Brad Rourke’s Blog
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Yes You Can Destroy Your Organization Responsibly
As many of my readers and friends know, I am a firm believer that not all organizations need to exist in perpetuity. Especially in the community benefit sector, my feeling is that most organizations would do well to plan to close their doors in fifteen years from inception. Even if you aren’t planning to close…
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Iranians' Success Against Censors Shows Need For "Capacity Building"
The turmoil in Iran and the efforts of the nation’s citizens to overcome government censorship provide a good argument for why it is important to build capacity in communities. Since at least 2004, Iran has been censoring social networking sites. So, according to this New York Times article, people have had about five years to…
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I'm Afraid I Don't Understand This Open Government Thing
People in my field have been aflutter since January over the White House’s efforts to craft what’s called an “Open Governmemnt Initiative.” On his first full day in office, President Obama issued a memorandum calling for us to “work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration”…
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I'm Just Not That Into "Theories Of Change"
An offhand question asked by a colleague the other day got me thinking. She asked me, “In five years, what would you like to be known for?” This is a slightly different version of the standard where-do-you-want-to-be-in-five-years query. The way it was framed drew me up short and made me think. My immediate answer was…
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My Taxonomy Of Community Participants: The 90-9-1 "Principle" In Person
Among people who work in, study, and manage online communities, there’s something called the “90-9-1 Principle.” The idea is that in most online communities, 90 percent of the users are audience members, passively reading posts and comments. Nine percent of the users are “editors” editing posts (in wiki-style communities) or adding comments (in blog-style or…
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Does Dialogue Always Require Trained Conversation Leaders?
The White House’s Office Of Science And Technology Policy last week invited comments on a number of blog posts that summarized citizen recommendations to enhance participation and transparency. (This is part of the administration’s “Open Government Initiative.”) One blog post was on “Enhancing Citizen Participation In Decision Making.” People shared a lot of good ideas.…
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How To Decide Where To Spend Advertising Money: Dominate Your Channel
It is trite to link to Seth Godin but his article last Friday had very useful ideas. “How big is your farm?” he asks. The idea is that you shouldn’t spread yourself around everywhere. The number of media channels available to you keeps growing. The number of places you can spend time and money is…
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