Cone Inc released their “Cone Nonprofit Power Brand 100” report yesterday - in which it valued (and ranked) the brands of some of America’s leading social, environmental and animal organizations.  Not surprisingly, the report is already generating a lot of buzz.  People mostly want to talk about which charities were ranked and which ones weren’t, or who scored highest on the list (and why).  But I think that is the wrong discussion to have.  I want to focus on something else - the very concept of brand, and its importance for nonprofit organizations, in today’s connected society.

Go read the full post, and let me know what you think.

Today’s podcast features a conversation with Chris McChesney, one of the lead researchers at the Franklin Covey company and the author of The 4 Disciplines of Execution: The Secret to Getting Things Done, On Time, With Excellence. Chris and I connected after I issued by ‘Business Book Challenge‘ — suggesting that I was having trouble finding business books that offered value, or insight, to really help people and organizations to succeed. Chris’ expertise is in helping organizations develop effective strategies and execute them properly — and his research, and now the book, are focused on teaching the principles that guide those successful efforts. He thinks his book passes the test — but I am not so sure that a book, no matter what it talks about, can fully change the way people think and act.  I put that question directly to Chris — you’ll be surprised by his answer (about 35 minutes into the podcast).  Beyond the book, we talked about some of the challenges that plague organizations today and what role technology and the internet are playing in making those easier, or more difficult, to handle.  We also discussed how people learn and how to measure success across organizations.  Really interesting stuff.

Click below to listen.

Please post your comments, suggestions, or ideas for future conversations and podcasts. We’re listening!

Today’s podcast features a conversation with Steve Wylie, the General Manager of the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, the largest gathering of enterprise technology providers in the world.  This year’s conference, which will take place in Boston starting June 22nd, is designed to help companies understand the potential impacts and opportunities that web 2.0 technology creates and how to more fully embrace the social nature of the internet today. Steve and I talked about the thinking behind the agenda for this year’s event and how to ensure a that a conference of this size can be successful.  We looked at some of the discussion topics highlighted this year, including the lessons likely to emerge from the Obama campaign, and the blurring of the lines between personal and business pursuits among customers and employees.  And, we discussed what case studies from outside the technology industry that the Enterprise 2.0 community is looking at, and what best practices from within the technology sector that media, non-profits, educational institutions and others might benefit from reviewing.

Click below to listen.

Also, please post your comments, suggestions, or ideas for future conversations and podcasts.  We’re listening!

Surreal? Apocalyptic? Prescient? After forty days and forty nights of downpours, biblical storms, and consequential events where we move, we’re living vicariously as if players in an old television show. Next stop, The Twilight Zone.

You may recall Knight was one of the winners of our We Media Game Changer Awards earlier this year, for reasons cited by Forbes: the foundation has pledged to invest $100 million to fund experiments in digital media focused on filling the void of shrinking or disappearing local newspapers.

The investments are important, the experiments they support are important - and most are likely to fail or have marginal consequence. In the Forbes interview, Ibargüen explains the foundation’s investment strategy much like a venture capitalist’s, with a similar formula for success and failure: “We need to fund lots of these experiments, so when 80% of them fail, we can figure out which ones really got it right and then replicate them.”

Here’s our Game Changer case study of Knight (PDF download) published in February of this year, and here are the others in the series profiling our 2009 winners.

Here’s another juicy excerpt from Forbes:

Q: Conventional wisdom says newspapers squandered their opportunity to make big inroads on the Web when, in an era of towering profit margins, they spent little on their digital strategy. True?

A: I resent people who, with 20/20 hindsight, have become harsh critics of what newspapers tried to do digitally. … I don’t remember any analysts ever saying to newspaper companies, “You guys should cut your profits and invest more in your Web strategy.”

My reply: Analysts weren’t in charge. Yes, hindsight is all too convenient. Foresight can be equally inconvenient. Many business, technology and culture watchers saw the changes coming to the news industry and recommended shifts in business models, outlooks and processes to lead, rather than follow, the transformation to a We Media culture. See, for instance, the many analysts and datapoints cited in our original We Media forecast, published in 2003.

The Forbes question (evasively attributed to “conventional wisdom”) was wrong - news companies invested a great deal in the web, starting in the mid-1990s. But at critical points - especially around 2000-1 - they shifted from strategic to tactical investments. Experimentation and innovation dwindled as news companies focused on operational efficiency and short-term returns. That pleased investors and equities analysts just as a new wave of powerful new social services and approaches were launched or under development elsewhere. And yes, that’s when news companies could have and should have been investing more in the future, instead of watching it unfold.

WeMedia conducts regular regular podcasts that feature in-depth interviews with prominent media, technology, and social change figures, as well as distinguished experts on current affairs and news. Our goal is to help the WeMedia community understand the roots of the changes taking place in our society, hear from the thinkers and doers who are on the front lines, really understand the difficulties facing the media, consumers, and others — all while being somewhat entertaining.

Today’s podcast features a conversation with Melinda Wittstock, the Bureau Chief, Founder and Executive Director of Capitol News Connection - a news organization that covers political issues with a focus on how they play locally (CNC has more correspondents covering Capitol Hill each day than any other national news organization, and produces most of its content for distribution through public radio stations nationwide). She is also the creator of AskYourLawmaker.org, a project/site that allows citizens to post conversations directly to their lawmakers, and have CNC journalists help track down responses. Melinda is a life-long journalist and has some strong views about what the media is doing well, and where improvements are needed. We agreed, for example, that good, timely, relevant content is critical to the success of the news media - and also missing from much of the newspaper and similar coverage today. We also talked about what responsibility the media might has when it comes to facilitating action or enabling citizens to get more involved and the benefits of hyper-local news content and focus.

Click below to listen.

We are hoping to get back on track with weekly/regular podcast discussions shortly. Let us know if you have suggestions for people we should talk with or topics we should cover. And if you want to participate in one of our podcasts or discussions, just let us know.

When: 8 am - 10 am Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Where: The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner, 1700 Tysons Blvd. McLean, VA USA
To register: Click here.

The Washington Board of Trade has extended its member price, $75, to We Media members. That includes breakfast and a signed copy of Alan’s new book, Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self.

Alan co-founded Fast Company after spending six years as the managing editor/editorial director of the Harvard Business Review. His new book is a catalog of insights gleaned from years of conversations with successful business leaders. Here’s one: Don’t implement solutions. Prevent problems. More here.

Alan is also a long-time friend and participant in numerous We Media events over the years - most recently as a judge for the 2009 We Media Game Changers Awards. He’s also a board member of iFOCOS, the media think-and-action tank Dale Peskin and I founded in 2006. And, besides all that, Alan’s a genuinely warm and inspiring guy - two qualities that you can hear in his writing, and more so in person. Here’s a book excerpt published by 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferris, and here’s a recent video of Alan speaking at Google.

The other guy in the conversation is equally fascinating. Dan Pink’s books include The New York Times best-seller A Whole New Mind, Free Agent Nation, and the graphic Adventures of Johnny Bunko.

Cambridge is one of the first cities in Massachusetts, and the nation, to take up the climate change issue as an “emergency declaration” requiring immediate attention and action.  And yet, for all its research, commitment, and chest thumping on the issue, the prospects of a major response being organized and pursued are slim.

What is keeping us from solving the climate crisis?  We are.

The challenge is this: Mounting a significant - in this case city-wide - response to the climate crisis would require a sizable effort.  Time is running short.  There is still plenty of debate about what the appropriate response should be.  And any kind of sizable effort would need to be funded in a major way to have any kind of measurable impact.  The reality is this: There is no room for additional spending in the current budget and neither the City Council nor the Mayor are permitted to authorize new funds on their own.  Placing limits on building construction or restricting where/when residents can drive or park could have a measurable impact on emissions output, but those policy decisions require weeks of hearings and deliberation before they can be considered (and there is no certainty that the best policies will emerge from that process).  Even the idea of posing a question directly to voters asking for authorization to direct the government to act (and providing funds to support such an effort), in the form of a ballot initiative, would require substantial effort and money just to begin.

Our democratic system, for all its benefits, is standing in the way of real progress in the face of an emergency.

Cambridge is not the first community to find itself hamstrung by our democratic process.  Just this morning, The New York Times featured an article about California’s budget crisis and the setback voters dealt the Governor and other legislators this week when they voted down a budget compromise (which called for some deep cuts and tough choices) in a special election.  The result, as the article begins, is that “Direct democracy has once again upended California — enough so that the state may finally consider another way by overhauling its Constitution for the first time in 130 years.”  That’s right, left without any other options, lawmakers may try to change the state’s constitution to allow for immediate action, bypassing the direct participation of the voters.

So here is my question: Does our democratic system(s), which is designed to ensure discussion, moderation in our thinking, and to help keep the government from acting independently - without the best interests of the public in mind - have limits?  When the need arises, should we permit our elected officials to bypass some of the steps that keep real progress from happening in a short amount of time?  If we do, how can we ensure that the power won’t be abused (what defines an emergency, really)?  Given our technology-enabled, highly informed, and uber-connected society, are there other ways that we can mobilize to address these emergency situations, without running afoul of our founding principles?  In short, is it reasonable in an emergency situation for us to do whatever it takes so that the problem can actually be addressed — and what does “whatever it takes’ really mean?

SeeClickFix is currently hosting the SeeClickFix widget in sites like Boston.com and Philly.com and we are looking for other partners to host our free widget.

The tool provides much of the SeeClickFix functionality including the ability to view and report non-emergency issues. You can grab the widget or rss from http://www.seeclickfix.com/widget.

If you are interested in having the SeeClickFix widget sponsored we are starting to see high yielding sponsorship revenue deals emerge.  We have a formal contract and revenue sharing agreement that we can pass on to you if you would like to email us: team@seeclickfix.com

Being able to offer your sponsor affiliation with a tool that allows citizens to engage in transparent two way conversation with city hall and others accountable for the public space is something that is unique and innovative and its getting a lot of attention.

On May 5th Fred Wilson Posted an article on his blog avc.com which suggested that it would be great if you could use twitter to report issues like potholes that would typically be reported to city hall via 311.

Fred notes that documenting typical 311 issues in this way would be beneficial because of the addition of a photo amongst other things. He also notes that there would be added benefit if the community could comment on the issue and increase its priority relative to the amount of people concerned about the issue.

As SeeClickFix already allows users to comment on 311 like issues and increase their priority by clicking “I want this fixed too” we thought it would be really cool if we built in Fred’s Tweeting Concept to SeeClickFix. As of today thanks to a few sleepless nights by Kam you can use a program like Twitterific from your blackberry or iphone to tweet issues with photo, description and location @seeclickfix

Just follow the instructions from this page and give us feedback. (be gentle…Kam built it in a week.

On a one to 100 scale, newspapers scored a 63 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index quarterly survey. That put them behind the airlines and cell phone providers.

“That’s bad enough,” writes Business Week’s Jon Fine, “but what’s worse is how badly newspapers’ ACSI score has slipped since the surveys began plumbing consumer sentiment. It’s off 12.5% since the survey’s debut in 1994.” That’s the steepest “satisfaction” drop of any industry.

Newspapers are also developing a bad rep with very people who can help them — future journalists. Harvard students are fleeing newspaper careers and embarrassed to say they want to be reporters, Bloomberg reports.

The old joke is that, as they report on a frequently unpleasant world, newspapers always seem to slip to a new low. But the latest is bad news at a time when publishers are trying to value content and build a case for charging for it.

Here’s an example from its visual gallery of examples. Really cleared things up for me.

We conceived We Media as the story of our time; a fable about a sea of stories in a place where everyone can be a storyteller and everyone can collaborate. The vision may be idealistic, but at least it’s not cynical. Characters motivated by greed or power, ego or influence, are now attempting to co-opt it as they bicker over why they’re right about something or the other.

The current chapter is a soap opera whose principal players are the philandering boss and the jilted lover. The affair has been costly for the philanderer. He believes he’s being treated unfairly and pledges to return to old ways. The lover has found new meaning in life. She’s seeking respect after discovering that independence can be liberating. Everyone’s buzzing about the estranged, celebrity couple. The conversation has all the juice of a public palimony suit. The philanderer and the lover now turn to friends in high places for the love, support and validation that will influence the outcome.

I suppose we were naive to expect the better angels of our nature to prevail. The current conversation is about the money and who’s getting it. On this we are neither naive nor cynical. We understand the stakes and have built our business around advising clients where to put them.

But we still have faith in better angels. The vision still soars. We see emerging forms of digital storytelling that lift the spirit, stir the soul, and drive the imagination. They are searchable, referential and portable. You can talk back to them, link them to other relevant stories, read them as lightly or as deeply as you want, share them with friends, author your own chapter, or exercise your brain in conversation about them.

They integrate text, pictures, and video. They apply creative, new metaphors for storytelling beyond the traditions of who-what-when-where-and-why, inverted pyramids and anecdotal narratives. They can transport you by context, locale, culture or the point of view of an individual character. They can be read at the cadence of your heartbeat as it reacts to the human emotions of exhilaration, tension, tenderness, sadness, fear and triumph.

It seems only right that the people creating this story ought to be rewarded for their talents. We Media is not only profitable, but profits all. Who wouldn’t want to embrace it? It was meant to change perspectives and inspire a better world. Each of us is at the core of its story. It should be the signature of an enlightened time.

That’s the conversation we ought to be having. Instead we’re having a cat fight.

Just one thread: Find some topcats and links to the fight here: /

What: The Battle Over Media Measurement
With: Todd Juenger from TiVo and Jon Gibs from Nielsen Online
Date: May 19
Time: 12pm ET

Details here. Register and post questions here.