps, data governance, business process documentation and so much more. We have to shift from urgency to priority to allow for impact.

My question is why aren't more topics like this at the forefront of our technology conferences, blog posts, webinars, etc? Basic technology support is still important.

All hands on deck! We Need MORE Staff! not.

“if we had more staff we would..

…engage better on social media!”
…create more content!”
…serve more clients!”
…analyze metrics and segment audiences!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have all sat in breakout sessions where there are countless good ideas, perfect strategies and amazing resources. But there is always that group of people mumbling or outright yelling, we can’t do that, We DON’T have ENOUGH STAFF. Blah, blah, blah.

First, a big shout out to Kivi for an article that inspired my post! You should read it! Kivi always has terrific resources and her blog post on this topic is much richer in content. I hope I didn't overlap content too much. Some of our examples are similar, but I tried to come from the tech side.

While I will immediately acknowledge that many (if not all) nonprofits are under resourced, I do not think adding staff always solves problems. More staff = more politics, more management, more red tape, more, more, more, then you need more staff because you have more staff.

I think many of our challenges could be solved if we used a more important resource better, time. If we start to value each staff person’s time more than adding more staff, we may just solve some of the issues leading to the need for more staff.

Example 1: We need more staff to engage better on social media.

You can interpret this statement a few different ways. We don’t have a social media expert on staff, we don’t have time to manage all of those different channels, we don’t know where to start or we don’t even have a marketing staff. Whatever.

What I hear: Social Media is not a big enough priority for me to make time for it.

I would argue that this is a time issue, which could be solved with planning, a volunteer (or other staff) and tech.

1. Make time to create simple content plan (better yet, start with a template from a colleague, NTEN, Idealware, TechSoup or wherever)
2. Find someone with existing experience with social media (volunteer or staff) OR learn by DOING it, just find an easy place to start, then budget time to do it. If it is a priority you will find the time.
3. USE TECH! There are so many tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, etc that are free\cheap built to help you listen, engage post.

MOTTO: Don’t work harder. Work smarter. More staff may not fix it. Find existing experience and let the tech do the work.

Example 2: We need more staff to analyze metrics and segment audiences.

What I hear: we don’t care what our audiences want to hear, we just know what we want to tell them. (maybe a little harsh, but eh.)

I would argue that this is a time issue, which could be solved with planning, a volunteer (or other staff) and tech.

1. Make time to create a simple content plan and profile of your audience needs (better yet, start with a ideas from a colleague, NTEN, Idealware, TechSoup or wherever)
2. Find someone with existing experience with metrics and segmenting (volunteer or staff) OR learn by DOING it, just find an easy place to start, then budget time to do it. If it is a priority you will find the time. (Also check out the analysis exchange, free metrics help)
3. USE TECH! This one isn’t cheap but you can solve the segmentation with Tech. Tools like Informz or Higher Ground will do the segmenting, metrics, audience profiling and so much more for you. But you do have to pay for that. BUT that expense is still cheaper than the staff it would take to do it.

MOTTO: Don’t work harder. Work smarter. More staff may not fix it. Find existing experience and let the tech do the work.

Oh, wait, did I sorta say the same thing for both examples? Weird.

Maybe that is because that is what we do, we do the same thing over and over. We have a need, we hire more staff.

Before hiring, think about:
… your process, can it be improved?
… your staff skills, can they be trained?
… your tools, can tech solve the problem?
… your strategy, are you being purposeful?

I am not trying to say we need more tech and less people. I am saying, let's think through some of the challenges we are facing and think through all of the options.

What I learned at #13ntc

#13ntc was different than any other conference for me. With my new role as Manager of Technology at The Cara Program, I really focused more on the IT track at the conference. So here is what I got out of the conference this year! NOTE, I learned more than can fit in this single blog post, so watch for a series of posts after this with further thoughts.

#13NTCfoodie - Weds, April 10
At dinner I learned about the crazy things that Locale (an android app) can do. Detect where you are and redirect your Google voice number. Turn off notifications if face down. Basically you program it to take different actions based on your location or phone functions.

#13NTCbeer - Weds, April 10
OK, not sure I learned a lot. But got to reconnect with numerous great NPTech staff.

Breakfast Meeting - April 11
My wife and I met with Marc Pitman on a suggestion from John Haydon. Marc is famous for his book, Ask Without Fear, which I hope to buy and read. Marc is a fellow Christ Follower and has some amazing resources that tie stories in the Bible to fundraising strategies! We really hit it off and plan to connect again soon.

Welcome - Thurs, April 11
Some fun Minnesota facts, info and sayings, dontcha know. Minnesota had the first indoor mall? Nice because of all of the crazy snow. Don't they know it is spring?

IT Director Meet up - Thurs, April 11
Good conversations about challenges that IT Directors are facing. There was a lot of discussion around migration to the cloud and Office365. Interestingly enough there were staff in the room moving to the cloud and those moving off. It seemed that those with more custom needs and larger IT staffs wanted to move tech back in house. While those with limited staff were willing to live with the limits of the cloud to allow staff to focus on other needs.

We also had conversations about BYOD. There are real challenges with network security when you don't manage the devices. But another challenge is that if the device gets lost, we will want to wipe the device clean to avoid losing data\confidential information. Many orgs were having staff sign an agreement about wiping the device if lost. But when you actually do wipe it when it gets lost, then they find it, they aren't so happy.

Filmed a Movie Monday - Thurs, April 11
I was asked to be filmed for a Movie Monday about the role technology can play in fundraising.   I went on a bit of a RANT about how we throw people resources at some of our fundraising challenges because we either don't have or don't know about the technology that can do it for us. For example, we spend a lot of time on email segmentation and email list creation. There are tools that can automate that whole process. But we don't buy the better email blast solutions because they are too expensive. So we just continue to miss opportunity or force staff to waste time on work-arounds. I will let both of my blog readers know when mine is posted.


IGNITE! - Thurs, April 11
I gave an IGNITE session about how the Cloud is trying to KILL tech strategy. And for the first time ever... I sang it! These are 5 minute presos with with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. NOT AN EASY TASK TO PRESENT, but so fun to watch. Watch mine on YouTube!

Opening Plenary - Fri, April 12
Quite controversial. Stirred a great conversation across the conversation.There were so many key points that Dan Pallotta made that I loved, I  paraphrased a couple below.

• Why don't we have a visceral reaction to, "it is good to make a salary while not helping people." But a NPO CEO with a big salary is a problem?
• NPOs criticized for spending on ads & taking risks and all failure is bad! How can we innovate within that?
• The concept of too much overhead NPOs limits the ability to have the overhead needed to grow to the scale needed for real impact!

I did not agree on the overall premise of his presentation. I would offer my opinions on this, but I am still thinking them through. But my gut reaction is that I do not like the glorification of Capitalism and make as much you can applied to social good.  Here are some smarter summaries and reactions:
http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/persistent_poverty_in_a_smug_meritocracy
http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/12/uncharitable/
http://rootwork.org/blog/2013/04/uncharitable-how-businesses-co-opt-nonprofits-undermine-their-potential

But regardless of whether you agree with Dan, the plenary did the job of spurring buzz and conversation.

IT Governance - Friday, April 12
This session was one of my favorites in years! IT Governance definition - The essential organizational structures and processes that ensure that the organization’s IT sustains and extends the organization’s strategies and mission. (revised ITGI, 2012)

As IT gets more complex, tech ownership becomes disparate and information increases in value, you will need IT Governance to manage the structures and processes. 

Fantastic conversations about the changing role of IT, Mission Alignment, Process, Risk Management, Resource Management, Performance Measurement, Accountability and Value Delivery! The slides and the speaker, Matthew Eshleman - @meshleman, were great, but the conversation in the room was Awesome! Check out the slides!

Project Management - Friday, April 12
Battle Royal - Agile vs Waterfall! OK, not really, because at the end of the session there was a general consensus that both are valuable in the right situation.  And we came to the same consensus around the best Project Management tools, it just depends on your situation.  Here are a few key points:

• Project management is 90% communication. Best PM knows their audience & targets them with the right info. Project plans are just about managing steps, more importantly they help define what the project is. Project charters are a key. Boil the project down to the 2-3 key outcomes\goals. Expectations are everything in PM. 
• If I know exactly what the end product looks like, I use traditional project management, waterfall. If I see a lot of iterations, then agile. 
• Key to waterfall project management is the work-breakdown structure. Think about it in term of deliverables, those are your milestones. Agile project management prioritizes communication, constant review and collaboration over steps\dates. 
• RACI - Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed. Create a decision making process. 
• Sharepoint has many decent project management tools, task list, wikis, doc mgmt, calendar, communicate. Jira is an open source project management tool, from the makers or confluence. Hosted tools available. Greenhopper, Q&A are good add ext. Basecamp is cloud based agile tool. elegantly simple-but many of us need deeper tools. Match the Project Management tool to the audience, scope, size of team, detail needed, size of project. 

Morning Plenary - Sat, April 13

Fail Panel. Beth Kanter hosted a panel to celebrate embracing failure. Last year this panel talked about innovation and they ended it by talking about the need to allow for failure to be able to innovate.

I really enjoyed the concept of learning from failure and not hiding it. I loved the concept of budgeting for failure, set up a specific amount of your org's time to experiment in ways that are more risky but could have big potential while still managing that risk.  Love these phrases:

Failure is not the opposite of success, failure is a step in the process of success.

Embracing failure is not the same as accepting failure.

There is a difference between failing and being a failure.

How long before failure is connected to PUPPIES? How do puppies learn? Lots of accidents.

I am not a complete convert to Celebrating Failure though. New word for failure: my thought, not the optimal result but success is clearer now.  At some point in the panel I just felt like they turned a corner where talking about failure so much really seemed like success wasn't possible.

Read Beth's blog post on this plenary, Seriously, Do it NOW.

Nonprofit Leadership and IT - Sat, April 13

The only constant of technology and the role of IT is constant change.  The panel in this session rocked the house with their experience, thoughtfulness and expertise.  Here are some key points:

IT should represent the full org.  The role of IT is to change the way we work and the way we deliver our services. Bring insight into the unknown that tech brings. Everything is radically shifting as mktg/comm, fundraising, program service & full org collides w/tech! We work to integrate it. IT can see business processes that existed forever, that just don't make sense. But you have to carefully change, no blame.

IT should have vision.  Data, systems, infrastructure, communication tools, tech impacts everyone, so why not include them in planning conversations. The role of IT is often being the person in the room that says:"hey did you think about? Vision. If nothing else IT director needs to be known for having vision. Earn the right to be at the table.

IT should be at the leadership level. IT needs to be at the "C" level because so many IT projects require org change, peer support & policies. ALL organizational change REQUIRES technology to support it. So why would you not have tech represented at the "C" level? If IT isn't at the "C" level then they may not be seen as peers in leadership and may be given the same access and authority to have impact.

How can you have a Brand Voice without and Internal Conversation - Sat, April 13

Dan Michel from Feeding America and myself presented on the need to provide resources to your staff to enable them to use the brand voice. It was a fun session! Dan kicked it off sharing the new brand voice that Feeding America is launching for all of the Food Banks in the network. They did a lot of research on the right voice and are making every effort to get buy in.  They are using their extranet, webinars, in person events, emails and more to get it out there.

I then shared some information about the recent YMCA rebranding. There was some unknown work that was created to change the image of the YMCA from a place to go to a cause driven org. We worked at the Chicago Y to use the rebranding to enable the membership and program staff at our Ys to create digital content. But to top it off, I ended with the amazing passion and buy-in that the staff at The Cara Program. They have taken every effort to put the mission first, share stories consistently, live by mission metrics and so much more! I LOVE it!

Read the session notes

Geek Games! - Sat, April 13

Dodgeball. Karaoke. Legos. The conference ended with me and Shannon hosting the Karaoke at the first ever Geek Games. I was fearful of noone singing and I would have to do it, but WHAT! WHAT! NTC got talent! So many awesome singers and we had a blast! And only 1 injury in Dodgeball, Shannon got to fulfill a dream by asking "is there a doctor in the house?" on the mic. Kudos to the singers!

The Cloud. Our Hero. (My #13ntc IGNITE session)

There are no words for this.  In this version you do miss out on my wig and stage presence, but hey whatever.


An IGNITE presentation is 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide and the slides auto advance. Not easy.

Where I will be at the NTEN #13NTC

Taking the lead from the Famous Peter Campbell (if you want to connect with a great tech strategist, read his post) I thought I would share where I will be at the #13NTC.

Before I go over my schedule, I thought I would share a couple thoughts about NTC. My first NTEN NTC was in 2004 in Philly. Back then I was with the YMCA National Office. I went to the conference to learn about tech trends and find resources to share with the Y's that I worked with. I also dragged about 10-25 YMCA staff from across the country with me. During that time I presented every year about Tech Alignment or some other Tech Strategy session. 

Then came the dark years where I was focused on Social Media and Web. That's right, I strayed away from the core tech strategy to the shiny objects. I do still dabble in the dark arts, but I have a new job and a new outlook. I even had to miss one year of NTC... booo.

Now I am with The Cara Program as the Manager of Technology and I get to plan and strategize tech all day, plus I get to do it! So #13NTC is a very special one for me because I can officially call myself an IT Director of sorts and hang out with the cool kids that focus on the Tech.

As you can see though, NTEN NTC can be many different things for many different people. I am also bring my wife, Becca Heye, she is the co-founder of www.leapoffaithartsministries.org. She is looking for info on running her org and fundraising.  Sarah Mansberger, the Director of Development from The Cara Program will be there as well! Rock ON!

Here is my schedule:

April 10: #NTCbeer! Here is an awesome write up from Peter Campbell!

April 10th, 7:00 pm, Brit’s Pub a few doors from the hotel for the 5th Annual #ntcbeer event.  As of this writing, we have a dead heat for signups on the official Facebook page (90) and the MyNTC event page (89) for a grand total of, well, somewhere between 160 and 170, I think.  There are duplicate signups and there’s no easy way to do the math.  This is definitely shaping up to be the largest one yet, as many more people will sign up in the days just before NTC and quite a few won’t bother signing up at all.  Join me there with the understanding that it’s about the company first, beer second; we have a history of being a welcoming, casual crowd.  And we have some surprises in store.If you aren’t going to NTC, but you can get to Austin, Texas, be sure to attend our sister #ntcbeer event! Rumor has it that they know how to have a good time in Austin.

April 11 - Thursday

NTEN Welcome Session 9am
Fun way to see everyone before the conference starts and NTEN has promised something with some real pizzazz.

IT Director Meetup
Meetup with IT Directors at 10:30am - Lets keep the Tech part of NTEN alive.

Drupal Day!
I will be at the Drupal Day event in the afternoon. Wish I could go the full day, but overlap in schedules...

Science Fair 3pm
Don't fear the vendors! This is a great time, not a pushy sales pitch. There are numerous great nonprofit partners that will have booths. I have a few vendors I need to find = Business Intelligence, Client\student management CRM, Salesforce, Office365, etc. I am looking to get some advice, ideas and make connections.

IGNITE! 7pm
I will be giving an IGNITE session about how the Cloud is trying to KILL tech strategy. And for the first time ever... I will be singing it! It is worth your time to go to IGNITE if you want some entertainment mixed with education. These are 5 minute presos with with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. NOT AN EASY TASK TO PRESENT, but so fun to watch.

NPTech Staff with New Jobs Meetup!
Judi Sohn, Peter S. Campbell, Thomas Taylor, Brett Meyer, Elliot Harmon, Lindsay Bealko and myself have all changed NPTech jobs in the last year. Some of us will be meeting up around 8:30pm at http://8thstreetgrill.com. (discalimer: not everyone listed above has confirmed, I cannot control nor guarantee who shows up). But everyone is welcome.

April 12 - Friday

Breakfast -8am- would love to find someone to have breakfast with

Opening Plenary
8:30am - These are always critical to attend to get your brain kick-started.

IT Governance session!
10:30am IT Governance: Boring Name. Big Impact I have a number of large projects and technology changes planned within my org and we will need the policies and practices to go with it. I really think this is a critical element that is not given enough attention.

Lunch - would love to find someone to have Lunch with

Project Management session (see Peter's write up below)

At 3:30, I’m presenting on Project Management: Choosing the Right Tools and Approaches for Disparate Projects.  I’m only somewhat ambitious here, but my goal is that everyone attending will walk away with a solid understanding about traditional (“Waterfall”) and modern “Agile” project management; how and when to apply one, the other, or some combination of the two; and what awesome tools and applications are available to support them.  As always, I’ll keep the PowerPointing to a reasonable time limit and mine the wisdom of the crowd attending.  I think there will be a healthy showing  and there are already some gurus signed up.

Friday night isn't planned yet.

April 13 - Saturday

Breakfast -8am- Having Breakfast with John Haydon and Peter S. Campbell, WOW!

Opening Plenary
8:30am - These are always critical to attend to get your brain kick-started.

"Where Is This All Going? The Future of IT #13NTCwhere" session
10:30 am - What are the tech trends to watch?

Lunch - planned with Michael Nealis, Laura Norvig, Robert Rosenthal, Debra Askanase

Brand Voices - the internal conversation session! - presenting
1:30 pm- Dan Michel from Feeding America and myself will be talking about how a brand voice depends on internal communication. How can your org spread the same message and use the same voice without having it with staff first?

GEEK GAMES! Hosting the NTC has Talent stage!
5pm - I will be doing my best Simon Cowell meets Ryan Seacrest as I give NPTech staff a chance to spotlight their amazing talents!