Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

I have not at all been tempted by the 31 days to a better blog challenge. Not because I don’t want my blog to be better, it’s just that I don’t have the time right now. But, I have been following Michele Martin’s work on The Bamboo Project Blog with some interest. There are a few pieces to that challenge I might take up, on occasion. One of them, I’ll do now. A few days ago, Michele posted her blog’s mission statement. I figured it was a good time to think about and articulate mine.

The tag line for this blog is “Conscious,  mimalist, neo-luddite perspectives on nonprofit technology.” The mission of this blog is to help me, and those who read the blog, think more deeply about how we use technology. To get underneath the “conventional wisdom” of nonprofit technology, and keep asking “why”? It’s like that 3 year old, who just keeps asking why, after each explanation. I want to get to the core, to really make sure that our means and our ends are in sync. And, a secondary mission is to educate people about technology that I think is interesting and useful.

My blog and my advising practice don’t quite have the same mission. My advising practice is much more about educating and helping people with concrete technology tools, and concrete projects. I hope that in the process of doing projects for clients, I am able to ask those deep questions, and help them ask “why” much more often. But my role in that context is much more around helping to solve specific problems, or educate in specific ways about technology options.