In each case, I had been invited —and cheerfully [...]]]> Different venues, different audiences, but the same query: Six times in as many months, I stood in front of a group asking (perhaps demanding) that I answer the same question. Audiences can be scary — and the question pointed to the heart of the matter.

In each case, I had been invited —and cheerfully agreed — to talk about web 2.0 and online networks, these new fangled “social” technologies. But, the audiences wanted brass tacks — my academic musings and observations from on high were not enough. The crowd was hungry. They wanted the secret answer.

Folks listened patiently — but only up to a point. I, no doubt, had waxed idiotically on about social technologies being “messy, fast, and casual” — generally ill suited to any sort of organizational context. They are designed to be “personal.” They don’t adapt well to the organizational context, and I don’t think they ever will.

To that, well… I’ve always felt Marion Barry, the former Washington DC mayor, put it eloquently (in three little words): “Get over it.” The fact of the matter is, with social media, an organization no longer can speak with a single voice, or deliver a single message. We need to get over it. It’s all about one-to-one personal communications, only it’s one-to-one with thousands or hundreds of thousands, of people. Sounding silly, I’ve said that since the ‘net began and it’s truer today than ever.

But, such answers have not been enough for hungry audiences, waving netbooks, iPhones, torches and pitchforks.

Folks know there is a secret; what’s worse, they want the secret. They’re unabashed. After all, Obama’s campaign had proven it, right? The virtual cat was out of the digital bag, and it was time for me to come clean. (Pitchforks and torches not withstanding —obviously, I’ve a bit of a love-hate relationship with these presentation things.)

The question on the lips and placards of the angry villagers, the Question with a capital “Q”, is simple: “How can we raise money with these new social networking things?”

I suppose I could blame Election ’08 — specifically Barack Obama — for setting the stage. His campaign’s success was evident. They had raised money, apparently with online social networks. They had also rewritten the rules of politics, and perhaps changed the world forever.

Unfortunately, the answer is not so simple. Moreover, deep down inside, that question is tinged with an underlying belief, a belief that more “friends,” more “followers” equals $uccess. (That’s bull, by the way, pure and simple.)

Nevertheless, nonprofits are nonplussed; they want to raise money with Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever. In the end, it’s the ends. It’s dollars, not donuts, not even the euphemistic “constituent building.” It’s about money, filthy lucre— and deep down inside they know that they’re missing the boat. (So, it’s damn the Tweets, and full speed ahead.)

This belief persists, despite the facts. The facts are clear: social networks are much better “friend raisers” than they’ll ever be “fund raisers.” But, believe is difficult to fight, logically or otherwise. Social networks are the big thing, like direct mail, or telephones, or fax, or email before them. (And, like those that have come before, we are rapidly filling up web 2.0 with random streams of amazing stupidity – but that’s another discussion.)

The “Social Networks = $uccess” belief is ubiquitous. Recently, I reviewed more than 90 grant applications, proposals focused on the intersection of jazz and technology, a far cry from my typical business. However, the same threads were there — a remarkable and overwhelming percentage cited the same holy trinity: Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I read it so often I started to refer to it by acronym (FYT — pronounced Pffufft).

‘Till now, I’ve had no ready answer for the Question. Nothing I say seems to satisfy — folks want the secret code.

Lean in a little closer. Today I’m going to tell you that answer.

Here it is: the secret decoder ring, the magic ingredient, the answer to the Question of how to raise money with online social networks. Ready?

Step One… First, you get yourself an Obama.

Wait… Don’t hit that big “X” …

I say this with all seriousness. First you get yourself an Obama. That’s the secret of the Obama campaign. It was Obama — not Facebook, not Twitter, and not the bevy of would-be Dick “Bite-me” Morrises or the myriad of MoveOn’s anxious to fill up your inbox, dance across your Facebook page, or displace Ashton Kutcher in the Twitterstream of useless things in 140 characters.

The real secret is this: It’s never the tools, it’s the content. It’s never the medium, it’s the message.

The tools can make it easier to deliver the “ask,” and they can surely smooth the logistics of it all, but it’s still all about the message; it’s the content, stupid. More followers does not equal $uccess, unless you’re Ashton Kutcher. And that only works because Ashton Kutcher is selling Ashton Kutchers. (Or maybe he’s selling Demi Moores? I’m never sure.)

There you have it, the message in the cryptex, the answer to the Question. Tools only streamline the process. Today’s fancy network tools, social or otherwise, can move mountains, remove the barriers, streamline the donation, facilitate the transaction, and instantaneously validate the act of giving, relaying thanks, community, appreciation, and a receipt.

But, fundraising is about content; it’s about the Obama-factor. Facebook? YouTube? Twitter? Pffufft… Tools don’t create community. Get over it.

I often [...]]]> The grass is always greener. We all wish we were something we’re not. I wish I were younger, perhaps better looking and less of a romantic, too. Mail room clerks dream of being CEO’s and CEO’s dream of working in the mail room. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”*

I often hear that nonprofits should act more like for-profits. It’s a perennial lament — that wish for the “discipline of the market.” And, every time I hear it, I have to stop myself from blurting out “be careful what you wish for.” That discipline is not all it’s cracked up to be.

From my perspective, usually the lament is from a techie that feels that “technology is underutilized” or “the role of technology is not properly understood” or “properly appreciated” or some such within their organization. It’s followed by the thought that if only nonprofits were more like businesses, well then, naturally, there would be more appreciation of the integral role of technology, the power of the internet, etc. It’s revolutionized business in the space of a few short years, after all. “If only”… then all would be right with the world.

The argument: If only non-profits were more like for-profits, then the invisible hand would guide investments, shape management decisions, and generally improve things all around. The hidden message is, of course, increasing investments in ICT would enable increased “return,” resulting in more appreciation of, and more investment in, ICT; a perfect feedback loop. It would make Adam Smith proud.

Whenever I hear it, I flashback to a (very) short consultancy I had many years ago. Then the litany then was that if only government were more like private business, everything would be right with the world.

To paint the backdrop, put The Clash’s “London Calling” on the turntable and tune your way-back machine to the early 80′s:

It’s the Reagan years, I’m new to DC, and hungry and pretty much unemployed (err… a consultant, I should say). So, I take a tertiary sort of gig — to do some work for some folks who were working for some other folks who were working on a project called “The Presidents Private Sector Initiative.” It was a big name, big project, and bigger bucks (not for me, however, I was way too far down the food chain).

The initiative was all about how “Business” (with a capital B) was better than “Government” (with a capital G) in doing just about Everything (with a capital E). It was all about Privatization (with a capital P).

The job was to do grunt-work research on how great it would be to privatize the military. I didn’t last long. I had the bad habit of saying that I thought it was about the stupidest idea I had ever heard. I kept pointing out that history was rife with examples of how mercenaries tended to be relatively, umm, “mercenary” in their approaches to things like loyalty, policy, goals, human rights, etc. Tongue in cheek, I went so far as to suggest that, instead, we consider creating the 21^st century-version of Janissaries. As I said, I didn’t last too long.

I still think that privatizing the military was a pretty damn stupid idea. (And, it seems to me we’re learning that lesson again, right now. What’s the expression: Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. History is a relentless unforgiving tutor.)

Then too, my vision at the time was tainted by reality. I had just left a rather large trade association, and had been doing work for businesses, large and small, for some time. From my experience, there was no way that government had the market cornered on idiocy. There were plenty of competitors in that space, businesses large and small.

I will say that, looking at the various consultants and management firms that were involved in that Reagan-era initiative, there was one clear example of the efficiency of private business: these folks were very efficiently taking gobs of money from the government; busy writing silly thought papers on how the military could be less hierarchical, and busy designing (I kid you not) new age-type uniforms. Less hierarchical?… Ok, I can get with a net-centric sort of management arrangement, flexible, autonomous field units and the like, but not if everyone is wearing soft pastels and carrying crystals. Crystals, ok, but these folks were going to look like South Beach on a Saturday night, in the 80′s. I shudder: soft pink and rounded shoulders, Miami Vice with an M16. The mind boggles.

Back to the present-future, I still find today’s lament about nonprofits peculiar. Moreover, I think it’s wrongheaded. It assumes things that are just incorrect. It seems to fundamentally misunderstand the nature and the economics of organizations, both for-profit and not-for-profit.

First off, not all for-profit businesses are driven solely by the bottom-line — faceless corporations, maybe — but not small to medium businesses; far from it. If they were, then most every restaurateur in the world would quit tomorrow. So too would half of the small-business owners, sole proprietorships, and the like. Successful restaurateurs, small business owners, sole proprietorships, they’re all driven by love of what they do, along with money.

Secondly, as I mentioned, business is not a towering example of modern technological efficiencies and sound decision making. Far from it, if that were true, well, then General Motors would be humming right along, we’d all be driving cars that got 100 miles to the gallon. You need only to look at the ranks of failures, from Enron to Worldcom. Business makes boneheaded decisions, decisions based on whimsy, greed, politics, and just plain stupidity.

Take Worldcom, for example. They’re gone now, so I can pick on them. I used to work with Worldcom. They were the largest collection of B-School bozos I had ever done business with. I couldn’t figure out why the market liked them so much. They couldn’t manage to send out an invoice, accurately and on time, to save their eternal souls. While they managed to make sales, they couldn’t come close to fulfilling their promises. Eventually the market agreed with me. The telephone business is still out to lunch, IMHO. They can manage to market and sell services, they just can’t manage to deliver them, or support them, or properly bill for them. If you need another example, just look at U.S. Airlines. They all appear to be in the bankruptcy business.

The truth is, only one in four new businesses survive more than four years. Most go bust because of simple things, like failure to track expenses, or send invoices, or the like.

Acting more like a for-profit business is not a panacea. It’s not the cure for bad management, or bad decision making; nor will the discipline of the market make a nonprofit CEO suddenly a better manager or strategic planner.

In a nut shell: the lament simply gives too much credence to the invisible hand, gives way too much credit to for-profit businesses, assuming they act at all rationally, and fails to truly understand how and why businesses operate or why they fail or succeed.

Worse, the lament fails to appreciate the underlying essence of what it means to be a nonprofit. The underlying essence of a nonprofit is dedication to mission. The goal is the mission. Money — wherever it comes from — is a means to that goal.

Just between you and me, I also find it ironic that we seem to be simultaneously wishing, hoping, and proxy-voting that business — big corporations — start to act more like nonprofits, all the while thinking we should act more like them! As I said, the grass is always greener.

Don’t get me wrong, the nonprofit sector needs to prize efficiency, good management, good planning, and good leadership. Sadly, there are few nonprofits that meet all those benchmarks. I’ve worked with too many that were pretty poorly managed, lacked any long-term thinking, and constantly made the mistakes that would (and should) put a business out of business. Nevertheless, market discipline alone is not the answer. Nonprofits should operate like nonprofits — be driven by mission.

All that said, it is equally true that the economic incentives and feedback mechanisms of a nonprofit are, for lack of a better word, perverse. This perversity is the crux of the issue. The problem is: mission success is not directly related to organization success. You can have substantial success at mission, and yet fail as an organization; conversely, you can fail at mission and yet continue to thrive as an organization. The simple economics are perverse, the feedback mechanisms, incomplete or irrelevant:

• Better outcomes — regardless how you measure them — do not necessarily translate into increased funding.

Moreover the reverse is also true:

• Increased funding does not necessarily translate into better outcomes.

What makes the difference, in my opinion — that thing that links mission to outcomes to funding to management — is long-term thinking, thinking beyond the next quarter to the next quarter century. It’s long term thinking that should drive strategic investments, in both people and technology. With long-term thinking, you get wise investments in tools and people.

Once you starting thinking long term, the rules change, management gets smarter, and decisions get clearer. Long term, the invisible hand gets just a little smarter. Outcomes, put in the perspective of years, instead of months, become clearer, easier to identify, and easier to measure. Part of what sets the nonprofit sector apart from the for-profit is its perspective, its focus on the long-term good over short-term profit.

In the end, in fact, rather than non-profits acting more like for-profits, I think the reverse. The for-profit world would be better off if it thought more like the non-profit; eschewing short-term gain in favor of long-term sustainability.  Once you think beyond the next quarter, to the next quarter century, clearly the common good is also good for the bottom line.

Michael Gilbert and the Gilbert Center graciously host this blog. I think of Michael as my somewhat eccentric publisher — and true [...]]]> The Gilbert Center turns ten this year — that’s a hundred in Internet years. That’s something to be proud of — few things last a hundred years, especially in turbulent times.

Michael Gilbert and the Gilbert Center graciously host this blog. I think of Michael as my somewhat eccentric publisher — and true to publisher form — he occasionally tries to slip me a suggestion about something that I might write about. In recognition of this anniversary, Michael asked if I’d be willing to write some sort of “top ten” posting — a riff on the ten years.

Just between you and me, up till now, I’ve managed to pretty much ignore the suggestions — not purposely. [Really] Things just haven’t worked out that way.

But this one was different. It struck a chord. I got thinking about the number ten and the year 1997. I got to thinking about how things have changed in those ten years — the world has changed, politics has changed, much has changed. Looking back even further, many of the forces that have shaped today’s world barely existed twenty years ago. Ten years seems like a long time; twenty seems an eternity.

Back when I did a lot of speaking, I used to warn audiences “everything you know will be worthless in five years.” Damn if that hasn’t turned out to be true. In the last ten years, I’ve had to relearn things at least twice over, maybe more.

Then, at this year’s NTC, an old friend and colleague mentioned that he had heard Ellen Miller, of the Sunlight Foundation, claim me as her original “enabler.” This made be chuckle. I suppose I’m guilty.

In hindsight, that’s kind of fun to think about, since Ellen now runs one of the most innovative Web2.0 sites on the ‘net. Ellen’s now busy using these fancy new technologies to move ideas, people, issues, and thoughts. I can’t, won’t and shouldn’t take credit. But it does make me chuckle just a little bit.

I remember that “enabling” like it was yesterday. I bring this all up because it was ten, maybe twelve, years ago. And, I figured that I might just “re-use” my notes from that introduction as a core for this post. I admit it, I was looking to get off easy, as it were.

Back then, the deal was this: Ellen provided Chinese Thai (I stand corrected!) carry-out and I was to provide a couple of hours of introduction to this strange thing called the World Wide Web. The audience included our mutual friend, Larry Makinson. Then, both Larry and Ellen worked at the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). They were busy bringing revolutionary transparency to campaign finance. Larry, by the way, is a brilliant fellow and the brains behind much of the campaign finance research done in the last 10 or 20 years. Today, the CRP web site, OpenSecrets.org, is pretty fine damn work. Larry’s now a senior fellow (and a nice fellow too) at the Sunlight Foundation.

I always figured I got the better deal. It was good Chinese Thai food. [This also proves I will work for food.]

Undaunted by the task — and perhaps I should have been — I had put together some notes that I thought not only described the so-called “information super highway” [more like a goat trail back then] but also postulated some of its future impact. In hindsight, I think the themes were spot on.

True to form, I had also come up with a couple of “big” ideas about what the Internet was, and what its impact was going to be. With chopsticks in hand, I laid out a set of concepts and threw in some idle speculation about how it might evolve over time.

The BIG idea was this: The internet was going to be a ubiquitous communications network — connecting everything from toasters to power sub-stations. It was going to smash hierarchies, re-write power relationships, and basically change the dynamics of the game.

But, I figured sagely, in the end, it was still going to be about one-to-one personal interactions, only instead of just one or two people, it was going to be about one-to-one personal interactions between hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of people. The emphasis there is on the personal.

Ever one to use a bad analogy, I likened the “web” itself to a Lava Lamp – something that was fascinating in a weird sort of way – but tended to blind us to the real revolution, the underlying communications network. I thought we’d see the real impact in things that rode on the back of that network; that the web stuff was neat, but the real fun would start when we started shoving other stuff across the network. What the other stuff was, I wasn’t sure. But I was sure that it was going to be something wonderful. The quote I had in my notes was from Arthur C. Clarke. It was from the ’60′s. “We cannot stop the world from being digitized.” I still think I’m right there. It’s not the web, it’s the other stuff.

For the web itself, I postulated three phases, each building on the previous. I called these phases Informational, Transactional, and Interactional. In hindsight, those aren’t bad constructs. “Informational” corresponds to the whole “public face” brochure-type web sites, “Transactional” gets us everything from online book sales to banking to music sites, and “Interactional” gets us into this whole community building stuff. To be honest, I missed the whole “social networking” stuff. As is so often the case, it’s the important things you end up missing. That’s one that kicked me in the ass. Still don’t quite understand what it means.

At the time, the seemingly opposite forces of “market disintermediation” and “market aggregation” seemed poised to change some major equations. I was right — and they’re still at work — If I’d been smart, I would have bought eBay and Amazon, each in its own right an example of disintermediation (Amazon) and market aggregation (eBay).

Mind you, in hindsight, all these concepts are not earth-shattering. Nevertheless, I think they still form the core of some of the changes being wrought in our world, and they still provide a useful framework within which to view the world.

Moreover, simply naming or recognizing these forces has not stopped them. Markets are still being torn asunder. Recently, for example, I was blown away to hear the publisher of the New York Times muse “I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years.” He then followed by saying: “And you know what? I don’t care either.” As I said, the scale and the pace are phenomenal. It’s sometimes hard to reconcile the fact that we seem to be going two directions at once, both disintermediating existing markets and structures, and aggregating new markets from what had previously been too scattered to matter — the so-called long-tail.

That’s what kicked me in the ass — the scale and pace of change. I was way too pessimistic. In this measly ten years, the world has changed more than I imagined. For example, who now can imagine a time without Google, without the ability to look up song lyrics on a whim, to order underwear online, to flirt and cavort with friends and colleagues scattered across the globe. The Lava Lamp is still there – only it’s a real-time, interactive, socially networked lava lamp. And that underlying ubiquitous network has spawned VoIP, revolutionized entertainment, and is turning politics on its head.

Finally to the future: Ten years out —

As I see it, there are five intertwined and interrelated themes that are shaping the future. These themes keep bonking me in the head with the subtlety of a two-by-four. They provide a framework within which I view and try to make some sense of the world. They are the big countervailing forces and contradictory energies that are at work, shaping what will be.

In my crystal ball, the next ten years is all about how these five themes will intersect with our lives, our work, our life, and our loves, and how they will intersect with that ubiquitous, universal communications network we call the Internet. In a nutshell, the five themes are:

• Ownership — Who owns what, and why, and how is it controlled, or not. Is it free, is it open, is it shared? Do I get paid for my ideas, and if so, how?
  
• Identity — How do I preserve that which is me: my name, my time, my eyeballs? How does identity interact with the issues of trust, of ownership, and of privacy?.
  
• Trust — How do I know you’re you? How can I trust you, trust my bank, trust Google? How do I establish trusted relationships for any sort of transactions?
  
• Privacy — How do I preserve my privacy when I want to? How do I keep my identity, and yet participate in a socially networked world?
  
• Community — What is community, what communities – physical and virtual – do I interact with? What binds us together and what doesn’t?
  

These themes blend into one another. There is no clear delineation and I won’t attempt to make one. Identity, trust and privacy, for example, are clearly three sides of a strangely shaped holographic coin. Our identities are under attack — we actually have a crime called “Identity Theft.” I still cringe when I hear people talk of owning “names” and “lists.” My name is mine, and I want it back.

Identity and trust are all about ownership. Ownership is all about ownership. Open source is all about ownership. Intellectual property is all about ownership. Digital Rights Management is all about ownership. We’re busy redefining what it means to own an idea, own a concept, or own your own name.

Simultaneously, our lives are increasingly public, increasingly defined in a public arena, and subject to public viewing. What Google knows about me is frightening. What I willing share with the world — through blogs, listservs, email, and Flickr — is also frightening. But for some reason, I do it willingly. For some reason I trust you. (Then again, my wife doesn’t. She won’t let me put up pictures of her.)

How do I know who you are, how can I trust you? Is my email mine, what about my signature? Who should I trust, and how will I know? Should I trust the Christian singles that want to meet me? How about that fellow in Nigeria with the $200,000,000?

The New York Times is one of my few “trusted sources” for information. I trust ‘em. [Especially since they canned Judith Miller and that other guy.]

What’s a world like without the Times? What news will I trust? Fox News? The Daily Show? [One is fake news. You pick which.] For that matter, where will anyone get their news, since it’s apparent that every other news source just reads the Times (and sometimes the Washington Post) and rehashes it.

For most of human history, our communities were shaped by geography. For most of human history, people were born, lived their lives, and died inside a 100-mile radius. Now I have breakfast in Brussels and dinner in Detroit. Not counting sleeping, I spend more time in airports than Ann Arbor. Now our lives are shaped not only by geography, but by a global set of issues. Polities are now shaped by our beliefs more than our locations.

In this messy melting pot, we are seeking and exploring new forms of community — some are even living “second lives” — in a virtual space inhabited by seven foot pink cats. I met one — or so she claimed — just the other day. It was kind of scary. I haven’t a clue what it means. But I can tell you this, whatever it is, it’s happening much faster than you think. Trust me..

Michael and the Gilbert Center have weathered these stormy times, although not without casualty. Undaunted and with cheerful alacrity, Michael continues to cast a critical eye, and lend his critical mind to the nonprofit sector. We are all the richer for it.

Congratulations on your first one hundred years. May the next one hundred be just as interesting. Oh… Watch out for the pink cats, I’m not sure who they are, and I don’t know if you can trust them.