Category Archives: Technologies

Livable Income IN a Livable Economy (Part Two: the Impacts of AI)

Complexity, economic choice, Income, Income Inequality, Labour Force, Living Wage, Possibility, Poverty, Technologies

Last November I published a blog on the Edmonton CDC website and more recently repeated that posting here on Anticipate. Reading it first is, I suggest, of value to fully engage this posting.

The title of this posting reflects my interest in getting language “right.”

Living Wage and Livable Income are not synonymous. The latter includes the former and ensures we are considering those who do not earn wages and rely on pensions and/or government income security programs.  A livable economy is one that benefits society as a whole, not just those at the top of the income scale.

One of the biggest threats to a livable economy and the chance for people to have a livable income is technology and in particular Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reducing the need for human intelligence and interaction. Systems and processes are fast becoming less reliant on human presence and more dependent on technologies that eliminate human error and/or just make things cheaper to do.

There are those who suggest that the disruptions caused by technologies are dramatically improving:

  • health for people; witness how much longer people are living (in the Western world in particular);
  • learning and education;
  • how we network and communicate;
  • convenience as in “Siri, how do you spell, perpendicular?” while offering us more choice (e.g. Skip the Dishes or Uber instead of just taxis);
  • the quality of products and services by eliminating human error; and
  • the bottom line by reducing labour costs and increasing profits.

We could debate the points above, but let’s assume all of the above is markedly accurate. Perhaps these are primarily positive impact of AI and other technologies, but the question for me has to do with the yin and yang of technological advances and their disruptive nature.

Technology proponents will point to the job creation that techno-firms provide and suggest that those jobs will replace the jobs lost because of technology. Some will admit there will be a structural skills gap in the workforce for a generation or so, but that everything will even out in the long run.

Maybe this evening out will happen over time, but it is hard to imagine that technology firms will be leading the way to structural reform that benefits workers who are being replaced.

Overall, it appears that technology is about the overall reduction of human workers in the market place. Currently much of this displacement is focused on low-skilled jobs, but don’t fool yourself. How long will it take robots to take these jobs:

  • Insurance underwriters and claims adjusters
  • Bank tellers and representatives
  • Financial and marketing analysts
  • Researchers
  • Inventory managers
  • Farmers
  • Taxi drivers and truck drivers
  • Bookkeepers
  • Lawyers
  • Pharmacists
  • Manufacturing workers
  • and more

If you believe technology will benefit you economically, you might be right, but overall the evidence to date indicates things don’t look so rosy down the road. Consider the following US data, based on a report about the impact of digital technologies on productivity and job growth —  in the MIT Technology Review.

The chart is a bit difficult to read but basically until 2000, the gap between productivity and employment in the United States has been fairly consistent and representative of a connection between jobs and productivity.  Since 2000, productivity has increased while jobs have pretty much remained at 2000 levels. That might be great news for big business, but far less so for workers.

Not only has the job trend not kept up with productivity, we can see a longer trend of significant GDP growth in the United States while household income has remained relatively flat since 1990. This chart indicates more economic achievement for the economy that is not benefitting workers at a corresponding rate, which frankly is one key factor in the significant income inequality that exists in the United States. Continue reading Livable Income IN a Livable Economy (Part Two: the Impacts of AI) →

Wiki Sites are Great Engagement Tools

Internet, Tool Box

Collective Impact is a long-play on community change. Large scale community change takes time and over the life of a Collective Impact initiative, there will be many documents and lists produced and people will come and go as well. Keeping track of the important reports and data can be time-consuming. And imagine coming into the work a year or so in. How would you get up to speed?

A “wiki” is Hawaiian for “quick.” They are relatively easy to build and use and can be used for a project or as a website.  There are many options for building a wiki site. The tool I am showcasing is  Google Sites, which is free to use and allows for integration with Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Groups.

Features of a wiki site include:

• Collaboration among users no matter where they are located. For example, you can edit documents collaboratively and users can be notified whenever a document is updated.

• Creating or co—creating a Common Calendar that can be embedded in the wiki site.

• Creating and managing a Clearing House of documents, images and other files by theme or topic area that users can view or download. This allows you to have all pertinent documents stored in one place, which provides a historical view of your initiative as well as provides newcomers to your initiative an efficient way to be oriented.

• Create sign up forms for registrations that are automatically displayed as well on the site.

• Create a survey that automatically populates the results of on the wiki site.

• Link to or embed a Google Group to foster discussion on the site among participants.

• Create static webpages and navigation to other wiki pages.

• Display a plan as well as a link to it for downloading.

• Widgets can be used to automatically display recent news that users should know about.

This tool download goes deeper into the pros and cons of a wiki platform and includes some examples of wiki sites I have built for collaborative groups.

Movement Building and Collective Impact

#yeg, Collaboration, Collective Impact, Collective Wisdom, Government, Leadership, Movement, Private Sector, Social Media

In an article written for Fast Company, Kaihan Krisppendorff, identifies four steps to building an effective social movement, which I have adapted below:

1. A community forms around a common goal or aspiration.
2. The community mobilizes its resources to act on the goal/aspiration.
3. The community crafts solutions and acts to deliver them.
4. The movement is accepted by (or actually replaces) the establishment or established regime of laws and policies (Source).

If you are involved in a collective impact initiative, these steps should resonate with you, in particular with the five conditions of collective impact.  Krisppendorff doesn’t address shared measurement in his post about social movements, but successful movements are always about moving the needle and bringing about systems change to do so.

Consider the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. in 1964; the Civil Rights Act rendered discrimination/segregation illegal, especially with respect to jobs and workplace advancement, and termination because of colour. States that did nothing to address discrimination lost federal funding. There were other impacts but you get the gist. Big change for sure. Continue reading Movement Building and Collective Impact →

Social Media – What Now?

Generative Conversations, Internet, Social Media, Social Network

Most non-profits are active on the web and understand the importance of ensuring there are ample opportunities for cross sharing between websites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms like Pinterest. My sense is that only a minority of non-profits – truly understand and then embrace social media as being vital to communication with stakeholders, increasing brand awareness, promoting a cause, and generating philanthropic interest and action in their organizations.

I understand it is difficult for many non-profits to allocate a staff person or more importantly overall staff time to social media work. Not doing so, however, will make it harder and harder to connect with one’s stakeholders deeply and continually. Not only is it imperative non-profits get sophisticated about social media, it is also an affordable undertaking, given that social media is typically free or very low in cost. Not having and acting on a social media strategy is a missed opportunity to experience significant impact with stakeholders at a very low price point.

Here are some trends that may help you understand the need for your organization to get more involved in the Internet and social media.

Mobilization of the Internet
Sometime this year, it is expected that accessing the Internet through mobile technology will surpass traditional desktop access. More and more people are engaging businesses, non-profits, and one another on their smartphones and tablets. According to comScore, nearly two-thirds of social network users use their mobile devices rather than their desktop. These two trends suggest that non-profits need to create websites that are easily transposed to mobile interfaces. If they aren’t people aren’t likely to ramble through a site that does not display simply and well in terms of navigation and content.

The Rise of Influencer Marketing
Stephanie Frasco (SocialMediaToday) reminds us that the sharing power of social media is critical to our success, especially if we can connect with what she calls “ambassadors and influencers.” Getting others who support your cause to post about you to their followers is a key strategy to be considered if you want to reach a high volume of people. This is called “influencer marketing” and while it may be a tad scary to put your marketing in the hands of others you cannot control, receiving support and affirmation from influencers are far more meaningful because the sharing is voluntary not orchestrated by your organization.

Emails are Still Important
What you need to consider is that the use of mobile devices to access emails has increased 110% since 2010. Today emails are opened on mobile devices 44% of the time, and that rate is expected to grow significantly over the next few years. Your emails should be written and laid out with that in mind. Don’t use a font size less than 11pt. Double that size of headers. And don’t get too fancy. Stick to a single column communication.

Where Should You Be Active?
The graph below tells us that people are using applications that do the following:
1. Storing and sharing pictures
2. Storing and sharing videos
3. Communicating via the Internet with friends and colleagues

Vine, the fastest growing mobile application. According to Wikipedia, “Vine is a mobile app owned by Twitter that enables its users to create and post short looping video clips. Video clips created with Vine have a maximum clip length of seven seconds and can be shared to Vine’s social network, or to other services such as Twitter… and Facebook.”  Note the videos are very short and implies that our messaging should be brief and to the point.

Take a look at the list below. Are you actively involved with these applications?  Are you integrating them amongst each other and with your website?

ChartOfTheDay_1553_Fastest_Growing_Apps_Worldwide_n

Of course being on social media is not enough. You have to know why you are there and what you are trying to accomplish.

Dialogue is one the key strategies worth considering. One way communication  (print materials like brochures, advertisement, newsletters, and static websites) are far less effective that two way exchanges between your organization and your stakeholders. You can create dialogue on a blog (allow people to make comments) and via Facebook and Twitter. You do that by not just expecting people to engage you on your Facebook page or through your Twitter page. You also create dialogue by visiting the pages of those who follow you and by retweeting other people’s tweets or commenting on them.

Information-Sharing is another purpose of social media. It’s less effective if that’s all you do, but if you are optimally engaged in social media, you are likely to get more results from sharing information about an event, an online fundraiser, or a show you are putting on.  Social media is also helpful in terms of informing others of facts they  may not be aware of and then linking them to places they can get more information if they wish to.

Calls to Action also can work well. When Bissell Centre had a devastating fire at its Thrift Shoppe, the organization lost all of its contents (primarily clothes and household items). Twitter was deployed very successfully to launch a “Restock the Shoppe” campaign. The retweets exceeded our expectations and people mobilized clothing campaigns at work, at their schools, and places of worship. Others got their friends to participate and many individuals showed up with bags of clothing they gleaned from their closets. Within a month we had more than enough stock to re-open at a temporary location.

Services can also be delivered via social media. I have resolved issues with Telus through its Twitter-based customer representatives and frankly much more quickly and effectively than through their telephone-based services. Perhaps there are ways for your organization to better serve donors, volunteers, and in some cases clients through Twitter.

If you are not yet as active as you should be or if you are reluctant to fully commit to social media as a social engagement strategy, I can understand the reluctance. You have to be prepared to give up control of your messaging for one thing and trust that your brand will be treated respectfully by the masses. Keep in mind, however, that even if you are not on social media, others can and do “talk” about you. Your absence is no guarantee that you are in control of things anymore when it comes to messaging, branding, marketing, and so on.

As I wrote previously on this blog, “Social media is communication to be sure, but also about engagement. It’s dynamic and more unpredictable.  The buzz created about your brand is no longer under your control.  Those doing the buzzing are commenting on your brand, interpreting it, judging it, and promoting it. Not only that, they are talking about you (having social conversations) in ways you might not, altering the message for context or effect (and yes, their bias), and if your social media efforts are successful, they are influencing and involving others in your cause. Actually, they are playing an instrumental role in shifting the your cause mindset toour cause. As Beth Kanter says somewhere on her blog, ‘Your supporters are the message’.”

In a slide show on social media, Beth Kanter referenced the work of Neil Perkin. I have adapted below. This outlines the differences between traditional and social media communications.

Some of the above may make you uncomfortable because social media is less predictable than traditional communications strategies. But the more people you have involved in conversations about your cause, influencing their friends, creating messaging together, the better able you will be to connect with people and learn from them.