Steve Shu on Management, Consulting, and Leadership

Some Of My Scattered Notes On Pro-bono Consulting Via Taproot Foundation

For those interested in nonprofit and pro-bono consulting, I have started to dip my toes in with the Taproot Foundation to do a greater good for the community. The economy is tough, and I should put myself to good use. Have not started any projects yet, but I am going through director training. I have some scattered thoughts and notes here and here, and these thoughts and perspectives are mainly in the context of a person who has spent most time in commercial consulting.

As a digression, I encourage those that follow this blog to do so via email subscription or RSS feed. The updates on this blog are somewhat infrequent, primarily because I try to include limited scope & more substantive information here pertaining to management, consulting, and leadership. 

If you want more frequent information on a broader range of business topics, you can consider seeing my teaching thoughts and multimedia exhibits for my marketing course at my marketing posterous site. If you'd like to view diverse links (sometimes 1-6 per day) on business, social media, entrepreneurship, consulting, and random interests, you can see my Twitter page or look at the rolling list on the homepage of my main blog.

I plan to have two upcoming posts that I have not really seen discussed elsewhere, one on ethics in consulting and one on something to the effect of what an entrepreneur and an MBA taught one another. Either the links or complete postings for those will be provided on this blog.

Thanks for your readership!

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Double Teaming Non-Profits Into Blogging

Michael Stein recently shared some of his thoughts on resistance to blogging in not-for-profit environments (source in comments section here):

I have met a lot of resistance when I encourage my not-for-profit clients to blog. I think one aspect of that resistance is that a relatively small number of people enjoy writing and do it easily. I think that "blogging evangelism" needs to include a component that demystifies writing as a skill and provides resources to make new bloggers feel competent about their writing.

I thinks Michael's right on here. He also has a lot of good information on non-profit stuff at his site. One post that caught my eye was a post here that addresses non-profit bloggers and creating content.

I also resonate with Michael's comment about the need for "blogging evangelism" within a non-profit organization. For example, even though 21Publish is deeply rooted in the core blogging platforms for Amnesty International US and Amnesty International Germany, significant ongoing evangelism is needed. Stefan recently posted a presentation he gave to a broader audience of Amnesty International webmasters here. This presentation is an example of the ongoing evangelism that is required to get the various Amnesty organizations blogging successfully.

So I encourage folks interested in the non-profit space to continue to double team on getting those non-profits to blog. That goes for you too, Future MBA Girl (a blogger for two years now making a move to go to a management consulting firm focusing on the non-profit sector). People with your background can add value to non-profit endeavors while also increasing the number of management consultant bloggers out there.

Disclosure: I am a gun for 21Publish, a turnkey provider of group blogs and blog communities.

Learnings On Facilitating A Blog Community

Blogging about group and blog communities is directly related to my job. If you are interested in facilitating a blog community, here are some of my musings and learnings at my 21Publish blog having looked at a number.

Update (10/19/05): I was prompted to write about this based on a post by Beth Kanter - she covers the non-profit space quite a bit.

Update (10/19/05): Beth has an update here. Feel free to join the discussion.

Update (10/21/05): Beth summarized and consolidated here. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: blog_communities, blogging, nptech

Church Blogging

Some good links and articles on church blogging over at my 21Publish blog.

Field Use Of Blogs, Wikis, Etc. And The Importance Of Getting The Context Right

Dr. Biren Saraiya, MD has a good, detailed post on his experiences with using blogs, wikis, and other technologies in a non-profit context. See my post over at my 21Publish blog for more.

Sharing My Presentation On Introducing Blogging To Social Entrepreneurs and Non-Profits

Thought I'd point people to a presentation I gave tonight entitled, "An Introduction to Organizational Blogging and Blogging Communities for Social Entrepreneurs and Non-Profits". The Powerpoint version is not quite ready (which contains hyperlinks to the sources of info, etc.). I will update this post once I post the Powerpoint file.

Update (6/30/05): The Powerpoint is uploaded.

More On Virtual Teams And Collaboration

Ken Thompson has added some additional thoughts to the virtual teaming topic (which is a highly-related topic and undercurrent to the work I am doing at 21Publish with respect to blogging communities). His point about exploring opportunites for sponsors and donors in the non-profit sector is at the back of my mind at all times, especially when I learn of non-profit endeavors such as this one (I've mentioned SAHRI before in the evidence-based medicine space).

Giving Executive Roundtable Talk On Organizational Blogging For Social Entrepreneurs And Non-Profits

This post has been reproduced from my 21Publish blog.

I've been invited to give an executive roundtable talk (30 minutes plus 10 for Q&A) at the Crescent in Dallas about organizational blogging and blogging communities for social entrepreneurs and non-profits. I may eventually leverage some of this stuff for a more extensive mini-course or seminar in business school settings. The audience is unlikely to know much about blogging.  Here's my rough thoughts on title and outline so far:

• Title - "An Introduction to Organizational Blogging and Blogging Communities for Social Entrepreneurs and Non-Profits"
• Outline
  1. What's the opportunity?
  2. What's the technology and medium about?
     • Blogs
     • Blog communities
     • Pertinent technologies surrounding blogs (pseudo-stack)
     • Macroeconomic dynamics
  3. Musings on challenges in social entrepreneurship and non-profit settings
  4. How real social entrepreneurs are using blogging
  5. How barriers can be overcome using blogging
  6. Q&A, open discussion, & potential opportunities

Thoughts and feedback? Note that I eventually plan to post this presentation for others to benefit from.