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How to Defend Against Killer Phrases That Kill Creative Strategy

Bryann Alexandros — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:09:19 +0000

Ever had those meetings or brainstorm sessions that were intended to reel in fresh new ideas? The actual session begins and many ideas already lose their fighting chance as someone lays one of these killer phrases:

“Let’s form a committee on that…”
“We don’t have the resources…”
“That’ll never work…”
“We already tried that…”
“It’s not proven…”
“That’s a good idea, but…”
“That’s impossible…”
“We can’t do it that way…”
“No one does that…”
“We don’t do it that way here…”
“Has it been done before?”
“Is it a best practice?”
“What does that even have to do with anything?”

Or someone goes: “Pfft, really? That’s crazy.”

The Origins of Killer Phrases

Charles “Chic” Thompson wrote a good definition on killer phrases in the R&D Innovator Volume 2:

Killer Phrase (Kil’er frāz) – n. 1. a knee-jerk response that squelches new ideas; most commonly uttered by a boss, parent or government official. 2. a threat to innovation.

While written almost 20 years ago (in 1993), the meaning and obstacles remain true today.

Killer phrases are a form of negative thinking that can derail the group’s creative spirit. They lure people away from the realm of possibility (what might be) back into the realm of impossibility (status quo). New ideas are lined up extrajudicially and executed on the spot. Nevermind if all the facts or data aren’t in yet and nevermind if circumstances might’ve changed since someone last checked.

They’re not limited to a large corporation’s R&D: they can be found in every type of organization, both in professional and personal environments. We’ve even used them on ourselves whenever we need to “talk ourselves” out of something.

The collateral damage can be long-standing. Sooner or later the organization’s culture gets too toxic for creativity and people will be wired for one thing: fear.

Faith is lost in the process. People shut down. If pitching new ideas brings criticism or embarrassment, why try? And the only ideas that ever do emerge are the ones that are recycled and reanimated but tidied up to look new. They’re based on safety and logic, but they’re a far cry from being exciting.

Why bother collaborating in groups for creative strategy?

The top reason is that no one knows everything. Many mission-related challenges aren’t just a marketing problem or a technology problem. Instead, they’re multi-dimensional which require expertise from various realms of thought. People with unique skills and insight must convene to sync their ideas together in order to design new solutions and new initiatives that create true impact.

So ignore the new business press that exaggerate the dangers of group collaboration. The fact is that you can have badly conducted “brainstorming” sessions just as you can have badly conducted meetings.

Everyone in the group has a fragment or a piece to the puzzle — or challenge — that the organization is out to solve. Each person has unique experiences and insights to bring the table. All of that remains locked away and buried deep.

Even if you don’t feel yourself to be the “creative” type, here are some other “high-level” reasons why allowing creativity to flourish can benefit:

Get things done (real progress)
Break up organizational inertia and bottlenecks
Take ownership of new challenges and conflicts
Become more proactive than reactive
Finally move the mission forward with real progress

Where do we start?

While creativity implies creation and eventually action, many organizations need help in the first stages of ideation. Here are three easy killer phrase countermeasures to recalibrate your next meeting or brainstorm session.

1. Defer judgment during ideation

Not only should you permit the unrestricted divergence of ideas, but you should protect the creative spirit from the start. [Tweet this!]

Do this by encouraging everyone in the group to practice deferral of judgment. As people diverge freely on new, wild, and radical ideas, ask them to hold back on judging and evaluating ideas until later. This includes judging each other’s ideas. Assume that all ideas for now have equal value and deserve to be brought to the table.

Good judgement and evaluation based on sound criteria, not fear, is an essential part of the creative process (surprised?). Deferral of judgment takes work but it’s a crucial cognitive prerequisite that must be practiced.

2. Replace the killer phrase

Once you’ve reached the stage for evaluation in your session, don’t use killer phrases. Instead, if obstacles exist that block progress, ask “Why?” or “What’s stopping us?” Once you’ve zeroed in on the possible obstacles, ask “How might we?” as in, “How might we overcome x so that we can accomplish y?” [Tweet this!]

This is vastly more effective because it prompts everyone to once again diverge on any ideas to surmount blockages to progress, rather than ending with a killer phrase that leaves no light for solutions.

3. Hang up a killer phrase poster

Try the idea of writing up and displaying a killer phrase poster. Write up the common killer phrases and turn that into an artifact you hang up on the wall for everyone to see everyday.

This is an open attempt to positively rewire people so that they can practice divergent thinking and deferral of judgment.

And remember, rather than a killer phrase, ask why not? Or what’s stopping us? And use that as a springboard to ask “How might we…?” to diverge on ways to surmount those obstacles.

Over to you

What was your experience with killer phrases? Can you come up with any other show stoppers that prevent you, or your group, from moving forward?

Leave your comments below.

Some Passing Thoughts on Decoding Innovation

Bryann Alexandros — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:34:45 +0000

A recent comment I’ve made in the article Comfort Does Not = Innovation

Great points! We can talk all day about these ideas because they’re just too important to overlook. I’ll pick one or two :)

I’ve always defined innovation as a deliberate leap that creates new value for clients or a constituency. Not just “newness” or a 2% trickle – as in an improvement or an optimization – but the new deliberate creation of value in the context of that organization’s mission. Whatever that mission may be.

We’re all swimming in a world of complexity, so risk and uncertainty exists. Resisting to experiment and refusing to seek out the hidden opportunities for growth would probably be a grave mistake.

If decoding innovation in the context of the nonprofit wasn’t hard enough, there’s that one gotcha which I’m glad you mentioned, and that’s “process.” – an internal collaboration process to make sense of complexity, capture opportunities, and continually execute on that.

That’s probably the reason why there’s so much clamor behind standard strategic planning being dead. There’s a collective call for a better way of collaborating and adapting to the fuzzy challenges before us because these challenges can no longer be solved sequentially or linearly, by one person or in a closed session by committee.

At what point of discovery does an organization simply optimize its programs and services? When should they retire the worn and obsolete ones? And how will they create new programs and services that bring forth new value and new growth?

True: Not innovating is the fastest way to failure. I’d also say it’s the fastest way to irrelevancy.

The Smokescreens of Nonprofit Innovation Part 2

Bryann Alexandros — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:56:35 +0000

Part 1 journeyed into nonprofit smokescreens. These were the old serial habits and processes that stop organizations from pursuing innovation. Sometimes those habits just come with the territory. Fear stops us from exploring a little so that we can become real powerhouses of possibility. The potentials for what “might be” excites, yet the uncertainty paralyzes.

Or, we protect our assumptions: That the problem is already “known,” the right answer just needs to be “created.”

Recently, Dan Pallotta defied convention and dealt a heavy blow to one of the biggest smokescreens of them all – public stereotypes about nonprofits, risk, and capital.

But there’s also another problem that should be addressed.

One can have all the capital in the world, but what tools do nonprofits need to make sense of the massive changes in various marketplaces and cultures. Rather than wrestling against emerging paradigms, how do they evolve in parallel with them?

You might’ve seen a previous article here detailing how to re-evaluate your nonprofit business model. This is just one tool that can help.

But before resorting to tools — because there’s plenty — we need to talk about awareness:

Globalization
New government policies
Big data
Shifting marketplaces
Evolving technologies
Evolving communications
Changing attitudes and preferences from donors, clients and constituents

None of this is real news. But what is news, is the fact that many organizations are unaware of how these paradigms trickle down and affect the total scope of their mission. Think about how many organizations find later on that their mission and objectives have become misaligned. And how well did they play catch up?

One assumption to banish right now is to think that none of those paradigms affect them. Because they do. Our mission frontiers have shifted indefinitely and they’ll continue do so at a rate that we cannot control. The underlying events of these paradigms make up many fluid layers of complexity that cross and redefine each other. This is a vast ocean that every organization, for profit or otherwise, must inevitably navigate and make sense of.

An example and an exercise in assumptions and complexity

It seems like every week on the Stanford Social Innovation Review or on TED that someone brings forth an exciting new idea.

But ideas can be more volatile than we expect. Sometimes, they shine a candid light on how we thought a problem should’ve been solved. And no one really wants to raise their concerns to their colleagues for the fear of backlash or being placed on “the list.”

Last month, the BBC published a news article titled “eLimu: ‘T’ is for tablet computer.” So many startups have opened up shop to improve the delivery and accessibility of education in many African countries. Kenya, for example, had always faced “overcrowding in classes, inadequate teachers, and a lack of learning and teaching materials,” as John Temba of Kenya’s Ministry of Education reveals.

But some wonder why technology wasn’t as disruptive of an innovation as first perceived. Improving delivery with tablets and laptops just makes sense, doesn’t it?

But despite the rapid and progressive advances in technology, there had always been tech initiatives in Africa to expand accessibility of education – ever since the 1960′s.

So the crux of the issue: What if there is too much focus on technology as the answer? What if it’s just a part of the answer?

In short, the article highlights the greater scope of the challenges. So instead, how might we also:

Transform the previous culture of learning?
Translate gadgets into actual learning?
Adapt current pedagogy to the new gadgets and materials?
Create a steady flow of content that’s “locally relevant”?
Adapt current programs in the national curriculum to the new technology?

The lessons learned uncovered an unavoidable subset of new challenges. These types of challenges, or problems, sometimes make up what we call “wicked problems.”

Wicked problem is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The term ‘wicked’ is used, not in the sense of evil but rather its resistance to resolution. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.

While eLimu et al. are awesome initiatives, this isn’t to criticize them. The point is to briefly demonstrate the scope of some of these immense challenges that other organizations must also face.

What does this mean for the nonprofit sector?

Of course, this example focused on startups. And not many organizations have the capital to pilot such projects.

But the concern is the same: Awareness and internal collaboration process.

Is your strategic planning process adaptable to these multidimensional challenges? What if we were to shift from standard strategic planning to include creative strategic thinking and problem finding (or reframing)? To shift from just delivering to designing social impact from the start?

A different set of capabilities is needed to do this. The kind of capabilities that help make sense of the environment, identify the opportunities, and put new ideas and insight into implementation. Up ahead, we’ll clear away more smokescreens about internal collaboration, creativity, and process, but in the context of the nonprofit.

The Wicked Problem of Global Youth Unemployment

Bryann Alexandros — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 17:12:47 +0000

I’m fond of OpenIDEO — a collaboration platform created by innovation firm IDEO to tap into the creative thinking power of the crowd.

The active challenge right now is sponsored by Barclays and the Work Foundation, and it zeroes in on the wicked problem of worldwide youth unemployment. Here’s the core of the challenge:

The world in 2012 faces a stark reality; out of a global labour force of 3.3 billion, 200 million are unemployed. The situation is especially desperate for young people – 75 million are unemployed globally and, within the UK, over a million 16 to 24 year olds are currently looking for work. These dim prospects for youth sow the seeds for disengagement and apathy, continued social unrest and a challenging global economy.

Clearly, there are gaps: gaps between demand and supply; gaps in skills; gaps between geographies and gaps between opportunities and outcomes that all need addressing urgently. Nonetheless, despite these challenges, there are still reasons to be optimistic.

Find a thorough breakdown here.

There’s also some interesting discussion going on in the brief, too. Take a look.

My favorite concept is LAB21. LAB21 is proposed to be a hybrid co-learning lab for 16-24 year olds.

LAB21′s vision and curriculum evokes something experimental and volatile. It reminds me a bit of last year’s Fast Co.Design article on prototype design camps. My kind of thing, as it hits all the sweet spots regarding the challenge. So far, the LAB21 concept has preserved an impressive feedback streak and stands as one of the most applauded and commented final concepts so far.

Why would this be different from an initiative from, say, the school system or the university? I think there’s a two-sided problem: lack of capacity and vision. I have my thoughts about this, but I think this post by Steve Blank gives a glimpse on one of the problems.

Also, the concept itself has touched some thorny issues which rest quite close to the heart, such as:

How do we build our young people up to become creative problem solvers and leaders?
How do we immerse them in the art of good communication?
How do we open themselves up more to introspection and self-direction?
How can they learn to collaborate and co-create and design with people of different walks of life.

What would be a fitting platform for any of this?

I wish I had something like LAB21 back then. Years have passed, and with my siblings who now attend post-secondary school, I can see from the career-building paraphernalia offered by their school that there’s still a focus on the default: occupational viability and “well-roundedness.”

I’m not surprised that young people still emerge asking these questions: “Is this really all the system has to offer me? To teach me?”

It’s too early in life for young people to feel despondent and apathetic about what they may feel as the lack of choice or preparedness for the world of work. The time-costs are unjustified especially with what they could be learning amid a rapidly shifting business environment, and the kinds of skills and aptitudes employers now seek.

So there needs to be something different. LAB21 seems to point towards the right direction. Some lingering questions: How scalable and portable is the concept? And how can we adapt to some of the cultural differences from one geographic location to the next?

Take a stab at the concept. Enlist yourself, sign up, and donate your brain.

Some final thoughts

With the OpenIDEO platform, there’s always the hope that online collaboration segues into manifestation outside of the platform — that the momentum built online takes physical form where we can reiterate the concept and improve. I’m anxious to see how Barclays and the Work Foundation will carry the final concepts into execution.

Over to you

OK, you. What do you think about the LAB21 concept?

What do you think about this kind of crowdsourced collaboration for designing solutions?

I didn’t get a chance to view all of the concepts. But here are some other ones that also deserve high marks:

Imram’s Skunkworks
Purpose Workshops
Startup Hostel

Links:

Lab21: Co-Learning Labs with 21st Century Guidance Counselors
OpenIdeo: How it Works
Youth Unemployment Brief
Teaching Kids Design Thinking, So They Can Solve The World’s Biggest Problems

Note: the lab21 concept isn’t affiliated with the corporation named Lab21 ltd.

Beyond Data-Informed: Using Qual & Quant Data to Solve Problems

Bryann Alexandros — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:11:54 +0000

Say you want to visualize the impact you’re making for the community. But suddenly, you see that the numbers and milestones are pretty sad. Certain initiatives are failing. There’s a fear that programs may begin to implode. Worse, the results must be reported — soon.

Circulating the nonprofit blogosphere and social media channels are tips on becoming “data-informed “ and “data-driven.” There’s sage advice on developing metrics, measuring the right things, collecting data from various sources, and then vividly communicating that data to our funders with charts, graphs, dashboards and infographics.

I’d say that there’s a more serious challenge: making sense of data and coming up with new ideas. This is especially vital when a program or initiative is deadlocked. It’ll take more than quantitative analysis, statistical corellations, and visual alchemy (read: infographics) to surgically extract insight.

First, what is data?

Data doesn’t have to be all numbers. Data is a lonely unfiltered concoction of content. A quantitative and qualitative chaos of facts, figures, and interview snippets without organization and context.

Here’s something to note from NTEN:

In gathering data, we’ve only created the potential to inform. The next step is to make those data meaningful, relevant and actionable information by communicating them in some way via a channel to an audience. Information equals data plus communication.

But what’s the process of actually getting there? What challenges an organization is filtering relevant data, understanding what it’s really telling them, and deciding what they should do next.

So here’s something I learned a long time ago which just might help you dissolve data deadlocks and push your mission forward.

First some context:

A Crash Introduction to DIKW w/o the Hurt

The journey of understanding problems can be framed in the context of the DIKW hierarchy, or Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom.

First we obtain raw data which is meaningless by itself. Find a way to organize, filter, and interpret the data, then you can find yourself with information. As you construct a story, theory, or hypothesis about the information obtained, you now have knowledge. Finally, when you attempt to understand that knowledge and apply it towards a new and better solution, you may very well find yourself on the way to wisdom.

This slide is the simplest visual to demonstrate:

However, that journey is never easy. Jon Kolko, Founder of the Austin Center for Design, likens the leaps to jumping huge chasms.

The 1st chasm entails organizing and visually framing data to make it meaningful to us. But this is where organizations find themselves plummeting fast.

So, why the hold-up?

Off the top of my head, just a few reasons why nonprofits may find it hard to cross the 1st chasm:

hyper-reliance on quantitative data
hyper-emphasis on digital visualization (charts, bars, graphs — infographics)
improperly collected data

Let’s say you discover certain programs aren’t delivering. Or certain milestones have plateaued. You want to know why. Maybe you have a theory, but you want to extract the major themes surrounding it. Ideally, once you’ve derived insight and understanding, you just might have a hypothesis on how to improve.

What does it take to jump chasm 1 before actually jumping.

Anyone struggling here can definitely cross the 1st chasm from Data to Information. But it’s going to be painful the first time, because its prerequisites aren’t easy:

1) It requires a different kind of collaborative culture.

Not a typical staff meeting, or a general cooperation between two organizations, but internal collaboration. It’s how everyone currently works together in-house and together with their communities. It also requires some new habits and an appreciation of visual collaboration.

2) It requires creativity in conducting and collecting research.

There can be a holy matrimony between qualitative and quantitative data.

But make a pass at this HBR article. It’s a succinct post on the nuances of qual vs quant research, and why the former will yield your most powerful insight.

Qualitative, and especially observational or ethnographic, research enables us to delve much more deeply into the relationship between our firm and its product/service and the customer. Because we aren’t obsessed about adding all the responses together for ‘rigorous quantitative analysis’, we can let the customer use his own voice/words/vocabulary.

Statistics may show what large groups of people might logically do. But observational and ethnographic research will bring you closer to the human experience of your constituents and communities. Conducted right, it can reveal one’s deeply held needs, feelings, aspirations, as well as break down the barriers of our own assumptions and questions: Are their needs really being met? What isn’t being said? What may the real problem be?

Some research methods include contextual interviews and mobile ethnography.

Now say that we’ve gotten both types of research in our hands. It’s massive. Hopefully it was conducted and collected properly. How do we make sense of it in the shortest time possible?

Tool: Affinity Diagrams

The affinity diagram is a creative process used for gathering and organizing large amounts of datas, ideas and insights by evidencing their natural correlations. —servicedesigntools.org

Affinity Maps are great external visualization techniques for traversing chasm 1 and onto information. As a rapid collaboration technique, they’re summoned to tame, prune, and organize the massive qual/quant data chaos. They’re good for discovering themes, relationships, and developing a narrative. After an affinity map is conducted, the discoveries are further enhanced by coming up with personas, or even customer journey maps.

A tutorial on creating an affinity map in groups.

Meaningful, visual collaboration using qualitative and quantitative data has its place.

And for many reasons:

To properly structure by visually framing your data
To rapidly collaborate
To make sense of your data in the shortest time possible
To dissolve mysteries and create a different narrative about your outcomes (i.e. “why did ‘x’ happen?”)
To clarify what the next actions might be

Possessing data is only half the battle. Making sense of it, and transmuting all of your observations into actionable insight can mend the heartache of staring at too many charts, graphs and spreadsheets for far too long.

The Smokescreens of Nonprofit Innovation Part 1

Bryann Alexandros — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:22:51 +0000

Disruption can be scandalous. Bruised and defensive egos. Fear of uncertainty and the unknown. But if you can pull through, the changes can be fulfilling. As I reminisce about the themes from the last few months, it got me thinking about the prerequisites for, ahem, innovation. For organizations facing apathy, can disruption be the antidote? Consider it a prerequisite for anything innovative. Disruption means provoking on purpose. It means tossing up and talking out a hypothesis and then acting on it. It means taking those what-ifs, mashing up and envisioning the possibilities, and then turning them into why-nots. Yet what exactly in the nonprofit sector could use a shakedown? Business models? Fundraising models? Service delivery? How about the way we think about strategic planning and development?

Faces of Disruption

Speaking of strategic planning, this seems to be a source of despair for a lot of people. Here’s a brilliant muse by Kevin Monroe of X Factor Consulting titled “Rethinking Nonprofit Strategic Planning, Part I: Plan or Process?

His hypothesis? What if our utter dismay dealt with the process of planning itself?

For a moment, let’s bury any common conceptions about how strategic planning should unfold. Here are some good questions Kevin asks — spoken and presented plainly:

Have we limited our ability to envision a better, brighter future by using the wrong starting point for our planning process?

What different tools could we use to be more effective in our planning process?

What if organizations developed strategies with their communities rather than for their communities?

Could we achieve a different outcome by asking different questions?

Here’s another separate case that explores nonprofit board meeting and the different energy and momentum it could bring: Celebrating our Board’s 1 Year Anniversary

And then there’s this question on Quora: What are some key areas of non-profits/charities that could use disruption?

All this talk out there, but why doesn’t it happen?

Or, why don’t we see a massive unfolding or a tidal convergence?

Guidestar CEO Bob Ottenhoff had previously addressed the issue of implementing the Agile process into an organization. He says Agile isn’t just about product or software development, but embracing experimentation, rapid ideation and iteration to eke out a little creativity, manifest something new, or simply get things done.

But he says that the nonprofit sector moves at a “glacial pace” when it comes to embracing new forms of thinking and doing. A familiar clue on why that is:

Too much nonprofit sector management today is stuck in rigid techniques, standardized work tasks and an overemphasis on strategic planning. The Lean Startup identifies another principle that should resonate with all nonprofit leaders: the value of our people. Reis urges us to realize that all of our employees can be entrepreneurs. As he puts it: Innovation is a bottoms-up, decentralized and unpredictable thing, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be managed.

I concur. Rapid ideation and prototyping aside, what about using design research to gather insight on stakeholers? Or what about considering new emergent fields like service design?

Smokescreens

Where does that leave those who do want to explore change in all its glory and possibility? Who feel that they’re ready for it? There are two smokescreens that I can come up with, and I’m sure there are more:

Plain Confusion

Sometimes there’s this inclination to seek validation about whether some new way of “thinking” (or doing) is even worth the risk. In the case of service design, there is no official academic definition nor an official process because it’s really a concoction of methods and tools from many disciplines. It’s always evolving, shapeshifting. Consultancies and agencies map out their own creative processes that are attuned to the context of their respective industry or trade. But therein lies the paradox: The absence of a hard universal definition or process is to our benefit, too:

Frankly, one of the greatest strengths of design is that we have not settled on a single definition. Fields in which definition is now a settled matter tend to be lethargic, dying, or dead fields, where inquiry no longer provides challenges to what is accepted as truth.
- Richard Buchannan, 2001

Sadly, Bruce Nussbaum had already given his eulogy for design thinking last year:

There were many successes, but far too many more failures in this endeavor. Why? Companies absorbed the process of Design Thinking all to[sic] well, turning it into a linear, gated, by-the-book methodology that delivered, at best, incremental change and innovation. Call it N+1 innovation.

Design hasn’t died: it just reached a period of saturation. The newness about it has reached a plateau.

The Culture

Steve Blank has something to say about how innovation can be triggered in everyone’s hearts — that is, until it takes a severe blow to the head. In this case, when you try to innovate by committee. Are committees all that bad? Probably not, but out of the four reasons he outlines why committees are hazardous, the last two were the most compelling:

Committees protect the status quo. Everyone who has a reason to say “No” is represented.

Dealing with disruption is not solved by committee. New market problems call for visionary founders, not consensus committee members.

With a pensive nod towards what Bob Ottenhoff had mentioned, innovation is often and unknowingly short-circuited. It falls squarely on the organization’s culture itself, and it requires more than a single change agent.

To be continued….

For further reading:

New Models Redux
The Capacity-Building Game
5 Tips for Building a Great Culture for your Social Good Organization
My Review of the Mission Myth

Why Use Visualization Methods?

Bryann Alexandros — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:45:55 +0000

The Service Design Tools website tallies 40+ visual methods and ethnographic tools which exist for brainstorming, ideation, co-creation, and prototyping. These tools are actually archetypes ripe for modifying. How you rework its DNA depends on the industry you come from. Any derived insight becomes highly volatile.

This happened with the business model canvas where the ripple effects of cloud computing had to be explored and analyzed. The original BMC was OK, but we took into consideration the myriad functions of the nonprofit. Rather than tracing the ripples to one epicenter, we saw multiple ones.

Why use visualization methods to dissect problems? While I doubt they’ll lead directly to innovation, they’re great starting points for creative thinking, and there are many reasons why you’ll appreciate it better the next retreat or meeting you have:

1. Space

Rather than linear and logical processes to attack an issue, you teleport the issue into a different temporal space.

Depending on what framework you use, you can visualize the proximity of which an issue exists, and thus catch ideas or seize embedded problems which may not have been forseeable before. Don’t just think through a problem, think around it as well.

2. Pictures as a Common Language

Visualization, even just simple whiteboard doodles and stickies, can solidify ethereal ideas. Complexity dissolves into simplicity.

You know what they say: Not everyone hears the same thing and that pictures can mean a thousand words. Pictures, images, or charts can be the common language which can unify all stakeholders into rapid collaboration.

3. Speed

Finally, since visualization helps you see things that you couldn’t before, you can quickly test your “what if’s” and various hypotheses. It’s all laid out.

A Caveat: What Tools Can’t Fix

Innovation and design thinking have been seen steadily on popular publications like Standford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), Fast Co.Design and Fast Co.Exist.

But the nonprofit sector too should leverage these new ways of thinking and co-creation.

Guidestar CEO Bob Ottenhoff had candidly addressed the “glacial pace” at which nonprofit sector delivers social impact. He mentions the need to adapt and apply more creative ways of thinking and doing, like Agile Dev or Eric Ries’s Build-Measure-Learn. I’m with him on that:

Too much nonprofit sector management today is stuck in rigid techniques, standardized work tasks and an overemphasis on strategic planning

However, you can’t just throw some flotation device out into the sea like a buoy and expect a timely rescue from a sinking ship. The killjoy here is that visual methods are just tools, and these creative ways of thinking — including design thinking, social design, service design, or whatever new “x” is out there — are merely beacons. They can lead you extremely close to the sources of inner strife, or even toxicity, for why reinvigoration can’t even begin.

Yet sometimes the root causes are much more severe: fear, politics, or the ennui that stems from being hardwired to committee-ization and strategic planning. And those are actually Steve Blank’s mutinous words.

So you’ll require more than a mindmap, a business model canvas, or SWOT chart. It ultimately leads to that one qusetion:

Who really wants to change and innovate for the better, and who wants to keep things the way they are?

Further reading and playing for genetic magicians:

Designing a Better Nonprofit Business Model, Part 2

Bryann Alexandros — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 17:28:38 +0000

In part 1, I explained the concept of the business model canvas and how it can be leveraged by nonprofits to diagnose and quickly map out their current business model.

Why visualize your business model? Or, why use visualization techniques at all? There’s a two-pronged benefit. First, visualization tames everything in a language that everyone can understand. This opens the door to co-creativity. It simplifies complex concepts and then unifies all stakeholders into collaboration. Second, it propels any kind of hypothesis or problem into a new dimension: Rather than thinking linearly or using prescribed one-way methods, visualization considers the space around the problem. Innovative solutions, or even hidden embedded problems, can be discovered.

Implementing cloud computing into your IT infrastructure is a broad desire. Since, nonprofits are dynamic beasts with diverse functions, it’s like tossing a pebble into a pond where one change would ripple into the periphery. In this case, your entire organization.

So I’d like to test out a very common question:

What if x nonprofit considers a hybrid cloud IT infrastructure?

Here’s what I know:

Cloud computing is a business decision. It usually cuts costs and saves time. “x” nonprofit thinks so, too, because they know they are growing yet they’re unsure if their legacy IT infrastructure will grow along with them. Cloud computing seems like the solution, but there are other lingering concerns:

What are the real benefits? The real consequences? What or who needs priority? Who needs it most? What are our real problems? What would the true costs be in the long-term? What data should we migrate? Any staffing or training issues?

Other questions can emerge if you can come up with them. As you go through each block, keep these questions in mind.

Finally, let’s give “x” organization some flesh

Let’s give this organization more fictional flesh. Here’s a rough anecdotal persona of a dolphin research organization that we’ll use as a test subject:

Dolphin Research Organization (DRO) is a Hawaiian nonprofit dedicated to the study, rescue, and research of Spinner dolphins. DRO’s daily activities are manifold: Educational outreach with schools, on-site workshops and classes, marine research, and environmental project development. Their lean in-house staff is also active with blogging, writing print newsletters, and donor management.

Throughout the years, DRO improved their value propositions and thus expanded their different financial outcome streams: Aside from memberships, private foundation grants, a gift shop, and generous corporate donations, they’ve also built small on-site attractions and interactive programs that engage the public. These surged into a successful financial outcome stream to draw upon since DRO’s facilities exist both in a natural setting and a high tourist area. Research and teaching is always an important part of their work, and they’ve also expanded the educational aspect of their mission by implementing internship programs and college accredited courses.

However, as their member base, business processes, and public attention flourish, this also means that their IT backbone needs to be reconsidered, or redesigned to accommodate their growth.

Need the nonprofit version of the BMC?

For guidance, please use the nonprofit remix to understand each block.

Before

This is what DRO’s business model looks like now:

DRO has long depended on traditional outsourced IT: website hosting, file storage and backup, email, break-fix issues, etc. Dare I say that their house file is tracked on an Excel spreadsheet?

After

And here’s what the 1st iteration of DRO’s business model looks like. It’s where we could go with a cloud application portfolio:

Sticky Color Code

Yellow sticky: Unchanged
Green sticky: Possible Improvement
Blue sticky: New Addition

The ripples come from blue stickies. Green stickies are what the positive ripple effects may be.

How we came upon the 1st iteration

We’re going to roleplay with the canvas to see how far the ripples in our pond could go.

Key Partners

Unchanged: Foundation “x,” state tourism agency, regional attractions association, corporation “x”
Improved: IT services company, local print shop
New: TechSoup

Techsoup becomes an important partner in providing most donated software and discounted cloud subscriptions.

Dependence on local IT services people is decreased. They come in only when hardware “breaks.” They no longer provide email and website services. Instead, DRO may begin developing a migration strategy into either Google Apps or Office 365. A professional firm that specializes in website design for nonprofits might be brought in. Why would that be important? Because many constituent relationship management systems (CRM) integrate nicely with websites and internal business processes. For example, Convio and Salesforce takes much of that into consideration.

Also, it’s possible that they could start using newsletter services like MailChimp to deliver email newsletters. This depends on your audience’s preferences. You can merely supplement your print communications.

Key Activities

Unchanged: Environment development projects, field research, facility maintenance, animal care & training
Improved: Blogging, donor management, newsletters, administrative, public teaching
New: TechSoup

Cloud applications always seem to improve productivity with your key activities.

Say that you do hire a professional firm to redo your website and make it a part of your greater marketing strategy. Your staff’s workflow might improve regarding blogging and editorial tasks. And with a new website, you’ll ponder e-newsletters, and make it a part of your website where your co-creators and various audiences can easily stay up-to-date and connected.

With a possible CRM looming, much of your donor management processes can be placed on auto-pilot. DRO does all their tracking on an spreadsheet. But with a CRM, it may be easier to change, update, and organize information. It also may be easier to segement your userbase according to how much they pledge, donate or communicate with you. Here’s some suggested reading.

But the transition is not as easy as it sounds. What are the direct and indirect costs of migrating data, purchasing add-ons, etc? What if you have large amounts of information stored in-house?

Key Resources

Unchanged: Research equipment, research facilities
Improved: House File
New: Hybrid IT

Key resources can mean human, physical, financial, or intellectual. They help execute key activities. Here we see both human and physical resources improved. A hybrid IT infrastructure may alleviate some painful productivity issues that staff might’ve had. Possible cloud solutions that would make up part of this new infrastructure include project management, file storage, or document management. Also, with a cloud CRM, your house file can be better organized.

How does staff manage their work documents now, and does staff prefer document management through the cloud? Rather than email? What are their work habits like? For issues on BYOD (Bring your Own Device) policies and stealth IT and a possible solution, check out a previous post.

Cost Structure

Unchanged: Salaries, facility upkeep
Improved: Offices, IT labor & maintenance
New: Cloud licenses & subs

If DRO decides to migrate to Google Apps or Office365, then IT services like email and website hosting may be cut. Instead, that IT services company may just provide break-fix services. If Techsoup happens to be a key partner, you may qualify for discounted cloud licenses and subscriptions.

How do physical offices improve here? I’m concerned with unnecessary paper supplies. A long time ago during my IT heyday, I walked into a board member’s office to work on a PC repair. Flicking on the light switch, I discovered that most of the carpet was swamped with piles of paper. I could barely see any carpet. That’s how bad it was.

When I think about, I wonder how their offices could improve by using, say, Evernote and a Fuji Scansnap?

Value Propositions

Unchanged: internships, dolphin research & care, public interactions
Improved: workshops
New: college accredited courses

DRO’s value proposition is embedded in their mission: “the study, rescue, and research of Spinner dolphins.”

But what makes them different from the other research organizations? They’re the only organization in their locale that offers internships, college accredited courses, workshops, and public interactions with dolphins. So they’re not just any research organization. They proactively invite the public to be a part of the organization’s daily activities. And they’ve been doing this well for many years.

Remember that DRO performs lots of educational outreach. Is it possible that their website and cloud application portfolio can assist in better organize and communicate to the public about their value propositions?

DRO also offers college accredited courses. What are their current teaching processes like? One interesting possibility here is employing an Learning Management System (LMS) like Instructure’s Canvas to make teaching more accessible and enjoyable for both instructors and students.

Relations

Unchanged: direct action, attractions, programs
Improved: Direct public participation, outreach & marcom, community
New: None

Relations delve into the ways we develop bonds and relationships with our co-creators.

DRO has various attractions, programs, and workshops that engage co-creators. This leads the way to pleasant experiences but memorable relationships with your community.With cloud computing and a website redesign, there’s a good possibility that communications and reach around these areas might be improved.

Channels

Unchanged: Phone, in-person
Improved: Website
New: Social media

Social media is a different issue altogether, but with the way cloud applications integrate with social networks, you could consider it a backburner idea especially if the reason is compelling enough. This might also compel you to start thinking about how social media might weave into the rest of your marketing strategy.

What channels do your co-creators want to be reached? You know them best. Remember that many CRMs and cloud solutions can integrate with your website and the rest of your business processes. Your website is more than a presence online, but also a central communication hub. And it’s more compelling to find someone who knows how to design and implement a website like this.

Co-Creators

Unchanged: Direct action, attractions, programs
Improved: Direct public participation, outreach & marcom, community
New: None

Broad audiences are bad especially in marketing. Fortunately for DRO, they’ve at least drilled down into who typically visits their facilities: college students, school students, teachers, and family vacationers.

As mentioned before, the predicted improvements in the previous blocks could allow staff to communicate and interact more better with their co-creators.

Outcome Streams

Unchanged: Gift shop, retreats, grants
Improved: Programs, college courses, memberships, donations
New: None

How do co-creators sign up for programs? College accredited courses? How do they manage their donations and memberships? Considering all the improvements and additions in the previous blocks, your systems for handling outcome streams and other business processes may improve too.

Sum Up

See, it wasn’t just about the technology. When we started evaluating and prototyping its ripple effects throughout the entire organization, it makes us question other ways to become a more flexible, effective, and innovative organization.

It also provokes us in asking what the real costs of change may be, unearthing underlying issues which may not have been questioned yet. Not only should the business model canvas provide the space to co-creatively ponder solutions, but ponder possible mistakes in our implementation, too.

The 1st canvas = where we are now
2nd canvas onward = where we could go

There are other visual “acid tests” that you can make. You can use other service design tools like Blueprints+ or Customer/Constituent Journey Map.

But that’s a topic for another day.

My Review of “The Mission Myth”

Bryann Alexandros — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 19:35:04 +0000

Adapted from my Amazon review:

From the Nonprofit Times back in 2005, it was said that about one million nonprofits exist. Then in the Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2011, it was stated that 12 million baby boomers want to start a nonprofit.

As I read Deirdre Maloney’s “The Mission Myth” I wondered: How many of these are even effective and efficient with the 4 M’s? And how many will actually give a hoot about any of the 4 M’s once they start their nonprofit?

What are the 4 M’s? According to Deirdre, they’re management, money, marketing and measurement.

This isn’t giving too much away. After all, there is much depth to them in the book which is divided into 6 Parts and 55 chapters. Everything from the board of directors and time management, to leadership and communication skills. There are other touchy topics which might spark a new idea, or make others uncomfortable.

But I was wondering when an actual nonprofit veteran, who has been there and done that, would just finally say it without remorse: Run your nonprofit like a business.

That’s the main umbrella theme of the book, but fortunately she says that you shouldn’t lose the heart and soul of your mission. She makes a heavy distinction between doing good, and doing good well. Her message is that we must forego the impression that it only takes heart, soul, and mission to be a truly successful organization.

This is a strong testament. Some may nod in agreement, some may faint in disbelief. But like other reviewers and nonprofit veterans here have echoed, so much in the business world also crosses over into the non-profit realm.

For example, Marketing is still needed to educate and communicate to your audiences. So is Measurement to prove to stakeholders that you are not only doing what you promised but holding yourself accountable and making true impact. Money and handling is still important too as it touches upon every part of your organization. And of course, strong management skills and leadership to ensure that the core of the organization runs smoothly and efficiently.

After all, how do you convince others that your cause and mission is worth fighting for? How do you convince stakeholders that you are the right leaders for the mission? Something tells me that the answers are embedded in the 4 M’s.

With “The Mission Myth” The writing style is pithy and succinct. This is refreshing especially for heavy topics like money and management. Despite it being divided into 6 parts and 55 chapters, it is a highly actionable book in which you can readily synthesize and apply.

The Mission Myth is practical for the inquisitive, open-minded, yet busy nonprofit leader. It’s a rare gem that no nonprofit should overlook.

You can buy it at Amazon.

Alternatives to Consumer Cloud? Try Oxygen Cloud.

Bryann Alexandros — Mon, 28 May 2012 16:21:50 +0000

There was an interesting poll during the “Nonprofits & Cloud Computing” webinar where attendees weighed in on their current file sharing method.

The results panned out like this:

“How are you sharing files?”

File Server – 45%
NAS – 7.5%
Dropbox – 12.2%
Google Apps – 14.6%
Email Attachments – 21.4%

Not to be entirely representative of the nonprofit sector, but it gives us an idea.

Let’s talk about file sharing and collaboration since it hits close to home for many organizations.

Consumer vs. Enterprise

Among the constellation of consumer file sharing choices, you have Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

But one important point mentioned was that many of these popular cloud storage solutions are targeted for consumers where the features are just good enough for simple backup and small team collaboration.

And most times, these solutions work flawlessly.

But what about organizations that have strict access controls, compliance issues, huge userbases, and much more complex IT infrastructure.

What Makes Oxygen Cloud Different?

Oxygen Cloud fills a gap for organizations which already have strict data requirements, yet still need a way to address creeping shadow IT and internal cries for an official BYOD policy.

Note: Techsoup addressed the BYOD strategy for nonprofits in a past post. Looks like they decided to segement their users according to priority.

Here’s Oxygen Cloud in a nutshell:

The Oxygen Open Storage Grid enables mobile access to your files in a whole new way. Users and businesses can plug in nearly any kind of storage into the Grid and then access all their files through any app, tablet or computer. The Open Storage Grid creates authenticated linkage between the storage and devices, and a fully encrypted data container, allowing completely controlled synchronization and sharing.

Here are some of the other benefits that stand out over the consumer cloud choices:

1) You don’t need to upload data to a 3rd party

Even if they offer a free 5GB through Amazon s3, their value proposition is allowing you the choice of where to place your data: plug in your existing storage and keep your core data behind the organization’s firewall. This is done by installing an “Oxygen Storage Connector” on your server (or whatever storage device you have). More on that here.

This looked interesting too: Building a 55 TB Private Storage Cloud

2) E2E (end-to-end) encryption

And that “fully encrypted data container” alludes to E2E (end-to-end) encryption. More about that from their blog.

This is unique to Oxygen because most other services do not encrypt the data that’s been downloaded onto user devices. Oxygen serves as an end point protection and a complete, secure container for all your files saved on our platform. And yes, that means encryption for data on all mobiles devices such as iPhone, iPad and Android as well.

Sounds like a win to me. \o/

3) Collaboration

Once you have “storage connector” installed, you can sync data securely across all your team’s mobile devices. There’s also a centralized admin panel online where can get granular with permissions and workspaces. Not to mention, their iPad app is beautiful and great for mobile productivity.

If it were up to me?

This isn’t supposed to be an extensive primer on Oxygen Cloud, but it does emerge as a strong contender against the constellation of consumer choices out there.

I’m sure there are other things which make it shine. I’m just passing along the word for now. :)