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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Brent Business, Learning Community, Services, networks workshop onlinestrategy learning startingpoint

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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Brent Business, Learning Community, networks drupal openatrium webdesign

I’m involved with the Harm Reduction Coalition of York Region. I became involved when I was a Program Manager with Street Kids International and managed the Streetjibe – addressing youth poverty in York Region program. I’m staying involved as an independent business representative that cares deeply about the kind of community I live in.

Harm reduction is a big word covering a lot of ground. For me it’s about seeing and being with the person, not the harm. It’s also about fostering a compassionate, caring, inclusive community were we don’t lock up people or stigmatize people for their struggles as a human being. Read more…

Brent Business, Learning Community, Presentation, Research, networks Learning Community, prevention, yorkregion

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

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

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

I found this post on Luis Suarez’s set elsu.net. Luis is an IBM Knowledge Management specialist and a brillant blogger that I enjoy reading. The video is of CEO John Chambers of Cisco Systems and he is interviewed by Harvard Business School Publishing. John speaks elequently about the shift from a “command and control” model of doing business to a more open, transparent, collaborative and teamwork like environment where social computing is a central approach to conducting business.

I liked this interview because it illustrates the value of collaboration and the use of social networking tools to achieve significant results in a multi billion dollar company. If CISCO can do this in a highly structured bureaucracy, perhaps our non profit and educational sector groups can see the wisdom of adopting social media, networking and collaboration tools to tap into the strengths of its people and Mission. CEO Chambers makes a strong statement about the necessity of organizations to utilize the power of web 2.0 to improve performance and address the realities of our global interconnectedness.

Brent Business, Learning Community

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

I am very pleased with the performance of the Ning Platform for collaboration and networking purposes. So much so, I am recommending this networking software platform for a number of groups I’m working with in York Region. It is a very useful tool for organizations and practitioners wanting to communicate with each other about important issues in their sector. The Ning platform is easy to set up, it’s free, very customizable, easy to administrate and helps create a sense of community among members. Read more…

Brent Business, Learning Community, networks