The 2006 Nonprofit Technology Conference

22^nd – 24^th March 2006

Westin Hotel, Seattle Washington

 

The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (N-TEN) is a membership group working to help nonprofits understand and employ technology effectively.  In 2006, their annual conference was held in Seattle, Washington and this was attended by representatives from all over the world (640 people registered on Day 1!).  The nonprofit sector (now nearly 7% of the US economy) is an increasingly targeted, highly profitable market and in the UK this trend has already begun.  8 members of the London ICT Team and 5 LASA representatives attended the conference to find out what we could bring back to London to create a more dynamic and IT literate voluntary sector.

 

Nothing is for free…

We paid NTEN to volunteer!  Attendees at the conference were invited to provide much needed assistance to our host city’s nonprofits.  Arit Amana provided Microsoft Word and Outlook training to Anna Bartels, the Administrative Assistant (Finance) at the YMCA Seattle.  I think this was the human element of the whole conference and while not all projects went according to plan, it provided an opportunity to meet other IT nonprofit supporters and to view the workings of a voluntary organisation in the US. 

 

Arit was joined by Joyce Raby from Legal Services Corporation (nearest equivalent in the UK is Citizens Advice Bureau), Greg Baldwin from Volunteer Match (UK equivalent – Volunteer Centres) and Heather Gardner-Madras an IT consultant providing online strategy, design and execution.  Since the event, Anna Bartels has emailed her thanks saying that the email merge and word merge training has really helped her with her work.  Mission accomplished!

 

Presentations – What works?

The Conference is an annual event of gargantuan proportions.  Day 1 had over 30 sessions to choose from. Plenary speeches were provided by Guy Kawasaki a venture capitalist entrepreneur, author and writer for Forbes.com who gave a speech on “The Art of Innovation”, and Trish Millines Dziko the founder and MD of Technology Access Foundation who provided insight to how technology has aided and followed the growth of their organisation and its services.  So how can London compete? 

 

The nearest comparative I could provide would be the annual CHASE exhibition run by Conference House Ltd in London.  What are the similarities and differences?   Both had a ‘science fair’ / exhibition of commercial software and IT providers who would like to provide their services to the nonprofit sector (at a much lower cost).  Both held a combination of exhibitions and seminars on various aspects that affect IT and the Voluntary Sector. Both had good (and not-so-good) presentations at the event.

 

 

Differences	NTEN CONFERENCE	CHASE EXHIBITION
Cost	Attendance fee of about £300	FREE entry and attendance
Size	International significance	Still growing but non-London groups also attended
Handouts	All session presentations given to attendees in one disk	Attendees need to request copy of presentation at each session to be sent be email.
Publicity	Much more publicized event	Publicized event but not as much awareness as should be of its existence
Organizer	Not-for-Profit Network	Private Limited Company
Website	www.nten.org/ntc	www.conferencehouse.co.uk

 

Arit Amana, ICT Development Worker gives her 4 gems from the conference: 

·         Goodie bags should include a CD with all the presentations of the conference to avoid later requests.  Also keeps the information in one place

·         Useful book on ‘Why Bad presentations Happen to good causes’ – a book that must have been circulated to the presenters (but was not read by all) – See below further info.

·         Learning how to fund the event through corporate sponsors ie the lunches, the Agenda booklet

·         The use of commercially minded individuals to stimulate the voluntary sector.  I will take away Guy Kawasaki’s message of innovation

 

“Innovation makes meaning.  Meaning makes change.  Go for the Prize.  Don’t be afraid to polarize (you can’t make everyone happy). Screw up but keep trying.   Revolution is not an event but a process.”

 

 

ICT Development Worker, Miles Maier, gives his thoughts on the N-TEN Technology Conference.

 

ICT Leadership:  According to a presentation by Gavin Clabaugh effective technology leadership is about strategy, not the technology itself.   In his role as Chief Technical Officer (CTO) for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Clabaugh advocates the role of CTO as philosopher, sociologist and strategic thinker so that they can better understand the dynamics of managing change and making good decisions, rather than getting hung up on the technical detail.  I hope we see a similar bias towards strategic thinking about technology from those in charge of ICT decisions in UK businesses.

  

Effective Advising :  Attending John Kenyon’s workshop for circuit riders on ‘Effective Advising’, it was interesting to see how much of his ‘client centred consulting’ model I recognised from my days as a sports physio.  It’s been a while since I diagnosed and solved aches and strains, but the approach to diagnosis and intervention in technology planning is much the same.  John’s model starts by understanding the client, its mission, its people and how it works.  It then moves through a 6 stage process of agreeing boundaries, gathering data, diagnosing the problem and making a decision, through to intervention and review.  See www.johnkenyon.org/ for more.

  

Death by PowerPoint:  Albert Einstein was right: Time can slow down and I’ve sat through presentations where it has stopped entirely.  Coming to this conference I had high expectations the speakers would be innovative and interesting. 

 

Business start up investor and Apple Mac evangelist, Guy Kawasaki (www.guykawasaki.com ), struck first at the opening plenary.  His presentation was interesting, inspiring and delivered simple messages that everyone in the audience could take home.  One workshop featured two presenters kicking off with some audience participation shock tactics by asking the audience to say with 2 words in 2 seconds what they wanted out of the session. 

 

However, not everybody appeared to have read Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes (www.agoodmanonline.com)  as time really did stop in some workshops I sat through that met the fatal five criteria for bad presentations: (i) reading the slides (ii) excessive information (iii) lack of interaction (iv) lifeless presenters (v) unsuitable rooms and failing to breakout of the dreaded templates that PowerPoint ships with.  Having read this book and seen Guy Kawasaki I’ll never use another PowerPoint template or fill the slide with boring points again.

 

Networking:  I was particularly struck by the structured nature of the social networking opportunities provided at breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout the conference.  Tables were themed by interest group, such as circuit riding, management, vendors, etc.  Here I had no problem approaching complete strangers, who were more than happy to be engaged in conversation with me.  This makes for a happy change from UK events where people generally load up on the £5 a-head finger buffet and avoid eye contact until going home time.

 

Open Source:  I was happy to see the Open Source stereotype of balding, bearded men in sandals confirmed at the Saturday morning Penguin Day.  Whilst I’m a fan of open source applications and have spent many happy hours tinkering with various applications, too many events like Penguin Day concentrate on the technical rather than strategic aspects of open source.  What I wanted to know is how open source will break out of its geek niche and become widely deployed in the voluntary sector.  I didn’t get an answer to this, but here’s hoping.

 

No such thing as a free lunch:  In the US non-profit sector commercial sponsorship is widely accepted as the main way of paying for the cost of a conference.  The deal is that in return for a lavish venue and 3 course meals attended by silver service waiters, we get the logos of Microsoft, Intel and Adobe liberally splashed around the venue and conference literature.  Fair enough, I’d want the same sort of coverage for spending my money on a top dollar meal for 600 people.

 

Is there potential for the corporate sponsorship of voluntary sector events in the UK?  Is this something we should be thinking about to increase the sustainability of our events and promote what we do to a corporate audience?  Does this mean goodbye £5 finger buffet and hello hot lunch?