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.

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.

I’m finding his tale of the merging of internal systems of record with external systems of engagement, and the socialization and consumerization of these objects to be really compelling. The corporation is changing, and his take resonates with me. It’s worth a read.

Gideon Rosenblatt is currently breaking it down chapter-by-chapter. I recommend reading his digests and then getting your hands on this fascinating book.

Coherence is Rick’s name for telling the truth. For aligning “what we deliver with what we say we deliver.” It’s hard to argue with telling the truth, but it’s amazing how many people and organizations spend energy hiding their true selves. Coherence is about looking at who you are, and then projecting that to the world so that people who see a match can find you. It’s about creating an experience that is authentic and unique to you and your strengths and weaknesses.

This resonates deeply for me. The best leadership experiences I have ever had were when I was most honest about the reality of the situation. Where I stopped trying to control things and land them in a specific place, but was open to them going where they would go. I yearn for control, and it takes effort to release that yearning.

Organizations will better serve their constituents if they are honest about what they’ve got. So many groups try to be something they are not, only because they think that’s the way it has to be. Rick tells a great story about Goshen College and how he helped them change how they told their own story. Goshen is a Mennonite college with a tradition of service–they turn out amazing people who really take service seriously. I have been lucky enough to know two Goshen College graduates and they are both brilliant, dedicated change-makers.

Rick’s story of Goshen really struck me because the way he recommended they talk about themselves was directly in line with my experience. He called out Goshen’s quirky, joyful dedication to service–exactly how I would describe my Goshen alum friends. And that’s the point–people know what they see, and if you’re telling an untrue story it just doesn’t work. If Goshen tried to tell a story that they were like a midwestern Yale University, I’d see right through it. My friends are as smart as the most brilliant Yale students, but they aren’t the kind of people Yale attracts. It all either hangs together, or it doesn’t. Coherence is critical to it all hanging together.

Social change organizations, and for that matter individuals, could stand to be more authentic with themselves and what they tell others. Amazing organizations are doing this and delivering experiences to their supporters that are really powerful. Rick lays out how he consults with groups to get there–be honest in looking at who you are, look at how you are currently talking about yourself, and find out what people really think about you. By doing this you can best connect with your authentic value proposition, and share that unique story with the world. Once you do that, the people with whom that story resonates will be drawn to you, and it will be a good fit.

Rick works a lot with colleges, and so his deepest case studies are in that arena. But the message is much broader and great for any social change organization to hear. I recommend the book and the approach. We could all stand to be a little more coherent!

I’ve always thought that the biggest benefit of a good getting things done (GTD) system is the mental relaxation that comes from knowing you’re not forgetting things. My brain is one that cycles on things even when I don’t want it to, so I’ve really loved not having to spin on ‘am I forgetting something I’m supposed to do?’ In this transition there are a ton of new timelines and tasks I can’t lose track of. Budgets need to be done, priorities set, meetings to attend. But the best part is there is a new level of organizational strategic thinking–I get to design the strategy for my department and lead the process for our Theory of Change. And my GTD system is really helping me save the brain space for that processing. Now whether I come up with any good ideas is a different story, but it’s great to feel like I’m not spending all my cycles on a mental to do list and starving the part that could be cycling on the really fun, intellectually challenging work.

My GTD list is in Omnifocus. I haven’t fundamentally changed my GTD process, but I find I have tweaked it a bit in the transition:

1. I’ve upped the frequency of my reviews. I look at everything more often because so much of it is new. I’ve gone from one weekly review to multiple-times-a-day mini-reviews.
2. I created a new perspective called “Blocked”. This shows me things I’m waiting on other people for where the due date has passed. On short deadlines I need a place to look and see quickly who hasn’t gotten me what I need to move forward. This helps me with gentle nudging…
3. I have created waiting contexts for new people I’m relying on. I mostly relied on a general ‘Waiting for someone’ context, but I now find it helpful to call out key people who are supplying me with things I need.
4. I’m using due dates more than I have in the past. I’m finding that with all the new stuff it helps to put a hard date on it even if it’s not actually due that day. Perhaps I’ll stop doing this once the short-term stuff settles down, but for now it helps.

But I think the most important thing is that I entered this transition period with an established and working GTD system. I worked hard over the past year to get things to where they are. I was able to tweak my processes, rather than trying to learn a new system at the same time I was dealing with all the other new things. So my advice is this–the best time to get your GTD system working for you is now, not when you really need it most. You never know when transition will happen, so be ready for it!

We learn, when we respect the dignity of the people, that they cannot be denied the elementary right to participate fully in the solutions to their own problems. Self-respect arises only out of people who play an active role in solving their own crises and who are not helpless, passive, puppet-like recipients of private or public services. To give people help, while denying them a significant part in the action, contributes nothing to the development of the individual. In the deepest sense it is not giving but taking — taking their dignity. Denial of the opportunity to participate is the denial of human dignity and democracy. It will not work.

Autonomy–the freedom to act and decide my own direction.

Mastery–excelling at whatever I choose to do.

and Purpose–the why behind my actions.

My purpose in life is driven by a great love for people, and a desire for them to be powerful in their lives.

What is power? Power is the ability to make change, to accomplish things, to be proficient, to have a say.

When you have power, you are confident, you get things done, you can unleash your creativity in solving problems. Powerful people make change for themselves and others.

My purpose is to help others find their power. This applies to all people–

• I want all people to have a voice in decisions that affect them
• I want people to unleash their creativity in service of solutions that improve the world
• I want my children to grow up to be independent/free-thinking adults
• I want the opportunity for all people to live a life of autonomy, mastery, and purpose

The work I do supports this purpose, and I am always looking for ways to push my impact deeper and broader.

*Be sure to check out Dan Pink’s talk on motivation.

- Rilke

I’ve started connecting with interesting NGOs and entrepreneurs working in Africa. Through my contacts at work, I’ve been learning about some of the work being done in some of the countries in Africa. These conversations have been very interesting and helpful. I wrote a bit a while back about the cloud and the stack of infrastructure it relies on. This resetting of the landscape is an excellent process to undergo for me. It’s a process of understanding new constraints. Feeling out those constraints is key to critically thinking and solving problems. Knowledge workers who don’t understand the constraints they work under are doomed to come up with solutions that will not work.

And it’s been amazing to know those constraints but to keep in mind that boxes need to be broken out of. While constraints make you think creatively, blindly accepting those constraints is unacceptable if we want to bring about transformative change. Last week I changed my status message on IM from “constraints breed creativity” to “constraints are for suckers” to try to get at this duality. Understand, but do not accept the binds you feel!

A great place to get grounded in some of the newest thinking about Africa is to watch Africa-themed TED talks. So many of these talks are mind-blowing. In 2007, TED Global went to Tanzania and there are many amazing talks from that conference. If you’ve ever talked with me for more than 20 minutes, I’ve probably recommended a TED talk to you. I recommend watching them all! Stories about leadership, entrepreneurship, the economy, banking, the list goes on.

I’ve found a great way to follow what’s going on in Africa is to find the amazing folks on Twitter interested in the topics. I’ve created a list of Africa-related Twitter accounts I follow. Many are technology related, but not all. Feel free to peruse or follow the list if you want daily info on what’s happening in Africa from some amazing people.

Following Twitter will point you to all these blogs eventually. They’re all great:

• Afrigadget – making in Africa
• Appfrica – TED Senior Fellow Jonathan Gosier’s blog
• naijablog – Jeremy Weate with great stuff out of Nigeria
• Texas in Africa – Laura Seay, a professor at Morehouse
• White African – Founder of Afrigadget and Ushahidi Director of Operations, Erik Hersman

The great achievement of David Allen’s framework has more to do with relieving stress about work than organizing your lists, a fact that is seemingly lost on most of the GTD-professing masses who spend all day twittering about lifehacks and Moleskine list-management. GTD is about psychology, not “productivity” per se. Moreover, the system pays most of its psychological benefits when it’s implemented fully, and I mean really nitty-gritty, every-little-thing-in-your-head fully. The difference between 99% and 100% implementation is truly vast, as anyone who has made it to 100% readily attests (David himself included).