Open the conversationHow workers (and managers) can talk about digital at unions and nonprofits

Social DigitalDavid Robbinsdavid@socialdigital.casocialdigital.ca

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Uh, what conversation?

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A conversation about tech change, org change, social change

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A conversation about digital

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Rationale

Our society is undergoing a shift to a digital superstructure. Nonprofit organizations of all kinds need to make the shift as well.

We can’t do that by contracting out.

Organizations need to build in, and build up.

Across your organization, people need to work collaboratively to make that happen.

5Sunday, May 1, 16Collaboration. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. In either case, organizations need to have a conversation about digital – an open conversation.

Open the conversation4 ways to open the conversationDefine your purpose Ask questionsConnect with alliesLearn out loud

2 tips to keep you goingBreatheMeander

And 1 good reasonDisrupt or be disrupted

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Purpose

{Define your purpose}

Social Digital offers this presentation to help you open the conversation about digital in your organization.

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Why go digital?

Going digital means more than just going with the times.

It’s about being able to teach and share and connect with people in the digital ways in which they are becoming accustomed to learning and engaging and connecting.

8Sunday, May 1, 16And it’s more than being “on” social media. It’s about being digital publishers of diverse, useful, informative or entertaining content in an ongoing and fluid way. And even more: going digital is about creating organizational cultures that are connected, conversational, collaborative and creative.Where your people learn new skills and new ways to do things. Where they share their gifts, follow their passions and contribute to the telling of your organizational story.

Where do we start?

We start by asking questions.

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Who owns digital?

Who owns digital in our organizations? We all do.

It’s up to organizational workers to lay claim to collective ownership of the digital means of production.

10Sunday, May 1, 16There is a struggle going on.And it's a just-below-the-surface drama of our daily digital lives as workers, members or volunteers of organizations. In some groups, it’s a creative tension. In others, it’s a conflict. Communications departments sees digital as their turf, for obvious reasons. The marketing folks see it as theirs, for obvious reasons. IT personnel of course also lay claim – technology and web applications are their domain (no pun intended, honest).Now upstarts like educators and researchers and member services staff and community developers want to go digital, and all heck is breaking loose.

Share digital

Digital is changing how we organize ourselves and our work.

Information and communications technologies are no longer the purview of one or two departments.

11Sunday, May 1, 16It’s time for departments (or branches, or teams, or silos) to have a productive conversation to sift through the implications of our new “connected” world for how we organize and publish our work.Organizations that can't manage to have that conversation and bring their silos together will be left behind. They won’t be able to connect - inside or out - in an increasingly connected world.

Bridge the silos

Competitive or disconnected silos discourage cooperation and thwart collaboration.

Silos squander resources.

Silos suck.

12Sunday, May 1, 16If our organizations are to connect with the outside world, then they'll have to connect inside as well.

The challenge is not technological

If our organizations are to connect with the outside world, then they'll have to connect inside as well.

The challenge here is not technological. It's social.

13Sunday, May 1, 16Nonprofits have a great opportunity here, as we wrestle with the idea that digital is the new infrastructure, and rediscover our organizational identities in the digital era.Imagine if learning about digital became a major priority - not just to build capacity for staff or members, but for building culture locally and providing value to the wider community.

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.

*With thanks to Douglas Rushkoff, author of Program or be Programmed, for the inspiration

14Sunday, May 1, 16Digital 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 out to “platform” technology companies that don’t actually provide the service. Some digital disruption is not as obvious – or as controversial. But you don’t have to be a driver or small business operator to experience digital disruption – you can be a working a desk job in a nonprofit that provides services or campaigns publicly on issues.Chances are, much of that work has gravitated to the online and digital space.

Contracting out creative digital work is a problem

Funneling money to marketing agencies - rather than building organizational digital capacity - weakens our organizations.

15Sunday, May 1, 16A lot of nonprofit digital publishing - video, web design, and interactive digital products and environments of all kinds - is contracted out rather than built in and built up.

This approach demands that organizational leaders spend a lot of money on digital agencies to make their groups “look” digital without building their ability to tell their own stories, themselves.

Let’s disrupt contracting out

It is simply no longer true that organizations, no matter their size, lack the skills, talent or aptitude to build up their own internal digital studios.

16Sunday, May 1, 16Workers in nonprofits already have little control over what digital tools they use, limited creative scope, and a constant threat if not the mundane reality of seeing creative, digital work contracted out. Groups can’t layer a thin veneer of random digital products overtop an otherwise analogue organization and expect to connect and engage.Groups that funnel their money into digital agencies drain themselves of capacity – and the chance to invest in training, opportunities and time.

Learn out loud

Sometimes the best conversation is action.

To innovate, we need to be free to learn - out loud.

17Sunday, May 1, 16Action can take the form of learning out loud where we try new things in a spirit of openness, sharing and inclusion. We can do things well, do them okay, do stuff badly - but we’re always learning. We need this kind of open learning today, where we encourage each other to {learn out loud}.From casual lunch-and-learns to regular training opportunities, workers and others can initiate supportive learning activities around digital skills and strategies that demonstrate their own capabilities and the potential uses of digital tools. Inspiration like this can provide the catalyst for organizations to relearn how to work together, to relearn how the work can be done. It moves us into new ways to teach and grow, tell our stories and share in their telling.

Our organizations need us

Many organizations have been under attack for so long, and fighting defensive battles for so long.

Sometimes we can't see how to move forward in truly innovative ways.

18Sunday, May 1, 16Plus, sadly, we've become too professionalized, and rigid, and trapped in outdated modes of structuring ourselves. We're caught in these industrial management silos that defy the new connectivity – to our peril, and to that of the causes we fight.

Living our values

We return to our values – like respect, solidarity and inclusion – and we rise to the occasion.

We share our learning about the new storytelling, the new connectivity, the new possibilities.

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And we talk about it. The best conversations allow for different points of view, even divergent ones.Let us open towards the possibilities that digital brings us, not foreclose on trying new things because of turf or precedent or internal organizational politics.

Only connect

There is a new sense of connectedness in the wider world.

There's a growing expectation of openness and transparency in the wider culture, a demand for a more interactive conversation where all voices matter.

20Sunday, May 1, 16Our organizations need to reflect this changing sensibility. Digital represents new opportunities for learning, sharing and connecting, new ways to organize our work, collaborating and "optimizing" what all the different teams and departments can do.

There’s this sense that we can be doing more

Let’s do more.

Digital development varies from organization to organization. Some are doing well. Others are struggling.

21Sunday, May 1, 16Some organizations are quite advanced as publishers in their own right, producing great web content, audio and video learning materials and more - on a regular, ongoing basis. Others are struggling. I’m thinking of groups for whom the posting of text to a webpage is seen as a major accomplishment. And here, I’m not trying to sound snarky - that is not how I roll. I just know how much work it can take to get something done in an organization that is not as aligned as it could be. Let’s help our organizations have more productive discussions around the social nature of digital.

Conversations can be hard

Let’s support each other to open the conversation about digital in our organizations as best we can.

22Sunday, May 1, 16These conversations will unfold differently in different groups. Some groups have reasonably functional conversational cultures, some don't.

Here are 4 ways to open the conversation

Define your purpose Ask questionsConnect with alliesLearn out loud

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Define your purpose

Why do you want your group to “go digital”? Is it to publish useful, informative and inspiring content? Or because you think you’re “supposed to”?

What do you hope to achieve by starting a conversation about going digital?

Whether it’s just to shake something loose or to move your group into a new level of awesomeness, it’s good to have clear expectations.

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Ask questions like...

Why do we want to go digital?Who owns digital?How can we collaborate better?What skills do we have? What skills do we need?How can we learn, teach and tell our story?What is our communications culture? Whose ideas get supported, and whose don’t?

...or other questions that make sense for your own group.

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Connect with like-minded folks

There are others who feel the same way. Find them.

They might be other workers, or managers. They might be members, or board members. Or they might be community-minded experts or consultants or even agencies.

They’re out there.

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Learn out loud

Try new thingsShare the resultsGrow capacity and skills while creating new digital content

27Sunday, May 1, 16What’s better for learning? Creating pressure to make something perfectly for the first time?Or encouraging your people to try something and learn from the experience?I know which learning environment works better for me.Imagine if learning about digital became a major priority - not just to build capacity for staff or members, but for building culture locally and providing value to the wider community.

And here are 2 tips to keep you going

Breathe

Meander

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Breathe

Prepare to move slower than you might like. 

Just keep breathing.

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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 the stakes have never been higher, the need greater, or the energy more incipient.

Meander

Remember that conversations can be like rivers: they meander. 

30Sunday, May 1, 16Be 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 might surprise you.

Help wanted: Conversation openers needed

Job duties include:

Disrupting contracting out. Building in and building up. Telling stories, teaching, learning. Making art, making mistakes, making waves. And other duties that arise to help our groups grow digital and thrive.

Qualifications include:

A willingness to keep it human while your organization goes digital.

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Social DigitalDavid Robbins

david@socialdigital.ca

SocialDigital.ca

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