Weekly News Alert: Reflections,Innovations and Social Networking

Submitted by Natalia Castaneda on Thu, 12/17/2009 - 15:29

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On Reflections and Values...

The end of the year should be used as a time to reflect on both our lives and our work. We should especially look at the meaning of our work and the values that support it. A post by Fast Company suggests the concept of UBUNTU, used in South Africa, which translates to mean “a person is only a person through other persons.” Our core values, then, are reflected through our relationships with other people, revealing our "human-ness." The blog challenges people to examine and reflect on their work and values through this lens.
Interaction Institure for Social Change publishes a post about a new project Seth Godin has put together. His project involved asking people “What Matters Now?” and putting the responses together in an e-book. Each person took a single word and wrote a short piece about how that word related to their past and future work. Examples of the inspiring words are "meaning," "enrichment" and "sleep."

On Success and Innovation...

Working hard and for long hours might lead to success but does not necessarily lead to innovation. Blogging Innovation argues that in order to innovate, people need ample time and resources – companies like Google and Genetech, they point out, allow their employees to reserve one day per week to innovate. The assumption is that for innovation to be an integral part of sucess, it needs to be given the sufficient resources and time.
Luminary Blog posts tips about how to generate new ideas for 2010. Among the tips are traditional brainstorming techniques and turning to the outside world for inspiration.

On Networking and Social Mapping...

Beth Kantor blogs about lessons learned from a workshop she took with Marc Smith on social network analysis and mapping techniques. She writes that network mapping tells you a story about individuals and trends in your network and that not configuring a social network is the equivalent to a weatherman trying to predict a snowstorm without access to a weather map.

On Giving...

While Americans are buying more gifts than they did in 2008, one-third of charities are expecting a 10% drop in donations this year. Another 21% of charities are expecting a decrease as well, although not as high as 10%. A poll done by The Chronicle of Philanthropy examines this year’s giving trends.

On Upcoming Events...

On January 20, 2010 the Tactical Philanthropy Forum will take place in San Francisco. The conversation will focus on the practicality of funders striving to fix the root cause of social problems and the tradeoffs between focusing on tangible community issues versus tackling systematic interventions. It will be moderated by Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors.

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