As I’ve stepped out of the direct role of being a nonprofit technology consultant, I’ve realized that it is giving me a chance to see things from a bit of a different perspective. I’ve been faithfully following a number of recent discussions on nonprofit blogging, social bookmarking, new and exciting tools, and the like. I’m having fun reading all the great posts on the blogs of friends and colleagues whose opinions I value highly (like Beth Kanter, Deborah Finn, Jon Stahl, Katrin Verclas, Art McGee, David Geilhufe, Marnie Webb and others) that I didn’t have time to read before. This is all very cool, and makes the geek part of me happy. I’m beginning to wonder, though, what is the role of the "über" consultants, as I’ll name them (us? do I qualify?)
I spent a lot of my time as a technology consultant helping nonprofits see the value of open source software. For the first few years I was doing this, I would use the words "open source" and I’d see this glazed, distant look in their eyes. They had no idea what it meant, why it was important, and how it could help them. For the most part, my clients were doing really, really well when I could get them to remember to test their backups, run virus protection, and troubleshoot why the printer doesn’t work.
I can guarantee you that if you said the words "nonprofit blogging," "RSS" or "social bookmarking" to your average E.D., or even CIO/CFO you’d see that same glazed distant look. I spent a bit of time recently helping my congregation migrate their website (since I, the major webmaster, was leaving to go to seminary), and they were grappling with issues that we’d been hashing out oh, 3-4 years ago, when we first started talking with organizations about CMS vs HTML.
Does this mean we should stop talking about all of those cool new things happening in webland? No, not at all! There is a lot for all of us to learn with these new tools and ideas, and adding them to the nonprofit technology toolkit is a great idea. And disseminating those ideas to people who are in a position to use them is important. But I worry sometimes that we (I include myself in this, for sure) are acting a bit too much like the hare, and not enough like a turtle booster. "Slow and steady wins the race." Nonprofits still struggle with data management issues, the sector still struggles from lack of standards, there is still an amazing lack of inexpensive, good, solid software for nonprofit mission-critical tasks.
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Good post. I’m with you on slow and steady.
I have had some success talking communication instead of technology. How outreach and communication with staff, clients and funders can advance interests. (Typicaly mission and fundraising.)
Usually their communications plans are underdeveloped, so the technology (delivery vehicle) seems more airy and scarey.
What do they want to say?
Who is the audience?
Can technology advance that?
Thanks for the post. I’m enjoying the unfolding conversation.
Peace.
Thoughtful post. I agree with you abuot the glazed look and the infrastructure and data management struggles that many nonprofit organizations suffer through.
I think,though, that we are at a unique spot in the development of technology — it’s not about being on the bleeding edge so much (well maybe a little bit) but about having an opening to think abuot how to use the tools you mention — RSS, social bookmarking, etc — before they have been completely comodified for corporate consumption.
There is a lot of energy in this area right now and a lot of it can really move nonprofit organization sinto a new sphere.
Does that mean that we should stop playing the infrastrucutre/data management role of the turtle booster? Not at all. It just means that we have to be examining this edge and see if there is a way — any way — that nonprofits can get there quickly and use it to extend their mission.
But maybe this all just because I like to play with bright shiny toys….
Michelle,
As usual, your post is right on!
You might get the impression that we totally obsessed with blogs and evangelizing the cool new tools from reading our blogs, but in my offline consultant life still dealing with the same issues ….
I sort of feel like I have personalities – tortise/hare, online/offline, … but I like both. Just have to keep ‘em in balance.
PS – -have you seen the Khmer Open Source localization project. So very cool …
Great thoughts, Michelle.
It’s funny to see myself described as a “bleeding edge” or “hare” type because I tend to think of myself as more of a “trailing edge”/”tortoise” consultant. (Ask anyone who’s asked me for database advice in the past five years!)
But I think the reality is that the most effective folks keep one foot in the nuts-and-bolts and one eye on the horizon. The trick is being smart about allocating limited resources of money and attention among polishing the rocks you have versus gathering new shiny things off the beach. Always a tough call.
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