1. Change done to you or,
2. change that you are a part of implementing.

In life we all know that change occurs that, as individuals, we feel is being forced upon us; that feeling of something being done to us. This may be something such as a lover breaking the romance off or a boss giving you a pink slip. Needless to say, having change “done to you” doesn’t usually feel good.

Organizational Health

When we think about communities and organizations we generally think in terms of the organizational “health”. What does a healthy organization look like? Every organization will have their own checklist but a couple pretty standard ones that I can think of are that they:

• are producing enough output to maintain or expand the organization;
• are maintaining an environment that fosters good morale; and,
• are innovative and create a vibrancy.

The Death of Morale

One sure way to kill innovation, vibrancy and eventually production is to kill morale. When your organizations chooses to operate using a process of “doing to” instead of “doing with” you run a very high risk of killing morale. In the short-run you will realize the change you hoped to implement but consider the costs associated with killing morale.

• Employee turnover = organizational knowledge deficit.
• Employee silence = workers will no longer feel that their opinion matters and will stop providing innovative ideas; instead they’ll look for outside opportunities to share those ideas.
• Employee revolt = consider all of the opportunities employees now have to express their opinion about thier personal lives (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Can your organization overcome 10-100-1000 employees spreading the word-of-mouth opinion that your organization is broken? Imagine each one of those employees has an average of 150 friends that might not just read that message but re-link it?

Changing Together

So how do you avoid the “doing to” type of change? There’s no single answer but here’s the general idea.

• Include everyone in the path of the possible change an opportunity to share their knowledge with the work group that is ultimately tasked with making the decision.
• Use technology to provide those people with a chance to follow the decision process as closely as they choose.
• Clearly show how their concerns are being addressed (either with a bulletproof explanation about why something can’t be done or an acknowledgement that a change came about due to a specific person or groups suggestion).
• Never assume that a person within the organization knows about a change that is coming; be explicit with announcements and be overly inclusive in your change initiatives.

Remember, the change you do to someone else is an open invitation to changes your organization might not be able to afford.

Do you need help managing change? Contact Andrew Miller Consulting today.

Dr. Gardner explained that GenX laid the groundwork necessary for the Social Media revolution to take place. It was our generation that was left alone to fend for ourselves, the “latch-key kids”. He pointed out that our generation had more crimes committed against it than all other currently surviving generations. In light of this we learned two things: first was a total distrust and disdain for the boomers, second was to band together as a way to fend for ourselves. Most important was that we were left alone with computers and with those machines we eventually found ourselves and each other online.

The development of the internet led to the extreme decline in the price of production. This decline continues rapidly. Because of this change in cost GenXers, who already did not want to follow in the footsteps of their Boomer elders realized they didn’t have to. 

The Boomers followed the systems that were in place before them and worked to earn (or inherit) the systems of hierarchy of the past. Dr. Gardner explained the strong sense of ownership that Boomers feel and clench so tightly in regards to their station in life. However, the GenXers (and now the Millennials) have the means of production to side-step much of that hierarchy.

These new generations are less interested in inheriting systems or earning ownership over the old systems. The new generations value group effort more than individual effort and innovation over inheritance. The new generations are ok with letting those systems die off.

The new generations are looking to create new ways to work together.

So what does this mean for organizations trying to engage younger volunteers/donors/supportors?

• Provide the tools and resources necessary so that the most motivated supporters can create their own movement around your organization [online this means providing easy to access data, logos, graphics and photos licensed under Creative Commons]
• Encourage that movement to grow as second tier supporters begin joining in [online this means spreading the movements message across your organizational networks]
• Watch for opportunities to extend even greater resources as a way of building greater community around the movement [if this movement started online this may mean extending offline resources such as throwing a networking event in your physical space]
• Watch for spin-offs from the main movement and look for opportunities to engage there [are new groups forming? if so then start this process over with them]
• When the movement returns to stillness reach out to the most connected individuals and provide them with deeper connections to your organization to spur new movements [online or off you always want to connect to those "thought-leaders" for a debriefing/lessons learned and a chance to envision future collaborations]
• Be mindful that you are always showing appreciation and be very vocal about it [online this means providing link backs to the key organizers, opportunities for second and third tier participants to become first line organizers, etc]

The younger generations of today are in a constant state of collaboration. By realizing that anyone can carry the energy behind a project, that it doesn’t have to come from within or from the most knowledgeble person, you will free your organization to embrace these flat and self-organizing groups of support.

Open Source for America (http://www.opensourceforamerica.org/) is a advocacy group for the use of Open Source standards and software in US Federal Government and includes an impressive list of board advisors including:

• Roger Burkhard
• Rishab Aiyer Ghosh
• Marv Langston
• Chris Lundberg
• Dawn Meyerriecks
• Eben Moglen
• Arthur L. Money
• Tim O’Reilly
• Stormy Peters
• Simon Phipps
• Mark Shuttleworth
• Paul Smith
• Dr. Doug Stone
• Michael Tiemann
• Andrew Updegrove
• William Vass
• Anthony I. Wasserman
• Jim Zemlin

From their website the groups Mission Statement is:

The mission of OSA is to educate decision makers in the U.S. Federal government about the advantages of using free and open source software; to encourage the Federal agencies to give equal priority to procuring free and open source software in all of their procurement decisions; and generally provide an effective voice to the U.S. Federal government on behalf of the open source software community, private industry, academia, and other non-profits.

The mission incorporates three goals:

• to effectuate changes in U.S. Federal government policies and practices so that all the government may more fully benefit from and utilize free and open source software;
• to help coordinate these communities to collaborate with the Federal government on technology requirements;
• to raise awareness and create understanding among federal government leaders in the executive and legislative branches about the values and implications of open source software. OSA may also participate in standards development and other activities that may support its open source mission.

This is the time of the year that the Michigan farm boy in me kicks into high gear. The vegetable garden is taking hold and the fruit trees in the yard are producing. Yesterday saw me up the tree, picking cherries for my family and our friends. Like my quest to follow my passions as a way to feed my family (and my soul) both literally and figuratively; this act of growing and sharing food is a very literal example of what makes me happy in life. I believe we should all attempt to live our lives in as happy a way as possible; in as fullfilling a way as possible.

That may be a loaded statement, we all have a different perspective on such things, but it is an important idea. Without it what is life worth?

So, in this case I climb the cherry tree which gives me both the joy of eating fresh, organic, local cherries but more than that it also gives me an excuse to climb a tree and get a new perspective on the neighborhood. A birds eye view can be good for the soul and the mind. Beyond that I get the joy of sharing with my neighbors, making new friends through the act of kindness and reconnected with old friends.

In return, in this case, my neighbors baked us a cherry pie that has been delicious.

Thinking of this example, in your life’s work, are you giving away cherries and getting cherry pie in return? If not, how might you get to that point?

The latest attempt to break the Google stranglehold on the search market is Microsoft’s new product: Bing (Bing Is Not Google). If you’d like to check it out for yourself then I suggest you head over to http://bing.com but don’t worry about breaking a sweat to get there. Bing is pretty uninspired visually and the back-end functionality feels more like Microsoft is catching up with Google, not surpassing it or even changing the game.

The issue is that Microsoft continues to look at projects with an engineer’s eyes; in very black and white terms. “If we can build a better search engine than Google we win.” This constant focus on competition instead of community keeps Microsoft falling short. Microsoft should look for ways to create new community instead of just “better tools” as a way to grow sustainable innovation (and thus fan base).

Of course this past week there was a new product that has shown innovation and community centered philosophy. And of course it is Google’s new product (protocol?) called Wave.

Before you sink your teeth into the Google Wave Developer Preview video which is 1.5 hours long and worth every minute (the very last demo will blow your mind) I want to relate to you where I see this application being a game changer for organizations and individuals.

Google Wave is based on the idea of conversations as opposed to messages (along with about 100 other innovations) and the engineers have done a fantastic job of accomplishing that. There is a lot of speculation about whether or not people will adopt to this product, to “catch the wave” or whatever. The advantages that Google are hoping pay off are:

• That the product lets you integrate so much work-flow that it would be difficult not to use it,
• The work-flow is all about collaboration and building community through sharing of control and content,
• They are making it open source so anyone can implement it and develop off of it, and;
• Everything happens inside the browser using HTML5 so you don’t have to deal with device dependencies.

The technological advances that allow the level of control sharing are unbelievable and the closest comparison I could make to this in our physical world would be the types of decentralized leadership being practiced by groups such as The Art of Hosting.

When you consider the social changes that are currently underway around the world you see that this product is directly in line with those changes. Google let the community dictate the direction of their solution instead of the engineers. What I mean this; current trends show the digital leaders (and their networks) are using online tools to share and create things without the hierarchy and centralized control of the past.

This digitalocracy of people are ignoring the protocols of society to create their own solutions to business, organization, community and even individual problems by collaborating online, sharing transparently and crowdsourcing.

Breaking big problems down into smaller chunks and allowing the group to solve them and then fit the pieces back together has become second nature to many of us and this is exactly how Google Wave approaches collaboration, conversation and problem solving. Taking it one step further is that Google Wave allows for a report out and harvest of every collaboration making it not just a fantastic tool for building collaboration and community but also for knowledge management and growth.

One of the biggest walls stifling the digitalocracy is the bureaucracy built into our current systems. If a new application like Google Wave can find its way into our current systems then by the nature of how it empowers everyone to be equals and to work communally we will in fact see a change in how organizations function.

So, without further ado I present the Google Wave Developer Demo:

I’ve been enjoying the conversations taking place on Govloop.com for several months now. The site itself has added more than 10,000 users in the past year. This isn’t going to make it competitive with Facebook by any stretch but for a professional resource it is a pretty exceptional rate of participation.

Facebook is mostly a timesink for workers during the day. I believe it has value in building community within and outside of your organization but, in terms of gaining valuable industry knowledge and contacts I would say it is time to broaden your online horizons. Using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are great ways to discover networks and tools that can help you to grow professionally but the key is that you then have to take advantage of those peripheral networks and use those tools.

In this current economic depression it will take something extra to keep off the streets and crowdsourced knowledge may be just that extra edge you need. What professional networks do you find useful?

The low cost of content delivery made possible by the internet has made organizing and messaging by small and large groups very accessible. The level of sophisticated messaging technology available can quickly grow unmanageable for some organizations and the level of transparency created by internet history has the potential of getting groups into trouble.

The group I’m going to look at has chosen the name Change in UA. This name choice is interesting because every action they’ve taken has been an attempt to not change the community, but to keep it stagnant. There is one positive request they are after however; to use technology to build greater transparency into city government.

Transparency in government is a hot topic right now and thanks to the Obama administration we are seeing a lot of transparency through technology in action. I couldn’t agree more that we all have the opportunity to do better at this and to benefit from it. I spend a great deal of my time volunteering to teach non-profits and government organizations how to approach this very thing.

I believe this sort of transparency needs to occur in private industry as well but that’s another blog post.

So what I want to talk about is how organizations such as Change in UA have to keep in mind what their tactics say about the organization and how those tactics effect outcomes.

The background on this group which has grown out of the UA Trash issue originally is that they have not yet had a successful campaign. With that in mind let’s look at some of the tactics that have led to these results.

• Starting with a moniker that suggests you are looking for change yet focusing all of your efforts on stopping change takes credibility away right off the bat and confuses even your strongest supporters.
• When asking for greater transparency don’t turn a blind eye to how your organization itself treats transparency. Using tactics such as redirecting a domain similar to your opposition’s (i.e. opposition.COM instead of opposition.ORG) so that users who mistakenly typed in the wrong domain type are taken to your website is highly unethical. Then to not tell the person why they have been taken somewhere else is the exact opposite of transparency.
• When arguing that a development levy shouldn’t be approved because it will negatively impact local business you shouldn’t then hold all of your meetings at a business outside of the community. Your concern for local businesses rings pretty hollow when you do that.
• As information comes out that discredits one of your arguments then it is best to acquiesce, remove that issue and move on. By leaving those issues up and not resolving them in any way it becomes one more thing that takes away from the groups overall credibility. Making such changes can also provide you with a an opportunity for positive engagement, instead of negative messaging.
• If you have a central unifying goal, such as greater transparency through technology, then work towards that goal instead of getting yourself caught up in issues that don’t have anything to do with your core mission. Getting one win that everyone in your mailing list can get behind is more important than making a stand on a mixed bag of issues.
• Finally, when you are working towards your core mission it is best if you can come forward with a well thought out plan for implementation, funding and sustainability of that mission. Taking this sort of positive, pro-active initiative is much easier for the community at large to get behind. When you approach every issue re-actively with a negative message you turn off much of the audience you are trying to reach.

Above all else remember positive engagement. Local community issues offer the opportunity to get engaged and involved right from the very beginning. There’s no exclusive club or anything else, just people interested in being involved. I’m a relative new comer to my community (less than a decade here) and yet I’ve been able to have an affect on many issues just by being engaged and pro-active.

Watch the newspaper, volunteer in the community and talk with your neighbors – this type of positive engagement can lead to the type of community you desire. These are the sorts of tactics that you can use no matter what your community is; give it a try!

A couple of weekends ago I spent several days with some highly motivated community members trying to better understand ways of communicating with our neighbors to build collaborative efforts towards positive change in our community.

In my volunteer life, particularly as it pertains to the Columbus Social Media Cafe I’m constantly looking to find ways of using social media technology to communicate better with community organizations and individual residents and to find ways to collaborate to build a better community.

So where are the opportunities in your community or organization to unify your communication efforts and to find greater collaboration?

One recent effort that the City of Upper Arlington has made to increase communication and hopefully lead to greater collaboration is to work with WCMH (NBC 4) to create OurUA.org. This site will allow UA residents to post hyperlocal news and create conversations around these stories. By letting go of control they are inviting honest, meaningful conversation that will hopefully lead to greater innovation in how we think about our city and our community.

At the State of Ohio I’m participating in a working group to see how we might utilize this technology to better serve the citizens of Ohio. The beauty behind both the technical and the theoretical ideas of UCC is that they are immensely scalable, from the family all the way up to the nation.

Consider how you might implement theses ideals within your work group and watch how the empowerment of collaboration spreads like wildfire.