I’m headed to New Zealand and Australia to facilitate workshops in both countries and to keynote the ConnectingUp Conference (Australia’s version of the Nonprofit Technology Conference). I am excited for a return visit to Australia. I delivered the keynote there in 2008 and taught a workshop, “Take Me To The Social Web.” One of the workshop participants was Stephen Blyth of Common Knowledge – a long time nonprofit capacity builder and trainer – who invited me to come over to New Zealand to facilitate some workshops to NGOs and meet with funders who are interested in the peer learning and networked capacity building approach. Stephen is an expert in many training methods so this will be an excellent co-learning experience.
I’m thrilled that one of the workshops will be held on Makaurau Marae which is the land of Maori. The workshop will start with a welcoming ceremony – I couldn’t have asked for a more authentic, culturally appropriate start to a workshop outside the US. To help prepare, Stephen Blyth pointed me to a video, The Beginner’s Guide to Visiting the Marae. is a straightforward and respectful explanation of basic marae protocol, from the wero, to the karanga, pōwhiri, whaikōrero, waiata, koha and the hongi. This video was an effective primer for me as a marae novice. Stephen was kind enough to point me to additional web resources that explain the protocol in detail and some terms with how to pronounce. He also sent me a book to read on the plane!
Here’s my some of my itinerary while I’m in Australia and New Zealand:
May 11, 2013: Full Day Workshop: The Networked NGO in New Zealand. This workshop is for intermediate organizations and will focus on strategy, measurement, and best practices for managing and implementing social media. This training will be the kick off for a peer learning group that Stephen will facilitate over the next few months.
May 13, 2013: Meeting with NZ Funders. This session will be briefing about of the ideas in “The Networked Nonprofit,” and “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit.” We will discuss ways that they can design capacity building efforts for NGOs using peer learning and a networked approach as well as how to measure and refine their own social media usage.
May 13, 2013: Half-Day Workshop. This workshop is co-hosted by Volunteering Auckland. This workshop will be for smaller NGOs, mostly volunteer-driven and or smaller staffs and how they can open up and become networked nonprofits and use social media effectively with few resources.
May 15, 2013: ConnectingUp – Master Class on becoming a networked nonprofit, using measurement, and making sense of data. I’m lucky that colleague John Kenyon is teaching a master class on strategic technology planning at the same time. We plan to do a joint session at the end of the day – and it may be walk on the beach to debrief as we will be on the Gold Coast.
May 16, 2013: ConnectingUp Conference Keynote I will be giving a keynote at the conference. I will be talking about several themes including learning from failure.
While I’m in transit, I’ve arranged for some exciting guest posts and I will, of course, be blogging and sharing what I learn about NGOs, Networked Nonprofits, and Measurement in that corner of the world.
