CISV from the Balcony.

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2011-11-15T19:36:46Z

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cisvfromthebalcony.wordpress.com

2011-09-04T20:10:28Z

Editorial note: Migrating after Spam Wars.

If you subscribe to the comments of FTB you must have noticed, that I'm losing hte Spam War these days: Most spam comments got caught by the system but some made it through the Captcha system. It's a real big pain, because I wouldn't even want the Captcha there in the first place, so that the commenting (which isn't happening very much these days anyway) threshold is lower. Things are a bit complicated, because Movable Type - the blog software I'm using - isn't being updated anymore. I tried to install a new Captcha system, but that didn't work out.

So, I took the chance and migrated everything over to Wordpress. And it only took me less than 2 hours to set up: I know, it looks like any other wordpress blog, but whatever. It's the content that counts, right? And: You now have an easy URL to remember! Also, I don't have to worry about updating the blog software any longer and will hopefully archive the stuff forever. And of course, I'm hoping that Wordpress, which is the most popular blogging software these days, gives me better control of Spam.

So, please:
Change your bookmarks to cisvfromthebalcony.wordpress.com
Change your RSS-Reader to http://cisvfromthebalcony.wordpress.com/feed/
Change your Comments RSS-Reader to http://cisvfromthebalcony.wordpress.com/comments/feed/
If you're following by e-mail, go to cisvfromthebalcony.wordpress.com and click on the grey link in the bottom right corner...

Any feedback welcome, but only on the new site, Thanks!

Revisiting Twitter.

2011-08-29T15:19:17Z

Twitter is a strange concept. Most of my friends in Germany have heard of it - especially after the Arab Spring - but hardly anybody gets it. Why should I broadcast what I am doing right now into cyberspace? Why should I be following others? Facebook on the other hand with its default (really?) privacy setup of posting notes, links and pictures to selected friends seems much easier grasp. In fact, it's almost a trend to refer to Twitter as something that is a trend among nerds.

Personally, I've been following a few friends and other popular Twitter threads for a while, much like I use Google Reader and Facebook: As a personal newspaper and friends update thread. It's only once a year, during AIM, that I actually post stuff, and during AIM in Guatemala was also the very moment, when I thought - now I understand: With a common hashtag (#aim09, #aim10, #aim11 NOT #aim2011), anybody could chip into the conversation. In 2009 and even more in 2010 the #aim201 thread was dominated by cynical remarks of what was happening in the plnnary, much like the infamous chat room that was popular at earlier AIMs. It was hilarious for anybody present, but cryptic to anybody outside the AIM site. With News Of The AIM, we tried to fill that gap, and posted official, objective updates on what was happening in the most important sessions. People still made obnoxious comments, but hey - everybody can post as they like, as long as they do it under their name - and the fact that everything is public censored out the most evil ideas.

Most people gave positive feedback on our AIM-Twitter-broadcast, but maybe there's more in it for us beyond AIM reporting?
This new book suggests, that every organization should have a Twitter-strategy - something Martin brought up in a comment thread a year ago.

As recent events in Japan, the Middle East, and Haiti have shown, Twitter offers a unique platform to connect individuals and influence change in ways that were unthinkable only a short time ago. In Twitter for Good, Claire Diaz Ortiz, Twitter's head of corporate social innovation and philanthropy, shares the same strategies she offers to organizations launching cause-based campaigns. Filled with dynamic examples from initiatives around the world, this groundbreaking book offers practical guidelines for harnessing individual activism via Twitter as a force for social change.
Reveals why every organization needs a dedicated Twitter strategy and explains how to set one
Introduces the five-step model taught at trainings around the world: T.W.E.E.T. (Target, Write, Engage, Explore, Track)
Author @claired is the head of corporate social innovation and philanthropy at Twitter, collaborating with organizations like Nike, Pepsi, MTV, the American Red Cross, charity:water, Room to Read, the Gates Foundation, the Skoll Foundation, the Case Foundation, National Wildlife Federation, Kiva, the United Nations, Free the Children, Committee to Protect Journalists, Partners in Health, FEMA, Ushahidi, The Acumen Fund
With more than 200 million users worldwide, Twitter has established itself as a dynamic force, one that every business and nonprofit must understand how to use effectively.

So: Who's going to work through it a pick out the pearls for CISV? And who's taking on the Twitter Strategy for CISV?

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Reinventing the wheel. Not.

2011-08-27T07:16:20Z

CISV needs to work on it's Organizational Learning.

One of the common misconceptions of IPP is that it is a service programme: Something you attend to help others. It is not. It is a service learning programme. The slogan "Go out, find out, help out" says it all: Helping out, is just one of its goals. The focus of an IPP is a sustainable, long-lasting educational effect on the IPP participant. Among the IPP (staff) trainers it has become somewhat unnerving, that anytime you explain IPP to somebody new, you have to clarify this misunderstanding.

Former IJR Gian/BRA invented a concept that was later called "Gian's curves": Every time a JB board changes, people start from scratch again to reinstate the quality established by the previous board. Only through JB training an actual development can be achieved over the years.

Every year there are 60% new trustees at AIM. At IJBC, I believe the amount of new juniors is more like 75%. Some committees have quite high turnover rates as well, so do chapter boards. Any CISV meeting you will go to, national or international, you'll find that less thatn 10% haven been around for more than 10 years. How can we make sure, that things learned in the past are still available today, even if the people are not?

We're not talking about individuals being trained, but about the organization as a whole moving forward. The concept is called "Organizational Learning", and I strongly believe CISV needs to embrace it more. This article - of which I have quoted before is a bit of a tough read but a good start. Looking at CISV, RTFs with all their training workshops are also a great addition to the way we work. Employing people at IO that not only administer, but develop the organization in a professional way also adds to Organizational Learning. I do think there are more ways to achieve this: Organizing our document archives in an accesible way would help. Using electronic media to give newcomers a quick entry into our somewhat complicated structures and procedures is another option. I'm sure there's a lot more ideas out there.

Back to IPP: During AIM in Indonesia I attended a session on IPP training and was quite surprised to hear two Italians, when asked to describe what an IPP is, that many people think an IPP is about working, when it is actually about learning. They knew so well, because both had been trained by Fred, an Italian who had been a member of the IPP committee from 2001 to 2005. Fred has long reduced his commitment in CISV, but the effect of his training lasts on. In some areas, our Organizational Learning curves are doing quite fine.

Unrestricted money.

2011-08-22T07:06:30Z

Kevin Starr directs the Mulago Foundation and the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program. In his article over at the Standford Social Innovation Review, he explains, why he prefers giving unrestricted money to a few NGOs, that he likes:

Unrestricted funding on the basis of real impact is a lot more satisfying than worrying about line items in a budget. What is important is the impact per donor dollar: the cost per child's life saved, per family out of poverty, per island species saved from extinction. If we like that number--if we think they are cost effective in terms of impact--we don't have to get worked up about overhead costs or whether employees fly business class now and again.

Perhaps donors feel that they're being more responsible by restricting funding to a given activity when they can track that activity closely. They're not. An organization can faithfully carry out the activities funded with restricted money and still not have much impact. The attempt to achieve tight control and close observation can miss the impact forest for the operational trees.

Over and over again, as a recipient of donations and grants, CISVers have almost gone crazy with creating specific budgets and reports to satisfy the sponsor. Only very rarely we've received flexible financial support, that we could ourselves use the best possible way. Maybe some day we'll find a foundation that thinks the way, Kevin Starr does.

Online Conferencing.

2011-08-18T07:59:42Z

During my time in the IPP committee we started doing regular chat meetings - we called them VTMs: Virtual Taskforce Meetings. Too my knowledge, they're still doing it today, and other teams in CISV have followed. However, chats are quite slow, hard to follow, and most people start doing things on the side as not to wast time.

Of course there's a ton of software out there, that can make virtual meetings much better, many of which are quite expensive. They include videoconferencing, sharing of files, presentations and even virtual whiteboards. Personally, I have no experience with any of these but WebEx seems to be a good solution at reasonable cost. Click on the 3min tour to get an idea, what it can look like. Cost seems like nothing, if compared to real-world meetings, though.

A more low-tech solution for video-conferencing - without the magic but free - is offered by tge German startup Sifonr.

CISV Germany has conducted an online meeting recently, where one of the board members gave a virtual presentation and others chipped in - I see some potential there.

CISV in Circles.

2011-08-16T15:55:55Z

Suggesting a flat instead of a pyramidal approach to committee work.

Every bigger chapter usually has a village committee, that takes care of organizing kids into delegations that are sent away and preparing and running a village in the chapter itself. In a bigger NA, there usually exists a national village committee, that runs evaluations, distributes invitations among the chapters and such. Finally, there is an international village committee (IVC) that sets up the football pool (which NA is invited to which camp) and develops the programme further.

With all this talk at this years AIM of supporting chapters, and the new communication approach of the NOTA, which circumvented middle structures (much like the IPP Newsletter), I wonder if there is a different approach than the pyramidal one described above.

Say, every member of a chapter village committee automatically becomes a member of the "Village Circle" (I shamelessly stole the term from Google+) These circles would obviously have tons of members, and there would be the need of moderation. The prototype of such communication would be the "Wall" of a facebook page: The administrators post important updates, but everybody else can post, comment and contribute at will.

Wouldn't it make sense, if anybody recruited for "the village job" in a chapter would immediately become part of a such bigger, international structure? These "Circles", you could also call them "networks", would then communicate using e-mail lists, or a facebook group, whatever communication structure suits them best. There could be monthly online get-togethers, even online training, furthermore exchange of best-practise, discussions on programme development. In a way, this would be the "spider" in the "starfish vs. spider" discussion we had a while ago.

Besides the "Village Circle" there would be Circles for all other programmes as well. Moreover, we could have a "Fundraising circle", a "Profile Raising Circle", maybe even a "CISV Shirts Circle", that shares designs, and gets shirts printed collectively at a cheap location.

It would be much easier for motivated people to get involved in the international meetings through a structure like this, and with an open communication culture, the darn old feeling of having new things imposed upon all the time - common to many a chapter volunteer - may actually go away. Also, the other way around, experiences made in villages somewhere in the CISV world could be communicated in a horizontal manner, instead of trickling all the way up to the head of the pyramid, and then all the way down again.

World Vision, a Christian NGO, has indeed implemented this way of organization and calls the "Circles" Communities of Practise (CoPs):

To devolve ownership of these goals across the networks, the organization focused on strengthening communities of practice (CoPs), virtual gatherings of far-flung World Vision experts in areas such as education, health, agriculture, and water, whose shared experiences could drive institutional learning and change. As of March 2011, World Vision had 23 CoPs with a combined membership of more than 10,000, all using a SharePoint Platform nested within the organization's global intranet. Each CoP is staffed with a senior leader, who listens to needs across fields and sets a responsive knowledge-sharing agenda, abetted by a dedicated administrator who manages and stimulates ongoing collaboration and discussion around key issues.

CoP members engage in different ways and groupings: Some plug in to listen and learn; others actively develop, review, and collaborate on global documents, including strategies and standards for their respective areas. Ongoing discussions take place around best practices, advice and support for applying them, and research proposals to find better answers. The CoP itself is the one place where members and broader management can find all the knowledge assets for a given sector, analyze them, and use them to manage change. Most CoPs also have regular WebEx meetings, where members can discuss issues in depth, as well as an annual meeting where a subset of members come face-to-face to share and strategize.
(Source)

Something for CISV to try as well? Which committee wants to go first?

AIM over.

2011-08-11T13:38:26Z

Just a few days ago I came back from Indonesia. AIM was truly fantastic - it was the first time since 2005 that I had taken part from beginning to end - and I'm very much motivated and inspired. So many great people, interesting people, and motivating ideas, great home staff... Of course not everything was great, and, as you might have guessed, I couldn't keep my mouth shut and broad-casted my point of view on a few issues instead: If you haven't discovered out News Of The AIM (short: NOTA) website yet, it's a great chance to catch up with what happened in Bali, for example by reading the daily summaries. If you're more interested in opinionated peaces, try the Corners:

Here's my take on international JB.
I quesioned the role of the board.
A call for a virtuous circle
My idea on how CISV could grow
A look at life/work balance during AIM.

Running the NOTA project was also great fun, we had a motivated team, and it was interesting to figure out, how modern media can help CISV get the message out to its members. Currently we're evaluating and compiling a report, which you can be sure to find here for discussion.

Building REAL global friendship.

2011-08-06T03:05:00Z

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)

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...

Peri-Bali Hiatus.

2011-07-11T09:43:52Z

Editorial Note.

My dear readers* - after the much discussed post on "old and new chapter", updates have become quite rare aound here: I've always had the goal of posting two articles every week (one long, one short), and I'm far from it. I've been obsessed with cycling lately, had a few visits from friends, and was also busy otherwise with my job and family. Speaking of which - Martha has the habit of stealing that very hour in the evening that I usually do CISV stuff by being an incredibly annoying child when it comes to going to sleep.

Anyway, I'm thrilled that the IEC/IO has apointed me as the co-ordinator of the AIM-communication-team - which means I will be participating at AIM in Indonesia and reporting through different social media and websites about what is happening around there to anybody who cares, and couldn't make it to Bali. If you have any suggestion or ideas how this "AIM-reporting" would suit you best, I'll be happy if you could leave something in the comments.

Otherwise our plane is leaving tomorrow, so posts in the next weeks will be rare and most likely there will be no motion-bashing this time round. Also during AIM I will be concentrating on my CISV job instead of my CISV hobby.

CISV from the balcony will come back with more regular and slightly obnoxious posts as usual in late August.

*it's the first time I'm starting a post like that. I guess I'm building a relationship here. Or I'm egocentric (=stupid) enough to think I have a fanclub - at any rate, I think it sounds cool.

Minutes

2011-06-22T07:28:45Z

It's been a while since the last CISV Hack, but this one looks cool: Today I stumbled over minutes.io, which looks like the perfect tool to take minutes of a CISV meeting. It works online and offline, has a one-button option to send it out to everybody, is incredibly elegant and intuitive. Lemme know, if anybody's tried it out.

The nature of a chapter.

2011-06-09T08:08:51Z

On growth, Mosaic, CISV as a cult and the comfort zone.

Peter/GER, besides being "our guy at IO", sent out a Mosaic newsletter for CISV Germany, where he quotes a common problem of small chapters (roughly translated and shortened:)

"Our Chapter is only able to recruit new members if we can offer them something directly, i.e. the participation in a CISV programme. The number of delegations our chapter can send, however, is directly determined by the number of programs, we host. So, to send more delegations our chapter should be hosting more, which again requites...

a) Funding, b) volunteers (staff, organizing team, kitchen staff) and c) a camp site

Since our hosting is limited by these factors , our only prospect in terms of growth is, that people remain members of our chapter, even if they cannot participate "

As expected, Peter as a Mosaic-enthusiast, suggests that very programme as a low-cost, scalable and flexible alternative to our classic camp programmes. Even as an outspoken Mosaic-skeptic*, I think in terms of growth and sustainability (just think of travel costs and carbon footprint), he's perfectly right.

Nevertheless, even if the solution to the Catch-22 sounds obvious, I think really embracing Mosaic as a programme into a chapter will fundamentally change the nature of the way members of a chapters interact:

Old: Our CISV chapter is an organization that arranges the practicals for children to take part in an international camp, where they receive non-formal peace education through a programme developed by leaders, trained by us.

New: Our CISV chapter is a community of people that activley engage in various local and international programmes in co-operation with other organizations with the goal of educating active global citizens.

Personally, I'm all for the "new CISV", however, I think there are a few caveats: Volunteers would subscribe more to a "philosophy" than to practical jobs. Moreover, chapters with a strong local community aspect risk of being regarded (even more) as a cult. Finally, people that meet to discuss sensitive topics may have to move out of their comfort zone - but maybe that's exactly what we want, right?

* without wanting to open a can of worms here, I just think even after rebranding Local Work into Mosaic, the programme still hasn't been able to shake of its teething trouble such as being hard to grasp, very vague in definition and hence unable to take off on a CISV-world-wide-scale. I tried to find an artcile, where I expllore the topic more, but apparently I haven't done so here on the Balcony website. Maybe some time soon...Mosaic-disciples beware!

Introducing BaSCoS.

2011-05-18T08:43:26Z

Travel costs to CISV events are unfairly unequal. Cost sharing could solve that problem.

During my short visit at this year's European Trustee Gathering (ETG), the topic of variable travel costs came up once again. Does it make sense to host a meeting in central Europe, so that travel costs overall are cheaper? Does a rotational scheme (meeting takes place somewhere else every year) as applied to ETG, AIM, etc really even out the travel costs in the long run? Shouldn't a cost sharing system, as used by NAs like Canada (as far as I know) be applied, instead?

I fiddled around with an Excel file for a while, to come up with a solution that adapts the participation fee in a way, that people with high travel costs would have to pay less participation and vice versa. It's not as easy as it sounds, because in the end the participation fees will still need to cover the expenses, while nobody should be payed out any money (and I'm no freakin' math genius to turn these criteria into a wonder formula).

Check out the Excel file with my suggested Balcony System for Cost Sharing, short BaSCoS: BaSCoS.xls.

Basically, all you have to do, is a) enter the participation fee that you would take, if everybody had to pay the same b) fill in the maximum fee participants with low or no travel expenses should pay and c) enter all the participants individual travel costs. A little adaption to the maximum fee may be necessary, if the final fee turns out to be negative for some - meaning you would have to pay out money to those with high travel costs, which (I guess) should be avoided. In the end the spreadsheet will tell the host how much participation fee each individual participant will have to pay, so that costs overall are more fairly distributed.

By adapting the participation fee according to travel expenses no extra money transfers are necessary. The system could - in theory - be applied to everything from national JB minicamps to national board meetings.

Carnivors no more?

2011-04-19T12:10:56Z

During the first week of my Seminar Camp in 1996 (yes, I'm THAT old!) Jayme* from Canada had become the main chef and since he was a vegetarian, no meat was served for the first 10 days. Only after a significant uproar - people familiar with Seminar Camps know that these things can get dead serious - Rodrigo from Brazil finally cooked a nice Stroganov stew for everybody who wanted some.

When I lived in San Francisco 5 years later I had the idea to live as a vegetarian for a while. I only merely succeeded - couldn't say no to turkey at a Thankgiving invitation - but through delicious Asian food offered in my neighbourhood, I drastically reduced meat from my diet, at least temporaily.

Currently I'm reading "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer and even if the book is a bit of a disapointment - almost none of the notions are completely new to me** - It brought back all the good reasons why it's just unethical to consume meat the way the Western world does. Th

Cover of Eating Animals

ink methane and global warming, think antibiotics, think animal welfare, think personal health, think industrial meat production, think feed the world, etc...

I do think the topic is important enough to fill a day in every camp or even host a minicamp or mosaic activity on (check suggested theme.). But thinking one step further, and especially in the lines of our new environmental taskforce, maybe we should make it a policy that all CISV camps should be free of meat?

*the guy brought his banjo to camp and plays it professionally these days, apparently.

** If all the reasons mentioned here, not to eat meat are new to you, and you want to be an ethical person, then yes, the book is a must-read!

Conflict barometer.

2011-04-13T23:15:51Z

In the CISV Year of Conflict and Resolution I'd like to point you to a tiny NGO located in Germany called Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research (HIIK). Mainly run by (student) volunteers, one of their bigger tasks is to generate an annual conflict barometer* - a publication that gives an overview of where on earth violent conflicts take place:

Now, this map is interesting: With a few exceptions (i.e. Mexico, Colombia, Thailand), the conflicts a mostly where CISV is not.

* the 92 page PDF is a great read and source of inspiration, what theme to chose for your next country-based activity.