Ali Bytes: Bullet-sized strategies for modern living

Despite the sporadic evidence, I love blogging. The analytical and expressive exercise allows me to synthesize thoughts while creating some (maybe minuscule) incremental value. However, there are two things that paralyze the blogger in me: people talking into an echo chamber and human tragedy. So with the SXSW conference this month and a good friend in DC in the hospital, I’ve been out of commission. I can’t justify indulgent reflection when time and mental energy are better spent on someone else.

And then some time passes, something fires me up and I come back to it. This week I had a couple of long conversations with nonprofit organizations - both in India and the U.S. - that have highlighted assumptions that, in my opinion, are flawed and need to be questioned. I’d love to know what you think.

1. Employees need to commit to the cause: I’ve worked for nonprofits in nearly every capacity - as a full time employee, consultant, board member and volunteer - and one of the biggest weaknesses I’ve consistently seen is this idea that people need to live and breath the issue they are working for. Rather than look for someone capable of solving difficult challenges with a willingness to bootstrap or for a specific skill set, it often seems that a demonstration of one’s allegiance to the cause is more important. As a social change generalist, I think nonprofits need to start looking first for the right abilities and then let enthusiasm for the issue be icing on the cake.
2. Voting is a good idea: When online voting became popular about five years ago and significant buzz around crowdsourcing began, voting was different and an innovative way to get mass amounts of people to participate in an effort requiring very little information. However, now that these efforts seems to be launched around everything - two recent ones being the Pepsi Refresh Project and the Unreasonable Marketplace - voting has become a (mostly) irresponsible use of time and energy.  If I email my entire network and encourage people through social sites to vote for my personal idea, then that’s my prerogative.  But when nonprofits have to bring paid employees together to develop a strategy to drive their supporters to vote for them to win something, I wonder if anyone has calculated the value creation. How much time, energy and money is spent trying to get something that isn’t worth even a quarter of that time, energy or money?
3. Consumers are either cause-driven or quality-driven:  There’s a belief that people either buy from their head or from their heart and that the latter is not sustainable. In other words, a quality product will sell in any climate but a product that is branded with a cause will only sell as long as the cause marketing is strong.  This actually may be true in emerging markets, but certainly in the U.S. I think this has changed.  Consumers are not so polar; people can buy for cause impact and because they want the product - like Paul Newman products or Dove’s Real Beauty effort.  I think the notion that products can be both practically and emotionally useful will only continue to expand.
4. Volunteers can’t be counted on: There’s a belief that volunteers, or “most Americans” as one person said to me, are looking for easy answers. They want to come in, do a small amount of work only to wash their hands and walk away feeling better but never thinking again about the organization. In short, volunteering is a short-term, selfish pursuit and therefore volunteers are an unreliable, uncommitted group. On the one hand, this seems to be supported by the existence of these one day clean ups, community improvement projects - or even Race for the Cure and cause-related exercise events - where volunteers just show up and are handed paint brushes. On the contrary, however, I think many nonprofits don’t effectively use volunteers because they are missing a basic point: volunteers are human and want to feel they have made a difference. When visible day to day change isn’t realistic - which it’s not in many cases - it’s up to the organization to help show why they are doing what they are doing. If nonprofits could help individuals see that they are needed and making a difference in the big picture, I know they would find a more committed and helpful free workforce.

To me, the pinnacle of success is speaking at a TED conference. I could try to explain my love affair with TED but instead recommend you check out the talks and see what I mean (or read this old post). Last Sunday, I felt privileged to get to attend a TEDx event in HitechCity, x meaning it’s an independently organized event so does not carry the same gravitas or prestige that a “real” TED event does. Nonetheless I was looking forward to a day full of intellectual stimulation.

The cliff notes version of TED talks is that they are typically about 20 minutes of passionate, substantive, innovative and thought provoking content by some of the world’s most notable people. (The 2010 event actually starts tomorrow). TED used to stand for Technology Entertainment Design but they’ve expanded that and now use the tag line “ideas worth spreading.” Interestingly, I just learned that TED Curator, Chris Anderson, is married to Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund officially making them the ultimate power couple to me.

Of the 22 or so speakers from Sunday’s event, many of them were unfortunately not worth spreading (or have been spread so far, it’s not worth repeating like “use LED lightbulbs to help the environment”) but these five really captured my attention. I look forward to hearing what ideas emerge from TED 2010 in Long Beach, CA this week.

1. Nagesh Kukunoor talked about the “unexplored zone”: Nagesh is a famous Indian film director who used to be an environmental consultant in the U.S. The dramatic career change is enough to pique my attention, but his approach to movies is even more intriguing. While he made a few interesting but unoriginal points: “naïveté lets you do things you don’t know you shouldn’t do” and “the unexplored zone is not always new, just twisting the old,” what most fascinated me was his seeming obsession with not being slotted into a genre. While he thinks movies should be entertainment first, and that a message is a nice to have, he is such a purest when it comes to story telling and letting the audience do the interpretive work, that he rejects the Bollywood mold of heavy makeup or songs, trying to be as “real” as stories can be. For this, some of his movies have been hits and others not so much. His takeaway message: keep exploring.
2. Dr. Neeraj Raj’s talk was Heads – Malaria…Tails – Jaundice: As in many parts of the developing world, illegal medicine practicing is a problem in India. Roughly 80% of India still lives in rural parts of the country and many (if not most) of these people have no access to a trained medical professional. At the same time, 50% of common medical problems (like diarrhea) don’t require a doctor but instead someone with an ability to point to over the counter treatment and recognize danger signs that do require a doctor’s attention. He argues that if we can digitize medical education such that we can more efficiently teach fact-based learning, then we can begin to address the problem of illegal rural medicine and also focus more on skill based education. While I didn’t quite capture how he wants to bring digital medicine to rural India (since I don’t even have internet at home), the idea of capturing teachings of the best instructors around the country, combining it with interactive multimedia, and adding note taking and direct question submission functionality is brilliant. The tool is called SmarTeach and currently has 750 active teaching professors on the site.
3. The best presentation of the day was Karuna Gopal on the truth about Indian Cities: She combined analogy and vivid photography to make the case that city planning should be a top priority for India, as poorly planned cities and rapid growth lead to extreme poverty and wealth, serious health problems, and the kind of civil unrest that can influence terrorism. She was refreshingly blunt in her message: Indian government doesn’t have project management capabilities, doesn’t know how to work in teams, doesn’t coordinate processes and lacks creative, persuasive communication to get people to pay attention or take action (there are lots of billboards and newspaper ads with a million words and only faces of politicians). She argued that business leaders need to begin to inject their skills and talent to teach and encourage government bodies to adopt better practices. Her take-away: Business cannot succeed in a city that fails.
4. Prosenjit Ganguly’s presentation was called Flowers do fly: An independent animation designer, screenwriter and media educator, PJ is slowly transforming Indian education through small workshops that teach children how to express themselves and tell their stories through multimedia. He showed one of his videos about how Indian schooling is about repetition, listening not talking, discipline and learning right/wrong which earned the largest applause of the day - clearly it resonated with the ISB students. The philosophy behind his work is that education should, instead, be a “tool to express what’s going on in your mind” and to reflect on what we see. He said that what moves us is our story line, and in inviting people (even little people) to tell these stories, the result is consequence and mission. I loved this message.
5. Similar to Karuna, Kanthi Kannan posed a question: Walking, is it a fundamental right? In a previous post, I mentioned the lack of sidewalks and danger when walking. If I had to say my number one challenge with living here, it’s easily my inability to walk where I want to go. She shared that 5 pedestrians die each week in Hyderabad and 40 get injured, despite the fact that 40% of the Hyderabad workforce walks to work. Why is this? People who walk don’t make decisions and people who make decisions (or have influence) don’t walk. Interestingly, it’s not just sidewalks that cities need, but walking needs to be marketed as cool.  Right now, walking generally means you don’t have money for transportation. Her take-away: The single biggest difference between a developed nation and an underdeveloped nation is footpaths.

Photo credit: TEDxHitechCity on flickr

I work with nonprofits every day but recently, while searching for one, I discovered a few I’ve never heard of - and got a little carried away.  There is apparently an American Association for everything.

1. American Farrier’s Association: “It’s simple to find hoofcare information, but difficult to find information you can trust.”
2. American Tinnitus Association: An organization that “exists to cure tinnitus, the perception of sound in the ears or head where no external source is present. Some call it ‘ringing in the ears’ or ‘head noise.’”
3. American Tilapia Association: “Welcome to the World Wide Web site for information regarding the American Tilapia Association. This Web page provides access to information about the fish which is the fastest growing aquaculture crop in the United States and around the world.” Similar to the American Cichlid Association dedicated to the knowledge and enjoyment of cichlid fishes.
4. American Go Association: “Beyond being merely a game, go can take on other meanings to enthusiasts: an analogy with life, an intense meditation, a mirror of one’s personality, an exercise in abstract reasoning, or, when played well, a beautiful art in which Black and White dance across the board in delicate balance.”
5. American Topical Association: “Organized in 1949, the ATA has over 56 years of service to its members. It is the best source of information, fellowship and authority in the topical stamp collecting field.”
6. American Restroom Association:”America’s advocate for the availability of clean, safe, well designed public restrooms”
7. American Orff-Schulwerk Association: “An organization “united by our belief that music and movement – to speak, sing and play; to listen and understand; to move and create – should be an active and joyful experience.”
8. American Breweriana Association: “Advance the public knowledge of brewing and breweriana; to serve historians and collectors, and dedicated to the preservation of the memories and artifacts of America’s historic breweries!”
9. American Quaternary Association: “A professional organization of North American scientists devoted to studying all aspects of the Quaternary Period, about the last 2 million years of Earth history.”

“Competition is good. Choosing a four-year undergraduate college is one of the biggest decisions a typical American family can make. And for too many years, information about the quality of American higher education has been monopolized by one publication, U.S. News & World Report. We offer an alternative.” starts the Forbes article about their recent ranking of 569 colleges on a variety of factors with no reliance on the schools’ participation: the quality of the undergrad experience, how students evaluated professors, number of faculty who have won prestigious awards, how many students scored prestigious scholarships, student debt, etc.

Of course, these rankings are always controversial (especially if you went to a school like Howard and Northeastern which are in the bottom 10 - sorry Dad) but for those of you whose alma mater is on this list, I’m sure you’ll join me in gloating for just a minute even if there is no way of knowing whether this ranking holds any water.  As one comment said “I could have made a more accurate list by drawing names from a hat or throwing darts at a bulletin board while blindfolded.”  What do you think?

1. Princeton University
2. California Institute of Technology
3. Harvard University
4. Swarthmore College
5. Williams College
6. United States Military Academy
7. Amherst College
8. Wellesley College
9. Yale University
10. Columbia University
11. Northwestern University
12. Wabash College
13. Centre College
14. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
15. Bowdoin College
16. United States Air Force Academy
17. Middlebury College
18. University of Chicago
19. Smith College
20. Pomona College
21. Wesleyan University
22. Haverford College
23. Stanford University
24. Hamilton College
25. Sarah Lawrence College