I am very pleased to report that I’ve struck a business alliance with a friend and colleague from Edmonton Alberta.

Mark Holmgren and I met quite a few years ago in Edmonton Alberta. I had taken on the challenge of launching and managing Edmonton’s first inner city street youth program and Mark was an Executive Director at a inner city housing project that served homeless and hard to house inner city residents.

Mark is a highly sought after consultant (Mark Holmgren Consulting – MHC) serving the non profit sector throughout Alberta and for a time in southern Florida. Over this past year, Mark and I resumed our relationship thanks to the wonders of the social web. It didn’t take us long to recognize how aligned we are in our desire to help non profit groups adopt social web strategies for strengthening their services and deepening their relationships with stakeholders.

Mark and I will focus our business alliance on helping non profit organizations develop and execute their online communications strategies to engage their supporters, donors, users and partners. Our collaborative work will include the design & development of websites, and the deployment of social media tools to engage stakeholders and meet organizational business goals.

Our first contract together is delivering a social media strategic plan to a collaborative, rural-based organization, Return to Rural.

Return to Rural is an exciting project aimed at attracting and retaining early and mid- career families to the rural remote communities of the Special Areas and MD of Acadia No.34 region (Southeastern Alberta).

The return to rural philosophy is built on the idea that by blending technology and community, it is possible to create an environment where anyone can live their dream life in a rural community.

MHC has also been contracted to deliver two learning workshops related to social media in the late summer and fall by another client.

If your organization needs help understanding social media and developing strategies to reach and engage your stakeholders, give Mark a call at 780.244.8686 or email him at mark@markholmgren.com

You can reach me by calling (905) 751-6075 or emailing me at brent at socialmediatools dot ca

I am in the final stages of designing a new web site for Social Media Tools for Work & Learning.

My blog has served me well but my new Drupal powered web site will enable me to showcase more of the work I’m doing with organizations and still offer all the benefits of a full blogging platform. Stay tuned!

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I grew up in the 60′s. The values we aspired to back then are closely aligned with the values and philosophy expressed by many social media practitioners and leaders in business, non profit, education and other sectors across the spectrum of society and around the world.

This is post originating from Louise Suarez a Knowledge Manager, Community Builder & Social Computing Evangelist in the IBM Software Group division has stirred me up like no other post. He puts forth a personal insight that others around the world have being hinting at and writing about for some  time.

Maybe it was just the way he shared his story or the fact that he connected the best of what was happening in the 60′s and 70′s with how the social web is enabling creativity and innovation in people who who care about our future.

The post is a heartfelt revelation from someone immersed in the social media world within IBM. The accompanying video interview with Alexandra Wheeler (Starbucks’ Director of Digital Strategies) on the topic of social strategy and social philosophy underscores Luis’s contention that adopting a social philosophy is an integral ingredient to any social media strategy.

We need some fresh thinking; we need to break the barriers of how business has been conducted in the last few years; we finally need to break free from that financial yoke and eventually strike for that sustainable economy that everyone keeps talking about, but that doesn’t seem to come along as quickly as we thought. It keeps slipping away from our fingers, when we know it’s just so close to us! We need to stop thinking about social strategy and push more along the lines of social philosophy.

Because, after all, who wants to live in a world like today’s, yes, like today’s (With the current financial crisis and all) in say 30 to 50 years from now? Would you be willing to make the same mistakes we have made in the recent past and go through the same painful experiences again? And again! And again!! Would you? Would you like your children to inherit such unsustainable world? I am not sure about you, but I wouldn’t, and somehow something tells me that I will be around, like most of you folks out there, to witness what it would be like. And, for sure, I would want to see a better picture than what we have today! Otherwise, why bother altogether, don’t you think?

Brent Business, Learning Community, Presentation ibm, knowledge, starbucks

My colleague Mark Holmgren (Anticipate) has written an insightful post about his experience attending an Imagine Canada Forum held in Edmonton. Imagine Canada is doing a series of Provincial forums and Edmonton was their first stop.

Here  is how Imagine Canada describe it’s cross country mission.

First, in its role as convener of a national dialogue on how to strengthen the collective voice of the sector and develop a common agenda for action, Imagine Canada will use this draft framework to facilitate a nation-wide conversation about what is driving change in the sector and what actions must be taken to maximize the contributions of the sector to Canada and the world over the next decade.

I haven’t being following Imagine Canada’s work but after reading Mark’s post, and the Framework for Action document, I’m going to delve deeper into their resources and cross Canada campaign.

Read more…

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One of the reasons I embrace social media is that it enables conversations to continue. Indeed, I am of the opinion that a community is a continuous conversation.

The Planning Forum for York Region sponsored the first Community – Funder Roundtable. The goal was to begin an ongoing dialogue with funder and policy makers about building our York Region community. Michael Johnny, Manager of the Knowledge Mobilization Unit at York University welcomed everyone and explained what we hoped to accomplish.

To help participants understand the challenges and envision a future where funder groups and community groups work in sync with eachother, the planning group brought in Liz Weaver from the Tamarack Vibrant Communities organization. Liz is also the lead spokesperson for the Hamilton Round-table on Poverty. The Hamilton Round-table has done incredible successful work combining support from the grass roots, government, corporate and community service sectors. The collaboration amongst stakeholders in Hamilton is a success and we (the planning group) felt that we could emulate their process or  at least learn from their experience.

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An interview with Will Davis on Social Capital and Digital Inclusion I have looked at and read many accounts of the UK online learning centres. In Britain, they are so far ahead of Canada in terms of understanding the importance of digital literacy for everyone, especially those that are disenfranchised, without family supports, the unemployed or those experiencing poverty and homelessness (or at risk of). We can learn from their experience.

Will Davies reflects on Social Capital and Digital Inclusion from Tim Davies on Vimeo.

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In 2010 I will be hosting workshops for organizations that are re-tooling or aligning their online communication strategy to enhance responsiveness, trust and relevance to their stakeholders.

My goal is to initiate a bottoms up, learning and discovery process that will help organizations identify their best starting points for establishing their online communication strategy.

I believe that non profit organizations can increase their resilience, capacity and sustainability in the face of rapid change and ever decreasing resources by utilizing well thought out online strategies.

It’s a simple fact that consumers and supporters expect more from organizations via online tools and online access to resources. Non profits need to go where their constituents are and that is increasingly online.

My starting point is that caring relationships, opportunities for meaningful participation and genuine communication with supporters, consumers and donors fuels an organization’s resilience. These dimensions need to be examined internally by key staff and then the findings can be organized into an online strategy that is delivered through the organization’s web site.

In the workshop, staff will be engaged in a discussion and a shared learning process in which an online strategy can begin to take shape. This bottoms up approach taps into the organizations creativity and wisdom. Once the online strategy is in place and the most appropriate social media tools are implemented the organization begins a process of listening, learning and adapting to the new culture and environment they are inhabiting.

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Stretched to the Limit: An Economic Impact Survey
With little relief in sight, nonprofits and charities are bracing for the worst

CALGARY, AB – November 30, 2009 – Results of an economic impact survey conducted by the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations (CCVO) in October indicate Alberta’s nonprofit organizations and charities have been adapting to the recession, but they are stretched to the limit with little capacity to adjust to increased demand or reduced funding.

Despite predictions that economic conditions will improve in 2010, the real financial impact of the recession is expected to hit the voluntary sector next year. Although organizations reported reductions in 2009, the major impact of government cuts and decreased revenues is expected to hit in 2010.

Many organizations reported reducing costs and said they were operating as lean as possible, trying to preserve programs and services. More than 30 per cent of those surveyed, however, had to make cuts in services. If economic predictions are correct and 2010 presents the greatest challenges nonprofits and charities have faced in this recession, even more programs and services will be on the chopping block.

Read more…

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The York Region TAMI Coalition hosted the 3rd Annual Stomp out Stigma Summit last week in Aurora. The Town of Aurora gave up their Council Chambers and meeting rooms to allow over 100 students and teachers to participate in this day long workshop about reducing stigma in our schools.

I’ve being a member of the TAMI Coalition  from it’s inception over 3 years ago. At that time, my project, called Streetjibe (sponsored by Street Kids International), the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation and the Talking About Mental Illness Coalition came together as a Youth Mental Health Committee under the umbrella of the Planning Forum for Children, Youth and Families in York Region.

Over the past 3 years we met regularly to plan our respective projects and support each other. Now that I’m operating independently as a private consultant, I am continuing to contribute my expertise and experience towards this very important cause.

Jesse Bigelow was one of 3 keynote speakers at the TAMI Conference. He shares his story and experiences of living with schizophrenia and his road of recovery. Jesse is a Peer Support Worker with the HOPE Program, Canadian Mental Health Association.

Jesse shares a personal and powerful story with the students and teachers participating in the conference. This is the first of 3 videos featuring Jesse. The first 2 videos are his story and in the last video he answers questions from the audience.

Click here to view Part 2 and here to view the questions and answer segment.

Read on for a list of participating organizations and a background document on the York Region TAMI Coalition. I will be posting a video of one of the young people who was a key note speaker at the Conference.  Jesse is a young man who shares his story of living with schizophrenia and his road of recovery.

Read more…

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Howard Rheingold is a famous man. His CV is long and deep. Those that are interested can see his many accomplishments at his About page on his web site. Trust, me has quite a story to tell.

Howard’s interview with J.D. Lasika (Socialmedia.biz) at Kings College, London England really got my attention because I’m interested in helping groups and people bridge the digital divide.  Specifically, this interview helped me understand how I can better assist non profits, communities or individuals engage in developing their skills and personal learning via the social web.

I’m involved with several local education focused committees that are interested in addressing students learning needs by utilizing online technologies and social web tools. With so many students leaving school before graduation, creating more opportunities for youth to apply their creativity online and become more engaged in civic life via the social web just makes sense.

I  think this interview is especially insightful for educators who are looking ahead and seeing the need to shape the school system around 21st century media skills. Here’s a quote from Howard’s interview.

“Increasingly I think the digital divide is less about access to technology and more about the difference between those who know how and those who don’t know how. The ability to know has suddenly become the ability to search and the ability to sift and discern.”

21st century media literacies from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Brent Education, Learning Community, Services, purpose

A fabulous dinner is best prepared by merging each dish so that everything is ready to eat at the right time. This takes some planning and ingenuity along with a confidence in your abilities to create an outstanding feast that everyone will like and talk about for a long time.

Preparing a feast is a great metaphor for building a dynamic web site and integrating a client’s social media strategy into the site building process. My partner Alain (from iAutomate) and I have prepared for our roles as head chefs by accumulating collectively over 40 years of experience in the IT and social benefit sector. Our business focuses on supporting non profits in using collaborative web platforms and online communication strategies to engage their audiences.

We clearly heard from our client that a combination of solid informative content, membership opportunities plus collaboration options were needed for this web site. All of us, client team, my partner and I put the broad brush strokes to a plan that would achieve these outcomes. Essentially we were aiming to marry the web site architecture with the social media strategy and mix in the right content to present to the public for viewing and participation.

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