I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a number of events over the past few weeks that I thought I should reflect on here – presented below in chronological order. (My attendance at these events partially explains my radio silence around here…)

Startup BarCamp

I wasn’t able to stay for the whole day, but managed to see a number of sessions at the Sydney Startup BarCamp presenting some really great insights and tips to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Kate Carruthers made me realise that I, too, am addicted to startups ;) And of course some great discussions between sessions too as one would expect from a BarCamp.

If another one is organised, I might put something together to present on things like managing cashflow etc. – a bit more around the specifics of starting a business. While not as sexy as the big conceptual stuff, these things can make or break a new business…

Cultivating Sustainability workshop

Behavioural psychologist Tim Cotter put on an interesting day-long workshop for sustainability advocates.

While there wasn’t a huge amount of material I hadn’t already come across, it was a great refresher and was very useful to see a lot of concepts that I’ve come across before wrapped up in something akin to a methodology.

A few key themes threaded throughout the day including tying sustainability behaviours to a person’s values, and that people that are more values aligned and empowered are more likely to participate in sustainable behaviour.

And, again, great to meet folks who are passionate about sustainability and behaviour change.

Australia & New Zealand Sustainability Circle

I’ve attended a couple of events run by A&NZ Sustain over the past few months, so was delighted to be invited to contribute to a 2010 planning workshop late November.

It was great to meet a bunch of folks from a variety of backgrounds all working towards a sustainable future, but also to contribute some ideas for next year’s programme. From what I’ve seen so far it will be a very interesting year for the Circle members…

Australian Social Innovation Exchange (ASIX)

ASIX first popped up on my radar when a friend invited me to a ideas generation workshop for the Social Innovation Camp happening in Sydney, March 2010. I was delighted to be invited to a 2010 planning workshop for ASIX.

It was a great opportunity to find out more about ASIX and its origins, but more importantly where it’s heading. While the emphasis early in the year will be on the Camp, there was a lot of discussion about the core approach of ASIX and how it relates to other NGOs working in the social ventures space.

The dialogue at the workshop was refreshingly open and honest across the tables and kudos to the organisers for being so open to constructive feedback. I think that’s a very good sign for the future of the organisation, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they respond with a programme for next year.

Sydney Alliance rally

Last week I attended a Sydney Alliance “rally” in Sydney. The best online reference to the Alliance I can find is this one – I’m not sure it’s “official”, but reflects what I heard at the meetup.

The Alliance is a “citizens’ coalition whose vision is to provide our community with a voice to express common values and aspirations for a fair and just Sydney. The Alliance is broadly based across religious organisations, community organisations and unions”.

In contrast to the format of the ASIX event, this was much more a series of presentations with a minimal amount of group interaction within tables. That said, the Alliance vision is quite interesting and I’m looking forward to engaging more over the coming months…

Over the past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about “what’s next” for Zumio. Since Zumio’s inception about 18 months ago I’ve had the opportunity to work a bunch of great people on challenging and diverse projects. While I’ve enjoyed the chance to stretch myself in a variety of capacities, a few focal points of interest have emerged that I want to explore more actively.

I’ve found that when I’ve been engaged on a “social media” project, I’ve wanted to bring elements of User Experience into play. When I’ve been working on wireframes, I look to understand the social impacts of the interfaces we’re designing.

In all of this my aim has been to get a deeper understanding of the business and community priorities driving the work we do and looking for opportunities to create win-win solutions – ones where interactions provide value for both my client(s) and the communities they are participating within.

I’ve been searching for a good description for this. To me it’s a deeper engagement than just “social media” – I’ve been invited to participate in a couple of projects that could be best described as “buzz generation” campaigns and recognised that this is not what Zumio does. When I talk about “bottom-line” benefits, they are usually not directly “selling” or “marketing” oriented, in the traditional sense. It’s also not “service design” – though I love the term and think we need more of it.

When I work with an organisation my approach to their “business” (I use “business” in the broad sense of the term – e.g. the business and “bottom-line” of a non-profit organisation is achieving policy or advocacy outomes) borrows elements of User Experience (using tools such as personas and user stories, brand development techniques etc.), but it’s not just about building a tool or delivering a service – my interest is in understanding how these tools can facilitate deeper business change that can generate greater value by embracing the spirit and principles behind “Web 2.0″, rather than just using them to create a great deliverable.

When I heard James Dellow from Headshift talk at Public Sphere recently he used the term “social business design” (a reflection of both Headshift’s and their parent, Dachis Group’s focus), which really resonated with me at the time.

Having since done a series of internal workshops to refine my thinking around Zumio with my friends and colleagues Penny Hagen and Rod Smith, and having read further about what is conceived as “social business design”, I have come to realise that this where my strengths and interests lay. It is the thread that weaves through my seemingly diverse experience, clients and projects that I have undertaken over the past 10 years.

Gaining an understanding of this has been a real “light bulb” moment for me (albeit one that has taken months to formulate) – helping me to understand what it is I actually do. I’m looking forward to developing these ideas further, especially when focused on creating a more sustainable future, both environmentally and socially. I think these two society-changing ideas – social business design and sustainability – will play increasingly important roles into the future.

P.S. you may have noticed some changes on the site recently – this is a reflection of this change in focus. While not 100% right (I wonder if these things ever are?), I certainly think the site better reflects this focus and better represents the services Zumio offers. Any feedback you have would be most welcome.

I’m delighted to be presenting as part of the UPA activities for World Usability Day in Sydney on 12 November.

The theme is something close to my heart: “Designing for a Sustainable World”. I’m presenting two short talks at the Blacket Hotel, King Street Sydney:

Usability in a sustainable future

[4:40pm] Usability and human-centered design practices are likely to play significant role in the success of sustainability initiatives. This talk will review some of the connection points between these two disciplines, illuminated by examples of usability in sustainable projects from across the world.

Exploring the Human Habitat

[4:00pm] Ethnographic and contextual inquiry research techniques can provide valuable insights that inform sustainable practice and communications. This talk explores the process employed to develop the second version of WWF’s “Future is Man Made” sustainable living site (currently in it’s third evolution) which utilised “mobile diaries” among other techniques to gain a deeper insight into participant behaviour to inform the site’s design.

I’ve been informed by the organisers that there are a few presentation spots still open on the day, so if you would like to speak, or know someone that may be an interesting addition to the program, let me know…

Just a quick note to say that unfortunately the position I previously announced with the Inspire Foundation won’t be going ahead as we had initially hoped. Whilst I won’t be continuing in a permanent capacity, I am happy to report that I’ll be continuing in a consulting capacity on a number of projects through to the end of the year.

That said, I am now available for consulting work (with Zumio) from 20 September onwards – I’d love to hear from you if you have any projects/opportunities that we might collaborate on.

Regular readers may recall that I have a initiative of donating 1% net profit to causes I support each quarter.

I spotted in politician blogger Penny Sharpe’s recent email out that the NSW Public Sphere conference, was looking for support to cover the costs of the event.

As a big believer in more transparent and representative government, and of the power of social/web 2.0 tools for helping in this aim, I decided to apply the funds from last quarter (plus a little bit of a “top-up”) to support NSW Public Sphere.

Though not my intention, technically this makes Zumio a “sponsor” of the event. I’m proud to be associated with the event in this context, but my main hope is that NSW Public Sphere will help spark further advancement of what’s being termed “Government 2.0″.

As far as I know the organisers still need further funds to cover costs, so if you think you can help, contact Penny (details on her site) to let her know.

Of course, I’m also looking forward to participating in the event. If you’re going, I’ll see you there :) Otherwise keep an eye out for the #nswsphere tag on Twitter for ongoing commentary throughout the day.

UPDATE 2009-09-07: CeBit (Hannover Fairs) have since turned down my pro-bono offer of services to run this workshop – so the information below is no longer relevant/accurate.

I’m excited to announce my participation in the up-coming CeBit Gov 2.0 conference, my first public engagement as part of Inspire Digital.

The conference will be taking place in Canberra on 19 October and I’ll be participating both in the panel discussion before lunch and also running one of the evening workshops. The current (somewhat “beta”) blurb for the workshop is:

Getting buy-in for your social media initiatives

In this interactive workshop, we will move beyond the introduction of social media platforms in Gov 2.0 and will focus on providing participants with the necessary tools to develop a plan to achieve buy-in for social media initiatives within the organisation. The focus will be on how to get ideas across the line with key stakeholders in your organisation and how to tackle the concerns that are often raised, including:

• linking initiatives to your organisation strategy and objectives
• potential risks surrounding engagement
• ROI measurement
• resourcing

This is a new workshop that has evolved from my key learnings during the past 12 months of delivering presentations and workshops to a variety of folks wanting to learn more about engaging social media & networking. It’s honing in on the “next steps” to take once you’ve got an idea that you think might be worth pursuing. My aim is for it to be complementary to the conference program – hopefully we’ve achieved that objective.

That program is looking pretty good too – if you’re interested or working in Government 2.0 (I’m personally not a fan of the term, but it seems to have stuck) it’s well worth checking out. I’m looking forward to checking out a number of speakers on the day in addition to the sessions I’m involved in.

As some of you may know I’ve been working with the folks at the Inspire Foundation on a contract basis for some time (since October last year) specifically focused on their recently re-launched Reach Out service in Australia, and soon overseas.

Zumio provided and managed the development team over most of that period – and the launch effort explains a good part of my silence here and on Twitter of late. (I hope to post more on the re-launch soon…)

During my time on the project the team at Inspire asked me if I’d be interested in joining the team on a more permanent basis to work with them to help develop Inspire Digital, a social venture established within the Foundation with the dual goals of further developing some of the Foundation’s services and also to provide consulting services to other organisations where there is alignment in mission to Inspire’s broader goals.

I recently accepted Inspire’s offer and as of today have commenced with them in the role of Head of Social Technology. It is an exciting new role that will no doubt evolve rapidly in the coming months as the venture develops.

Both Inspire and I hope that I can continue to work in the area of social media and networking providing workshop, presentation and consulting services, now under the Inspire Digital banner.

For the foreseeable future I’ll be continuing to blog here about all things social- and web-related (hopefully with a bit more frequency I might add!) – so no need to update any bookmarks. I’m looking forward to sharing the new adventure with you :)

Presentation notes

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the Melbourne and Sydney workshops. As promised, here are the presentation slides, along with my notes (PDF 14.78 MB) from the presentation component of the day.

Of course, I can’t include all of the great discussion that took place, but hopefully it will help jog the memory as well as provide some further details on some of the topics we covered.

Workshop materials

The material generated by workshop participants is also available for download:

• Melbourne: Risk & opportunities – transcribed (PDF 65 KB)
• Melbourne: Other workshop materials (PDF 21.2 MB)
• Sydney: Workshop materials (PDF 1.1 MB)

The remainder should be up by Monday.

Other follow-ups

Two follow-ups from the workshops:

1. There was a question about RSS in Outlook: one that I’m aware of is NewGator Inbox, although it seems that Outlook 2007 has an RSS reader built in.
2. I mentioned the “Government 2.0″ Google group in (I think) the Melbourne workshop also. I’ve also come across a Government 2.0 Australia Ning community (they are different groups, but exploring similar themes. Neither are specifically focused on social networking, but may be of interest all the same.

If any readers have other related resources to suggest, it would be great if you could do so in the comments.

Thanks

I wanted to say thanks to a number of folks who participated in the workshop by being so generous with their time and insights (in alphabetical order):

• Fi Bendall (Bendalls Group), Peter Buckmaster (Care Network), and Katie Hart (Amnesty International Australia)
• Priscilla Brice-Weller (ANTaR)
• Marc Lehmann (Saasu)
• Helen Mitchel (CPA Australia)
• Mathew Patterson (Campaign Monitor)
• Deb Shaw (Amnesty International Australia)
• Georgina Swan (Choice Australia)

Your input and generosity was greatly appreciated by the participants (and especially by me!) Some of the video and other materials from the case studies should find their way into blog posts in the not too distant future…

Thanks also to Penny Hagen who assisted in preparation for the workshop. And last, but not least, Maxine, John and the WDS team for organising such a wonderful event and presenters’ dinner. It was a wonderful opportunity that I deeply appreciate…

Just wanted to make a quick post to thank all the participants of the Web Directions South (WDS) Roadshow Engaging social media workshops that we did in Melbourne and Sydney this week.

I personally enjoyed them a lot – the energy of the folks involved was fantastic. From the feedback I’ve received it sounds like y’all enjoyed and valued the experience too. Thanks also to those of you who pointed out things that could be improved – your points and insights help tremendously.

I’ll be collating the materials generated through the workshops and tweaking the presentation materials for distribution early- to mid-next week. The WDS folks will be in touch via email with details as soon as they’re ready.

P.S. my preparation for this workshop, along with preparations for a major delivery for Inspire, have meant it’s been awfully quiet around here of late. I suspect May will see a bit more posting in these parts…

Just a quick note about the WDS09 Roadshow workshops that I’m facilitating in April. Plans for the day are starting to take shape, and I’m in the process of organising some interviews with folks doing interesting things in the social networking space so anyone that comes along won’t be listening to me all day long ;)

Not that that would have been the case anyway – my friend and colleague Penny Hagen has been lending a hand working out the flow of the day – the aim is to keep things “hands on” and practical.

I hope to have a bit more to post as we get closer to the date – but in the meantime a reminder that you can get a discount if you use the code “WD-GY” when you register, reducing the price to $499 for the day.