Interview with Prof Nidhi Srinivas shares his views on open government, politics- government-social will in India, disaster recovery, developing state and civic relationship through social networking, organization theory and practice in social innovation, notion of social innovation, and building capacity for culture of openness. Click here for the interview on SoundCloud.
06/13/2013
06/12/2013
05/21/2013
05/17/2013
05/01/2013
Breaking Down Impact Evaluation
By Nicole Stratton
In preparation for my final project, I've been thinking about how to make evaluation more digestible so that it's not such a pain for nonprofits, foundations, social innovators, and other groups to measure their impact.
Right this minute evaluators in the public sector are creating complex, perfect experiments in order to understand how certain nonprofit programs are creating change in the world. It's not easy to measure impact in the public sector but many people, and the U.S. government in particular, are spending a lot of money trying to find out what programs are working and which ones are not. For example, how do you know whether or not your juvenile justice advocacy program is actually helping youth stay out of the adult jail system? Or if your poverty alleviation program is changing someone's life for the long term, rather than just helping them eat for a day?
These are big questions that evaluators are only beginning to answer. Luckily, I see an major opportunity for the general evaluation community here. Why don't we begin to develop innovative and discrete evaluation tools to help organizations measure their impact. An external tool that supports collecting evaluative information (e.g.satisfaction rates) could be ground-breaking for the nonprofit community.
I've begun to look at a few basic components of evaluations that could be used to indicate whether or not a program is "working well" or not, and could potentially be creatively transformed into platforms for data collection. (Follow the links for definitions.)
Needs assessments are conducted before a program has begun. Ideally, it helps determine whether a program is actually needed and if so, what the program can focus on. What type of platform could exist to facilitate this process for new nonprofits and social ventures?
Developing indicators is hard. I am working on evaluating a program right now where we want to understand what indicates the impact of public art. If there was a peer networking site where evaluators and nonprofits could share this information, maybe everyone would start evaluating better and learning from each other.
What if there were a Yelp for nonprofits? (I made that image, so don't get too excited.) Customers utilizing nonprofit programs could rate nonprofits on their services, sort of like we all rate restaurants on their food. Imagine a world where a single mother could "yelp" all of the nonprofit after-school programming available for her kids and choose the one with the highest rating to send her kids to. It could also serve as a tool for foundations to provide funding to the most effective programs.
These are just the buds of ideas, but I'm looking forward to digging in deeper and beginning to develop a solution.
These ideas could also have a significant impact on nonprofit programs. Evaluation data about effective programs is rarely published. The evaluation community struggles with the balance between confidentiality and transparency for programs due to concerns about revealing the negative aspects to funders and other interested stakeholders. Regardless, this information about what is working and what is not is extremely valuable. As part of most formal evaluations, surveys and interviews are conducted to understand the perceptions and experiences of every program’s customer. To the expected rebuttal of the nonprofit community, I would like to open the door to the idea of simple satisfaction information for the benefit of communities.
For example, I could develop an online tool (like a Yelp for nonprofits) where low-income Americans can access user-friendly satisfaction data about different types of nonprofit services. Let's dig in a little more here and imagine a single working mother named Joyce. Joyce’s daughter is 8 years old and Joyce is looking for an affordable and reliable after-school program for her daughter to accommodate her late work schedule. Her family and close friends have tried to give her advice, but she’s still not satisfied with the quality of service being provided at the couple of nearby community centers. What if Joyce could sit down at the computer, look up this service and see a list of after-school programs with quality ratings from real customers? It seems so simple. That said, social innovation seems to be answering those simple questions every day.
With this sort of tool, I envision a future for Joyce where she can go to the website and search "after school programs" in her area. Just as if she were looking for a great sushi restaurant on Yelp, she would find a list of programs that had been rated by her neighbors. Using this information, she can begin to make a better decision about where to send her daughter.
All in all, there is an opportunity here for evaluators, nonprofit professionals, and community members to capitalize on sharing information about services. In my final project for Government 3.0, I'll be exploring this idea a little further and perhaps pulling together a plan to begin development of this tool. I'll keep you posted!
04/29/2013
Creating Space for Collaboration
By Nicole Stratton
In the process of exploring collective impact and innovation, I've come across several platforms that are creating space for people to do amazing things to have an impact. From co-working to social networking to crowdsourcing , there are new ways of connecting popping up everywhere. I wanted to share a few of those platforms here, and start thinking about what I could create (which is our final assignment for Government 3.0).
Co-working
First I'll talk a little more about co-working. We recently were joined in class by Eli Malinsky of NYC's Center for Social Innovation (CSI). Like New Work City (see last week's blog post for more), Eli and their team have created a space in our bustling city for thinkers to come together in a space and create. Eli noted that Tony is the "godfather of co-working", but it's clear that CSI is a great platform too. He also told the class about the HUB. I had never heard of the HUB, but apparently I should have. Founded in 2005, the HUB is a network of co-working spaces across the globe. There are HUBs in London, San Francisco, Johannesburg, Melbourne and Sao Paulo...and more are soon to come. CSI is a member of the HUB, and therefore has access to their online network that helps to connect the different HUBs. How cool is that? I'd love to see what the impact of all this peer networking is.
Another great, but very different, platform is Jane's Walk. Named after Jane Jacobs, the late activist and urban planner, Jane's Walk is a platform where people can give walking tours of their neighborhoods. In 1957 Jacobs said, "No one can find what will work for our cities by looking at … suburban garden cities, manipulating scale models, or inventing dream cities. You’ve got to get out and walk.” The organization started in Toronto, but has now grown to more than 75 cities. People can walk in her honor around New York City as well. It is amazing how these platforms grow!
Social Networking
Next up is a networking platform for supporting new artists called Wondereur. Volunteer "talent spotters" in the art community come together to feed information about new talent to a publicity team at Wondereur. It's a great way for a community that usually flies under the radar to start to support each other in their growth and development. You can start spotting talent too, just join here.
Crowdsourcing
I've also been exposed to some amazing crowdsourcing platforms via Grassroots Solutions. One of those platforms is the Minnesota Idea Open, which emulates Ashoka's Changemakers platform with prize contests like XPrize and the Case Foundation's Make it Your Own Awards. What all of these platforms are doing is letting the public play a role in grant giving. Run by the Minnesota Community Foundation, the Minnesota Idea open is letting the public decide how to revitalize cities, get healthy, and much more.
The crowdsourcing platforms are almost endless, which is amazing since the term "crowdsourcing" was only coined in 2006. Google Image Labler (which is no longer online, unfortunately) used to crowdsource image labels. Genuis Rocket helps you crowdsource a commercial, webinar, or other creative video work. MindMixer is helping to "activate communities" by crowdsourcing community planning like ImproveSF in San Francisco and Engage Omaha. CureTogether helps you crowdsource a cure to an ailment. The list really is endless.
While I'm left wondering what the real collective impact of all of these great resources is, I'm also looking forward to thinking about what my contribution could be if I created a platform of some kind. Given my interest in evaluation, I'm still left wondering how can we begin to measure how all of this great work is making an impact on people? Anyone have any thoughts to get me started?
04/24/2013
Interview: Tony Bacigalupo, Founder and Mayor of New Work City
By Nicole Stratton
Last week I was finally able to catch up with a New York Tech Meetup insider.
Tony Baciagalupo is a game-changing innovator in governance and technology, and is on a mission to change the way people work. Tony serves as a NYTM Board member, in addition to his own projects in movement building and collaboration. Tony has also created a coworking community of "independents" (freelancers, small business owners, contractors, etc.) who come together on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at New Work City to collaborate and support each other in their independent ventures. Here is our interview, and make sure to check out Tony's advice to us all at the end!
About Tony:
N: How did you get started in tech innovation? What skills did you have (in technology or otherwise) that helped you get started?
T: One of the important things to keep in mind is first to define terms. When we use the word "tech," there are two distinct and crucial groups of people involved: those who are developing new technology, and those who are creating innovations around opportunities afforded by those new technologies.
My work falls into the latter category. Though I have a Bachelor's degree in computer science, and came from a web development background, my work with the NYTM and in particular New Work City is decidedly old school.
I run a brick-and-mortar small business. The fact that it happens to house people who are all making their livings on the internet just happens to be an accident of the times.
N: How did you become involved in the New York Tech Meetup?
T: I went to my first Meetup ever, the Diggnation Meetup, in February of 2007. I found it by coincidence as I sat in my parents' house on Long Island, where I was living after college. At the time, I had zero friends in New York City. Once I discovered Meetup.com, everything changed.
At that first Meetup, I met the organizer and his friends. They told me if I liked this Meetup, I had to check out the NY Tech Meetup. I went to my first one shortly thereafter.
N: How do you think it became the successful platform it is today? What do you see as some of the biggest challenges for NYTM, and where do you see it going in the next 3-5 years?
T: It was successful for several reasons: first and foremost, it focused on a simple idea that lots and lots of people could get behind. People love seeing new technology on display, in particular when it's outside the context of a business model and especially when it's been built locally. There's almost a circus-like aspect to the NY Tech Meetup, in a really good way-- every time you go, you go hoping you just might see some amazing feat that you've never seen before.
Several years ago, Bre Pettis got up on stage at the beginning of the event to demonstrate his new invention, the MakerBot, by setting it in motion and promising to come back later in the show. When he returned, he removed a freshly printed 3D object from the device to the amazement of the crowd.
Every single person in attendance was witness to the beginning of a manufacturing revolution that was still only in its earliest stages. That sort of thing is what makes the NY Tech Meetup so alluring.
In the next three to five years, I see the organization continuing to assert itself as the de facto representation of the interests of the people who are building and who are enabled by new technology in the city. Given our increasingly critical role as a massive part of the future of the city's economy, the NYTM will be accordingly acting as an increasingly important link between this community and the rest of the city.
We'll be involved in policy. We'll have developed better ways for our membership to talk to each other and connect in ways that extend far beyond the capacity of the monthly event.
And we'll be continuing to champion the incredible potential of the city and its people, as always.
More on New Work City...
N: What led to the creation of New Work City and how did you build the platform? How has this scaled?
T: It started out rooted in two communities: one was called Jelly, which is a casual take on coworking. Attending a Jelly in NYC was my first coworking experience, right around the same time I discovered Meetup. The other community was a new one being spearheaded by Sanford Dickert, whom I had met at the NY Tech Meetup. The new community, dubbed CooperBricolage, was aimed at having coworking every day in a cafe in the East Village. Between these two communities, the early nucleus of New Work City was formed.
New Work City emerged as the project to take the next step, toward a dedicated space. We were completely bootstrapped, with no institutional backing of any kind, and wanted to grow organically. We started with a sub-sublet from a startup that had extra space to spare, and used that as a foundation upon which to continue to build and grow the community.
When it came time to leave there, we sought and found a lease on a full floor loft space, which we've made our home ever since.
Moving forward, we don't intend to open more spaces-- our goal has always been to have one truly great community. We do, however, seek to find ways to advance the coworking movement globally by continuing to work to improve the experience for our members.
N: How close is New Work City to what you envisioned it being at the beginning? Has anything surprised you?
T: It is, today, finally very close to what I had originally envisioned. It took a very long time to get there, but I can say with confidence that the New Work City you see today is very much the embodiment of what I dreamed of when it all began.
While there are many obvious things about that, the real essence of the vision has been the fact that I was once sitting in my house without any place to go to work and connect with like-minded people. I didn't need office space; I simply needed an opportunity to discover a world I might not have ever seen otherwise.
In that respect, New Work City's vision has indeed become very real. Now, more than ever, members are advancing themselves in ways they might never have done otherwise, and most importantly, they're contributing to the advancement of their peers as they go. It's absolutely stunning to see all of the great things people are doing with each other in the community now.
N: How long did it take to go from the idea, to a minimally functioning program? If you don’t mind me asking, about how much did it cost to get it started? What can we expect?
T: There's no simple way to answer this, because we always made maximum use of what we had at our disposal before considering a jump to the next level.
We started out in living rooms and cafes. We weren't a business; there was no money involved. When we got space, we got a small space on very flexible lease terms and were a trip to Ikea away from the furnishings we needed.
The hardest part was making the jump to leasing and building out our own space. That was a hundred thousand dollar effort that took over a year to fully finance, and nearly killed me in the process.
But even then, I knew the community was not going to let it fail. And it didn't.
It was a solid five years from when the dream first came to mind to when I'd say we really got to a healthy and sustainable place. When you're running a small business, you're never that far from disaster, but you're almost always able to sustain yourself by sheer force of will. The hardest part is finding a way to stay above water and also do so in a way that is sustainable for you. We're still refining things to get closer to that, but we're doing great.
Tony's advice for the class on building new tools to transform government or society. What are the 3 most important things to consider?
1. What you believe. What you care about in your heart of hearts. Forget money, business model, mobile apps, whatever. Start with pursuing things you care about, whatever they are. As you go, you will get a better and better idea of what your purpose in life might be. As you increasingly become aware of that purpose, your work towards that purpose becomes increasingly meaningful and important. Building something you believe in from a strong core of inner purpose is, in my opinion, an absolute necessity.
And it makes up for everything else. When you become hellbent on something that you believe must happen, you can literally become unstoppable. Never underestimate the capacity of a man on a mission.
2. What other people believe. I care about a lot of stuff. I want to do a lot of things to make the world better. But if I try to build something that nobody else cares about, I'm not going to get very far at all. In fact, the very notion of trying to build something despite a lack of desire from others is doing it wrong from the start.
Your success is fueled by the desires and interests and pains of others. They are the reason what you build will have an impact, so don't wait until launch day to bother to think about what people actually want-- talk to people, listen to what they have to say, and recruit them to help you build solutions accordingly.
When New Work City first opened its doors for business, I had a pang of fear that nobody would show up. But I knew that fear was irrational, because our first customers had helped us build the tables and chairs the day before. They picked out the name and designed the logo. They helped choose the location. They were so woven into the process that there was little question we'd built something people wanted.
3. Consider all of the options, and what is best for you. There are a ton of ways to build something. More so now than ever. If you want to build something but don't know where to start, or are intimidated, or think it would require investors or too much money, stop. Stop and refactor your thinking. No matter what you want to do, there is always a way to move towards that goal with what you have at your disposal right now. And how you define that goal should change over time as well-- you might think you want to build one thing, only to discover that your motivation behind wanting to build that was rooted in something deeper that might steer you towards something else. Don't sweat the physical manifestations as much as the deeper motivations.
And don't beat yourself up too much to get there. Building a business is hard, but it's also supposed to be fun and fulfilling. It's okay to work hard and be stressed and afraid, but at the end of the day, this should be work you want to be doing. If you're finding yourself not wanting to do the work you've chosen to create for yourself, take a step back and consider how to change that.
Because at the end of the day, this is all about us discovering our life's purpose and seeking it out in all that we do. It's about realizing our potential as humans and making our contribution to society with the brief time we have.
We'll never be perfect at that. We'll never have it all together. But we will always have the opportunity to practice getting better. That's all we can ever really do, and when you adopt that perspective, it can be a beautiful thing.
More about Tony's work:
