September, 2007 -by Peter C. Brinckerhoff

This Month's topic: Generation Change and Technology

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My New Book on Generation Change Is Available!  My newest title, Generations: The Challenge of a Lifetime  for Your Nonprofit is available for review and purchase at the  Fieldstone Alliance website. I'm really excited about the  reaction to this book, and I know that the issues covered in it  are affecting your nonprofit and will continue to in the coming  years. Check it out.

Websites of the Month

Here are my recommendations for websites of interest on this month's topic: Generation Change and Technology

"A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy"	Terrific story from the Wall Street Journal on Nonprofit applications by younger philanthropists...
www.techsoup.org	Techsoup has more good information about ways to use technology in your nonprofit than any other source on the web. If you haven't been there, check it out today.

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Generation Change and Technology
As regular readers might expect, this is a big, big issue for nonprofits. Tech, while increasingly cheap, still costs money and time, two resources lots of nonprofits are lacking in abundance. Tech, while increasingly ubiquitous, is still an anathema to some, and the percentage of the population represented by "some" generally increases with age. On the other hand, for your organization tech is both the entry and validity test for nearly everyone under 35.

So what do you do? Well, let's start with some tech questions from Generations:

“So, what’s your iPod policy here? What about IM?”

“How are you integrating mailing lists into your community discussion and information groups?”

"Where can I give online reviews right on your website about my volunteer experiences with your organization?"

“How often do you check out blogs that discuss your organization specifically or your cause in general?”

“Can I donate to your organization online with PayPal?”

These are all valid tech questions, ones you need to have an answer to. Then again, so are the questions that follow:

“How do I get access to the Internet?”

“I am not comfortable around computers, so can you please mail me information about your services?”

“Why don’t you have a real person answer the phone during business hours?”

“I don’t have a (don’t like) credit card(s) . . . can I write you a check?”

And that's the problem and the challenge. You want to be balanced in your tech just as in everything else. Too much tech and you can sink your organization financially (from expense), in terms of staff time, and alienate an important cadre of supporters and users. Use to little technology and you can sink your organization financially (from lack of donations) and alienate a different but equally important cadre of supporters and users.

More directly from Generations:

.... "with technology, everyone is a player, either actively or passively. And, while we may (justifiably) assume that the younger we trend, the more comfortable we are with technology, there are dangers to stereotyping as the following examples illustrate.

FOR EXAMPLE: I got an e-mail from an eighty-five-year-old friend who had a new digital camera and wanted to send me some of his first pictures. He bought the camera, got home, and found he couldn’t read the instruction manual: the type was too small. His solution? Buy a magnifying glass? Give up? Call the manufacturer? No, he went online, downloaded the instruction manual, cut and pasted the text he needed into his word processor, and printed it out in large type. Pretty tech savvy!

FOR EXAMPLE: I have a younger friend who is twenty-seven, an author, a minor league baseball player, and an environmentalist. Ivy League educated, from a wealthy family, he never touches a computer. Ever. He writes his books and essays longhand. He doesn’t own a cell phone. Fortunately for him, he graduated before iPods and laptops became required for college students. If I want to get in touch with him, I either call his house (and hope he’s home because he doesn’t have an answering machine) or resort to snail mail.

While you may think that these men are just the exception to the rule—the statistical tails to the right or left edge of the bell curve—think about it more. Imagine if you tried to dumb down your tech to accommodate the “old folks” and the photographer above figured it out. He’d be (justifiably) insulted, and as we all know, unhappy customers tell twenty other people, usually before they tell you. Do you want that out there?

Imagine that you meet the author/baseball player/environmentalist at a fundraiser and see him as a good future prospect. How would you leave the conversation? “Nice to meet you. If it’s OK, I’ll e-mail you some materials.” Quite possible, because we assume that everyone under forty has (and wants!) access to e-mail. When my friend said, “I don’t use e-mail,” would you blanch, furrow your brow, or go with the flow?

Here’s the point: while technology is a key and growing part of everyday life, it is still a sensitive area in our culture, one that presents us, like any other change, with opportunity and danger.

Jim Collins has famously written that successful organizations use tech as an accelerator, not a solution in and of itself. Tech can also be a dividing line, between the haves and the have-nots, the educated and the undereducated, the technophiles and the technophobes, no matter what their age. Notice I did not say the divide between young and old. That’s because, while we are at risk in intergenerational applications of technology, we have to seek to break down barriers, be sensitive to different wants, and provide people technological choices."

Obviously, there's a lot more here than one issue of this newsletter can hold which, of course, is why I have an entire chapter in Generations on the subject. But if you don't start working on this issue now, you'll alienate both younger and older users/donors/volunteers/staff alike. Here are my summary questions from that chapter.

"1.      Do we have an adequate technology committee on staff? How can we expand it to represent generational issues?

2.      Does our technology plan consider diversity of generation, in addition to other diversities?

3.      Do we check our web site for currency, and compare it to other peer organization web sites every six months?

4.      Is there a use for podcasts for staff training, for orientation, or for education of users online?

5.      What about blogs? Do they make sense for us to use, given that they need regular contributions?

6.      Are we sensitive in our use of tech to older eyes and ears?

7.      Do we have an iPod or IM policy? Do we need one?"

 

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If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

And, remember to take a look at the Mission-Based Management Blog.

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My recommendations for texts and other readings on Generation Change and Technology.

Well, of course you should read Generations, but in addition to that, here are some good resources:

The Accidental Techie, by Sue Bennet

Wired for Good, by Joni Polansky

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Generation Change and Technology

Straight from Generations:

"Here’s a checklist for you as you work your way through your tech challenges. It’s not intended to be all inclusive, but rather a start. Remember, as you upgrade tech, integrate tech, and use tech, have a tech team (as noted below, composed of people from all generations) help you, give you feedback, and integrate the tech in a good way—not one that turns off an entire generation!

If you are not a high-tech lover by nature, habit, or genetics, make sure you get a copy of The Accidental Techie, also published by the Fieldstone Alliance. It will help you understand the needs of tech managers and how to talk to your techies. Here’s my list.

• Geek up. This term comes from my techie son, Ben, who told me while he was in high school that the nonprofits he dealt with needed to “geek up,” his term for becoming more tech savvy. I agree. Add technical expertise to your board skill set, and figure out a way to have either a very skilled and very dedicated volunteer. 
• HANDS ON: Many local organizations focus on nonprofit tech needs. There may be resources at your United Way, your local community foundation or, if you live in a city with one, at your local management services organization (MSO). There is a link for listings of community foundations and MSOs in the Resources section.
• Subscribe to Nten and TechSoup[TH1] . Speaking of great resources, if you haven’t already done so, put this book down, log on to the web, and go to Nten, www.nten.org, and TechSoup, www.techsoup.org. Both these organizations are invaluable resources to the nonprofit community. Go, look, be amazed, bookmark, and subscribe to their newsletters.
• Have a tech committee. Tech is more than important enough to have its own committee. This is a way to geek up, too. You can ask outsiders with tech skills to serve on the committee, educate the entire group in new uses for tech in pursuit of your mission, and write your tech plan (see below). Use anyone with tech interest, not just people who talk in Perl (that’s a programming language). Why? Because this is not just about hardware and software, it’s about using tech to do more mission and, in relation to this book, meeting the needs and wants of a variety of generations. So if you just use geeks, you won’t get a wide variety of perceptions. Cast a wide net.
• Have a regular tech users focus group. This is a continuation of my last point in the tech committee area. You need feedback from users, not just geeks, on a regular basis. This might be people who visit your web site, staff who are using your accounting or quality assurance software; any user you can find. Get them together twice a year and talk about ways to make your tech more approachable, less frustrating, and more mission enabling.
• Have a technology plan. You are going to be dedicating resources to your technology forever. Money and time will be invested, and, of course, it’s your first point of contact for many. So plan it out. To help you get started, there’s a great tool on the TechSoup web site. It’s a technology planning template, and the URL is listed in the Resources section of this book. Part of your tech plan should cover your tech policies, such as iPod (and any personal music player), Internet usage, e-mail usage, and so forth.
• iPod policy: What should your iPod policy be? Music can and does help workers with repetitive or creative jobs. Your younger staff and volunteers will probably have some kind of personal music player, and use it a lot. But if they need to be alert to dangers (think driving) or need to respond to coworkers quickly and politely—not after saying “What? WHAT?,” and then taking out their earbuds—perhaps you should consider limitations. Some places that ban them outright. Some that allow workers to use them in certain situations, at certain times. My suggestion is to generate the policy with a broad group of staff input, and then, like all policies, post it online, review it periodically, and enforce it!
• Review and stay abreast of your peer organizations. This includes the all the nonprofits in your community (since you are competing with them for staff, volunteers, and donations) and your mission-peer organizations. Visit their web sites frequently.
• HANDS ON: If your state trade association has an annual conference, suggest to the program committee that there be a tech forum, where members can talk about what works for them. This is a great way to get lots of already-tested ideas quickly.
• Don’t equate technology with only bits and bytes. Technology has many benefits—and one of them is better, more focused, and less expensive printed materials. As you look at ways to use tech better, think about your printer too. It may seem low tech to you, but it can really accelerate your marketing and communications efforts. Remember, smoke signals were high tech at one time.
• Be diligent about security. Nonprofits are staffed and volunteered by nice people doing nice things for other (mostly) nice people. We forget some days that the rest of the world is not always so nice. Pay attention to security, and pay for it. Look at it like an insurance premium, and don’t skimp. It is one area that you need to assign to your best, smartest, most cynical, and most anal IT resource.
• Backup, backup, backup. If you don’t already do this, investigate online backups. If you backup to disks, or other hard drives, remember to take them offsite regularly. If the office burns down, floods, or is hit by a tornado, all the backups in the world won’t help if they are sitting in a drawer next to your computer server."

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If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Below you'll see the date, location, and topics of public training I'm currently scheduled to do in the next few months. For more information on a particular speaking engagement, get in touch with the contact person listed in the right hand column, or email me.

For more information on my availability throughout the next 12-18 months, available topics, sample agendas, and fees go to www.missionbased.com/training.htm

9/11/07	Cincinnati	Generation Change and Recruitment and Retention	Easter Seals Regional Conference Jackie Hooper jhooper@essmichigan.org
9/18/07	Minneapolis	Generation Change	Fieldstone Alliance/United Way Becky Andrews bandrews@fieldstonealliance.org
9/26/07	Seattle	Corporate Structure Options for Rehabilitation Employment	NISH Rick Van Hoose Rvanhoose@nish.org
9/28/07	Chicago	Generation Change	Management Information Exchange Patricia Pap ppap@m-i-e.org
10/03/07	Houston	Nonprofit Stewardship	Colorado Behavioral Council Mary Jo Lagesse mlagesse1234@msn.com
10/06/07	Breckenridge, CO	Generation Change and Nonprofits	United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast Beth Tobias btobias@uwtgc.org
10/09/07	Portland, OR	Generation Change and Nonprofits	TACS Jennifer  Ingham jb@tacs.org
10/13/07	San Francisco	Generation Change and Nonprofits	BoardSource Leadership Forum Barb Knoff Barb@mil3.net

Generation Change and Technology and Marketing

Let's go over it again: Marketing is, at its core, a cycle of identifying customers, finding out what they want and then giving it to them if possible. So what about tech and marketing in a generational context? Easy. Different generations probably want different things from technology. And, since technology, particularly your website, is an increasingly crucial part of any nonprofit's marketing strategy, you need to find out what people want in a way that is generationally sensitive.

Straight from Generations:

Gen@ Likes . . .		Gen@ Dislikes . . .
instant messaging		slow response to communications
text messaging		insufficient information online
tech support through chat		poor web site design
researching online		lack of access to information
large-scale online role playing games (think teamwork)		lack of ability to collaborate, either via in-person involvement in decisions or via tech-enabled teamwork
GenX Likes . . .	GenX Dislikes . . .
e-mail as primary communication method	lack of response from superiors to e-mails
Blackberries	lack of availability of superiors (by e-mail or by cell phone)
shopping online	insufficient information online
Boomers Like . . .	Boomers Dislike . . .
talking to a live person when the phone is answered	spam
e-mail	new software, new looks on web sites
using search engines, but with minimal clicks to find what they need	new cell phones that do 1,548 things—1,547 of which they don’t need
Think about these in relation to your marketing efforts. Are you feeding the wants?	nonintuitive web sites
	everyone having access to all the information
	being put on hold “because I have another call coming in”
	reading “tiny” print and wading through distracting designs

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See what I mean about differences? Now, don't believe me. Go do the first key to marketing: ASK different generations about their reactions to your communications, website, fundraising, etc. and really listen to their answers. Your marketing will be more effective.

If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at www.missionbased.com. Check them out--they're free.

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Future Topics for
The Mission-Based Management Newsletter....

October	Crisis Management
November	Generation Change and Marketing
December	Signs of Organizational Trouble
January 2008	Reorganizing Your Board of Directors
February	New Communications Tools
March	Generation Change and Finance
April	Greening Your Nonprofit
Send me your topic suggestions at: peter@missionbased.com

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You asked, so here they are: Past Single-Topic Issues of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter...

	2004	2005	2006	2007
January	Business Development	Strategic Planning	Generation Change	Conflict of Interest
February	Fund Raising	Leadership	Accountability	Generation Change and Your Staff
March	Volunteers	Core Competencies	Ethics and Management	Admin Costs
April	Financial Management	Expanding to New Markets	Staff Satisfaction	New  Tech Ideas for Nonprofits
May	On-line Marketing	Endowments	When Boards Cross the Management/Policy Line	Generations Change and the People You Serve
June	Transparency	Tech and Mission	Staff Rewards	Mentoring
July	Nonprofit Start-up	Sustainability	Saying No to Community Needs	Better Cash Planning
August	Governance	Ethical Benefits	Board and Non-CEO Relations	Small Nonprofits
September	Political Activities	Entrepreneurship	Executive Transition
October	Attracting and Retaining Younger Staff, Board, and Volunteers	Internal Communications	Advocacy
November	Outcome Measurement	Board Recruitment	When Boards Fail
December	Lifelong Learning	Better Budgeting	Conflict of Interest