Nous sommes présentement à mi-chemin dans notre processus de sélection pour nos prochains 21 Leaders. Des 110 mises en candidatures reçues, un comité de trois leaders établis ont sélectionné 50 candidats pour passer à l’étape suivante : La Journée d’Évaluation.
Nouvelle étape à notre processus de sélection, la planification de cette journée d’avère un défi en tant que tel. Étant désireuse d’offrir aux candidats une expérience qu’ils apprécieront et dont ils pourront bénéficier, beaucoup d’efforts sont déployés dans la création de la programmation. Comme pour l’organisation de tout bon événement, l’attention au détail est de mise et croyez moi, les détails ne sont pas ce qui manquent à cette journée!
Nos évaluateurs n’auront pas la tâche facile, la qualité des candidats étant très impressionnante. La délibération promet donc d’être un exercice des plus intéressants auquel j’ai bien hâte d’assister.
A tous ceux et celles qui prendront part à cette journée, j’espère que vous apprécierez! Pour ceux et celles qui n’y seront pas, j’espère que vous tenterez de vous y rendre lors de la prochaine édition!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Pitch Perfect
This is my buddy's Stephane de Messieres pitch on his organization, Citizens Market, to become an Echoing Green Fellow. It's a great 90 second clip and he gives an awesome performance to the judges.
As Stephane says, Citizens Market utilizes the power of the crowd so that when someone buys, say, shampoo, they can find out if the company was good or bad in making that product. It's a great example of how young people are using technology to make a difference.
As Stephane says, Citizens Market utilizes the power of the crowd so that when someone buys, say, shampoo, they can find out if the company was good or bad in making that product. It's a great example of how young people are using technology to make a difference.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Is this what Malcolm Gladwell was talking about?
As was blogged previously, a group of the 2008 Leaders cohort successfully completed a project called “Our New Brunswick/Notre Nouveau-Brunswick” in which 6 grade 7 classrooms from around the province created short-films about their communities. These short-films were exchanged between the 6 classes, and the students were brought together via videoconference last month to talk about their experience and their communities.
Turns out…there may be a sequel…
Inspired by the project, and appreciated of the opportunity to explore their community and the province through short-film, one of the participating classes from ONB/NNB from Northumberland County successfully applied for a grant with the Innovative Learning Fund, with the province of NB. This grant will allow them to visit some of the places they learned about during the project!
So let me get this straight…Group of the 21 Leaders from the 2005 cohort launch an organization called 21inc…launch a 21 Leaders Program… 21 Leaders (v.2008) go on a bus tour across the province…Group of ’08 Leaders get together to create a project that will allow students to discover their community and their province through film…Class receives a grant to visit some of the places they have discovered through ONB/NNB.
Stay tuned my friends…this is getting exciting!
Turns out…there may be a sequel…
Inspired by the project, and appreciated of the opportunity to explore their community and the province through short-film, one of the participating classes from ONB/NNB from Northumberland County successfully applied for a grant with the Innovative Learning Fund, with the province of NB. This grant will allow them to visit some of the places they learned about during the project!
So let me get this straight…Group of the 21 Leaders from the 2005 cohort launch an organization called 21inc…launch a 21 Leaders Program… 21 Leaders (v.2008) go on a bus tour across the province…Group of ’08 Leaders get together to create a project that will allow students to discover their community and their province through film…Class receives a grant to visit some of the places they have discovered through ONB/NNB.
Stay tuned my friends…this is getting exciting!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Social Tech Training 2009 at MaRS
If you’re following my twitter feeds you would have noticed a spike in productivity last week. I was “live tweeting” from Social Tech Training, a conference sponsored by Web of Change and the Social Innovation group at MaRS.
This conference happened at a good time for 21inc. We’re about to select the next 21 Leaders from over 100 applicants. We’ve launched this new site and are aiming for the fall launch of an exciting program aimed at providing leadership opportunities to young people in communites across New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada.
Through social media there’s an opportunity to engage all these folks in ways unavailable even 5 years ago. Social media isn’t a panacea despite what the proselytizers out there say it is. It’s a communications tool. In a meeting today we joked about the tendency of boomers to become utopian about Facebook, YouTube and their kin. "All the kids are doing it, we need to be there." There are serious limitations to these tools. When done half-assed it's underwhelming. Hence the post on why social media is like teen sex.
But when done well the upside is ginormous. This is exactly the point Sam Dorman makes in this short video, where I asked him to talk about the link between leadership and social media.
A better understanding of how to provide value to friends, supporters and members is the major reason organizations should be thinking about social media. Creating a Facebook fan page is a start, but no where near enough. The fact that most people attending the conference had job titles like Director of Social Media or E-marketing Manager shows that nonprofits, who represented 99 percent of attendees, are starting to get it.
A big shout out to the McConnell Foundation who sponsored our attendance!!
This conference happened at a good time for 21inc. We’re about to select the next 21 Leaders from over 100 applicants. We’ve launched this new site and are aiming for the fall launch of an exciting program aimed at providing leadership opportunities to young people in communites across New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada.
Through social media there’s an opportunity to engage all these folks in ways unavailable even 5 years ago. Social media isn’t a panacea despite what the proselytizers out there say it is. It’s a communications tool. In a meeting today we joked about the tendency of boomers to become utopian about Facebook, YouTube and their kin. "All the kids are doing it, we need to be there." There are serious limitations to these tools. When done half-assed it's underwhelming. Hence the post on why social media is like teen sex.
But when done well the upside is ginormous. This is exactly the point Sam Dorman makes in this short video, where I asked him to talk about the link between leadership and social media.
A better understanding of how to provide value to friends, supporters and members is the major reason organizations should be thinking about social media. Creating a Facebook fan page is a start, but no where near enough. The fact that most people attending the conference had job titles like Director of Social Media or E-marketing Manager shows that nonprofits, who represented 99 percent of attendees, are starting to get it.
A big shout out to the McConnell Foundation who sponsored our attendance!!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Brooks on Obama
David Brooks shows his witty side when discussing Obama and the US health care challenges.
You are daunted by the challenges in front of you until you remember that by some great act of fortune, you happen to be Barack Obama. This calms you down. You conceive a strategy.It's the not usual stuff we write about, but I got a kick out of it.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Les jeux sont faits!
La date limite pour les mises en candidature étant hier, le processus de sélection est maintenant enclenché. Nous avons reçu plus de 100 candidatures, qui sont maintenant entre les mains de nos juges en vue de créer une présélection des 50 meilleurs candidats, qui prendront part à la Journée d'Évaluation, le 27 juin prochain, à Fredericton.
Je dois avouer qu'en regardant brièvement les applications, j'ai pu constater le haut niveau de qualité des candidats et je suis certaine que les juges n'auront pas la tâche facile! Cette observation me pousse à conclure que les jeunes au Nouveau-Brunswick sont présents, engagés et désireux de s'impliquer dans le future de notre province. Je suis donc convaincue que nous aurons cette année aussi un groupe de Leaders des plus dynamiques!
Bonne chance à tous!!!
Je dois avouer qu'en regardant brièvement les applications, j'ai pu constater le haut niveau de qualité des candidats et je suis certaine que les juges n'auront pas la tâche facile! Cette observation me pousse à conclure que les jeunes au Nouveau-Brunswick sont présents, engagés et désireux de s'impliquer dans le future de notre province. Je suis donc convaincue que nous aurons cette année aussi un groupe de Leaders des plus dynamiques!
Bonne chance à tous!!!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Teen Sex
I'm in Toronto at a three day conference hosted at MARS called Social Tech Training. It's a "Masters" level class on how to use the social web to foster social change. This quote was used during one of the sessions and I want to share it. It just might be the. best. quote. ever.
"Social Media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it's done, there is surprise that it's not better."
Avinash Kaushik, Web Analystics Guru, Google
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Comment identifier le leadership?
Dans notre quête pour nos prochains 21 Leaders, nous devons établir un processus permettant de sélectionner les meilleurs candidats disponibles. Qui dit sélection dit également définition de critères de sélection. Avec la multitude de théories, approches et recherches sur le leadership, j'aurais cru que qu'il serait plus facile de définir les éléments que doivent posséder un individu afin d'être considéré un leader.
Hélas, ce n'est pas le cas! Tout le monde a une opinion différente de ce qui constitue un leader, me ramenant donc à la case départ, avec plusieurs questions à répondre. Que cherchons-nous et quel genre de critères nous permettrons de trouver ce que nous cherchons? Des critères tels que démontrer de l'initiative, posséder des habiletés en communication et être en mesure de travailler en équipe vont-ils nous diriger vers les gens ayant du leadership ou vers des gens ayant une «belle personnalité»? Est-ce nécessaire d'avoir une «belle personnalité» pour avoir du leadership ou est-ce possible d?exercer du leadership sans exhiber les caractéristiques typiques d?une personnalité extravertie? Ces deux éléments sont-ils interdépendants ou indépendants?
Quelles soient exactes ou non, je devrai trouver réponses à ces questions. Une chose est certaine, cette prochaine édition des 21 Leaders sera elle aussi constituée de gens exceptionnels, peu importe les réponses à ces questions!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Heritage As Open Source
Photo taken with my Blackberry. Not bad for a phone.
A couple weeks ago we hosted a colloquium for the Heritage Branch of the New Brunswick Department of Culture, Wellness and Sport to explore how young people think about heritage. It was an all day event with young people aged 20 to 30 from across the province.
Over the past couple days I’ve been going over my notes from it in preparation to write the report. One theme is clearly dominant: our heritage is dynamic.
Heritage was many things to the participants – history, culture, identity, relationships, food, and the environment, for example. All these things can be encapsulated by the idea of Heritage as a story we tell about ourselves. There are important chapters to this story that have occurred throughout the province’s history. The rise of bilingualism, architecture and music were mentioned often.
This story has also been fragmented and fraught with tension: French/English; Urban/Rural; Protestant/Catholic; First Nation/Everyone else. Moreover, there’s a global story being told that young New Brunswickers want to be more a part of.
Many people see heritage as the past, leading to conflicts between those who want to preserve heritage, and those who prefer progress. But the young people at the colloquium didn’t see it so starkly. To them heritage was an evolving story. It was best expressed by someone from Fredericton who said rather matter of factly, “we need a new heritage.” Someone else talked about a “future heritage.”
This “new heritage” is inclusive, connected and forward looking. It celebrates one’s identity proudly, while continuously seeking to maximize the sum of one’s many changing identities – Anglophone, francophone, mother, daughter, soft-ware developer, Coldplay fan, farmer, coffee connoisseur, Canadian, New Brunswicker, Monctonian, global citizen.
It is heritage as an open source concept.