Author: Michael Ambjorn
Founder @AlignYourOrg | Past Past Chair @IABC + espresso user & occasional photographer/timelapser
Does communication really make a difference?
Guest post from #11ways co-creator Stephen Welch: Billions of dollars a year invested in communication by organizations around the world in an effort to improve how they communicate, and make an impact with their target audiences. Does it really make a difference? Well to those billions and millions, we can add thousands. Thousands of minutes invested … Continue reading Does communication really make a difference?
A study in simplicity with takeaways for any organisation that involves people
A brief book review: If you're involved with any kind of complex organisation - and quite possibly complicated ones - you'll find something to take away from this book. What do I mean by complex/complicated? Any effort that draws on more than a few dozen people trying to achieve an overarching goal often has bureaucratic … Continue reading A study in simplicity with takeaways for any organisation that involves people
The Machine is Us/ing Us
From the archive - adapted from an earlier blog called Tools, Thoughts and Things one can Do with a little Time and Hardly any Resources - original post March 27, 2007 This short movie - made by the now defunct Digital Ethnography working group at Kansas State University explains superbly - how the web was … Continue reading The Machine is Us/ing Us
How engaging can a large facilitated online session be?
Worthwhile blog post from // Align Your Org advisory board member Martin Gilbraith.
This was the question that intrigued me when I was first invited to work with with the Forestry Economics team of FAO, to design and facilitate an online conference this month on the Economics of climate change mitigation options in the forest sector. The answer, as it turns out, is pretty engaging!
FAO approached me last September for my experience with the Adobe Connect online meeting platform, with which they are also familiar and which they had chosen to use for the project. Their aims for the conference were to connect researchers, practitioners and others to learn from each other on the costs and benefits of various mitigation options in the forestry sector in different countries, to gather data for a forthcoming FAO publication and perhaps also to establish a community of practice among participants for further learning and collaboration in the future.
The team had not before…
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Your ABC Checklist for Conference Success
Next week I'm heading to a leadership conference and I thought I'd share my basic high-level pre-attendance checklist in case it is useful to anybody else: A is for Align Take a moment to clarify what success looks like. Think of it like a countdown: 3 for the organisers 2 for the people you're representing … Continue reading Your ABC Checklist for Conference Success
What’s Your Endgame? The 1% conundrum for the non-profit sector
1.2% of UK charities turn over 68.9% of the cash cycling through the sector. So never mind Oxfam's predictions for individuals - it is already true for the sector that often says it is out to change the world for the better. Are they doing enough though? A recent Stanford Social Innovation Review webinar grappled with the way … Continue reading What’s Your Endgame? The 1% conundrum for the non-profit sector
How to produce a pro-level video in a day – using just an iPhone
One of the oldest and best ways to help people align to a direction is through storytelling. A clear narrative which invites people to take part. By now most communicators will have recorded a video of some sort and uploaded it. Simple right? The problem is that communicators are finding, through analytics, that simple talking … Continue reading How to produce a pro-level video in a day – using just an iPhone
‘Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing’
... so said Oscar Wilde ... and I'd add it to it that you can't get solid experience without engagement - and that was the topic I was asked to cover at this morning's South Africa / UK Communicator's Breakfast, hosted by Lisa Wannell at the VMA Group HQ in London's leafy Bedford Square. Specifically, … Continue reading ‘Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing’
#StartUpSeason – Business Plan Basics
Einstein is often quoted as having said... 'If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.' Well, what … Continue reading #StartUpSeason – Business Plan Basics
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