Australian Community Development Blog

Community and Organisational Change Workshop in Australia

If you are interested in community development change, this could well be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The best way that I know of to effect change in communities (and organisations) is large group structured meetings of the 'whole system' based on Future Search principles.

Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff of Future Search fame are coming to Australia in October to deliver their recently revised workshop on Changing Organisations and Communities - One Meeting at a Time.

Very large discounts are available for early registrants.

Sole Parents Day

One of the thing that Ronald Reagan did while President was to appoint 21 March as sole parent day.

I'm not sure if we celebrate it in Australia but if we don't, we should.

So, as a sole parent myself, I'd just like to wish all sole parents out there the best. You do a damn important job for our community which is not recognised nearly as often as it should be.

The Facilitator

Happy New Year to All.

Since every community leader is also a facilitator, I thought you might be interested in The Facilitator online magazine. There are also some that I just came across free resources on the site.

Australian Future Search Network

I'm proud to announce the new Australian Future Search Network which has been created to facilitate Australian organisations and communities towards greater success and sustainability through the use of the Future Search method and principles.

The website currently includes information about the Future Search method, principles and resources, as well as FAQs from Communities.

For those communities that are ready for it, we don't know of a better way than Future Search to effect community development, so this Network is long overdue.

Take a gander at the site.

Community Engagement - Some Resources

Here's a list of some great resources on community engagement provided by the Queensland Government's Online Learning Program.

A Merry Xmas to all. And may 2008 be a great year for all Australian communities.

SEO Mistake by Community Based Organisations

Many NGOs and community based organisations don't have a deep understanding of Search Engine Optimisation.

For the basics of SEO, see the recent post Small Business SEO Strategy on my Australian SME Marketing Blog. (The same principles apply to any organisation or group that has a website.)

But here's one simple tip that many organisations and groups miss that can produce enormous benefits.

The most important aspect of your website for search engine purposes are the "Title tags" on each page, beginning with the Home page.

You can tell what's in your Title tag on your Home page by going to the Home page, put your cursor over some text (not images), right click and select "View Page Source" or "View Source". Somewhere near the top, you will then see text that looks like this:

<title>

The words that follow immediately after '<title>' are critical.

The mistake that many make is to put their organisations name in the Title tag.

What should be in there is the keywords that people might use when they are looking for the kind of products or services that you offer.

To use my business as an example, it would be a mistake to have "Distil International" in my title tag. Instead I would be better off with words like "community development", "facilitation" and "small business marketing".

 

In deciding what to include, keep it down to 60 characters - any more and you begin to dilute the effect, not to mention that some search engines stop reading after the 60 characters.

Incidentally, that title tag is also what appears on the top line when people are searching (eg in google) and come across the entry relating to your home page - all the more reason to use the important keywords rather than your organisations name.

Changing this title on your home page takes less than 5 minutes but can have enormous benefits.

Of course, once you have done it for the home page, the next step is to decide on appropriate keywords for every other page.

Getting the Whole System in the Room

Regular readers of this blog know what an advocate I am for large group meetings and the idea of getting the 'whole system' in the room.

Here's a systematic approach for doing that - best done with a couple of others or even a formal planning group:

1. Clarify your purpose. The system can only be defined in the context of a task or purpose.

2. Brainstorm everybody who has Authority, Resources, Expertise, Information, Need in the context of the purpose.

3. Based on the brainstormed list, identify the key stakeholder groups. These groups represent a subsystems within the whole system. (By way of example, a recent Chamber of Commerce that I worked with came up with the following groups in the context of developing a strategic plan - Chamber members, Chamber Board and staff, local non-member businesses, other local business associations, government and education.)

4. With the benefit of your stakeholder groups, go back over the brainstormed list and ensure that all of the stakeholder groups have reasonable representation. If there are any groups low in numbers, think further about important stakeholders within that group who should be added to the list.

5.  Look at the group and ensure demographic diversity. Do we have a good mix of genders, ages, cultures and so on. Again, these decisions need to be made in the context of the identified purpose.

Once you have done each of these, you will have the whole system. It takes a little work but if you are dealing with an important task, its well worth the effort. The benefit of engaging the whole system is greater differentiation, diversity, creativity and therefore greater development.

An Australian Saviour?

The day of a Federal election is probably a good time to express a personal view related to politics.

Is it just me, or is anybody else sick of politicians and political parties who have there own interests ahead of the interests of the country? Its easy to see. They are the ones who want to get into power.

I deeply love this country of ours but hope and pray that some day in some way we may find an individual who can take us to the next level. Somebody who has a genuine interest and concern for the destitute and the disadvantaged. Somebody who has the influence to bring about change in the way Ghandi and Mandela did.

I'm not confident we'll find such a person through this election.

BizGateway - Reducing the Burden of Red Tape

This is an important initiative for those interested in economic and small business development.

The BizGateway is a wonderful new initiative that is being managed by DSBN with funding from AusIndustry and supported by approx 40 councils that aims to reduce the time small business owners need to spend on red tape across all 3 levels of government.

With a couple of clicks, you can get all the details on what's required for your specific industry and your specific local area. Wow!

Its being trialled first in NSW and will then be rolled out Australia wide.

The site also has some great information about small business development.

Community Development - A Definition

For those who like definitions, here's one to ponder over from the Community Development Exchange.

"Community development is about building active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. It is about changing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives."

For a somewhat deeper definition focused on the concept of 'human and societal development' generally, see my previous post What Is Community Development.