If your organization is interested in learning how best to harness the power and reach of web 2.0 engagement tools, you have a conference to attend.It’s the Social Tech Training 2009 conference hosted at the MaRS Centre in downtown Toronto. The conference is the second one hosted by Web of Change organization and a group of partner organizations including Communicipia and Social Innovation Generation @MaRS.

You can learn more about this major event by visiting the registration page. Please note that this conference is a feature event during Net Change, a week long event embracing social tech training and social change makers. Dates for this event are: June 10 – 12, 2009. Read more…

Brent Business, Learning Community, Presentation, Research, Uncategorized, networks, purpose

The Get Honest: Our Youth Matter Conference was held last Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Aurora. The York Region Alliance to End Homelessness organized the day long workshop with support from Street Kids International. The conference was both a project ending event and an invitation to York Region groups to continue with the collaboration and skills building approach to capacity building that the Streetjibe project piloted for the past 3 years.

I had the privilege of managing this pilot project since it’s launch in 2006. Street Kids International initiated the project, building on it’s poverty work in the Region over the past 6 years.  Streetjibe’s founder members were eleven practitioners from nine community non profit organizations. These staff and their respective agencies agreed to form a learning community that sought to build new skills and form collaborative relationships so young people have improved access to relevant services. In the second year we expanded our learning community to include any interested member of the community or agencies serving youth. The whole Streetjibe story can be found on our blog where we shared our collaborative work and encouraged the use of social media tools to foster learning.

One of the most exciting and inspiring stories came from Jenny Vengris from the Hamilton Social Planning & Research Council. Read more…

Brent Learning Community, Presentation, Services, networks

An interview with Dave Goff, performer in the Stand Up For Mental Health Comedy Troupe.

Over 350 people attended the National Mental Health Week – On the Road of Recovery event at the Newmarket Theatre on April 8th, 2009. From my perspective, the event was a resounding success . I think what made the event so successful was the careful planning and collaboration of the sponsoring organizations and the representation throughout the day of the rich and genuine voices of consumer survivors. Read more…

Brent Business, Learning Community, Services, purpose

Alex Giancola is a cast member in a play called The Recovering. This interview is an excerpt from the film that Social Media Tools for Work & Learning did of the play.

This play was entirely created and directed by consumer/survivors of the mental health system. I was very pleased when Tanya Shute Exective Director of the Krasman Centre, a mental health drop in centre located in Richmond Hill Ontario agreed to my offer of filming the play at their 2009 AGM celebrations. The Krasman Centre and the Richmond Hill United Church where key supporters of the play from the beginning. Read more…

Brent Learning Community, Presentation, Services, purpose drama, mentalhealth, play

I love this book “The Groundswell” , winning in a world transformed by social technologies written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.  Here is how they introduce their approach to writing the book. We have taken “a broader view of this phenomenon(social networks, media, tools, web 2.0 etc), one that encompasses not just today’s technologies but the fundamental change in behaviour now happening online. The groundswell is: A social trend in which people use technologies to get things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations. (non profits corporations as well).

This book has rounded out my thinking and made clear why it’s so important for non profit organizations and businesses to learn how to survive and thrive in the groundswell.  The next excerpt from the Groundswell book is a bit long, but for me it so accurately captures the the depth, breadth and permanence of the seachange in how we relate and do business with each other in our neighbourhoods, countries and world. Read more…

Brent Learning Community, Research, purpose groundswell, online, seachange, strategy

by CowGummy

Many non profit organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of using technology to address their communication and capacity building goals. Unfortunately, they often become turned off and frustrated because of their unfamiliarity with the plethora of social media tools available and how to appropriately integrate these tools into their organization.  One of the non profit organizations that I was involved with was asked by their funder to explain why a new web site was needed when a web site was built 2 years ago. My colleagues asked me to put together a “fact sheet” or talking points to help explain to the funder what was different between the proposed web site and what was built 2 years previous.

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Brent Business, Services, purpose

On Friday, Feb. 14th, I had the pleasure of delivering a workshop in Windsor to workers from the settlement and housing sectors. It  was held at the United Way of Windsor Essex County offices and hosted by the Applied Social Welfare & Research Group – York University in partnership with the Homeless Coalition of Windsor Essex County. The workshop was titled Building Capacity Within the Housing and Settlement Sector. We put together an array of social media tools and presented examples of how social media is transforming how we work, learn and communicate with our stakeholders.  Read more…

Brent Presentation, Services

Learning how to work more effectively across sectors and building new skills is an ongoing requirement for professionals. As a community and youth worker (and now a social media consultant) I believe people want to be feel connected, they want to belong, they want to feel valued and competent, contributing to their own development and the development of those close to them. Using social media tools help me feel this way and I recognize the same benefits coming to others who publish online and use web 2.0 tools in their work.

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Brent Learning Community, networks Learning Community, networking, ning, voicethread

The world of marketing is changing click by click. Organizations and businesses that continue with slick (and often not so slick) ad campaigns to convince consumers that their product is the best are finding out their customers are looking elsewhere. A video that illustrates how consumers are “not buying the slick add messages has received a lot of attention.

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Brent Business, Research, networks marketing, sales, socialmedia

I decided early in life that I wasn’t a sales person. I couldn’t get excited about getting people to buy things and I had very little interest in making scads of money. I chose to develop my career in social work with a major focus on youth work and community development. I love my work as a change agent with organizations and young people however this past year, I’ve being taken over by a strong desire to work on my own as an independent consultant.  Well we all know that consulting requires sales skills so here I was, looking at my biased attitudes that would surely make me the poorest consultant this side of the 49th parallel.  Fortunately I was  rescued from myself, when out of the blue, my very good friend Emma, knowing I was entering into a new career territory, suggested that I attend a unique sales training workshop, hosted by her father, a very high caliber training consultant in the sales industry.

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Brent Business, Learning Community, purpose consulting, marketing, sales, workshops