The future of futurists

I am SO excited that I was selected to cover the Push: The Fertile Delta conference for this blog. The conference begins this Sunday and the organizers describe it this way:

The PUSH conference is for the curious and courageous. It is a wildly fruitful, catalytic experience for the intellectually inquisitive who have a sense of the changes coming our way. It is for those who need a place to discuss, confirm, collate and explore ideas, so they can invest in the future and lead change.

Yikes, no high expectations there. I have developed a new appreciation for futurists as I have grown in my foundation job. Foundations and nonprofits are often forced to deal with current and past problems because those needs are so pressing and overwhelming, it seems a little too high minded to start thinking about future trends when we can't even get a handle on the present. Futurists seem to have a unique ability to look at the present for clues to what the future may bring. I'm not advocating that all foundations ignore the current problems our communities are facing but a few forward-thinking institutions might be able to influence the future.

Look for my dispatches from the conference coming early next week.

No Schedules, No Meetings, No Joke

*This is where I would work from :) Photo courtesy of BDA Rebel

Back in November of 2007 I wrote a post for Tactical Philanthropy about how work flexibility in the foundation sector would increase the effectiveness of grantmakers. That post was inspired by the great work of Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, the creators of Best Buy's Results-Only Work Environment (R.O.W.E.). Cali and Jody now have a wonderful book out called "Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It." This dynamic duo are proposing a new way of work where "people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, as long as the work gets done." This is NOT the same as telecommuting or flexible schedules. This is about completely changing the nature of work so that employees are accountable to what they accomplish for the organization, not how many hour they sit behind a desk. This also isn't some touchy feeling model of making employees happy, it's also about efficiency. Best Buy has seen a 35% increase in productivity since implementing the model, a decrease in turnover (a very expensive problem for nonprofits), and have a much happier and committed workforce.

I think this new model is important to the social sector because the work that we do is so important to the healthy functioning of our communities but the normal structure of work makes it impossible for you to be a normal functioning part of the community that you live in. How much time do you spend in traffic getting to your job and how much time do you spend in you local park getting to know your neighbors? Who says that you can't be working from a laptop while sitting in a park chatting with your neighbors?

People work for nonprofits because they care about the work of the organization, what if nonprofits changed the nature of work to show that they care about the people that are making the organization successful?

What would it take to make this the norm in the nonprofit sector?

Wisdom on LinkedIn

Every time I use LinkedIn's question and answer feature I am amazed at how amazing my LinkedIn network is. (If you aren't already a part of my LinkedIn network, click on the "add me to your network" button on the right). I have been trying to think of new topics for my professional development guides and asked what the greatest career challenge is for young people in nonprofits and because the answers were so great I thought I would share some of them with you:

I see a real need for mentors in our world. I think for profit corporations do a much better job providing opportunities for young professionals to develop meaningful relationships with older professionals in the same field. We tend to "go it alone" too much!
-Kevin

Hi Trista! The greatest challenge I see is the low ceiling in the nonprofit world. As an ambitious young nonprofit professional, it's reasonable to assume I could hit top of my career ladder in 10 years. Where will I go from there?
-Laura

Young people need to be invested in-both with money, opportunity, time, and energy.
-Chelsea

I challenged with mapping out a career path; while I know what my desired end result is, I'm not quite sure of all the steps I should be taking to get there.
-Heidi

What do you see as the greatest career challenge facing young nonprofit staff members?

Branding Yourself for Personal and Professional Success

A long-time passion of mine has been helping young professionals in the nonprofit sector develop the "soft" skills that you need to move ahead in your career. My most recent project is a series of professional development guides for do gooders, that has been taking off. I'll occasionally post excerpts from the guides on the blog and I'd love to hear if you have any suggestions for future guide topics. From my branding guide:

Just as certain thoughts pop into people’s heads when they think of “iPod” (1,000 songs in your pocket) Or “Subway” (Eat Fresh), when people thing of you, as a professional, they should think of your “Brand.” Can you brand a person? Of course! What do you think of when you think of Michael Jordan? Great basketball player, good jump shot, shoes, etc. What do you think comes to mind when people think about you? If you don’t know, it is time to find out.

The Google Factor

These days before anyone meets anyone, they run straight to Google to check out their web presence. Managing your presence on the web is one of the most important ways to manage your brand. To begin managing your web presence, Google yourself. For a good start on your internet image, look for the following clues:

• You should appear somewhere on the first page of results.

• Posts that mention you should be related to professional work, and not embarrassing photos from college parties.

• Topics that should appear in search results include articles written, previous media interviews, references to jobs and internships, and professional networking affiliations. Remove content that is unrelated to work if you can. If removal is contingent on help from others, respectfully request that they remove content. Also, to push less relevant content below the first page, create newer, more relevant content and focus on moving it up in search results by back links and references from others.

You might be surprised what you will find, and your search-engine entries will change over time as people pick up and post work you may have done years ago, or never take down old web pages.

The full guide can be found here.