Adaptation is a worthy conversation topic amid our society’s chaotic pulse. Innovation occurs all around us, challenging our notions and perspectives. To name a few, marketization, collaboration, Charity Navigator ratings manipulation, and social media communication. So what does drive this change, given that it suffuses the nonprofit sector, among all of society? Perhaps the need to remain solvent, subsist, advance, or self-preserve? Maybe. Recognizing that organizations exist in dynamic systems rather than vacuums, Crutchfield and McLeod Grant identify various internal and external factors encouraging responsive action.
This seems like common sense, as environmental factors are decidedly significant with the constant influx of new knowledge and means. For instance, “Forces for Good” was published in 2008, and compared to 2010’s “The Networked Nonprofit,” there is scant discussion of social media. We know that social media is a big deal today, compelling all organizations (for profit and nonprofit alike) to communicate with stakeholders and the broad public for a multitude of purposes through these avenues.
What did you think of when you first learned of Facebook? Did you think you’d discuss it in class, especially in such depth? Yet, there are signs of the next emergent paradigm, following on the heels of Twitter and Facebook, albeit to a more immersive degree. Those of us in PAFF 526 (Managing Information and Technology) saw an interesting Frontline documentary, entitled “Digital Nation” (http://video.pbs.org/video/1402987791), which scrutinized the rise of the digital revolution. The program featured immersive virtual reality platforms, including Second Life, which has rendered at least one IBM facility obsolete. Will such comprehensive telecommuting continue? From an administrative perspective, this may reduce (or eliminate) some facility and equipment expenditures which can then be redirected into programs.
Consider this NY Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/science/12tier.html?_r=3&ref=science, concerning a possible next step in virtual interaction. Some individuals would consider this inevitable, others scary and highly controversial. Couple this with advancements in other fields, such as neuroscience, exemplified by the MacArthur Foundation’s current research project, the Law and Neuroscience Project (http://paff5522011.blogspot.com/2011/04/law-neuroscience-interesting-concept.html - Surprisingly, this post received no responses. This saddens me.).
These are a few of the many examples of how such advancement encourages systemic adaptation. Yes, these developments are just that – developments, which may gain broad implementation. Until then, nonprofits must continue to serve the public using the most current means available. As it is, do you think nonprofits’ use of Facebook and Twitter is at all profound? Do you think anything of this sort, the grandiose nature of social media and digital media, critically affecting communication which was once as extensive as postal exchanges? Are these merely tools? Tools which are stirring uprisings in the Middle-East unlike before, connecting everyone much like the information proffered by the internet itself, thus truly changing the world? What is your perspective?
Andrew: The take-away for me is whether leaders of organizations know how to manage all the new information and knowledge they receive. It is easy, perhaps, in retrospect, to identify the range of challenges that have taken place over time, even between 2008 and 2010. The challenge for all of you (and for me in my role as department chair, for example) is to determine what environmental conditions are important and what actions they demand of us as leaders as we seek to ensure that the organizations of which we are a part remain relevant. In the same way, we struggle with competing and contradictory developments that constrain or at least obscure our vision as we seek to determine right action.
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