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I was pointed to Political Scientist Michael Parenti’s 7 categories of generalizations about the way the news media create anti-union messaging by this article analyzing the media’s portrayal of the Philadelphia public transit strike. I got really steamed about a month ago listening to a local interview/call-in show about Boston charter schools and the Teacher Union that revolved very strongly along these lines:

Portrayal of labors struggles as senseless, avoidable contests created by unions’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith,

Focus on Company wage “offers” omitting or underplaying reference to takebacks, and employee grievances, making the workers appear irrational, greedy and self-destructive

No coverage given to management salaries, bonuses or compensation and how they are inconsistent with concessions demanded by workers

Emphasis on the impact rather than the causes of strikes, laying the blame for the strike totally on the union and detailing the damage the strike does to the economy and public weal.

Failure to consider the harm caused to the workers’ interests if they were to give up the strike

Unwillingness or inability to cover stories of union solidarity and mutual support

Portrayal of the government (including the courts and police) as a neutral arbiter upholding the public interests when it is rather protecting corporate properties and bodyguarding strike-breakers.

To that, I would add “Failure to recognize Union benefits/protections as an aspiration for all workers, not spoils for the few”. The interview I was listening to (and what got me steamed) kept dismissively coming back to “Why should unions demand protections from arbitrary and capricious management? No one else expects that.” Which made me keep saying back “Well why the fuck not?”

Also, just in general, I get annoyed when the union workers aren’t placed within the context of the community as a whole? What does your child’s education mean in the context of a society where their work will have no value?

Update: A comment by Jen shared in Google Reader:

I would add, the idea that worker protections encourage mediocrity because people are removed from the “competitiveness” (i.e. fear) that easy firing gives. Job security doesn’t cause lack of motivation; bad management does.

I’ve been digging through the section on communications in Radical Technology, the 1976 anthology of the magazine Undercurrents.

The global village is no such thing. It is a global castle, in which the barons may chat over their wine, while the serfs outside may overhear a few fragments of merriment.

Our planet does boast some fine communications systems: there are only a few holes left to be darned in the net of radio, TV and telephone which covers the continents. The engineers praise the vast capactiy of their systems. The talk of bits and bauds and erlangs. But their voices merge with those of the advertisers boasting of peak-hour audiences and market penetration.

The fallacy that more information, more communication must be good spreads even into the counterculture. Underground film-makers machine-gun their audiences with random images and subliminal cuts. Alternative newspapers boost their data density by printing each paragraph on multiple undercoats of coloured image.

The “information economy” stresses quantity rather than quality. It values complex data above simple truths. Computers now thrash through megabits of information in order to direct-mail us an advertising circular.

Words were not wasted in the the days when people could only engrave them on stone.

…

Economic and ecological self-sufficiency are respectively the prerequisites of both national liberation and of global survival. Cultural self-sufficiency must be established as part of the same revolutionary process. If a community is to be free of outside domination it must generate its own crafts, stories, architecture and rituals. This is not an argument for cultural apartheid. But it clearly presupposes radical changes in a global communications system whose greatest achievement to date has been to let ten million Japanse watch Princess Anne’s wedding. One day, the serfs must storm the global castle.

And on using half-inch portable video for community television:

The animator [the producer] should be neutral; act only when invited; help, but not direct, the slection and debate of issues [John] Hopkins adds. The Challenge for Change [a community video group] worker, as he says, becomes a “spark plug for process rather than a creator of product, and could use his previous liability as an outsider to mediate difficulties and bring conflicting parties together.”

Community television looks for consens. It uncovers ‘issues’, records opinions supporting either side, and then tries to resolve them by getting people together to watch the tapes and talk. It hopes for ‘media-tion’.
Video is prolific. Little community voice is left after cutting thirty hours of tape to thirty minutes. Standards rapidly become ‘production’ ones. Is this man interesting? Can this accent be understood? Does this woman help the argument? The editor has to choose.

Half-inch video benefits from the shadow of the BBC and network television. ‘Television’ remains a magic word. IT takes moral courage not to talk to television. Part of the ‘magic of portable television rests in the power handed down from the corporations. Community television must avoid abusing this power.

Broadcast television has established a convention of aggressive questioning. The danger is that community video can quickly become as bland.

The ‘good life’ has become a television commercial. Community must not become a television dialogue.

Community TV offers the technological fix—using the technology of an oppressive society. Like an Arab firing a Sam 7 missile, the video freak depends on high technology. If that is switched off, he is out of business. As long as his ‘freaking out’ is profitable and amusing he can continue. But when it becomes revolutionary he is soon back to the pot of whitewash and a wall.

I love posting from The Tree of Knowledge.  This is what they have to say about tubes (emphasis mine):

Our discussion has led us to conclude that, biologically, there is no “transmitted information” in communication.  Communication takes place each time there is behaivioral coupling in a realm of structural coupling.

This conclusion is surprising only if we insist on not questioning the latest metaphor for communication which has become popular with the so-called communication media.  According to this metaphor of the tube, communication is something generated at a certain point.  It is carried by a conduit (or tube) and is delivered to the receiver at the other end.  hence, there is a something that is communicated, and what is communicated is an integral part of that which travels in the tube.  Thus, we usually speak of the “information” contained in a picture, an object or, more evidently, the printed word.

Young Frankenstein rip

According to our analysis, this metaphor is basically false. It presupposes a unity that is not determined structurally, where interactions are instructive, as though what happens to a system in an interaction is not determined by the perturbing agent and not by its structural dynamics.  It is evident, however, in daily life, that such is not the case with communication: each person says what he says or hears what he hears according to his own structural determination; saying does not ensure listening. From the perspective of an observer, there is always ambiguity in a communicative interaction. The phenomenon of communication depends on not what is transmitted, but on what happens to the person who receives it. And this is a very different matter from “transmitting information.”

So that’s all a bit of a mouthful, but its an important aspect of communication—it’s not the creation or production of something, it’s the making of an affect or inducing an action upon someone.

The ambiguity of language is something that Bakhtin has touched on (and I have posted before):

[Bakhtin explores] the idea that language is indeed ambiguous, but whereas deconstruction would highlight this ambiguity as the inability of words to convey precise meaning, Bakhtin welcomes this vagueness of language as a means by which to create meaning dialogically.

This is a very positive and optimistic statement of embracing dialogue as the means to overcoming the biological and structural limits of our individualism.  And which, you can probably assume, I strongly agree with.

Download this as a PDF

I have now had a couple friends ask me to help them prepare job applications, so I pulled together some personal advice on what I feel is the most important part of applying for a job: the cover letter.

As someone who has applied for many jobs, and also reviews about 200-300 job applications every year, I believe that crafting a strong and compelling cover letter—having researched positions you have a fair chance (or a strong argument) of filling, of course—gives the best return on investment; more so than agonizing over your resume itself!

Knowing

Here’s why:

When I review applications, my primary job is to weed applicants out of the process as quickly as possible. I’m quickly scanning. At this level, the resume matters, but that’s only because I’m checking to see if you are severely under (or over, which will draw scrutiny) qualified, have any gaps (no job experience) and if there is any glaring deficiencies like misspelled words (they jump out at you) or just poor aesthetics (this is supposed to be a synthesis of your professional experience boiled down to just 2 pages; it had better be vertically balanced—not as an aesthetic judgement, but as evidence of your attention to detail and level of perfectionism).

This cursory scan is also seeking out things I recognize: names of schools or businesses, places, specific brand names or techniques, turns of phrase. These will raise my interest, but not necessarily make me weight your resume any better. These mostly are due to chance, so unless you know something that wasn’t mentioned in the ad (maybe you know from a friend who is also an employee that the company loves a specific management technique), don’t worry about this.

You should not worry about being weeded out if you’ve done your homework: at this point, I’m not looking for the best applicant, I’m getting rid of the applicants who clearly are not even in the top 50% (or better, depending on what I’m filling). I’m looking for an applicant that “looks” like the best applicant

So now that I’ve judged appearances, I judge personality and character, and that’s where the cover letter comes in.

The cover letter does more than demonstrate you can competently communicate; it shows you know what you are applying for (I don’t want to receive your scattergun blast); that you have critical thinking skills and can synthesize important details from the posted ad and relate them to your own self; and that you are a human being who is confident in their abilities and wants me to benefit from them (I receive a surprising amount of whining).

The cover letter is your chance to make a compelling argument as to why I should hire you (or at least give you an interview). The fact is, you will probably have worked hardest—throughout your entire potential employment—on getting the job in the first place. So if this is your best, it had better be good.

So that’s my spiel on why you should agonize over your cover letter, not your resume. Your cover letter is your thesis, the resume is just the primary source.

The following is from a handout I created for the CTCnet Conference in which I presented on capacity building models for community engagement. You can download the handout with worksheet (PDF), or read the overview below.

Introduction to Community Engagement

The core competency for any organization—private or nonprofit, funder or grantee—is learning to manage change while maintaining high performance on standard functions and simultaneously building capacity to learn and evolve.

—Evaluations of Capacity Building: Lesson from the Field,Alliance for Nonprofit Management

Communities form the context in which nonprofit organizations operate. Driven by community needs and powered by community resources, successful organizations must continually assess how their organization’s mission and programs fit into the evolving landscape of their communities.

Every organization has the ability to adapt and succeed, but may lack the tools and guiding ideas to make sense of the situations they face. Organizations that are continually expanding their capacity to create their future require the information and tools needed to successfully engage their community.

Building an organization that can adapt and thrive requires two main competencies:

1. The organization regularly assesses community needs and resources
2. The organization regularly responds to new/emerging needs and resources

Building these two competencies into an organization with limited abilities and resources requires that the organization seeks innovative methods to create community participation and collaboration.

Community Engagement

“…community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people. It is a powerful vehicle for bringing about environmental and behavioral changes that will improve the health of the community and its members. It often involves partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems, change relationships among partners, and serve as catalysts for changing policies, programs, and practices.”

—Stephen B. Fawcett, Work Group for Community Health and Development

Community engagement supports your organization’s mission, programs and capacity by ensuring they remain relevant to community needs and environmental forces. Developing your organizations Community Engagement competency is Capacity Building. This may include the creation of:

• Assessment of Community Opportunities and Dangers
• Interpretation of your mission/programs and create messages for specific audiences
• Development of programs that meet new/emerging needs
• Creation of partnerships that generate or share resources and information
• Mobilization of people and resources (internal, external and potential) to make achievements
• Processes to invite and accept community feedback
• Opportunities to invite community members into your organization and leadership

In the context of community engagement, the creation and sharing of resources goes beyond just financial resources. It may include: human resources (staff and volunteer time), physical resources (office space, materials and in-kind donations), and social-resources (word-of-mouth, recognition, legitimacy, “buzz”). Additionally, community engagement strategies may have benefits beyond the scope of their initial purposes.

5 Core Questions of Community Engagement

1. Do we know what the community needs?
2. Are we asking the community what it needs?
3. Does everyone in the community know what it is we do for them?
4. Are we inviting the community to help us help them?
5. Are we using our organization to its fullest potential?

Community Engagement as an Ongoing Process

In order to be successful, Community Engagement should be approached as a practical, time- and resource-bound process; the goal is not to produce a complex or exhaustive plan that is impossible to implement. Instead, community engagement should be viewed as a series of ongoing and/or incremental strategies and achievable initiatives that seek to identify and engage specific groups within the communities your organization operates within. This process involves:

1. Developing Community Engagement Strategies
2. Determine the Goals of the Plan
3. Plan Out Who to Engage
4. Develop Engagement Strategies for Those Individuals You Already Know
5. Develop Engagement Strategies of Those Individuals You Do NOT Already Know
6. Prioritize those Activities
7. Create an Implementation Plan (strategy)
8. Monitor Your Progress (measurement)
9. Maintain those Relationships (sustainability)

A Basic Logic Model

Problem Statements and Goals

When seeking to design a Community Engagement initiative, assessing needs and converting them into a Problem Statement and Goals to address it can be difficult. Two questions to ask are:

What are the core-competencies/abilities/resources/skills of our organization that are not being fully-utilized within the community?

…and…

What strategies or initiatives would significantly impact our ability to effectively offer/expand programs or maintain the capacity of our organization? (size, scope, resources, volunteers, etc.)

These sections should seek to define the Who, What, and Where of your proposal.

Capacity Building Logic Models vs. Program Logic Models

Both Capacity Building Projects and Programs share the same Logic Model structure. The primary difference between the two is that the goals of Programs relate to specific changes that will take place within clients or individuals served by the program. In comparison, Capacity Building projects have goals that alter the programs, structure or systems of the organization itself.

Rationales, Assumptions and External Factors

Rationales are the Why of your proposal. What questions might someone raise as to the efficacy of the endeavor and how would you respond to them? What knowledge or experience do you have that would aid in explaining why such a project would succeed?

Assumptions are existing resources, skills or competencies that are already in place and your project will rely upon (but may not directly affect). Thinking critically about Assumptions will help you interpret your project for people who may not be knowledgeable about your organization or community.

External Factors describe issues or events that are outside the scope of your project but may help or hinder it. These may take place within the organization (e.g. staff or leadership changes) or outside of the organization (e.g. economic or social crises).

Resources and Activities

Below are some activities that could be incorporated into existing programs or communication strategies. It’s important to note which of these are 1-way and which are 2-way, which might be more or less effective in your community (or for certain groups within your community) and how the feedback generated will be incorporated into your organizations services and strategies.

• Community interviews/Face-to-face meetings
• Informal meetings
• Briefings
• Workshops
• Public meetings and hearings
• Panel discussion, brain-storming
• Shared Initiatives and Partnerships
• Public notice
• Fact sheets
• Telephone contacts
• Telephone Hotline
• Door-to-door canvassing
• Bulletin Boards
• Posters Facility tours
• Field Trips
• Special events
• Radio
• Television
• Films/Screenings
• Exhibits
• Internet Sites or Online Communities
• Newsletter, Newspaper insert
• News conference
• Press-kits
• Advisory Boards
• Volunteer Development
• Program Development

Measuring Outputs and Outcomes

Outputs are tangible products that are produced as a part of your project. They may include documentation, lists of contact information, curriculum or communications pieces. Outputs are the easiest to measure (they have been produced or have not) and also may produce the longest-lasting benefits because they will continue to exist beyond the completion of activities and may contribute to or influence further projects or strategies.

Outcomes are the results or impact of the activities your project performs. These outcomes should directly relate to producing the goals you have outlined for the project. Outcomes should be phrased in terms of change and be measureable. Outcomes can be split into short, medium and long-term parts.

1. Short Term Outcomes are the results you expect see immediately: numbers of volunteers, hours of programming, dollars raised, etc. (often numbers of things)
2. Intermediate Outcomes are the results you want to see over more time: increased name-recognition, program satisfaction, communications through a particular medium, etc. (often measured as percentages, e.g. percentage of people strongly satisfied, or percentage of clients referred through a website)
3. Long-term Outcomes are the results you hope to see eventually: greater access to resources, greater stability, feelings of support or recognition, etc. (often general feelings or perceptions one might acquire from personal stories or interviews)

More Resources

Evaluations of Capacity Building: Lessons from the Field (Book), Alliance for Nonprofit Management

http://www.allianceonline.org/publications/evaluation_of_capacity.page

Online Engagement Strategies and Skills, NTEN “We Are Media Project”,

http://www.wearemedia.org/Strategy+Module+5

Introduction to Community Engagement, Help 4 Nonprofits,

http://www.help4nonprofits.com/NP_Mktg_Marketing-vs-CommunityEngagement_Art.htm

Seven Areas of Nonprofit Excellence, New York Times Company Nonprofit Excellence Awards,

http://nytawards.fcny.org/npea/excellence/

Measuring Innovation, Skoll Foundation & Foundation Strategy Group,

http://www.skollfoundation.org/media/skoll_publications.asp

Spitfire Strategies Communications Tools: Smart Chart, Activation Point

http://www.spitfirestrategies.com/tools

Logic Model Development Guide, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
www.wkkf.org/Pubs/Tools/Evaluation/Pub3669.pdf

Yesterday I posted an article that sought to give a broader frame to the idea of cross-sector nonprofit collaboration: placing collaboration within a process of negotiation to create new value. Today I will break down negotiation a little bit further to show why I think it’s important to take a broader frame of things and maybe even get semantic. Updated to add: :-)

When I’m talking about negotiation, I’m really talking about one particular piece of community engagement. Community engagement is all about self-evaluation (what can we offer the community?), communications/outreach (sending and receiving), and creating opportunities for participation—leadership, governance, programming and volunteerism all included. Negotiation is the piece where you are actively communicating with specific members of the community: individuals, groups, organizations, businesses and government.

So if collaboration is just one option within negotiation, what are the others? To that I really like the Thomas-Kilman Conflict Management Model:

Assertiveness (Y-Axis) is the extent to which you attempt to satisfy your own concerns, values, or interests.

Cooperativeness (X-Axis) is the extent to which you attempt to satisfy their conncerns, values or interests.

It’s designed specifically for individual conflict management situations, but I think it really helps to illuminate the different ways you can interact with another party that intentionally produces an outcome.

What I like about the instrument is that it’s non-judgemental; none of the strategies are intrinsically the best; instead the best is the one that is most effective or appropriate in the situation at hand. Not every situation can be collaborative because of limited time, resources, or competing values and interests.

Maquinista, El

Understanding the different approaches you can take to—as I said yesterday—create value, is important and provides a broader framework with which you can understand your organization’s place in the community, and act to positively and iteratively transform its actions.

It’s the holiday season which seems to make a lot of people think about beliefs. I’m thinking about this great book on my desk entitled Communication Planning: An Integrated Approach by Sherry Devereaux Ferguson and reading the section on understanding the psychology of audiences (Chapter 7).

Citing social psychologist Milton Rokeach the book outlines five belief types:

• Type A – Worldview beliefs: These beliefs constitute basic truths: physical (“This is a cat”), social reality (“I live in Boston”), and nature of the self (“I am a man”). These beliefs are nearly impossible to change.
• Type B – Personal beliefs: These are ego centered and internally formed. Usually self-evaluations (“I’m intelligent”), they can also be phobias or delusions (“I’m fat”).
• Type C – Authority beliefs: These beliefs are formed because of an outside authority, or in opposition to that authority (“I’ll accept that because the president said it” or “I’ll disbelieve that because the president said it”).
• Type D – Beliefs emanating from authority figures: These beliefs are formed indirectly by the actions of authority figures (People’s distrust of Richard Nixon led them to distrust the office of the President and of government and politics in general).
• Type E – Matters of taste: These are arbitrary or essentially inconsequential opinions. While these beliefs may be defended just as strongly as more central beliefs, individuals will more readily relinquish them them. (“This is the best ice cream”). Examples are product preferences or brand allegiances.

So what? Most commercial messages concern Type E beliefs and most advertising takes the form of linking Type E beliefs with more core belief types. For example:

• Linking Type E to Type B: These usually take the form of convincing the individual that use of a product or service will have a personal affect upon them (“Drinking this soda will make you popular” or “If you are athletic, you should use this deodorant”)
• Linking Type E to Type C: Connecting matters of taste to an authority is usually the domain of the testimonial or endorsement.

Deregulation in the utilities industry results in higher costs whenever those costs are not expected to greatly affect consumption (also in the oil industry), contrary to the consequentialist arguments of deregulation proponents. The same thing is happening in the communications sector.

From a BoingBoing comment on a broadband penetration related post. I have no clue if that’s a standard economic opinion.

Welcome to the Jungle buy

Last week I attended NTEN’s 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference and sat in on a wonderful session entitled Nonprofit Communications 2.0: Seven Steps to Transform Your Organization. Led by Lauren-Glenn Davitian of the CCTV Center for Media and Democracy, the session provided a strong framework for nonprofits to better communicate in an increasingly networked society.

I am also very lucky to serve with Lauren-Glenn on the editorial board of the Community Media Review.

The video itself is approximately 1 hour, 24 minutes long and worth every second, but I included my notes from the session below.

Community building talent is the single most important resource in the modern world.

How to engage and mobilize members

A Communications framework for thinking about how organizational objectives are met through interaction. The correlating Development framework is in parenthesis.

1. Welcome (Prospect)
2. Educate (Cultivation)
3. Ask (Involvement)
4. Thank (Stewardship)

The Seven Steps

1. Assessment: Defining your goal (What behavior are you trying to change in undertaking a communications strategy?), audience (an explicit, targeted “who” and their values), evaluating your infrastructure (orthodoxies, structure, time, leadership)
2. Awareness: Start by searching NTEN, TechSoup, Idealware, etc. (Link Research)
3. Training: A discipline of doing things. How are stories told, infrastructure built and actions communicated to regular people?
4. Content Production: “The currency of the new world”
5. Technical Support: An example: how to know when to build and when to buy
6. Partnerships: Who is going to stand up for you?
7. Planning: What are the components that revolve around your goal?

Other Links

• Strategic Communications Plan Generator from The SPIN Project
• Tech Savvy Communications Toolkit Aloha, Scooby-Doo rip from NPower Seattle
• Storytelling: Andy Goodman, Seth Godin, The Gilbert Center

I shot this video with a Casio EX-S600, which shoots full-frame (640 x 480) MPEG-4 video. With a two gigabyte SD Card it can shoot approximately an hour and a half of video at medium quality before its battery dies. The Casio’s AVI wrapper is incompatible with iMovie (or any Quicktime decoder), so I first used VisualHub to repackage the video as an MP4 before importing into iMovie to add titles. I exported from iMovie as DV and then converted that with VisualHub into MPEG-4. Compressed and at quarter-frame (320 x 240) the entire video was 105 MB. This time I uploaded to Google Video since Blip.tv stalled out.