From Our Brains to Yours
Refocus to Change the World
Why do big online organizing efforts so often fail to win the day? A trio of ideas to guide the way toward more effective online advocacy.
Measure More than Inputs
What should organizations, coalitions, and the sector at large measure in the context of unrelenting complexity, widely dispersed responsibility, and, often, a virtual blackout when it comes to timely, reliable data?
Reflections on the Web of Change Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I took a plane, train, rental car, ferry, water taxi, and sea plane (no kidding) getting to and from Cortes Island in beautiful British Columbia. I ran that transportation gauntlet to attend the Web of Change conference at Hollyhock, a one-of-a-kind convening of great minds committed to social change, held [...]
How political should your nonprofit be?
On Friday, a federal appeals court struck down a limitation on non-profit money in politics that felt to many of us in this business, as one of my colleagues put it, like “a fact of life, like gravity.” Boiled down, the ruling cleared the way for non-profits to raise and spend unlimited money in support [...]
Thinking beyond the cycle
In politics it’s difficult to think beyond the next electoral cycle. What good is it to think about five years from now if you lose your seat – and therefore the ability to make play a part in decision making, period – in eighteen months?
I’m as guilty as the next guy and gal working in [...]
Information versus Knowledge
Flipping through this month’s issue of Wired, I found myself with a little bit of literary deja vu. In his missive, “Manufacturing Confusion: How More Information Leads to Less Knowledge,” Clive Thompson argues that the “information revolution” hasn’t brought about greater knowledge, understanding, or widespread acceptance of truth, but rather it has wrought confusion and [...]
More first principles: What is school for?
Last week, I argued that in all the hubbub about TARP dollars and stimulus spending versus tax cuts, we’re missing the point: what are our our “first principles” when it comes to the economy? Before we can decide whether the various proposals on the table are good or bad, worth the investment or not, we [...]
On first principles
Fair warning: this is a bit off topic – I’m not going to talk about communications or advocacy or strategy.
Like everyone else, I’ve been watching the imploding economy with a mixture of horror, dread, and morbid curiosity: what on earth can we do? What can governments do? What can individuals do? Corporations?
It’s occurred to me [...]