Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector - high recommanded!

If you are interested in the future of social change, I highly recommend that you read it.

It is not possible in the allotted space I have here to capture everything the report highlights as propositions for us to consider.  But I will flag a few things that were deeply resonant and interesting:

• Going forward, the driving question will be “what do we want to accomplish?”, with corporate form (whether nonprofit, for-profit, hybrid, network) following from this goal.  Younger generations are less tied to particular organizational forms (and the rush to form 501(c)3s).  They are most interested in tapping the best tools that help get the job done, including social media.  Sector-agnosticism is in!
• Increasingly, the communication emanating from organizations and initiatives will need to be continuous, personalized, and come from multiple sources.  Anything that smacks of being overly “marketed,” or trumpeted only by an expert/celebrity, will not be well received.  Authenticity is in!
• A new kind of ROI is on the rise, thanks in part to collaborative tools such as Twitter – not Return on Investment, but Return on Insight.  Listening and learning are in!
• Navigating the convergence of all five trends will mean that organizations need to abandon overtly and overly hierarchical structures and become much more collaboration and network-savvy.
• Furthermore, we are all being called upon to become futurists of sorts who acknowledge that with the existing rates of change, what is so today will not necessarily be so tomorrow.  It behooves us to tune into our surroundings and take careful note of the shifts and to adapt!

There is much more to say, and I will leave it to you now.  What do you think?  What do you see as the future of the social sector and our work?

Serena

Re-blog from http://interactioninstitute.org/blog/2009/11/12/were-all-futurists-now/#more-1669