Alpha testers and beta testers are collaborators, too

The Nonprofit Management Resource (NPMR) project went through a round of alpha testing a little while ago, and is now gearing up for beta testing.  I’ve been reflecting on how the alpha testers provide important input, and how they have been collaborators to the extent that we’ve invited that.

“We mutually pledge…”

Since writing about how important specificity and accountability are to me in a collaboration, I’ve been thinking about refining this idea a little.

Although I tend to appoint myself as the Designated Worrier of any project, the truth is that any collaborative effort is dependent on mutual accountability.  Power does not flow unilaterally and may not even be well-defined.  We may not have rigid lines of reporting, such as those seen in a hierarchical organizational chart, but it’s going to difficult to achieve our desired outcomes unless we all “report to” each other.

I like having a schedule, even when reality works out to be a little different

Happy new year!

As the new year begins, I’m reflecting on the Nonprofit Management Resources (NPMR) project’s five year plan.  I’m not going to post the latter here, but suffice it to say that the first year looked really different from what we had planned.  I think the second year will also diverge significantly from the tasks and dates so neatly described in the the Excel spreadsheets that we used.

Reality is different but not worse than what we planned.  It’s been a year of collaboration lessons, and one of them is that it takes time, when people come together, to get buy-in for all the things on the agenda.  Moreover, it’s not really possible to commandeer other people’s schedules.  Tasks that could be completed in a week hang fire, because one of the individuals or organizations involved has reservations about the goal or the tactics.  Or the tasks go on to-do lists, but are postponed in favor of other projects.

Reflections on the Pizzigatti Prize, Peter Deitz, and Social Actions

This week, I had a pleasure of nominating Peter Deitz (the founder and co-director of Social Actions) for the Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest.  This was fun to do, because it gave me an opportunity to reflect on how much his work has meant, not just to me, but to the Nonprofit Management Resources project (NPMR), and to everyone who cares about delivering useful information to those who seek to make the world a better place.

Nonprofit collaboration in Providence, Rhode Island

Every so often, I make jokes about how Massachusetts is the Silo State, and Rhode Island is the Pilot Project State.  This is overstating the truth, but there’s no doubt that the nonprofit/philanthropic cultures of the two states are quite different, and there’s plenty to be learned outside of my home base.

What I learned from Marianne Dyer and Melissa Ganley

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of sitting down first with Marianne Dyer and then with Melissa Ganley – two colleagues from Third Sector New England who split the responsibility of staffing TSNE’s reception area.

As readers of this blog know, I consider receptionists to be key information managers, so I was very grateful that they both were willing to make some time to speak with me.  Marianne even brought a sheaf of notes to the meeting, of questions that had been coming in over the phone!

Further reflections on taxonomies

Here’s a draft of the taxonomy that we are using for the nonprofit management knowledge base on the Boston Foundation’s web site.

An Overview of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Sector

• Data and Research
• Laws and Regulations
• Advocacy and Lobbying
• Nonprofit Basics
• Executive Management

The power of librarianship

The Nonprofit Management Resources project (NPMR) has been very lucky to work with Jennifer Koerber, a web services librarian.  I haven’t met her in person, but I’ve pored over her analysis of  the content developed for this project by Third Sector New England, the Boston Foundation, and the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network.

There’s nothing like getting some solid recommendations from a the point of view of a profession that has a long history with taxonomies and classification systems.  There’s a body of knowledge out there, the cumulative result of years of research and praxis, and we have been fortunate enough to benefit from Jennifer’s immersion in it.  Just as every nonprofit manager should not have to start from scratch in looking for up to date and authoritative answers to frequently asked questions, our team is well-advised not try to start from scratch in inventing the basics of knowledge management.

Running parallel with IdeaEncore, and sorting out information categories

On Friday, I had a phone conversation with the co-founders of IdeaEncore, Scott Bechtler-Levin and Florence Green.  It seems like IdeaEncore and the Nonprofit Management Resources project are running parallel in both their missions and their web functionality, so it was a really good time to compare notes – especially since an IdeaEncore feed is one of the three ways that NPMR’s content partners can choose to make their information available for search and aggregation.  (The others are through an RSS feed from the partner’s web site or through a spreadsheet periodically submitted to us.)

In addition to talking about the possibilities for harmonic convergence between IdeaEncore  and NPMR, we discussed the big picture.  Scott is a member of the informal brain trust that I convene on online tools that assist nonprofits and philanthropies in capacity mapping and resource matching, and we are both looking ahead to the open-door affinity group meeting that has been scheduled for our brain trust at the upcoming Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington, DC.  We are quite interested in seeing the folks who are involved in developing various online tools sit down and talk seriously about making them interoperable, or consolidating them, or at least creating a common login.

To do: Take Jason Mott to lunch

Denise, Bethany, Ndlela, and I had a very good conference call with Jason Mott of Ronin Tech Collective today.  The four of us were in a conference room together, and Jason was calling in from Brattleboro, Vermont.

Jason is one of two worker-owners at Ronin Tech Collective, Benjamin Bradley being the other.  Jason was the lead on developing the Social Actions search and aggregation engine, working with Christine Egger and Peter Deitz.  When we started working with Ronin on using the Social Actions engine for Nonprofit Management Resources, Jason passed the baton to Benjamin, who has passed it back Jason this week.  In fact, both Jason and Benjamin continue to be involved in the project, but we always have a specific point person at any given time.  We are now aiming to have a conference call with one or both of them on a monthly basis.

We’ve never met Benjamin or Jason in person, but we really want to!