1. None of us chanted it was a straight, sooty summer the summer we electrocuted Fort McMurray Formamurrie Former Murray that summer none of us chanted the fort the fort the fort is on fire that summer we stopped feeling the Bern and trembled afore the trump.fern.o and cheered on first responders mobilized all hands, […]
For the bus drivers
Listen to the poem “For the bus drivers” here, or read it below: no war but the class war, scoffed the Conservative Members of Parliament whose laughter rang round the Chamber hardee har har har when Amarjeet Sohi rose to lay a metaphorical rose in tribute to a bus driver murdered by a passenger in […]
Why our organizations need to get – I mean, really get – content strategy
A web primer in 3 parts PART 1 – A DAY IN THE LIFE Storytelling? Great, now we need digital content to “tell our story.” And we need to update members on news and the issues we work on. We also need content for our online learning program. We need a video on that. We […]
Why our organizations need to understand content marketing
Content marketing is the use of digital content to market something so people buy it, support it or do it. “It” could be a product, a service, a brand, a cause or an event. It could be a politician, small business, awareness campaign, community group or major corporation. Why should you care about content marketing? […]
Spacy Connect
Spacy connect. Our timorous breath is not enough is nowhere near enough iJibber this iJabber that The more we make contact The more contacts we make The less we ground The less we rest; Feverishly hearting all the livelong day Under all that overwire everywhere All that overwire everywhen: Less and less we […]
Life After
A Short Story By Maggie Marsden-Sparrow & David Robbins Prologue Grammy new th names of all th flowers and all th plants. She new win to pluk leevs and bury seeds and pluk seeds and bury leevs. She new win the sun would be shining best and wich plants liked to sidl up to wich. […]
Successful meditation workshop
Nice cushions, actually. At first I thought they were too high and hard, but now I’m thinking they are just right and actually – now that I’ve been sitting here for a while – like 3 hours so far – with some walking meditation in between; like it hasn’t been three hours straight, but since […]
their long fucking necks and goofy fucking grins
giraffes going extinct with their long fucking necks and goofy grins they clearly they had to go were not producing were failing to contribute to GDP or tourist dollars or to their own resistance but clearly big winners in the market for hacked up fucking giraffy parts no-one will miss their long fucking necks and their […]
Advice to no-one in particular
Communicate clearly Make decisions Plan collaboratively Facilitate peoples’ success Hold space for peoples’ talents, interests and passions Let people do what they’re good at Let people do their jobs Let people develop their own relationships Co-define the work, the priorities and the goals Share the thinking Advocate for training, skills and capacity Be a colleague […]
5 ways, 2 good tips, and 1 good reason to open the conversation about digital in your organization
Sometimes, our organizations need a little help having conversations. Especially complex conversations that have implications for the issues we work on and how we work on them – how we organize, educate and communicate, and how we work together. Digital is one of those conversations. Organizationally, it’s a whopper. Digital is reshaping the landscape – technological, economic, […]
Get clear about why your organization should open the conversation about digital
Our society is undergoing a shift to a digital infrastructure. Nonprofit organizations of all kinds need to make the shift as well. Shifts can be mindful and organic. Or they can be disruptive and damaging. They can redistribute power more equally. Or they can make power more remote and unaccountable. The shift to digital is […]
Who owns digital in our organizations?
A spectre is haunting us as we work to move our organizations into the new digital era. That spectre is a question: Who owns digital? The answer is we all do. We all own digital. Even though it seems that many of us are becoming quite established as “users” of the Internet, tablets and smartphones and so on, the […]
Connect with like-minded folks
Digital, like the earth, is a common treasury for all. Information and communications technologies no longer belong to one or two departments. It’s up to all organizational workers to lay claim to collective ownership of the digital means of production. If that sounds too positively revolutionary, then folks have other options. Find people in your organization, […]
Learn out loud
Sometimes the best conversation is spurred when folks take action. And sometimes action can take the form of “learning out loud” – where people explore new concepts, capacities and skills in a spirit of openness, sharing and inclusion. This is where we remember that learning is about development, not just outcomes. It’s about capacity, not just […]
Help your organization make the digital cultural shift
Help needed: Diplomats and ambassadors. Bridge-people. Those who can move between analogue and digital, between old ways and new ways, across misconceptions about, and resistance to, change. This is where “change agents” ask our organizations to do things differently. It’s not always an easy road. Digital development varies across different organizations. Some groups are quite advanced as […]
Breathe
Change takes time. Breathe. Prepare to move slower than you might like. Our organizations face incredible evolutionary drag, sometimes paralysis, in the face of the overwhelming enormity of the challenges before us – social, economic, ecological. It’s hard to make cultural change in this kind of milieu. It takes time. Breathe, even as you know […]
Meander
Remember that conversations can be like rivers: they meander. Be prepared for the conversation to happen organically and not necessarily in a preplanned, expertly facilitated way. You might see an opening here, a window there. It might go slowly here, and swiftly there. Don’t gird yourself for conflict with anyone, not even Soandso – they […]
Disrupt or be disrupted
Tech change has been disrupting work, workplaces and workers for centuries. Today’s digital disruptions are part of a long tradition of upheaval, dislocation, conflict and control. Digital disruption takes many forms, some obvious and some not as much. It’s obvious in sectors like transportation and accommodation, where taxi drivers and local bed and breakfast operators lose […]
The War For Story
We live in a world where everybody has their story, and every business does too, from Fortune 500 companies to your local shops. As humans, we connect to each other through our stories. Marketers have been taking notes. The war for story is on. Not a war of stories, in the sense of “the best story wins.” A war for story – […]
Beware Story, Inc.
Capitalism wants to tell us a story. A story about our world. Not perfect, but dedicated to continuous quality improvement. Nothing much to worry about, except who will win a gold medal or an Oscar or the Super Cup. A story about how good things are. Maybe not perfect, but always innovating. A story about […]