SXSWi key learnings - is your organization ready to become radically open?

Originally posted on community.npowerseattle.org/npowering on April 4th, 2011.

Zan from Mixtape Communications hosted a webinar last week to share what he learned from his first visit to the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference in Austin, TX. SXSWi is the largest technology gathering in the country and features five days’ worth of presentations, networking events, and special programs, and includes a track specifically for nonprofits.

Zan shared highlights from a couple of interesting presentations, but what I found most applicable to nonprofits was what he shared from Julie Cohen, the Executive Producer of TED. If you don’t know TED (an acronym for Technology, Entertainment, and Design), you must check them out. They are a nonprofit dedicated to “ideas worth spreading”, hosting conferences and TEDTalks that feature the likes of Bill Gates and Al Gore, and they’ve recently experienced explosive growth, going from 1,000 people in attendance each year to over 100 million involved all over the world. They did so by becoming “radically open.” A couple of the strategies they employed to open themselves up are directly applicable to a lot of nonprofits and the way they approach communications and social media.

Focusing on the “why” of their organization rather than the “how”: TED’s “why” is inspirational - ideas worth spreading. How do they achieve their goal? By bringing lectures to your computer…but that is not exactly a compelling idea to frame your goal-setting around. Zan later cited Barnes & Noble for the same sort of thing. By focusing on their “why” of reading, rather than their “how” of selling books, they were able to remain nimble and creative as a brand, developing their own eReader and staying ahead of the game in the digital book business.

Allowing their community to moderate itself: This is something that a lot of nonprofits have trouble with. I talked to more than a few people at the Tech for Good Summit back in February who shared the unwillingness of their nonprofit’s leadership to utilize social media because they were afraid of what might be said about their organization online. But, utilizing social media to communicate with your network can open up constructive dialogue and allow you to directly address criticism that might not be shared otherwise. For a good example, take a look at Zan’s post on United Way of King County’s handling of some recent criticism.

TED took some risks to remain true to their goal of spreading ideas by letting their followers take the reins a little. They remained focused on their goal, developing a template for people to put on TED events in their own cities, and eventually grew their online presence exponentially, giving people across the globe access to their talks. They pushed past their fear, and have become a stronger organization because of that.

Zan covered a lot of other great content from SXSWi, and you can find his slideshare from the presentation here.