Visible Flaws

Last Updated on Saturday, 17 March 2012 12:59 Written by Steve Saturday, 17 March 2012 12:59

On numerous progressive fora, I’ve read countless praises and tear-downs of Invisible Children’s tactics, motivations, and strategy. In general, I think the analyses were driven by sincere curiosity, and a desire to understand a phenomena, so that we can advance our work.

I had the chance to meet some of the Invisible Children staff Thursday at an event in San Francisco. Invisible Children is a customer and grantee of the Salesforce.com Foundation. I saw 6,000 chatting business people hush to silence when a 3 minute Invisible Children video was played. People wanted to hear from their COO Chris as he was interviewed live on stage by Peter Coffee. The interest and attention was powerful.

I saw the news yesterday and it upset me. We worked hard to get Invisible Children on stage. We would love to tell their campaign story to our customers. The technical side of how they dealt with virality is a blog post in itself. How inconvenient of him to screw things up for Invisible Children, for mass action in general, and for me.

But as all of this was happening, I ran across two TED talks by Brené Brown. You may have seen them already–on vulnerability and shame. Watch them if you haven’t.

The events yesterday, and Brené Brown’s talks, remind me that all this work we do, all this change we’re trying to drive, it’s all done by people. People, like me, who are flawed. People who have fears and things to prove and misguided notions and moments of brilliance.

I have never met Jason Russell, I don’t know what brought him to this work, I don’t know his motivation, and I don’t know what is behind the event that happened today. And on one level I don’t really care. My thoughts go out to him as a person trying to do what he thinks is right in this crazy world where so much is wrong. I don’t see it as naive, I see it as humane. I saw humanity in the Invisible Children staff I met Thirsday–smart, kind folks trying to do good work in an organization that changed over night in a way that they are struggling to manage.

It will be so easy to follow the funny internet memes about Jason, to listen to the late-night talk show jokes. I’ll likely laugh at many of them–I’ve already seen some that are clever.

But I’ll also remember how quickly the world tears down change makers at the first visible flaw. And I’ll hold back from joining in the tearing down, not because I know Jason in unimpeachable, but because I know he’s flawed, just like all of us.

Advocacy in the Cloud slides and recording

Last Updated on Friday, 16 September 2011 07:54 Written by Steve Friday, 16 September 2011 07:54

I recently had the pleasure of facilitating a Dreamforce session where two amazing people talked about how their organizations have gone all-in with engagement. The DC Project and Idaho Conservation League are each betting their futures on engagement, and in very different ways. Sara Arkle talked about how Idaho Conservation League is turning the organizational ship to find a new generation of supporters. Matthew Dunn told the compelling story of how the DC Project was birthed with technology and engagement at it’s heart. Very different stories, well told and I think helpful for folks looking to engage supporters more deeply than they are today. Below is the recorded presentation, as well as the slide deck we presented.

Join our team

Last Updated on Thursday, 14 April 2011 08:11 Written by Steve Thursday, 14 April 2011 08:11

The Salesforce.com Foundation technology team received a compliment the other day when a co-worker said, “Wow, your technology team is atypical.” I’ve been on great teams before in my career, and our team right now is up there as one of the best. I’m looking for a Force.com Developer to join us in our work driving the vision of the Salesforce.com Foundation and helping thousands of nonprofits do the same for their visions. We are small, motivated, we do great work, and we value each other.

If you want to make a difference working with the best tools and the best customers, on a great team, this may be the job for you.