How To Run Your Company More Like Facebook

By: Bram Schumer

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has big dreams, and even bigger expectations to meet. The social media company’s public offering earlier this year was given nearly as much coverage and excitement as the London Olympics, only to disappoint investors when its share price plummeted over the summer. But however cheap it is to buy Facebook stock these days, it’s official: the new guard of American industry lies at the fingertips of those in Silicon Valley.

Microsoft’s New Tool Helps Nonprofits & Corporations Tell Stories of Social Impact

By: Gene Zlotnikov

Microsoft’s new mapping tool is helping nonprofits and corporations utilize technology to effectively communicate stories of their impact on society. The Microsoft Local Impact Map is a customized map showcasing an organization’s work in local communities around the world. This new tool is unique as it incorporates text, pictures, videos and social media tools. It enables stories to be easily shared and promoted. Marnie Webb, co-CEO of Microsoft nonprofit partner TechSoup, states, “Before implementing the Local Impact Map, we had case studies in different formats, such as PDF files, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations, scattered all across the organization. It made me nuts. The Local Impact Map gave us the ability to put all these case studies into one place.” Corporations are able to use the tool as well. UnitedHealthcare has been using the map internally for their 80,000 employees to contribute stories of their volunteer work. The tool is intended to transform the way nonprofits and corporations use technology to promote their social impact within local and international communities.

To read more about how Microsoft is helping organizations communicate their stories, you can click here or here.

How To Get Senior Leaders to Transform

By: Gene Zlotnikov

Senior business leaders are hard-working, intelligent and believe they are doing the right thing at work. However, people may have a superfluous optimism about their own behavior and might think they are better than they are – a psychological phenomenon known as  “self-serving bias.” If senior leaders are to embrace the fact that they must change some form of their behavior, a good strategy for change is a concrete 360-degree feedback technique, which measures the desired changes that will drive business performance. A strong example of this includes Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer’s approach of asking his top 75 staff what he could do differently and sharing his development needs publicly with his team. This circle of feedback can not only transform leaders, but could also create sustainable growth for the organization.

To learn about how to break “self-serving biases,” you can read the Harvard Business Review story here.

“Human Hotspots” Create a Stir

By: Stephen Delaney

In mid-March, South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive hosted its five day conference on emerging technology. The event convenes top thought leaders in the industry to touch on “creative solutions for a better tomorrow.” Yet, the “solution” that grabbed all of the headlines didn’t spring from a keynote speech, a panel presentation or an interactive workshop. The big story this year came from the homeless individuals strolling throughout the event, selling Wi-Fi access. The backlash to news of these “human hotspots” was quick and widespread.

Three Simple Steps to Staying on Mission

By: Gene Zlotnikov

True leadership requires the willingness to recognize the need for change, as well as the ability to lead and manage change. Companies that consistently choose to pursue change are typically growing, dynamic organizations that stick to their mission. On the other hand, companies that fear change are likely to find it more challenging to remain relevant and continue to meet their customers’ needs. Forbes contributor Mike Myatt, describes three easy steps to help leaders and organizations stay on mission by leading change:

•    Identify the Need for Change
If your organization is not willing to innovate to meet society’s changing demands, it is more likely to struggle and fail. To stay relevant and successful, companies should focus on changes that will help them more effectively serve their customers (and potential customers) and shift their corporate culture to foster an efficient and positive workforce.
•    Lead Change
When faced with change, people typically respond by taking on one of four roles, becoming the Victim, the Neutral Bystander, the Critic or the Advocate. To successfully lead change, these four roles must be communicated to using appropriate messaging and properly involved in the process.
•    Manage Change
Successful change leaders will ensure that their company is aligned with the same mission and vision for change, provide their employees with responsibility and accountability for innovation and maintain authority over change to ensure things happen.

To learn more about how to stick to mission and lead change in your organization, read the original article in Forbes.

For more information about how you can take your leadership to the next level, check out this upcoming event on Transformational Leadership, April 27th and 28th, 2012 in Chicago: Transformational Leadership Awards Dinner & Symposium

Panera: The Nonprofit

By: Stephen Delaney

Imagine a restaurant where food prices are only a mere suggestion. The man in front of you pays an extra dollar for his smokehouse turkey panini. You round up to the nearest dollar for your Asian sesame chicken salad. The woman behind you pays what she can, a dollar and some loose change for her broccoli cheddar soup.

Is this a utopian ideal of a concept, unrealistic and bound to fail? No. It is Panera Cares, a community café launched in St. Louis in May 2010. The concept is simple: customers pay what they can, offering more than the suggested price if they’d like or enjoying a free meal if finances are tight. Cashiers don’t take any money, they only make change. The customers themselves deposit their donation into a locked glass box.

Ron Shaich, the president of the Panera Bread Foundation, said, "Twenty percent of customers pay more than the suggested donation. Sixty percent leave the suggested donation and 20 percent leave less, typically significantly less."¹

The cafés are an inventive approach to feeding the hungry. The idea was based off of the SAME Café, which opened in Denver in 2006, but putting the power of Panera behind it offers grander possibilities of impact and influence.

Since the pilot restaurant, Panera has opened two more locations in Dearborn, MI and Portland, OR. On February 23, 2012, Panera announced they would be finalizing the locations for at least two more of the cafés by spring.²

Sources
 ¹ ABC News       ² MSN Money

Soccer + Portable Energy = sOccket

By: Stephen Delaney

Get ready to be impressed.

Two Harvard graduates, who are only 23 years old, are already the heads of their own business. Not only is their product doing well in the world, but it has also received top praise from a former president.

The two women you may be in awe of are Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman, the founders of Uncharted Play. Matthews and Silverman created the sOccket, a soccer ball that harnesses the kinetic energy of a game and turns it into post-game electricity. Donated balls have already been distributed in Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Haiti and Nigeria.

Uncharted Play has one goal: convince the masses to reTHINK FUNction. By combining innovation with a dedication to fun, Matthews and Silverman have created a genius (and simple!) product to provide portable energy to resource-poor communities.

After just 30 minutes of play, the sOccket can power 3 hours of LED light. This allows resource-poor families to save money they would normally spend on kerosene, fumes of which can be fatal. The sOccket can also provide electricity for water purifiers, mini-fridges and emergency cell phone chargers.

Silverman is already looking forward to what lies next on the horizon for Uncharted Play. Silverman explained that Uncharted Play’s mission is “about dreaming and thinking about your community and how you can better it through innovation.”

To read more about how the sOccket is helping families have fun while saving money, read the CNN article about powerful women entrepreneurs here or visit the official website.

Facebook's Next Innovation on Its Mission

By: Gene Zlotnikov

Facebook is about to put a completely new spin on online marketing and advertising. The social media giant is getting ready to launch a new format for premium ads that mark radical departure from traditional advertising. The new format is social by nature, pulling content from users’ posts to brands’ Facebook pages instead of from ad copy, and automatically showing you which of your friends already “like” the brand. Their statement is loud and clear: “ads based on content, rather than messaging, have a better chance of hitting home and ads involving tacit endorsements from the people you know have a better chance of capturing your attention.”

This new form of content-based advertising reinforces Facebook’s mission to “give people the power to share” and create opportunities for them to engage and connect online. Such a bold departure from traditional advertising is also very much in line with the company’s reputation for innovating the social media space. Facebook announced their planned changes at their marketing launch event at the end of February.

To read more about Facebook’s content-based ads, read the article in Fast Company.

Democracy in Action

By: John Davidoff

I walked the halls of Congress yesterday (2/28/12). Literally. I participated in the Museum Advocacy Day sponsored by our client, the American Association of Museums (http://www.aam-us.org/). About 300 museum professionals from all over the US spent all day Monday 2/27/12 going through a fantastic training at the Georgetown University Conference Center. On Tuesday 2/28/12 we arrived at Capitol Hill at 8am for a full day of lobbying for support of the our country’s 18,000 museums. I, personally, had face-to-face meetings with three Congressmen (Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky and Bob Dold) plus four other meetings with staff from Senators Durbin and Kirk’s offices and Congressmen Quigley and Jesse Jackson Jr.’s offices. I had never done anything like this before. I am amazed at how truly accessible our elected federal government representatives are to the voters of the United States of America. This was a fantastic experience and I am planning to be back next year for Museum Advocacy Day 2013.

*John Davidoff (left) visits with Illinois Congressman Bob Dold (center) and Kohl Children's Museum CEO Sheridan Turner (right) in the US Capitol Rotunda during Museum Advocacy Day on Tuesday, February 28.

A Lesson in Marketing Brilliance: Method Laundry Crowdsources for Commercial

By: Stephen Delaney

In today’s marketing climate, innovative companies realize that marketing is no longer a one-way street. Instead, companies are increasingly engaging in an open dialogue with their consumers. When their company was faced with massive marketing challenges, Method Laundry decided to include their consumers in the conversation. Eric Ryan, co-founder of Method, says, “As a mission-driven brand, we have great consumer advocates.”

Those advocates stepped up to the challenge, allowing Method to produce a commercial via crowdsourcing. Consumers submitted clips of “themselves performing specific actions from a storyboard,” which were edited into one commercial. The week that the commercial debuted, it was the 93rd most viewed video on YouTube. It helped launch Method’s Facebook page, increasing their fans by 68 percent.

By running a company entirely aligned behind their mission, including their marketing efforts, Method cultivated a loyal consumer base. When Method turned to their consumers for help, those consumers jumped at the opportunity to support a respected, mission-driven business.

Watch the "Laundry Room Love" video below.

Source: Entrepreneur.com

Dwight Eisenhower: Mission Driver

By: Stephen Delaney

President Eisenhower had a mission: defeating the Nazis. FedEx has a mission: delivering to any destination and as quickly as possible. It may seem silly to juxtapose the two, a world war and a commitment to rapid shipping. Yet in a post on Forbes titled “The Secret to Success? Stick to Your Mission,” Geoff Lotus, author of "LEAD LIKE IKE: Ten Business Strategies from the CEO of D-Day," draws parallels between the two.

To Lotus, success is achieved by ensuring that planning and operations, logistics and communications (specifically marketing) are all aligned behind mission. He views Eisenhower from a business perspective, examining how he kept all of those processes focused on mission. To illustrate, he names FDR and Churchill as Eisenhower’s bosses and the citizens of the United States, England and Canada as the majority shareholders.

Lotus’ message is simple: no matter the size of the challenge, the most important key to success is to stay on mission. Whether a president conducting an international war or a CEO directing his corporation, remaining mission-driven is the principal concern.

The Utility of Corporate Volunteering

By: Stephen Delaney

In today’s economic climate, nonprofits are seeing an increased trend in corporate volunteerism. A recent article on Fast Company argues that corporations can provide more meaningful support if they lend their “manpower and expertise.” The author argues that financial contributions are not the best use of a corporation’s resources. Certainly, nonprofits can benefit from free training and other pro bono services a corporation could provide. Yet, it’s important to note that this article was written from a corporation’s perspective by Ali Marano, Vice President of Technology for Social Good at JPMorgan Chase.

Do nonprofits agree? Is corporate volunteerism an adequate substitute for dollars? Corporations may crave the PR they can whip up by saying they are taking an active role and accomplishing a concrete task for a nonprofit. Yet, what about the nonprofit’s ever-present financial demands for the less glamorous costs of administration and general operations?

Marano’s counter to this question is that organizations can redirect funds allocated for whatever project the corporation helps with and “invest them in other areas to directly meet their missions.”

What do you think?

For more information on corporate volunteering, you can see the story on Fast Company.

The State of Corporate Philanthropy: How Non-Profits Can Make the Most of Their Current Situation

By: Gene Zlotnikov

At a recent Philanthropy Club meeting I had the chance to hear Kassie Davis, Executive Director of CME Group Foundation in Chicago, speak about corporate philanthropy. Ms. Davis shared her perspective on what non-profits should keep in mind as they reach out to corporate and foundation grant makers.

• Non-profits must be fully aware of what their mission is and be able to properly express their goals to grant makers.

• Do not reach out blindly to companies – do your research. Most corporate foundations have a website in which they clearly state how much money they give and exactly what they support.

• If there is no website or information to determine these specifics, non-profit executives should take initiative in reaching out to the appropriate person within the foundation to see if there is alignment for a partnership.

• The challenge facing grant-seekers is the constant struggle to get a foundation or corporation to listen to their message, let alone provide them with a grant.

Here is the good news: Ms. Davis says that although non-profits have seen funding shrink during the last few years because of the recession, corporate giving has been on the rise since 2010. Non-profits should be on the lookout for organizations that are passionate about the programs they are initiating. They must realize that they are unique and be able to effectively communicate their mission and vision to differentiate themselves from other organizations applying for grants.

To see what the CME Group Foundation supports please visit: http://www.cmegroupfoundation.org/

Is Social Innovation Really Here to Stay?

By: Gene Zlotnikov

In a January 12th Forbes article titled, Social Innovation: Is it Really Here to Stay? Shannon Schuyler discusses how major companies have created social innovation positions within their ranks in order to provide future sustainability for their organization. As companies innovate and transform, building strong corporate & non-profit partnerships will become an essential part of their growth and sustainability. The most important change organizations will need to understand is that corporate giving and philanthropy should not be as cut and dry as handing out checks anymore; rather, companies must be willing to approach social problems by sharing thoughts with one another in order to leverage truly powerful ideas that will lead toward organizational transformation.

Schuyler highlights one specific example of a company using their resources and social ability to innovate and fulfill their mission. Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women Campaign, which is trying to provide widespread business education to underserved women, is pairing Goldman’s business expertise and financial resources with 80 academic and nonprofit partners to scale meaningful change and, eventually, success. They are acting upon the philosophy that strong partnerships are a way that will lead organizations to become their most potent selves as they strive to carry out their vision and mission.

For more information about Social Innovation you can read the original Forbes article here.