Connecting Up Australia

Posted by Ehon Chan in Features, Latest | 36 comments

Two weeks ago, I found myself in a room of about 300 non-profit and community group representatives, government officials, salespeople and IT geeks. This ranged from those who know all about Web 2.0 to the ones who asked, “What’s a Twitter?”

The theme of this year’s Connecting Up Australia Conference was ‘The Online Future of Nonprofits – are we there yet?’. I originally thought this wasn’t even a question to be asked, given I work for a technology-based non-profit. After two days of hearing questions like, “Does my organisation need a Facebook account?” I would have to say we may have a little way to go.

The conference started off with a great keynote by Cheryl Kernot, Director of Teaching and Learning at the Centre for Social Impact at UNSW. She introduced the concept of social entrepreneurship and provided case studies of the various innovative social enterprises around the world.

Kernot was the Program Director at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurs in the UK. She argues that Australia’s economic system has always been about economic impact, profit, and loss, and she laid out the challenge to Australia to re-evaluate charities and non-profits in its current forms and provide a role or voice for third sector as equal partner alongside the public and private sectors in our national conversations.

After Kernot’s short but interesting keynote, Mark Pesce, a web expert, inventor, writer, educator and futurist, presented his take on the current phenomenon he describes as hyperconnection, which “can’t be controlled”. Pesce gave a really insightful presentation (which can be found here) of the transition of society and organisations from a stagnant, ‘tower of power’ who seek control over everything being said about them to a more organic, community-based engagement ‘cloud’ system. The idea is that people are now more connected than ever before. The clouds are communities, communication and/or groups who are constantly changing, sharing information, ideas and opinions, with influence from every angle possible, contrary to the top-to-bottom approach of the past. The cloud is constantly evolving, enhanced by the growth of connectivity and Web 2.0 technologies. More people can speak for the organisation, which he acknowledges can be dangerous. Pesce also identifies the ‘cloud’ wants to be spoken to authentically. And he says the great thing about the cloud is it can transform into a storm of action.

The emphasis shifted quickly to social media – especially how organisations can use social media to operate, communicate and engage with their stakeholders. There was added diversity with the inclusion of presentations on online fundraising, using traditional forms of communication like email, and an interesting presentation by Edelman (which can be found here – pdf file) on the power of using stories to inspire and engage your audience.

I was spoiled for choice with a multitude of break-out sessions presented, even writing about the sessions would be exhausting. So here’s a reader-friendly breakdown:

•    Social media allows you to listen as well as communicate with people, and if you listen carefully, you know where people are talking about you so you can better communicate with them.
•    People are after generic messages. They aren’t satisfied with just facts and figures or links. They want genuine messages and stories.
•    They want to know how to take action and they want to know where the opportunities are and how they can contribute. However, ‘actions’ need to be flexible yet clear about what you want them to do.

There were a lot of questions brought up at the conference including, “Should my organisation be on Facebook or Twitter”, “Should we invest in hiring someone to look after our social media” and “Is privacy a problem when on the internet?” Being stuck trying to jump on a bandwagon or current trend is a common concern and it’s something a lot of people are doing really well, really badly or not doing at all.

Jody Mahoney, Vice President of Business Development at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in the USA, presented the last keynote session which put a nice closing to the conference. She imparted some really good lessons to the participants - one I really liked was about treating business development like reality TV.

“Don’t spend the million dollars until you’ve actually won it. In the business world, sales projections and anticipated clients won’t pay your bills. You need to actually close the sale to impact your bottom line. So, just because you thought the sales presentation went great, don’t celebrate that new client until you receive the signed contract. You never know how something will turn out, and often things don’t work out exactly as you had planned. Always be smart and realistic in your approach; that’s the only true way to win in the end,” Mahoney says.

She also expressed how the bottom-up attitude is impacting the non-profit sector. “The rate of change in this sector is accelerating, and will be impacted by many things… C. K. Prahalad and Muhammad Yunus, though their messages are different, both believe that the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ knows what it needs better than anyone else and the speed of engagement will drive that innovation.”

Overall, the Connecting Up 09 team did an excellent job putting the conference together and attracting a group of very diverse people. Those already quite literate in social media may have found some of the content a bit basic, but hopefully their networks have now expanded to include many people who will be more savvy in this space after attending the conference..

Connecting Up Australia Conference is an annual conference on Information Communication Technology for the non-profit sector hosted by Connecting Up Australia.

EC/LR