the Communications Network blog

Networking Matters

Our Fall 2009 conference has come and gone, and while the memories are still fresh, I wanted to share some observations.

One, the Communications Network is stronger than ever.  We've been on a rebuilding effort since 2006, and each year both membership in the Network and participation in our conferences have continued to grow.  Our first conference back in 2006 attracted some 130 brave souls -- almost twice the number of registered members at the time.  This year, we had more than 220 people, and probably could have exceeded 250 if there had been enough space for more people.  And as 2009 draws to a close, our membership tops 330.

Two, attendees expect quality and excellence.  Those who have completed our post-event survey show they want engaging and informative presentations and are looking for takeaways they can use when they return home. 

Three, we are not a bashful group. More than 120 conference attendees agreed to be videotaped and their comments posted on the website in which they share their thoughts on everything from what's changed and what's stayed the same about foundation communications to overall impressions of the conference and reactions to individual sessions.

Four, and finally, the value of networking cannot be underestimated.  One of the hallmarks of our group -- and since its original inception as a volunteer organization more than two decades ago -- is that people who work in communications for foundations, nonprofits or organizations that support both, genuinely enjoy learning from each other.  They willingly give and are eager to take what others are willing to share. 

To me, that still is the essence of the Communications Network.  By taking advantage of opportunities the Network offers to share with and learn from each other, we can achieve excellence in our own pursuits, become a standard-bearer for quality communications, and also offer important guidance and direction to many of the nonprofits our respective organizations support. 

Put another way,  the reason we take part in what the Network offers in the first place is so that we can draw on the knowledge, wisdom, experience, and plain old practical advice available -- all which helps us use communications more effectively to advance the missions of our respective organizations.

Now that the New York City conference is behind us, we're looking ahead to Los Angeles next September. If you want to attend, send an email to be added to the priority registration list.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Conference 2.0 Strategies Capture a Bigger Picture

At the recent Communications Network annual conference held at the Ford Foundation in New York City, 20 volunteers known collectively as the Gorilla Engagement Squad, used Flip Cams to conduct video interviews with 120 conference attendees.  In addition to asking participants what resonated from the sessions they attended, Gorillas asked: “What has and hasn’t changed about foundation communications over the past five years?” 

What Has Changed About Foundation Communications in the Last Five Years? from Communications Network on Vimeo.

As commander-in-chief of the Squad, I was thrilled to see the wealth of engaging compelling content captured by my colleagues using what I call a “conference 2.0 engagement” strategy. It’s all just a further extension of the evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 in which we recognize that folks are no longer satisfied to be talked at -- we want to talk amongst ourselves.

As these videos demonstrate, it no longer need be just the insightful experience of presenters and the quick chats with folks in the halls that shape our experience of conferences.  Conference 2.0 engagement strategies -- captured by our peers -- can communicate the collective mood of a gathering.  Because this organized collective of my peers chose to commit acts of journalism (did Clay Shirky coin that great phrase?) I can quickly test my sense of reality by perusing the Twitter stream or viewing eight or ten brief videos featuring 40 or 50 of my colleagues. 

While I love to be inspired by those of you who shape panels and present winning experiences, I’m more of a sucker for how we, as participants, let what we hear shape and inspire us. 

So here’s my take-away, that I’d like to test with your sense of what you heard at the conference and in these videos:

The collective fear of” seasoned” (a.k.a 35 year old +) foundation communicators is receding.  Assuming budget cuts don’t get us, digital natives who intuitively grasp new(fangled) media tools, aren’t going to either. We are growing more confident in our capacity to adapt to a landscape where change is the only constant. Clay Shirky’s exhortations to experiment are not a threat -- they are an oft-repeated invitation we are ready to embrace.

Whether you agree or disagree, we welcome you to talk back on our blog here.  I’ll be inviting the Gorillas to chime in since, whether they know it or not, their work is not done here. 

Susan Herr

Not just a network, but THE Network.

Last week, I went to the Big Apple for the annual Communications Network Conference. My participation, as they say, was de rigeur, given that I’ve been a Board member for several years and have had some involvement in planning the program—but last week, I was struck by how much I’d want to be at the conference even if I didn’t have an official role. It’s gotten that good. Here are some of my biggest observations and take-aways from last week:

The mise en scene matters. I think the physical space one’s in can really affect one’s mood. Put me in a windowless office, and I’m apt to get morose and bored; put me in the Ford Foundation’s historic space, and I’m properly awed and eager for ideas and interactions. The gorgeousness of the vintage décor and sweeping views both heightened the rich history of Ford’s work and also, it just made the whole conference that much cooler. Also, if you know anything about planning meetings, you know that for things to go that smoothly, there must have been an entire crew of people working to make it so. So a special thanks to Ford for being so generous with its space and good people.

Conference sessions will continue to be hit-or-miss, but we’ll continue to try for the best. With the heroic Sherpa-like help of Bruce Trachtenberg, the Network Board members do end up putting a lot of effort into putting together a good program for conference attendees. Why? Because we care. So, we offered the presenters a special training. We scheduled conference calls with them ahead of time to go through the themes and format of their presentations. But we can’t control everything. Some sessions rocked, some sessions didn’t seem to go anywhere; some speakers were less than scintillating. However: I’m still pretty pleased with the results, even if they’re less than perfect. Why? One, because the good sessions were really, really good. There were some sessions that really prompted me to re-think---and re-imagine—some of the communications work I’m doing at RWJF. Two, all of the sessions I attended—good and bad—helped me benchmark my own strategic communications efforts against what the rest of the field’s doing. That’s invaluable training, right there, because no matter how experienced you are, you can’t get complacent about what you know and don’t know. It goes against the nature of our craft.

The Network members are my true peeps. I like all sorts of people, but I really like hanging out with people who care about communications and social change. And now that the Network’s membership has grown exponentially over the past several years, I feel like the Network is truly delivering on its core premise: it connects me to the people I want to know and want to learn from, the people who are doing the best work in my field. It stands for excellence in strategic communications and philanthropy. And at the Network conference, I feel that in more ways than I can possibly count.

One downside to all of this success? It’s a minor quibble, really, but the conference has gotten a little more crowded, a little less intimate. I appreciate the host committee’s efforts to overcome the crush effect by encouraging us to play colored-dot games with each other (even if I didn’t exactly play along)., but I still had moments when I felt as if I was threading my way through a throng of noise and too many people. But then again, I always ended up finding a great place to roost.

--Minna Jung

*LIVE* Now More Than Ever … We Need Strategic Communications

Part of the Chicago contingent attending the 2009 Communications Network Conference flew out this morning on Southwest Airlines, and I got to spend a few hours catching up with friend and colleague Gordon Mayer, vice president of the Community Media Workshop, on the plane.

I was happy to catch up with him and to bounce a few ideas about why this conference is so helpful right now -- and while, even though social media continues to gain interest and effort, the basics of strategy communications remain more important than ever.

Foundations of all kinds are interested in new technologies and social media. Some have piloted a great deal, while others are just dipping their toes. Conferences like these combine the best of expert knowledge with the invaluable real-world advice of our peers.

At the same time, some of the basics of strategic communications -- who is your target audience? what do you want them to think or do? what data or stories can be presented to help persuade them? -- remains more important than ever. Social media may use new technologies, but it is still, in important ways, communications. Using social media effectively requires us to be clear and understandable in our ideas and to engage with people whose support and collaboration can help achieve a common goal.

I cannot wait to spend the next few days learning from experts and hearing the hard-won knowledge of our peers. I look forward to taking it home to share with my colleagues as well.

(Shameless plug -- Gordon's workshop -- he is teaching the Social Media Game, which is an exercise developed by social media guru Beth Kanter to help people and organizations use Web 2.0 tools and strategies to solve the communications, customer service and collaboration challenges they've already identified. This is but one of many sessions that will help blend expert knowledge with the unparalleled perspective of our peers.)

-- Emily Culbertson

Testing Web 2.0 Conference Tools and Tactics

Social networking tools can connect us in virtual communities that defy geography.  But what promise do they hold when we host gatherings in the same place and time?  Can amateur videographers create compelling content with super-cheap video cams that might advance our communications in ways professionals and top-dollar equipment can’t? Are communication professionals better able to assess the value of new media tactics when they have hands-on experience with those tactics? 

These are some of the questions that the Communications Network has set out to explore by establishing the Gorilla Engagement Squad.  We pitched it as a  “a small entourage of tweeters, bloggers and videographers who will defeat the forces of anonymity and help connect all participants at the Fall 2009 Communications Network conference in New York City."

We were surprised and delighted to find that more than 10 percent of total attendees at this sold-out conference found our invitation compelling enough to volunteer and we are now up to 26. 

Our broad goal is to increase interaction among participants at the conference and to capture and disseminate the valuable content and perspectives offered there to folks who can’t attend.  One part of that commitment is our “capture strategy” in which we intend to conduct video interviews with all 230 participants and to populate the Communications Network and blog with these perspectives. 

Watch This Space

In just a week, the Fall 2009 Communications Network Annual Conference kicks off at the Ford Foundation in New York City.  We are expecting about 230 people--a terrific mix of foundation communications professionals and program staff, individuals who work for foundation associations and other nonprofits, as well as some from communications firms that work with both foundations and nonprofits. (And they are a patient bunch--our conference sold out in 3 weeks, way back in mid-May!)

We've put together a stellar lineup of speakers and panel presentations, all focused on helping conference attendees excel at using communications--everything from new and emerging technologies to the tried and true--to advance the work of their organizations and philanthropy overall.

To help conference attendees stay on top of the many sessions and discussions that will be occurring simultaneously over the course of the conference and to give those not attending a flavor of what's taking place, we've recruited a crack team of bloggers, tweeters and video cam users. We're calling them our "Gorilla Squad."  They'll be observing and reporting on what they see and hear and we'll be posting regular updates to our blog.

So, we invite you--beginning on October 14--to keep checking this space regularly for conference reports and updates.  Also, you can follow us on Twitter at #comnet09. Whether you are attending or observing from afar, don't hesitate to offer your comments or even pose questions you'd like answered.

For more information about the conference, including the agenda, discussion topics, and list of attendees, click here.

We also want take this opportunity to thank this year's sponsors:  The Atlantic Philanthropies, The California HealthCare Foundation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, DeSantis Breindel, Hattaway Communications, and Lipman Hearne.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Foundations in Blogistan

Guest Post:  Mitch Hurst, vice president, Interactive Solutions, Scofield Company, in Chicago, and board member, Communications Network.  This post originally appeared on his blog, With or Without You

Google "foundation blogs" and at the top of your search will turn up a blog post at Tactical Philanthropy circa  April 2007 wondering why more foundations don't have blogs. This hopefully has more to do with some crack search engine optimization at Tactical Philanthropy than it does with the state of the foundation blogosphere  circa July 2009.

A colleague asked me last week what I thought were some interesting uses of blogging by foundations. Those listed below reflect examples of why a foundation might think about launching and maintaining a blog:

Socialedge: Leadership. The Skoll Foundation's group blog about social entrepreneurship is THE online community for discussion about that issue. A great example of how a blog can be used to further the grantmaking interests of a foundation.

Knightblog: Audience. Journalists were some of the earliest adopters of social media, and the Knight Foundation's blog, focused primarily on the foundation's journalism program, allows it to connect with journalists online [Knight is very active on Twitter as well].

Health Care Reform Galaxy: Hot topic. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's blog about health care reform allows it to be part of the conversation about an extremely timely topic that will be featured prominently in the news for the foreseeable future.

Diana Sieger's Blog: Personal. The President of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation maintains a blog that communicates about the work of the foundation and its work in the community in a very personal way.

Mott Foundation Newslog: Simplicity. The Mott Foundation maintains a rolling list of links to recent articles and other online resources that relate directly to the work of the foundation and its grantees. It's a simple but effective way for Mott to keep its audience informed about the foundation's issues.

Now that Mitch has raised the question, let's help him answer it. If you work for a foundation, does it have a blog?  Let us know by taking our instant poll.

What If You Hold A Conference And Everybody Comes?

When we started registration for the Communications Network Fall 2009 Conference in late April, my fingers were crossed. Even though these are tough times for many, I was hopeful that we would eventually hit our attendance target. 

That fear was completely unfounded.  In fact, I'm struggling to find the right word to describe what happened, because none really explains the phenomenal response. In just 21 days, we sold out. And we've since started putting names on a waiting list.

We haven't had a chance to ask what's triggered such an incredible response. Whatever it is, it's gratifying. But it also means we have to deliver the best ever conference. And that's our goal. 

In addition to our two fabulous keynote speakers, New York Times columnist Frank Rich and internet  and social media guru, Clay Shirky, we are putting together a terrific lineup of sessions. They'll provide lots of useful information about making the best use of web 2.0 and social media tools, how to communicate for impact (especially in these tough times), what it takes to influence policy, and what happens when you create successful collaborations between communications and program staff.

While we're not taking new registrations, we do have a waiting list. And if you want to be on it, send an email letting me know.

In the meantime, keep watching this blog and our website for conference updates, posts about sessions, conversations with presenters, and other topics we can start talking about even before we meet in New York City in October.

Oh I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but it certainly seems ironic that the title of Clay Shirky's recent book is Here Comes Everybody.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo from TwOsE of yellow crowd from Flickr.com. Used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.

Clock Is Ticking For Fall 2009 Conference Submissions

Just a reminder...if any of you have session ideas for the Communications Network's Fall 2009 conference in NYC, you only have 2 more weeks to send in your proposals.  Below is a summary of what we're looking for and how you can contribute.

This year's conference, which will be held Oct. 14-16, at the Ford Foundation's landmark headquarters building in mid-town Manhattan, is being organized around four themes. If you would like to develop and sponsor a session that you think fits one of the proposed topic areas, please email the following information: your name and affiliation, session title and which area the session will fall under. Include a maximum 500-word description of your session and proposed format. Deadline for session submissions is March 23, 2009.

SESSION TRACKS:

• Communications ideas and lessons from the interactive front—There seem to be an insatiable appetite for all things related to new media, web sites, technology, etc., so we are interested in anything YOU can tell us to make others feel more cutting-edge and in the know. However, you’ve got to articulate a coherent theme and people always love interactive, show-and-tell.

• Tough times, strong voice: Making the case for strategic communications—In these challenging economic times, foundation budgets are shrinking and communications staff and budgets are sometimes viewed as expendable add-ons, rather than essential ingredients of any philanthropy’s effort to demonstrate impact. We are looking for the stories and the examples where the impact could not have happened without a sterling communications effort. And, we would like these case studies to be vividly described, with clear results that conference attendees can share with their home organizations and grantees and others.

• Integrating program and communications: Making the marriage work—To advance the practice and impact of strategic communications in philanthropy, we need more than communications professionals to “get it.” We need foundation leaders, program staff, and research staff to understand why and how communications can help achieve social change goals. We are looking for the best examples of how these relationships can work together. We will also take dysfunctional examples, if you’re willing to showcase your differences and undergo group therapy from the session attendees.

• Policy/advocacy: what is philanthropy’s role? Many foundations actively reach out to policy-makers in relation to specific initiatives they fund. What are the different ways we characterize philanthropy’s role in social change efforts? How effective are we at reaching out to policy audiences? And are there things we aren’t doing that we should be doing? Again, would welcome session ideas on best practices as well as, “learn from what we are not doing.”

After we receive the initial session ideas, we will provide more details about the agenda and exciting keynote speakers by late spring or early summer.

Thank you in advance for your great ideas.

In the meantime, if you have questions about the conference, send an email.

Photo of Bombay Clock from Natmandu on Flickr.com - used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license -- click for terms.

You Don't Have to Wait Up All Night For These Results

Judging from the results of a survey conducted after the event, a good time was had by just about every one who attended our Chicago conference, Sept. 24-26 at the Hard Rock Hotel.   Some 112 people – or more than 50 percent of conference attendees -- responded to our online questionnaire, and they gave the conference a combined “excellent/good” rating of 94 percent.  

As for the conference sessions, Ira Glass’ opening night keynote was judged as the best of all and received the highest ratings.

Other plenary sessions, in order of popularity (based on combined “excellent/good” ratings), were:

1. Is the annual report nearing extinction
2. From here to the future--How Web 2.0 is changing foundation communications
3. Who We Are And What We Do--Survey Findings
4. What every good communicator needs: An Evaluation Toolkit
5. Paul Brest Presentation: If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there

Here’s how the individual breakouts rated (in order of popularity):

1. Engaging decision makers: Lessons from California and Michigan           
2. The heart of the story                   
3. How to survive a communications crisis               
4. Getting the job done: Building the capacity for effective dissemination       
5. Strategize outside the box...Come to think of it, throw the box away       
6. Which comes first: Building your website or understanding your audience?   
7. Techniques and lessons of successful public engagement           
8. The merging of communications and program activities online       
9. The role of communications staff in public policy grantmaking       
10. Big Lessons About Strategic Communications From a Small Foundation       
11. What You need to know about alternative media and how it can help you reach young people   
12. Words do Matter: Using the language of results to turn heads/change minds   

Other findings:
--More than half of survey respondents (52 percent) said this was their first Network conference.
--More than one third of respondents – 40 people – also said they had attended our 2007 conference in Miami, which they gave an “excellent/good” rating of 95 percent.
--As a meeting site, the Hard Rock Hotel received positive ratings from 64 percent of attendees.
--A majority of people (74 percent) felt the mix of plenary sessions and breakouts was “just right.”
--Some 83 percent of attendees enjoyed their time at the MacArthur Foundation reception.
--Nearly three-quarters of respondents (74 percent) said there was sufficient time to Network with colleagues.
 --Asked if they plan to attend next year’s conference in New York City, nearly 74 percent said yes and 27 percent of respondents weren’t sure.
--Nearly all (96 percent) of attendees who are current Network members say they will renew their membership in 2009, while the rest said they would decide later.
--Of the non-members at the conference, almost a third (31 percent) indicated they’ll join the Network based on their conference experiences, while the rest 65 percent weren’t sure.

The survey also provided lots of useful advice for ways to organize future conferences, and several people offered suggestions for keynote speakers and session topics. Possible speakers included Bill Clinton, Congressman John Lewis, and Bill Moyers.  A number of people even nominated Network member and story-telling maven Andy Goodman.  Suggested session topics included discussions about how communications differ among private, community and corporate foundations; workshops on topics such as how to write a communications plan; or introductory sessions about foundation communications for those new to the field.

When asked how for thoughts about the Network and its value to members and others in the field of philanthropy comments included:

“I believe the Network is a great resource for communications professionals.”

“The Network is a great place for people working in the same field to get together face to face, get to know each other, share ideas and potentially collaborate down the line.”

“The Network could better serve the field of philanthropy by moving beyond communications directors to include foundation CEOs. There was a lot going on at the last three conferences that the CEO's really needed to hear and internalize. Enlightening communications directors is the first step, helping them actually turn knowledge into action is the second step. That won't happen unless CEO's understand more about communications and move past the idea that it's all about PR and web sites.”

“The Network's most valuable function is serving as a clearinghouse of the latest thinking and resources on effective communications, keeping practitioners up to date on new technologies, and sharing what's working well and less well in the strategic communications efforts of our colleagues. Also promoting networking among members in between annual conference.”

What about you?  Do you agree with the overall assessment of the conference?  If you have other thoughts, observations, suggestions, don’t hold back.

--Bruce Trachtenberg

Photo from  Dean Terry on Flickr.com. Used with gratitude under a Creative Commons license. Click for terms.