Here’s the first thing I teach organizations that come to me for advice on their new website:

Figure out which content is ‘forever’, and which content is ‘time-bound’.

Then make sure that you write the ‘forever’ parts so that they are independent of the moment of reading: Avoid announcements like ’soon’ or ‘next year’ and references like ‘the current board’. If the content isn’t there yet, just remove it from the navigation and commit to adding it asap – it is far too easy to forget about the In Construction signs all over your website. Even if you don’t expect changes, be nice to your visitors and let them know when you’ve last updated the article.

All other content comes with a date stamp, and can be written with reference to it (“The board meeting today concluded…”). Over time, older content sinks down in the lists of documents, news, events etc. and is essentially archived. Particularly important content (eg. a seminal publication) should be featured separately and linked to from ‘forever’ or static pages.

What is the first thing you teach?

I work on three machines with different operating systems, and sometimes in internet cafés and other random locations. Yet, wherever I am, my contacts and calendars are already synced – thanks to a service called Plaxo.

Plaxo is an online address book and calendar – just like many others. The exception: Its synchronization tools. With plugins for both Outlook and Address Book, it sits quietly in the background and makes sure that my office PC and my home MacBook share the same information. It also syncs my Google Calendars, but struggles so far with the Gmail address book. To get my phone into the loop, I used to periodically sync my Nokia through iSync and Bluetooth. For the iPhone, iTunes takes care of the job.

Over the last ten years, the internet has completely transformed communication between people and organizations, and I believe that its influence will continue to grow. What consequences will this have for existing nonprofits ? How can they move from a static web presence to an active interaction with donors, members, volunteers and committees? How do they integrate people that do not participate in meetings?

When I started to work with nonprofits in Germany more than ten years ago, the internet did not exist as an organizing tool. I remember begging my parents for a modem at the time, but without success. Snail mail was the only way of reaching a specified group of people. We distributed leaflets in their hundred thousands in order to broaden our base. If we needed interaction, we called a meeting. And if anything had to happen quickly, we had to hope that the other person was within reach of their land line.

Email changed everything. For the first time, we could reach people within seconds, without cost. And, most amazingly, they could respond. Wherever groups wanted to work together, mailing lists sprung up, and with them came questions. What was acceptable use of a certain list? What constitutes a group decision? How do we moderate? People soon learned that also virtual places have an atmosphere, and that this atmosphere is constituted through the content and tone of messages, of their frequency and the personal touch that the sender would lend them.

But while the use of email has become ubiquitous since then, not everyone has learned to use the medium wisely. In my current organization, mailing lists are unheard of, and there’s hardly any online outreach to members and partners. Instead, most online communication consists of endless reply-all conversations between the same people to a point where it is impossible to detect decisions or distill useful information. Why is it so difficult to learn a new medium?

Email is for old people.

While organizations are still struggling to get to grips with the medium ‘email’ or the idea of regularly updating their website, the world has moved on. When teenagers grow up with their own computer and a broadband internet, connect with their friends via text message or chat, and spend time on YouTube or MySpace – will they listen to organizations vying for their donations via direct mail? Probably not. But they will also ignore clumsy attempts to be hip.

So, if there is potential a) of creating a more meaningful conversation around your cause and b) of reaching people that ‘old means of organizing’ – direct mail, magazines, committees – no longer reach, where can organizations start to become more web-wise? Some ideas:

1. Encourage the use of web tools in existing structures: Put your board on a mailing list and slowly move offline discussions online. Provide background material for download. Try collaborative writing in a wiki. Share pictures on flickr.
2. Strive for transparency and sharing: You probably have lots of great information in your organization. Don’t keep in your drawer – make it available for others to use. If you’ve produced a video clip, a report, a press release, don’t forget to put it on the web.
3. Help your organization learn: Become acquainted with tools and best practices, play with them, and teach them to others. But most of all: Make resources available to help your organization catch up with societal change.
4. Engage in the conversation: The internet is no one-way-street. People will react on what you do. Some of them might be members, some are donors, some are new to you, but all of them are interested. Find ways to listen to what they have to say, and keep them up to date and give them opportunities to get active.
5. And, if you haven’t done so yet: Find ways to use email to connect to members, donors, volunteers and take charge of your own website.

This quote at the beginning of this post is part of a conversation I had with members of Friends of the Earth Germany. Thanks for nailing me on my loud-mouthed prophecies, Martin! I hope the above ideas somewhat answer your question (even if they come too late and in the wrong language).

Image by Extra Ketchup via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Related posts:

• 25/09/07 – Participatory Web for Environment
• 29/04/07 – Freelancer? Try blogging!

Last weekend I met with an old friend who specializes in providing trainings and tools for grassroots organizing in Germany. One of her campaigns had introduced her to the content management system Joomla, and she was wondering whether this was a good occasion to create a website to promote her business.

here are now some ideas and reflections on where to start when starting a website.

Web publishing has become so easy that there no excuse anymore not to put things online. As a trainer – and as a learner – you have plenty of opportunities to discover new things, to explain good concepts and to evaluate processes in your everyday life.

I would encourage you to build a web presence around this. As I indicated, I believe that every website should have static and dynamic content: A few static pages explaining who you are, why you are doing the things you are doing, and how you can help others with your work. These will only have to be updated every now and then. With dynamic content, you can create a continuous mechanism in addition to that to let people know what you’re up to, to archive material for specific events, and most of all – to write, reflect and learn. Some people would call this blog.

Why do I think this could be powerful for you?
To explain something to others is often the best way to understand it yourself. Blogging is a wonderful way of sharing the little things that we learn everyday: The book that I’ve just read, a speech that I’ve given or a quote that has touched me. Over time, you build a repository of wisdom – for you and others to learn from.

• A colleague of mine has started the blog “Welearnsomething” entirely devoted to learning within her unit.
• Some people write blogs to get into the habit of writing for a books or a thesis.
• And of course, there are my Minor Contributions.

Lots of freelancers have discovered blogging as a way to build their reputation: A number of good blog posts tell the story of their skills and qualities a million times better than a brochure written in marketing speech.

• Colleen Wainwright, a freelance designer from LA
• Penelope Trunk, a career writer
• Beth Kanter consults non-profits on technology

But how to get started?
Remember: Not the technology is the hard part, it’s the content. Pick technology that is fun to use, and gets stuff online in a breeze. What you’ll need (in order of importance / chronology):

1. A good name for your site: Is it just your name? Is it a slogan?
2. Text describing who you are and what you offer
3. A very simple content management system or blogging tool (I still love Blogger) with a standard template
4. Your first four posts (one every week?)
5. Your own domain
6. Most important links/content in your navigation bar
7. More content
8. A custom template/look for your website

As you can see from this list, such a website would be an ongoing project, but I believe that it’s worth the effort. Once you’ve reached step 5, you can start promoting your website. The easiest way: Put the address in your email signature, and on all your training material. And if people like the content that they find on your site, they will keep coming back.

Thus far, I hope this answers your questions. I’d be more than happy to help you getting this started!

Hugs,

More information on how to start a blog: [Squidoo] or [WeLearnSomething].

‘Getting Things Done’ is a method for time- and self-management, proposed by David Allen in 2001. As opposed to other methods based on objectives and priorities to define, ‘Getting Things Done’ – or GTD in brief – works with the ’stuff’ that fills one’s life already. In a way, it represents a bottom-up approach to time-management.

I’ve been following the buzz around GTD for a while, and have been using the system for about three months now. It helps me keep my head clear, and I love to tick of tasks from my lists. As Hans challenged me this week to share my implementation of ‘Getting Things Done’, and I find myself discussing GTD with an increasing number of people, here’s a description of my approach.

The situation
I work in a fairly static office situation. Most of my input comes via email and through internal meetings. This routine is interrupted by missions* once or twice a month. In addition my professional projects, I also manage a number of private learning processes, relationships and projects.

At work, I’m using a desktop computer running Windows, my private (and travel) machine is a MacBook.

Creating a trusted system
I wanted a system that would work in all situations, be it at home, in my office – or in some random place on the other side of the world. This forbade a system that relied on access to the internet or a certain computer. As I am used to doing my best thinking with pen and paper, I went for a notebook based solution. As I can separate my two main contexts fairly easily, I have two:

For work: The Atoma Copy-book
The Belgian Firm Atoma produces great notebooks with a ring-binder that allows for the re-ordering of pages. I own a translucent green version in A5 with indices.
In the first section, I keep my Next Actions in the following format:

1504 Blog about your GTD implementation

If needed, I add a reference to a project or person (eg. BLOG or SEBA) or an iteration that I increase every time I have to take this Next Action forward to another page (eg. (2)). This notation is inspired by Eston Bond at Hyalineskies.

In the next section I keep a page for each project I’m working on – and in an ideal world each of these had a code (BLOG). This has proven terribly useful to keep track of plans and decisions in all areas I’m working in, and I’ve taken on the habit of pasting small printouts of key information on the pages in addition to writing on them. There’s also a page for ‘waiting-for’ and ’someday/maybe’ items.

The next section is dedicated to random notes, i.e. my inbox. This is processed fairly directly after note-taking: Next-Actions go on the first page, project information on the relevant project page, and reference material into my email-system at work.

For play: The Moleskine Weekly Planner


A lot of GTD’ers are great fans of Moleskine, and I’m no exception. Mine’s a Weekly Planner, ie. it has a weekly calendar on the left and a page for notes on the right. This notebook is my main calendar, and I use past weeks to keep my lists. I’ve got four tabs:

1. The calendar overview: Four months on one page are perfect for the big picture of upcoming events and travels.
2. Current projects: As above, but less active.
3. Next actions: This is the important part. I’m using the same notation as above, augmented by a small icon for the context. I usually have about 1-2 pages of next actions, and move the tab forward once I’m done with a page. On the left side I always keep a post-it to track the week’s expenses.
4. This week: This gives me the ‘physical landscape’ of my week (appointments, travel schedules etc). I also put ‘ticklers’ for future action into the top field.
5. Someday/Maybe: Here’s room for all ideas that don’t have a Next Action attached to them yet. A wishlist collects potential purchases. I start all entries with the date to keep them in context. On the next page, I keep a couple of reference lists (backup, weekly review, packing list).

Attached to the planner, at all times, is a Pilot Super Grip Pencil.

For geek: The technical support system
I get some 70 email a day on my work account. Contrary to GTD rules, I keep all of them in my inbox. To manage the information flow, I rely on two smart folders: Unread and Flagged. When I’m processing email, I read everything in Unread, and flag all email needing action. This way, the Flagged folder becomes a short list of relatively immediate next actions. Larger tasks are transferred to my paper-based lists. To find reference material in my stack of email, I use a) a blue ‘reference’ flag, b) sort by sender/subject and c) full text search. Email older than 12 weeks are archived in a separate data file.

In addition to my email system, I live and breath through Firefox. It’s del.icio.us extension allows me to access my online bookmarks with a keystroke, and quicksearches are set to access Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Leo and Time and Date both for private and professional searches. My personalized Google Homepage brings together Calendar, Bookmarks, RSS Reader, Email and Notebook.

Now… How’s your GTD?

* a mission can be a day trip to Germany, or a ten-day journey to the other side of the Atlantic