Nick’s Book Blog

David Gammel from High Context referenced this really quite interesting article provocatively entitled, " Hiring is Obsolete ," over at Kevin Holland's place . all money can really buy you is sales and marketing. A sales force is worth something, I'll admit. But marketing is increasingly irrelevant. On the Internet, anything genuinely good will spread by word of mouth. Obviously the point could be fiercely debated, but it seems to me the truth in it is striking. On the other hand, is marketing truly becoming irrelevant or is it a matter of semantics, i.e. what constitutes marketing? The article generally makes a lot of interesting observations on current trends, particularly in technology.

Starting and Building a Nonprofit, A Practical Guide By Peri H. Pakroo ISBN # 1413300901 Skim: It's a new book from Nolo. Looks good especially in terms of legal structures, etc. Would be good to give to someone who was starting up a chapter or looking at starting a new organization (go figure). Also, good for chapter relations folks. Budgeting and Financial Management Handbook for Not-for-Profit Organizations By Edward J. McMillan ISBN# 0880341580 Skim: I've read this book before when I was running chapter relations at AAMFT . It's good and very practical -- by that I mean lots of example documents you can use and modify. Somewhat lacking on the coding process, which I think every member of any nonprofit staff needs to be intimately familiar with, even if it is an accountant who dreams the whole thing up. Fighting Fit: Boxing Workouts, Techniques and Sparring By Doug Werner and Alan Lachica ISBN# 1884654029 Skim: This book is a follow up to the last one I read, so it's

I have to go back to the library and some of the books in my stack I haven't really read. I did want to include a bullet point list from this book because it seems useful. This book focuses on the needs of small business, which I tend to find interesting because of the many parallels between the needs of small business and those of (drumroll please) small associations. Here is a list of ten attitudes that should be primary to anyone operating a virtual small business. The summaries I have written; but the lists' subjects are the book's. 1. You operate according to a plan. Plan is brief and helpful, based on goals and reviewed regularly. 2. You grow your business according to a calendar. Outline your plans for the next year week by week. 3. You are the essence of flexibility. Customers first. We know this one already. 4. You're a giver and not a taker. You are known to give valuable things away. Interesting given all the recent discussions on this topic in the associatio

I found this post on a blog I hadn't visited before by a guy named Kevin O'Keefe. This list is a great reference for anyone trying to start up a web-based thinger, but it could be applicable in association work as well, given that associations need to build their communities as well. An advantage we association folks have is that we automatically get this nice tidy mission to work with - sometimes entrepreneurial types have to struggle to achieve that kind of focus.

I read this post on Garr Reynold's blog and found it to my liking. For me, he resolves an issue that I've been grappling with and provides an answer. Which is, don't discount your stuff, give it away. In a counterintuitive way, it makes great business sense. UPDATE: Welcome Association, Inc . readers. I am glad to see this topic coming up because seriously, it does have a lot of applications in the nonprofit world. We see lots of models where our "products" are held behind members-only sections, etc., and maybe that's the way it should be. It can't be the only way though. As the nerds on Slashdot say, "information wants to be free." They also say " all your base are belong to us ," however. For great justice.

The whole title is called The Hypomanic Edge : The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America . Which is kind of funny because even the title is a little manic. There's a great soundbite on the front inside cover that says: "Why is America so rich and powerful? The answer lies in our genes, according to psychologist John Gartner." I got the book from the library after seeing it on Garr Reynold's website . First, Gartner talks a little about what it means to be hypomanic , or, in other words, a little manic. He talks about what that looks like in people. Basically, it looks pretty familiar. So Gartner would probably tell me that because I live in the U.S., that we have a very high sample of these kinds of individuals. It does make sense because people who are hypomanic tend to be immigrants far more often than others. He has statistics to make this argument, which are quite interesting. The rest of the book looks at brief biographies of individ

This book is a compliation of McKinsey Award Winners from the Harvard Business Review for the years 1980 through 1994. I got the book at the library and thought "Oh, Managerial Excellence, that should be useful." But, since it's a compilation covering a large time period from awhile ago, a lot of the articles are shall we say, in need of an update. So I picked an article that is still fairly fresh and read it for detail. It's an article entitled, "Good Communication that Blocks Learning," by Chris Argyris. The thesis of the article is that basically, our "best practices" for getting at the bottom of problems maybe aren't that good; instead, they serve to give us the information we already know. (Which according to a professor of mine, isn't very useful since communication only involves exchange of information previously unknown to one party.) So, people use what he calls "single-loop learning," or one-dimensional questions, an e

Developing Yourself 1. You are responsible Nonprofits lack resources. You cannot blame this for shoddy work. That is bad. "Then you begin to blame the world," and you become a victim. That sucks. Don't do it. Self-development is important for nonprofit executives, staffers and volunteers. 2. What do you want to be remembered for? Craftsmanship counts is what he says here. I like the way that's put because I like the idea of crafting things, and coming up with a deliverable from an idea is very rewarding for me. So this is a good validation for that perspective. A quote: "You can only make yourself effective, not anyone else. Creating a record of performance is the only thing that will encourage people to trust you and support you." You should gather feedback on your own performance. I always think about this in context of looking for jobs. When you get a rejection letter, you should probably call them up and ask them what you could improve, etc., but I never

1. People decisions Drucker provides some useful hiring advice. Now, I've never had the final say over whether someone was to be hired or not, however, I have had the chance to initiate a review of candidates and offer my selections. This advice would have been useful then, and it would be useful to anyone who's responsible for hiring, whether for their team or for their own operation. He says people focus too much on a candidate's weaknesses. Says rather, you should hire for their strengths. Slogan of the handicapped association "don't hire a person based on what they can't do, but on what they can." Says there's not much of a correlation between what a person is capable of at twenty-three and what they do when they're fifty. Harvard kids might burn out and someone less educated or impressive might burn low and hit their stride later in their career. How to develop people? Uses the example of a pastor he knows who works with young people (of cours

1. What is the bottom line when there is no bottom line? Businesses as a default can rely on profit as an effectiveness measure. Nonprofits cannot use this concrete measure meaningfully. There are many different ways of looking at measurements that can serve as bottom lines of sorts, but the trick is to pick the right measurement to look at. And that can change over time, so it needs to be incorporated into the strategic planning (or whatever you want to call it) process. Nonprofits have many different customers which all need to be pleased to differing degrees. Drucker talks about the difficulty nonprofits have abandoning lost causes. Nonprofits have to distinguish between moral causes and economic causes. A moral cause is an absolute good. Preachers have been thundering against fornication for five thousand years. Results, alas, have been nil, but that only proves how deeply entrenched evil is. The absence of results indicates only that efforts have to be increased. This is the essen

I read Jamie Notter's thoughts on blogging and it led me to have some thoughts of my own. I have been doing this for about a month now, and I don't feel like stopping any time soon. For me, blogging the books I read has brought my self-education to a great new level. When I read something now, I feel like I have a deliverable, which motivates me to get more out of what I'm reading. I read more carefully, and I take special notes of action steps and useful formulae that I find. Additionally, although the mission of my blog is primarily to serve as a "virtual bookshelf," I find myself wanting to turn other professional experiences into deliverables. It definitely clarifies my thinking, and has the added benefit that at some point, I could possibly transmit something I've learned to others.

Part two of Drucker's seminal nonprofit management book is entitled "From Mission to Performance," which articulates the whole nonprofit challenge. Currently since I work for a patient advocacy organization (also known as a VHA or " voluntary health agency ") that is a real challenge. I find that this is less of a challenge in a more market-driven environment, such as a trade or professional association . I really get bummed out with the chronic underfunding of the more charitable environments. I feel like, if I have to live with that level of uncertainty, I might as well work for myself, because then I could depend on myself at least. But that is another story. Again, I will structure these notes around the great framework of the section. 1. Converting good intentions into results Napoleon (no, not Mr. Dynamite!) says you only need three things to win a war. Money, money and more money. However, Drucker says you need more than that to run an effective nonprofit

"The task of the nonprofit manager is to try to convert the organization's mission statement into specifics." p. 5 This book was published in 1990, but it seems much, much fresher than that, as if it came off the presses yesterday. The problems that are articulated in it are still very much being dealt with by many organizations and the leaders Drucker interviews throughout the book are still coming off as brilliant leaders. As they (actually, as I) say, plus ça change, plus c'est la même affaire... The organization of the book was great. It is organized into five parallel sections. It is very well organized, so I'll just use that underlying structure to arrange my notes. I have taken notes of observations I have found useful and that ring true. 1. your mission comes first, your role as a leader a. the commitment b. leadership is a foul-weather job "You have the problem of organizing the new. It must be organized separately... If you put new ideas into operat

I read the current issue of Business 2.0 on my way home to D.C. Two things caught my eye. They had a picture of this shirt , which I think is awesome . The other thing I couldn't remember.

I read this book because I followed the trail from Robert Egger's book Begging for Change . He said that Harriet Tubman had done groundbreaking work in the field of nonprofit administration. How interesting, I thought. Since I love biographies anyway, it wasn't too difficult for me to get into this book. The book is by Catherine Clinton . Seriously, I think "inspiring" is the best word to describe her life. I felt impassioned as I read this book, and empowered to think what you can accomplish even when an entire culture is set against you in a formal, articulated way. I learned a lot of things that I hadn't known before. For example, that Harriet Tubman was born on Maryland's Eastern Shore and that my adopted home state is the place where she came and did a lot of her rescues. I learned a lot about the culture of the freemen and the slaves and the political environment in which they found themselves. Obviously, there is great discussion of the abolitionist mo

Here are two examples of cover sheets I came across as I was preparing for a recent board meeting. This one my president gave me . He's the city attorney in St. Cloud, Minnesota and this is the cover they use at city council meetings. This one they use at my old work, AAMFT . It is very straightforward and user-friendly, and obviously the different needs of the different entities have a lot to do with the cover sheets' difference. I of course adapted them for my current needs, coming up with one that looks like this .

Some of the blogs I follow have been talking about Peter Drucker , who quite recently died. I actually had checked out a couple of books from the library on him, including the Nonprofit Management one, which I haven't gotten too quite yet. However, I did read Robert Heller's treatment, published by DK press , called Peter Drucker: The Great Pioneer of Management Theory and Practice . For me, the book was an exceptional introduction to Drucker's work, with which I hadn't been familiar since my degree isn't in management. Turns out that Drucker was light years ahead of his time, at least from my nonspecialist perspective. Everything that people are saying now about "marketing is about relationships," etc., Drucker was saying way back in his career. Additionally, another bit of keen foresight was his focus on "self-governing community," as the ideal in management systems. (This was, I believe, a long time before anyone was using the term "know

It has been a while since I wrote but work has been a total zoo and I just got back from a trip to Detroit. I have gotten a lot of reading done, but no time to enter it all in just yet. However, I did want to make a note of the table settings that I spotted at the Ritz. They have cobalt blue glasses here water. They have tumblers and also water goblets. They used the blue tumblers for their classroom setup. They used the goblets ones with breakfast. They put one blue one and one clear one. Clear was for juice and blue was for water. Nice look. Here is kind of what the goblet looked like. I did a Froogle search and was unable to find the thing so I'll have to do more research.

This looks like a good resource . Gosh, I'll be glad when I get my head around this board meeting.

This is a great reference from BoardSource . I used it today to help me get ready for our board meeting in St. Louis which promises to be a lively one!

Having failed at school, rioters take to the schools to avenge themselves. A dozen primary schools burned during the weekend. Many parents helped teachers clean the premises. by Cecilia Gabizon 08 November 2005 "They burned the school and it makes sense," provoked Tewfik, who spent 18 years in Grigny (Essonne) where the Sleeping Beauty Primary School was burned. "Everyone is sick of the hypocrisy: here, school is useless; all you have to do is look at us!" A friend of Tewpik's continues: "Ninety percent fail, 10 percent graduate and 100 percent are unemployed." Brahim adds "The whole system is undermined from below." They describe the hostile universe, cruel teachers, injustices and professional orientation equivalent to being "thrown in the trash can." Without diplomas and without employment, they prefer rancor over regrets. These products of the educational system are they who took to these vulnerable primary schools, according to

Welcome to my blog! Although you can see this is not normally the focus of my writing (haha) I have decided to put my degree to some use! So I'm helping with coverage of the French rioting. I will work on these articles as I have time. Here is the lead article from Le Monde . ***** Following 12 days of what he called “unacceptable and inexcusable rioting,” Dominique de Villepin appeared Monday night on TF1 to present his “emergency measures.” He promised that the state’s response would be “firm and fair.” The prime minister emphasized that if necessary, a curfew would be instituted in sensitive areas. He also announced the strengthening of an aid package to voluntary associations covering three areas: education, unemployment/welfare, and housing. He further specified that prefects will be able to impose a curfew in their districts as soon as Wednesday morning following announcement in the Journal official. Strengthening the police force Responding to questions about how the violenc

If I ever want to run for local office, this book is a great resource. It is extremely practical. The gist is to always go after your "good voters". The guy who wrote the book is a mayor of a town in Michigan called Westland, pop. 85,000. Of those, 60-some are registered voters but only 15,000 are "good voters" who vote in the municipal elections. So every effort should be targeted at those. Of course he goes into details such as fundraising and what kind of signs to buy. Also, there is useful information on how to begin the very first steps which is the kind of thing that's hard to figure out. By Robert J. Thomas ISBN # 0966830407

This book builds on a lot of Carver's philosophies of board design , but is a lot more technical in nature, basically a technical retelling of Carver's stuff. Not that I wouldn't consider it useful, but it's not a page turner. It's the kind of thing you want when you're in the middle of the muck. Recap's Carver's definitions of a staff-level volunteer's "helpfulness interest" versus the board's "ownership interest". A big emphasis on planning. Now, strategic planning , etc. seems to be going the way of all the world, or getting less popular at the very least . I was talking to some individuals from a large, impressive program at a huge trade association yesterday, and that seemed to be the feeling I got. If that is one's impression, then this book would be more of the same: hollow words with no action to back it up. But if you look at those kinds of plans as providing solid infrastructure on which to build your mission, th

So, you know how there's all these really nice books called The Portable MBA or MBA in a Box (I actually looked at that one and it was pretty cool, if steeped a little long in theory). Well, I guess what I'm doing with this blog is coming up with my own Portable MPA. You know, I've looked at programs around town. I checked out American's program and talked with the folks and everything. I was very impressed. Trouble is, I need another degree like I need a whole in the head. Still, I've decided to do Georgetown's Certificate Program as soon as I have the time and money. I feel like I need the ooomph of some formal training. Additionally, that ought to prepare me for the CAE examination which I plan to take. In the meantime, this blog is reflecting my attempt to get my literature in me, and so I'm going to take the opportunity to record recommended reading I've found which I can then link to later. Yesterday I mentioned Stephen Block and I was trying

Okay, I wasn't going to write this one up because I have to look at it on the margin of the page until it gets archived, but it seriously was pretty useful. The title is (surprise, surpise) a ploy. What he means is that famous people are real in the sense that they have real concerns and real problems. Their famousness or money does not take that away and in that sense, they are naked. The author is Jake Steinfeld of Body by Jake fame, and this book is not about fitness--it's about entrepreneurialism. The book's subtitle is "business secrets from the ultimate street-smart entrepreneur." I don't know about the ultimate business, but it rings true that the book propounds very street-smart approaches to business, and cuts it down to its fundamentals, which is useful and inspiring. The book has lots of tips and checklists to help the budding entrepreneur. There's too much detailed information to take note of all of it, but I will probably refer to this book i

This book is one of those books that has given me a language to talk about ideas I've had all along. Julie Morgenstern is a good writer and she has good systems for organizing. Basically, you want to make sure that "everything has a home," which is something of a mantra with me in the past year or so. She tells the story of her epiphany when she became an organized person. Basically, I think I had the same experience--you realize that the only way to get what you want is to be more organized, i.e. you have to spend less time administering crap. I'm into organization because I am continually seeking a simplified lifestyle. Cutting the fat helps me do that. Julie's steps can also be applied to organizations. (As witnessed by the fact that she is quite successful in business and entrepreneurial circles.) For example, her "attack" strategies of sort, purge, assign a home, containerize and equalize could just as easily be used as a business tool for organiza