Awesome Tech Planning Resource!

For the last two weeks I have rambled on about Tech Planning. I have thought about how to demystify the process. How to simplify it. 

The key was a shift from Strategic Tech Planning to Tactical Tech Planning!

Wait, What? Why would you not want strategic tech planning? What is up with Tactical?

Well let's put it this way. If your car has a flat tire and needs a new starter, do you need a strategic plan to fix the car? 

Well if your technology is in the early stages, it is like fixing your car. You have to get everything working correctly before you can think about the strategic parts. Doing an oil change, regular maintenance and thinking through upgrades is a bit silly when it has a flat and can't start.

The self serve training and resource for Technology Planning that I have been dreaming about for years has arrived. And it is from the trusted experts at Idealware! Yay! This resource is the perfect way for you and your organization to begin the journey toward a strategic technology plan by starting with a tactical one.

Idealware let me have a sneak peek at the training and associated resources, I cannot easily explain how AWESOME they are! When you combine the video with the downloadable action plans and templates, you have everything you need to get started. But even better, they don't throw it all at you at once. They purposely take you through a series of steps that are easy to digest and complete.

You might be saying to yourself, Self, I think this guy is whack or is getting paid to talk about this, but you would be wrong. Well maybe not about the whack part.  I am only talking about this training because I think it is a great tool! I have worked with Idealware on a volunteer basis in the past, but  I just really appreciate what they do.

So anyway, If you work at a small to mid size nonprofit, I would suggest going to Idealware and check out their Tactical Tech Planning today! http://tacticaltech.idealware.org/ 

Also a huge shout out to the Pierce Family Foundation for their support of this project! Awesome to see a foundation that really understands the importance of solid technology, operations and administration to support a nonprofit to meet it's mission!

Poking staff with a hot iron isn't branding. (Give staff a voice! Part 10 of 10)

Branding your cattle is as simple as heating an iron and then applying to their skin leaving a permanent mark. So why is branding so hard for an org and it's staff?

I think it is because branding is misunderstood. I think Seth Godin says it best in this post:

define: Brand
Here's my definition: A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer. A brand's value is merely the sum total of how much extra people will pay, or how often they choose, the expectations, memories, stories and relationships of one brand over the alternatives.
A brand used to be something else. It used to be a logo or a design or a wrapper. Today, that’s a shadow of the brand, something that might mark the brand’s existence. But just as it takes more than a hat to be a cowboy, it takes more than a designer prattling on about texture to make a brand. If you’ve never heard of it, if you wouldn’t choose it, if you don’t recommend it, then there is no brand, at least not for you.
If you hear a designer say this (believe it or not, I didn't make this quote up), “A TCHO Chocolate bar, with its algorithmic guilloche patterns, looks like a modern form of currency. “Modern” was always part of the brand brief — no faux traditionalism, but resolutely forward-looking for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts...” then I wonder if there’s a vocabulary disconnect.
Design is essential but design is not brand.

Understanding branding is not enough. You have to create ways to influence each part of the brand that Seth defined: expectations, memories, stories and relationships.  

You have to work to balance your desire to control or manage your brand while enabling your staff to influence it. But your staff WILL influence your brand whether you help them do it or not. In many ways your staff are your brand.

I think back to some of rebranding that I have been a part of. I was told what the brand is. I was told what to say as a staff person. It was made clear to me that only the leadership team was smart enough to define our brand. My job was to only carry out the orders and stick to the company line.

Some of those things are necessary during a rebrand. But telling someone what the brand is won't change anything until they feel it, support it and become a part of it.

Sorta like a new recipe. You can tell everyone that it is good, even that it is the best. But how can you know until you try.  And even after you try, you may not agree.

Here are the basic steps that I would suggest (most of which you have already started if you read my other posts in this series)

1. Monitor all communications about your brand from your audience and from your staff
2. Publish a set of guidelines to direct brand communications, see this AWESOME article from NTEN about creating a philosophy!
3. Provide constructive feedback and positive encourage on all staff brand communications (as much as possible)
4. Create metrics to inform your efforts
5. Spend time reviewing, sharing and reflecting on the outcomes from the metrics.

Managing a brand is not a simple task, but it needs to be done.  Good luck!

For some further reading on this topic, here is a recent article from Mashable! (if you consider 2010 recent, but just shows this isn't new stuff)

Thanks for reading all of my posts in the series of giving staff a voice. (if you did)

Need Content? Train your staff. (Give staff a voice! Part 9 of 10)

Need content?

Ask your staff. Right? They all have stories, they are the experts.

And you already have a content plan, so the topic is set.

So blamo! Ask the staff to create and just wait for it to be done.

Wrong. We have already talked about all of the obstacles and then I shared some ideas on how to remove the barriers. The key will be to build up to the ask. And one of the best ways to build up to the ask is to progressively build skills and as you build the skills ask the participants to practice.

So where do you begin in this training?

With the basics.

Provide information about writing for each medium.

Web - concise, directed, bullets, data, transparent, keywords, audience oriented, purposeful
--read some good articles

Email - stories, links, call to action, news
--read some good articles

Social Media - when training you need to remember that they are all different. You can count on mass publishing for all of your content. You have to continuously show how to adapt content to audiences and the medium.

Facebook - personality, engaging, images, video, humor, questions
--read some good articles

LinkedIn - professional, jobs, volunteers, news, connections, collaboration
--read some good articles

Twitter - timely, replies, frequent, repeats ok, short, humor
--read some good articles

Not sure if you noticed what I did there. I started by talking about training your staff on how to write, but then send you to a bunch of good articles to read for yourself.

That's right, the first training that has to happen is that YOU realize that no matter how long you have been creating content for any medium, you need to take time to train yourself in order to train others. Take time to read articles (or at least scan them) to refresh your thinking, see new trends or pick up tips.

Then take the articles and use them as training tools. Pick the resources or articles that best match your org, your goals or your approach and share them in a central place for all staff. Using an outside source will establish authority and importance. Plus you don't have to do as much work.

Build your trainings around information that people can relate to. Don't get buried in showing them the steps.

An important note about training staff. Most of the time staff don't want the training until they are already in the middle of the process. They get started and realize they need some help. Make sure your trainings can be accessed at any time. Create cheat sheets, recordings, a list of resources, etc.

So finally, here is the key to all of this. Training staff for digital content needs to be approachable, regular, ongoing, focused on voice\style\approach and fun!

Tech is not just for techies - a great training opportunity

Is your org struggling with technology? Don't wait for that techie in a shining code of armor. 

Here is a great opportunity from NTEN. I am excited to share it because I will be presenting one of the sessions. This is more than a training it is a chance to change your organization.

Now more than ever, nonprofit leaders must understand the potential technology has to help them meet their missions. They require effective ways to manage technology and lead others to use tools to their best organizational advantage.


The Technology Leadership Academy is a training program designed to help nonprofit leaders do just that.


Thanks to the generous support of Google and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NTEN is able to offer the Technology Leadership Academy at no charge to qualifying organizations. You must apply for acceptance to the Academy. Participants will be selected based on the guidelines below and their commitment to full participation.

NTEN's Technology Leadership Academy Returns for 2012