The State of our Union

I’m a sucker for drama. I love it; love the intrique, the storylines, the passion, the risks. Throw in some humor and you have the ideal screenplay for my Friday night! It’s no wonder then that drama is what has attracted me to the profession I’m in – So many personalities, priorities and problems to go around that drama really is bound to follow and everybody has an opinion and much to the chagrin of our democracy, we have to listen to them.  

Keeping this in mind, watching the State of the Union last night was my version of the Oscars. I don’t know all the actors, but I know the biggie’s, I enjoy hearing their responses and torts and the partisan interaction. I also kinda like seeing the outfits.

Over and over again, Obama blows me away with his speeches. I’m not even American and I get emotional! I like the priorities they’ve set out and the pragmatic manner in which they’re hoping to solve their obstacles (or so he says). Of course, reactions follow and debate errupts all over the networks, but its dialogue. I also like that the event has given the American people a chance to once again understand their leader, what their values are and where they see themselves in the future.

I know that I cannot say the same about Canada.

Is there consensus in Canada about what our challenges are? Do we have unified national values? Do we have a common vision for what the future of this country will look like? It annoys me that important issues arise in the public domain because the media covers them, not a top-down approach that sees executive leadership explain the state of our federation and attempts to move it forward. Instead, we have a protracted view of the political system that sees much power delegated to the provinces, where debate over central issues is not widely discussed or analysed, and as a result, ignorance results.

Politics is not an easy game and its riddled with tactics, timing and Oh the drama! but it has to be open and transparant to the electorate otherwise we compromise the system. Squashing funding for research and development in numerous sectors may balance the books, but it doesn’t make us stronger, it just makes us rich idiots. Neglecting to collect census data makes our programming based on nothing more than campaign contributions and who our leadership likes in government.  What are we doing and what are we striving for?! A Statement of Our Union would help. So would active debate. After all, Knowledge is power and the Canadian people deserve not to be left in the dark.

The Inadequacies of Language

As a new member of the Quality Assurance Committee at my community Children’s Aid Society, I not only get a chance to learn more about the organization, meet new people and brush up on my skills, but it’s also a chance to hear stories that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

This time, we heard from one of my colleagues, who happens to be a nurse, describe a short documentary that she’d seen, ‘Just a Routine Operation,‘ narrated by a British man who had dropped his wife off at the hospital for a routine procedure and expected to pick her up later on in the day. However, the procedure did not go quite as planned and resulted in her loss of oxygen, brain damage and eventual death. The story itself is entirely heartbreaking. The irony of it was that this man has built a career on behalf of airlines to identify communication gaps, prevent human error and provide clarity where it may not be aparent in order to avoid tragedy in the air. 

Similarly, as reports out of Italy describe, human error is the cause for the capsizing of the cruise ship, ‘Costa Concordia’ and causing the death of too many. These two incidents really makes me think just how many lives could be saved by effective communication and cooperation.

In our culture, we’ve been lead to believe that experience should not be questioned and to do so is an insult and could lead to unemployment. By following this norm, though, those nurses did not question or intervene on the doctor with 30 years experience. No one did. Out of fear? Inexperience? I wonder what the co-captain of the Costa Concordia was thinking when it chartered off course; chancing fate or impressing the tourists?

Whatever the reasons for the team’s failure to intervene, both instances drive home the fact that they had the trust of their patients or passengers to lead them through to safety, be it the recovery room or the resorts. Such responsibility should be due cause for a questioning thought or an assertive action to ensure their destination and yet there was silence.  Language is one thing to master, understanding and overcoming culture, however, is more difficult.

In learning a bit more about culture and its influence on communication, I came across a corporate training organization, VitalSmarts, which seeks to help firms address the discrepencies that language sometimes highlight and particularly so in a multi-cultural environment. By making more of an effort to bring the same sort of clarity to organizations that the air industry currently employs can only lead to greater collaboration, understanding and responsibility and hopefully result in fewer human errors.

How Nonprofits Make Data Fun and Informative

 

Nonprofits have long relied on stories to help stir emotion.

However, as the nonprofit world has evolved, so, too, has the need to communicate more than just emotion. Foundations and corporate supporters increasingly want to see numbers that show that nonprofits are delivering results. Donors want to see metrics to help them understand why they should contribute to one cause over another.

Unfortunately, statistics about an organization’s work aren’t as emotionally engaging as a photograph of a child in need. Numbers and percentages don’t appeal to our sense of compassion, and looking at graphs feels too academic to be enjoyable for most people.

Put simply, data can be really boring. But organizations can find digestible and compelling ways to show their quantitative results.

Graphical representations of information, known as infographics, can help nonprofits weave anecdotes and rock-solid evidence into beautiful stories that appeal to both the head and the heart.

Well-designed infographics can convey complex information in surprisingly engaging ways, and their popularity is skyrocketing. Type “infographics” into a Google search and you will see them by the hundreds on topics as varied as the U.S. debt and how much you can drink at an office party.

Nonprofits are among the many types of organizations increasingly trying to present data in visually striking ways.

Voices for America’s Children, an advocacy organization, has created basic infographics that do a good job of bringing personality to topics such as health, education, and government spending.

Product (Red), which supports programs to curb AIDS in Africa, has produced more sophisticated examples. The organization’s Web site does a great job mixing data with maps, videos, and profiles of people its donations have aided. In an instant, you learn that Product (Red)’s sales have raised more than $180-million for its charitable efforts and have helped more than 7.5 million people.

Architecture for Humanity, which offers pro bono architectural and design services to building projects around the world, uses infographics to quickly convey its complicated mission. That came after it realized its constituents had trouble understanding the nature of the organization’s many activities and asked my company, Elefint Designs, to create an infographic that communicates details that would otherwise require long conversations or extensive passages of text.

Whether they are bringing attention to an important cause, explaining their internal operations, or demonstrating the impact of their work, nonprofits can use infographics to present data in a way that is far more engaging and efficient than what could be conveyed with words alone. Coupled with traditional storytelling, the use of infographics gives organizations a powerful tool to demonstrate their achievements in a way that will get viewers both emotionally and intellectually involved.

Matthew Scharpnick is a co-founder and the chief strategy officer at Elefint Designs, which recently started a new Web site, infogra.ph, that uses infographics to help nonprofits advance understanding of complex issues.

Article Found at : http://philanthropy.com/article/How-Nonprofits-Make-Data-Fun/130225/

 

In the Meeting House

I was recently invited to attend a Meeting House discussion at the Public Library. I’ve never been to a Meeting House discussion so I’m not too sure what to expect (is a Meeting House in Canada the same as a Town Hall Meeting in the US?), but nonetheless, I’m curious.  The topic of the night will be the community – how it’s developing, concerns, fears, worries and in general, how we’d like to see it develop.  This is a particularly interesting topic as I”m all for positive change and seeing progress, yet the thought of going to the Meeting House has me strangely anxious. My family has lived in the areas for almost a hundred years; suffice it to say, I know it fairly well. But my anxiety makes me question, do I really? I know buildings, roads, landmarks and friends, but I feel it lacks the same sort of community, the type of place that makes you want to be home and strive toward making it better. This, perhaps may be one of the items on the agenda – how to make a town, a community and a home.

Bringing together different members of the community and the people who can implement change is a great idea and I’m very curious to know what sort of issues will surface. Will it be a safe and open space to express opinions or will biases and intimdation silence voices?

I’ve learned that the tremendous and rapid growth of the region has already caused major problems, especially regarding affordable housing and food security. Knowing this, I became a little alarmed (!) to learn that there really was no social plan in place to deal with the influx of people; no services, infrastructure or preparation to deal with the problems that could surface. What’s worse is there is no data and no research mechanism to provide evidence to support the creation of infrastructure or services. Basically, the strategy is to sit back and wait until problems arise, until they’ve gotten so bad that some money, time and effort need to be thrown at the problem. Really? Is this the way to run a healthy community? It really is maddening to see this type of logic applied to the community where you live.

The Meeting House is a start, but the main actors running it are already swamped with their own (contract) work that takes up much of their day. Let’s face it, this is a full time job of an entire department to create, establish and grow the social infrastructure that’s needed.  However, funding allocations tend to favor activities that will provide a return (ie economic development) without acknowledging the social sector until it’s too late; the down side of politics… Reactions to the Meeting House to come soon….

The Path to Change

There is no time like the new year to start fresh and that feeling of renewal is precisely what some (myself included) need. New relationships, habits and ways of thinking are most tough to change, but with a little perseverance and encouragement, it’s possible to move forward in a positive direction *emphasis on positive!* 

I intended these words to be of a personal nature, but taking a second look at them,  that positive direction can be applied to any initiative that seeks change. 

The business of change is exciting, complicated and involves many actors, but when results are achieved, the work seems well worth it.  How to do this, however, is easier said than done.  How to find common ground between varying opinions, experiences and cultures, while leveraging  funding and expectations?

I’ve been doing some  reading over the holidays, some  fiction, some biographies, some professional development and what’s been striking a chord throughout many of the articles I’ve read is leadership development,  and its importance to achieving goals.

The Harvard Business Review recently published an article “Developing Mindful Leaders,” which advises; “If you want to transform an organization it’s not about changing systems and processes so much as it’s about changing the hearts and minds of people…Mindfulness is one of the all-time most brilliant technologies for helping to alleviate human suffering and for bringing out our extraordinary potential as human beings.” At the same time, Arlene Dickinson’s new book, “Persuasion” emphasizes the same message; “cultivating authenticity, honesty and reciprocity in every relationship so you not only get what you want, but achieve an outcome that works for everyone.”

What extraordinary words and advice for developing change and a compelling  message to governments, firms, communities, families and individuals. Of course, that message is subjective, but acting mindfully and authenticly in any interaction may just lead to the change that is sought after.