A guest post outlining visions by Teo/ITA.
Even though FTB is on hiatus, and the author is spending is energy elsewhere, I've promised to post Teo's guest post now, so maybe, people will be inspired, while AIM bumped everybody's minds deep into CISV matters. This post includes ideas and concepts for at least 10 regular FTB posts, so prepare yourself for a smoking head, once you've finished reading. But it's 100% worth the time. Cheers, Nick.
The ideas come from a serendipitous moment on the beach of Rio in which my brain was spinning tring to put together different inputs I had in the last weeks:
1) discussions at the celebration of CISV 60th anniversary by CISV Italy spurred from a panel on how the competencies of design with diversity that you acquire in CISV are nowadays very relevant in many multinational companies. This discussion also generated an interesting digression on how companies might be interested on one side to the pool of talents in CISV (today hiring costs are very high), but also our leadership training tools. To generate those insights were former cisver now at high executive levels in the italian level of some multinational companies.
2) new promotional video by CISV Italy that tries to control the way the organization is presented by centralizing the identity
representation and avoid fragmentation. (http://bre.ad/06jyw9)
3) brainstorming with 2 very good and smart cisv friends about creating a startup that could use, together with out skills and
knowledge from our educational and professional background, our cisv ASK. This exercise was focused (and still is) to identify a nice for consulting services on the topics of: diversity, leadership, communication, team bundling, innovation, stakeholder engagement, community impact and CSR.
4) seeds of peace video: find the difference with CISV
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=LYebmEOAirI )
Even though FTB is on hiatus, and the author is spending is energy elsewhere, I've promised to post Teo's guest post now, so maybe, people will be inspired, while AIM bumped everybody's minds deep into CISV matters. This post includes ideas and concepts for at least 10 regular FTB posts, so prepare yourself for a smoking head, once you've finished reading. But it's 100% worth the time. Cheers, Nick.
The ideas come from a serendipitous moment on the beach of Rio in which my brain was spinning tring to put together different inputs I had in the last weeks:
1) discussions at the celebration of CISV 60th anniversary by CISV Italy spurred from a panel on how the competencies of design with diversity that you acquire in CISV are nowadays very relevant in many multinational companies. This discussion also generated an interesting digression on how companies might be interested on one side to the pool of talents in CISV (today hiring costs are very high), but also our leadership training tools. To generate those insights were former cisver now at high executive levels in the italian level of some multinational companies.
2) new promotional video by CISV Italy that tries to control the way the organization is presented by centralizing the identity
representation and avoid fragmentation. (http://bre.ad/06jyw9)
3) brainstorming with 2 very good and smart cisv friends about creating a startup that could use, together with out skills and
knowledge from our educational and professional background, our cisv ASK. This exercise was focused (and still is) to identify a nice for consulting services on the topics of: diversity, leadership, communication, team bundling, innovation, stakeholder engagement, community impact and CSR.
4) seeds of peace video: find the difference with CISV
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?
5) buzz on social networking companies evolution and valuation:
LinkedIn IPO, Skype acquisition, Google and Apple new launches, Facebook and Zynga valuation, etc.
6) value based marketing such as Coca Cola last video
(http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DZWJBIwqiG1c&rct=j&sa=X&ei=cM36TcScJcGjtgex2oXDDg&ved=0CBkQuAIwAA&q=coca+cola+video+reasons+to+believe&usg=AFQjCNH5ig6fLgs32MNV2m9TqkNIocxqXw )
7) CISV Portugal motion about electing IEC as a team, idea that I love if it brings together the idea of a program platform
Strategy:
1) integrate participants from "real" conflict areas in our programs (see seed of peace example: Palestine, Pakistan, etc.) by:
- develop training material and train people to deal with people coming from "real" conflict, possibly hiring specialists
- fly people out and enable them to meet in "neutral" areas
- pay, maybe partially, staff and people/local chapters to "accept" such delegation in camps, to promote this strategy
- fundraise entities sensible to this issues (see coca cola video)
2) create non profit entity, completely controlled by CISV international, aimed at offering services to companies in exchange of
fee to cover both the cost of the services (full time employees with competitive consulting salaries shall be hired) and program expenses, in order to lower participation and travel fees. The services to be
offered include:
- talent scouting within CISV database, for members that opt in the service. Possibly using tech partnership such as LinkedIn.
- training covering: diversity, leadership, communication, team bundling.
- implementing strategies: innovation, stakeholder engagement, community impact and CSR.
Separate organization will ensure autonomy, similarly to the insurance company.
Fundamental will be the presence in top school focused in the fields of business, conflict resolution, psychology etc etc (e.g. Kennedy school - Harvard, CIPA - Columbia, UN institute - Geneva, ...)
3) create technological tools to expand programs beyond the physical space to the Internet, possibly with the use of social network such as facebook. Partnership should be created in order to anticipate changes coming in society in the next 5-10 years and start thinking about how to include them already in the programs. Possible partners include Facebook, Skype, google.
4) centralized communication strategy, by realizing videos to be translated in all languages and available on the web to unify the brand perception and follow up the rebranding process, not only visually but also with content. it will just required to uniform the external image as we did with the creating of the passport internally. This would not mean stiffly creativity and autonomy of each NA but support them in promoting the organization in a coordinated way.
5) move office to location that enable:
- talent attraction, both full time and interns (today the "war for talents" is as such that companies such as UBS are considering
changing location)
- networking with NGOs and corporation with funding availability (face to face meeting is still very important for these issues)
Why:
a) to make this world a better place we should reach more in all parts of society, with the appropriate means for each audience
b) one of the most impactful way to reach out is changing business as these are the most pervasive institution in society
c) more impactful work could be achieved having people from conflicting countries in our programs (both for our current participants and new target groups)
d) financing programs and the organization in general is becoming more challenging, while ideally participation fees should be lower to increase inclusiveness of the organization.
Integrating the pieces:
- Action 2 will increase revenue to support further actions as well as promote our values and knowledge in contexts much more powerful where a real difference can be made (see why sections point a, b and d)
- Action 1 will strengthen our content and image, to be used for action 4 (why section a and c)
- action 3 and 5 are just required to survive
Action plan:
sell this plan to the current IEC or to the next team to be elected in 2013, but for some items might be too late...
LinkedIn IPO, Skype acquisition, Google and Apple new launches, Facebook and Zynga valuation, etc.
6) value based marketing such as Coca Cola last video
(http://www.youtube.com/watch%
7) CISV Portugal motion about electing IEC as a team, idea that I love if it brings together the idea of a program platform
Strategy:
1) integrate participants from "real" conflict areas in our programs (see seed of peace example: Palestine, Pakistan, etc.) by:
- develop training material and train people to deal with people coming from "real" conflict, possibly hiring specialists
- fly people out and enable them to meet in "neutral" areas
- pay, maybe partially, staff and people/local chapters to "accept" such delegation in camps, to promote this strategy
- fundraise entities sensible to this issues (see coca cola video)
2) create non profit entity, completely controlled by CISV international, aimed at offering services to companies in exchange of
fee to cover both the cost of the services (full time employees with competitive consulting salaries shall be hired) and program expenses, in order to lower participation and travel fees. The services to be
offered include:
- talent scouting within CISV database, for members that opt in the service. Possibly using tech partnership such as LinkedIn.
- training covering: diversity, leadership, communication, team bundling.
- implementing strategies: innovation, stakeholder engagement, community impact and CSR.
Separate organization will ensure autonomy, similarly to the insurance company.
Fundamental will be the presence in top school focused in the fields of business, conflict resolution, psychology etc etc (e.g. Kennedy school - Harvard, CIPA - Columbia, UN institute - Geneva, ...)
3) create technological tools to expand programs beyond the physical space to the Internet, possibly with the use of social network such as facebook. Partnership should be created in order to anticipate changes coming in society in the next 5-10 years and start thinking about how to include them already in the programs. Possible partners include Facebook, Skype, google.
4) centralized communication strategy, by realizing videos to be translated in all languages and available on the web to unify the brand perception and follow up the rebranding process, not only visually but also with content. it will just required to uniform the external image as we did with the creating of the passport internally. This would not mean stiffly creativity and autonomy of each NA but support them in promoting the organization in a coordinated way.
5) move office to location that enable:
- talent attraction, both full time and interns (today the "war for talents" is as such that companies such as UBS are considering
changing location)
- networking with NGOs and corporation with funding availability (face to face meeting is still very important for these issues)
Why:
a) to make this world a better place we should reach more in all parts of society, with the appropriate means for each audience
b) one of the most impactful way to reach out is changing business as these are the most pervasive institution in society
c) more impactful work could be achieved having people from conflicting countries in our programs (both for our current participants and new target groups)
d) financing programs and the organization in general is becoming more challenging, while ideally participation fees should be lower to increase inclusiveness of the organization.
Integrating the pieces:
- Action 2 will increase revenue to support further actions as well as promote our values and knowledge in contexts much more powerful where a real difference can be made (see why sections point a, b and d)
- Action 1 will strengthen our content and image, to be used for action 4 (why section a and c)
- action 3 and 5 are just required to survive
Action plan:
sell this plan to the current IEC or to the next team to be elected in 2013, but for some items might be too late...
Hello there
Thanks for your committed posts! I am an old CISVer (leader at villages in Mexico and Thailand back in the 80's) and my daughter just came back from Peace of Cake Village in Oslo. We live in Hong Kong and the chapter is small. Of course we would all love the chance to host a village here, so that we could expand the chapter (and get more invitations) but when I think about it I (not speaking for anyone else) see some stumbling blocks: for one thing, Hong Kong in the summer is just too darn hot. Also, I don't think family homestays could be arranged as easily... Hong Kong has an extremely high biodensity (tiny flats) and this would also create a bit of a cultural hurdle. For that reason, I don't see how we could ever host a village or an interchange. On the other hand, there are some great venues for seminars camps and similar programmes. I am wondering if this is something that is addressed at the top. Now that my first child was lucky enough to be chosen to represent Hong Kong (she was born here but is not Chinese) I am thinking how my family can help build the chapter...