I go because I value the exposure to the best, brightness and most creative people in the field.  I learn from the wider nonprofit field in order to bring these ideas, case studies and expertise back to the Jewish community.  Over the last few years a few wonderful things have happened:

• A number of consultants, trainers and experts in the nonprofit technology field have started working, or are increasing the work that they are doing in the Jewish community.  Partially this is due to wonderful people and firms discovering the potential and need within the Jewish community, and partially due to increased awareness of Jewish organizations that they can and should be tapping into expertise that isn’t only specifically within the Jewish community. Firms such as Big Duck and Idealware are among them, both collaborating with Darim Online (Big Duck worked with us on the AVI CHAI Technology Academy, and Idealware is co-publishing an upcoming Social Media Policy Workbook with us), and working directly with Jewish organizations.
• The number of Jewish professionals attending NTC has skyrocketed.  Several years ago Brenda Gevertz from the Jewish Communal Service Association and I gathered the handful of attendees from Jewish organizations for lunch one day.  The next year we occupied 2 tables and were spilling into a third.  Last year we had over 70 representatives, and we are on our way to beat that number next week, even with the proximity to Passover.
• Darim Online has used NTC as a platform for convening — rather than design and host our own conference, we find it’s much easier (and more efficient, and higher quality and more diverse) to piggy back on the NTC to give our community the technology shot in the arm we so desperately need.   Last year in collaboration with the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and this year in collaboration with both the Schusterman and Jim Joseph Foundations, we are hosting both learning opportunities and social gatherings at NTC.

This year we’ll be gathering Wednesday April 4th form 3:30-5:00pm for learning about networks and how technology can support development and use of networks, and then celebrating and socializing with noshes and drinks at a happy hour from 5:00-7:30.  The NTC is in San Francisco this year.  The conference is sold out, but if you’re in the area and want to join us, we welcome you!  Staff and lay leaders of Jewish organizations are welcome, as are Jews who are interested in technology but work for non-Jewish organizations.  Sign up here.

You can follow the NTC conference online this year (though unfortunately not our session), and follow the Jews at NTC on the hashtag #12ntcjews

OK, now that the box is on its way, I’ll explain why you should read — and share — this book.

First, Rabbi Herring gets it.  He gets the big picture vision, the fundamental changes in society, and the risks that synagogues must take to remain a vital and vibrant center of Jewish life.  But he also gets the completely practical details of synagogue change efforts.  The dynamics of boards, the technology infrastructures, the values questions, and the training of Rabbis to fulfill the leadership roles.

Second, he’s packed tremendous punch into a skinny little book that’s easy to follow.  It’s like putting on a pair of glasses that helps you see the world through a different lens.

Third, this book helps you develop a vocabulary to think about the future synagogue.  And this is why it’s so important to read it together.  Using the same terms, and shaping a shared vision will lubricate the discussions about change, helping everyone to move forward on a shared path. In Chapter 1 he addresses head on how the rules have changed:

• from the age of organizations to toward the age of networks;
• from credentialed professionals towards avocational experts;
• from hierarchical control towards individual autonomy;from exclusivity toward inclusivity;
• from monopolization of knowledge towards democratization of knowledge;
• from assuming a fee-for-service economy towards expecting a free-for-service economy (at least at a basic level).

What does this mean for synagogues?  A lot.  While change is hard, it is necessary. We cannot keep our heads in the sand. We are living in a moment where the risk of staying the same is greater than the risk of change.  Plain and simple.  If we accept the change is necessary, then the question is what do we want, and how do we get there.  Tomorrow’s Synagogue Today is a great step on that journey.

How are thinking about the changing context of synagogue life, and its implications for your congregation?  If you’ve read the book, what stood out for you, and how are taking action?

And if you do read this book as a group, please share with us about your process and the discussions it provokes.

Conceived by The AVI CHAI Foundation and produced by See3, The Jewish Day School Video Academy helped Jewish day schools improve their use of online video through training webinars, free one-on-one consultations, and this video contest with serious prize money. I watched many of these videos, and enjoyed seeing the creative approaches many took. They ran the gamut, from serious infomercials (I mean that in the best way, meaning marketing videos with rehearsed talking heads) to very creative student work, and down right silly fun.

It’s interesting to note what makes for an effective video. I encourage you to watch the following 6 winning entries and then reflect on what grabbed and kept your attention. What feeling do you actually walk away with? What’s your impression of the school? It’s also interesting to note that the 3 videos the panel of ‘expert’ judges chose were different than the people’s choice. Why do you think that is? What’s common to each grouping?

I can say that good lighting, great sound, reasonable length are absolute foundational elements of any decent video. And some playfulness never hurts.  Rumor has it that they may offer another contest this spring, so study up and then pick up your camera!  Take a tour of the winners:

Judges ratings:

1. Admissions Video (The Weber School – Doris and Alex Weber Jewish Community High School)

2. Milwaukee Jewish Day School Trailer (Milwaukee Jewish Day School)
3. MJGDS 50th Anniversary Video Invitation (Martin J. Gottlieb Day School)
People’s Choice
1. If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (Columbus Torah Academy)

2. A Gem in the Valley (Lander-Grinspoon Academy)
3. Put the P Back in PTSA (Greenfield Hebrew Academy)

Finalists were selected by an expert panel of judges and evaluated based on creative and strategic use of social media to positively impact the Jewish community. “We launched @JewishTweets in March 2008 and from the outset, embraced it for the way it allows us to connect with people everywhere. It has allowed us not only to be heard, but to listen and be inspired by others every day,” said Ephraim Z. Buchwald, founder and director of the National Jewish Outreach Program. “In particular, we wanted to take time to recognize some of those who are leveraging the power of social media to raise Jewish social consciousness and shine a positive light on Jewish life.”

I appreciate that this list includes so many different types of people — entrepreneurs, community organizers, educators, consultants, institutional folk and very non-institutional folk.  Just goes to show you that there’s no right or wrong way to tweet – just be yourself, help others, add value, and have fun.  And as Allison Fine says, “social media a contact sport, not a spectator sport.” So get in the game.

Rabbi Yonah Bookstein @RabbiYonah
Rabbi Yonah Bookstein is the executive rabbi for JConnectLA, which hosts events to help young Jews “connect to something bigger”. A popular blogger, Bookstein’s writings regularly appear in The Huffington Post, Jewlicious and LA’s JewishJournal.com. He also maintains the Facebook presence for both JConnectLA and the Jewlicious Festival, a popular youth event.

Lisa Colton: @LisaColton and @DarimOnline
Lisa Colton is the founder of Darim Online, a nonprofit dedicated to helping Jewish organizations and leaders effectively leverage social media to achieve their goals, including community building, education, communication and fundraising. In the past year, Colton has presented at conferences throughout the United States, and has hosted social media webinars online.

William Daroff: @Daroff
William Daroff is the vice president for public policy and director of the Washington Office for the Jewish Federations of North America. To the Jewish online community he is @Daroff, a prolific Tweeter who offers great insights into happenings in the American Jewish community. In 2011, Daroff co-chaired the social media committee for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Global Coalition for Israel.

Chaviva Galatz: @TheChaviva
Galatz is a popular blogger, Tweeter and social media personality. She created and co-chaired the only Jewish-themed panel at the 2011 SxSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX, entitled Jewish Synergy: Social Media and the New Community. She was named to The New York Jewish Week’s prestigious “36 Under 36” list where she was credited for “Connecting with Jews, one Tweet at a time”.

Allison Josephs: @JewInTheCity
Josephs is the woman behind “Jew in the City,” a popular website and video blog that helps promote a positive perception of Orthodox Judaism to non-observant Jews and non-Jews alike. In the past year, she has been invited to speak at numerous events and was interviewed by NPR for her work.

Esther Kustanowitz: @EstherK
Known to the online community as EstherK, Kustanowitz is a respected blogger, Tweeter and nonprofit consultant. Esther has traveled the globe presenting at various conferences on topics like Jewish communal engagement, social media and innovation. She was recently named a “Jewish Engagement Superstar” by Jewcy.

The Maccabeats: @Maccabeats
The Maccabeats, the male acapella group from Yeshiva University, has captivated American Jews with its hugely viral music videos promoting Jewish holidays. Their video for the song “Candlelight” has more than 7 million views alone. In 2011, the group was invited to perform for President Barack Obama at the official White House Chanukah party. The Maccabeats recently helped raise more than $88,000 for Gift of Life through their Miracle Match campaign.

Rabbi Jason Miller: @RabbiJason
Miller is a popular blogger on a wide variety of Jewish topics including technology, pop culture, politics and Jewish law. He is published regularly in the New York Jewish Week, The Huffington Post and the Detroit Jewish News. Rabbi Miller’s video response to former presidential candidate Governor Rick Perry’s “Strong” commercial has nearly 220,000 views on YouTube and was written about in dozens of national and international publications.

Dave Weinberg: @Weinberg81
A Jewish innovator who uses social media to rally people for causes he supports, Weinberg runs Causil, which offers nonprofit consulting, conferences such as the Future of Jewish Nonprofit Summit, aimed at educating the Jewish community on social media. Dave also was invited to lead the Social Media Boot Camp at the AJOP Convention earlier this year.

Rabbi Josh Yuter: @JYuter
Rabbi Josh Yuter is not only a pulpit rabbi. He’s a popular blogger, tweeter, and podcaster (his Jewish-themed podcasts were downloaded more than 20,000 times last year.) After he launched an impressive Facebook page and Twitterfeed for his synagogue, he was chosen by the Rabbinical Council of America to teach other rabbis about social media and “Using the Web to Teach Torah” at its 2011 Annual Convention.

Free agents are individuals who are working outside of organizations to pursue the mission — organizing, fundraising, energizing.  They aren’t on staff, or on the board, or hold any formal volunteer position. They’re just enthusiastic fans who believe in the purpose.  In the past, they have been dismissed as either novices who are not committed to working with the system, or risky because they aren’t signed on to “tow the company line” so to speak.  In today’s connected world however, each free agent is able to not only spread their message far and wide, but are able to organize and create real impact.  While they may believe in the mission wholeheartedly, they also want to be free, creative and engage on their own terms.

The recent Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle provided an interesting experiment through which to reflect on free agents and their work specifically in a fast paced situation. [Note that my participation in this effort was personal, as a free agent, not as a representative of Darim Online.  However, I believe that my experience and reflections can provide import insight for the Darim community and thus are worth sharing here.]  After hearing the news, my colleague Allison Fine started a Facebook Cause called “Komen Kan Kiss My Mammogram” which has raised over $17,000 as Alison, her friends and their friends passed around the link, enabling people to turn emotional outrage into action.  Shortly thereafter, the free agents began to circle and convene. There was a big opportunity to make a difference here.  What impact did we want to make, and how would we do it?

Enter #TakeBackThePink, a campaign which, briefly, was designed to highjack the #supercure Superbowl campaign to keep the riled up country focused on taking action to combat the real enemy: breast cancer.  We have documented the campaign and our reflections here.  Beth Kanter has blogged about it here, Allison Fine here, Amy Sample Ward here, and Lucy Bernholz here. Stephanie Rudat was also a critical member of the team.  It was an honor and privilege to collaborate with these brilliant women, and many many others who added their voice, energy, personal stories, heart and brain to the effort too.  We were passionate, and we had fun doing it.  We were free agents.  We were coordinating among ourselves, feeling out emotions, boundaries, strategies, division of labor.  And while we were so attentive to each other, we were not also dealing with the politics or policies or pace of any institution.  We were free free agents.  No strings attached.

At a few points, our potential collaboration with organizations did rise as an option.  For example, soon after we clarified that #TakeBackThePink was not anti-Komen but rather pro-women’s health, we sought to spread the word and build partnerships in a way that’s very consistent with our networked approach to working.  We learned that Brian Reid had compiled a list of statements from local Komen affiliates in many cases distancing themselves from the mothership, or articulating their freedom to making their own local funding decisions in their region.  To me, it seemed quite powerful to align with them — it may have helped add legitimacy to their local brands, and would have helped our message grow roots and spread further.  Yet while many of the fighters and survivors (or friends of survivors or victims) in our group felt strongly that Komen funds important research and is not all bad, others wanted nothing to do with Komen.  And aligning with us may have been risky for those affiliates as we are (to some degree) unknown free agents, with rapidly evolving goals and approaches, and they were in a risky situation to begin with.  As much as our goals may have been aligned, there were too many strings attached for all of us.  And in a rapidly moving blitz that was evolving hour by hour across the country, any strings were too much, too slow, too compromising.

The lesson I learn here is that there are different kinds of free agents: regular free agents (those who work fairly independently but in conjunction with organizations) and then there are really free agents who have no organizational alignment whatsoever, but can have massive influence nonetheless.  There are also long distance free agents who work on an ongoing basis to make social change, and there are sprinter free agents who pour a ton of energy and time into short term, high impact opportunities to make social change.  Interestingly, in the recent Komen uproar, Planned Parenthood found they were long on sprinting really free agents, and it (literally) paid off.

Leaders of today’s organizations should educate themselves about free agents (read The Networked Nonprofit for starters) and think deeply about how to work with free agents on an ongoing basis, and in fast paced environments as well.   Millennials in particular are well positioned to be free agents, and as they continue to mature, their modes of engaging and supporting organizations may look more and more free-agent-y.  As Ben Wiener said at the 2011 Jewish Future’s conference, “We don’t meet, we tweet.”

Do you think about how you engage with your free agents?  What can organizations and leaders do to make their missions and work more free-agent-friendly?  As a free agent, what organizations make you feel like you can run and soar?  How do others take the wind out of your sails?

Last night I gave one of the first ELI Talks at the North American Jewish Day School Conference (NAJDS). As I sought a “network” image for my presentation, I noticed how different the shapes of these maps can be.  In a fascinating discussion with Deborah Fishman we explored different types of skills and personalities in network weaving  – those who have deep connections with a modest network.  Those who have tentacles that reach far and wide.  Those who are nodes, connecting people to one another.

I’m going to hypothesize – I don’t have data on this, and I’d be interested to know if it exists – that different styles of network weavers (personality, skills, training, preferred tools, strategic objectives) will produce different patterns of network maps. For example, compare the structure of the following:

I hypothesize that we could codify these types in some way akin to a Myers Briggs Type Indicator evaluation to better clarify network weaver types.  Further, I think that organizations, if they are able to clarify what they want from a network weaver, would have a preferred “type” of network weaver.

In our challenge to develop excellent network weavers, and encourage more organizations to effectively use them, could this sort of “type indicator” help organizations clarify what they are looking for, and help match-make employers and employees more effectively?

I wonder to what degree these types are influenced by personality, training and/or experience?  Can you train or assign someone to be a type of network weaver, or are they predisposed to certain styles because of their personality?

I welcome input, research, challenges here – I’d love your help in refining these ideas.

Today’s shift, which adds posts, photos, profiles and conversations from Google+ that are public or were shared privately with the person searching, is valuable for users because it brings “your world” (as Google refers to it) into search, aggregating all of the information you might be interested in seeking.  It’s valuable to Google as  further boosts the centrality of Google+ relative to other social networks (which for now are not included), and positions your search engine as the singular window into all aspects of your world.

If I’m planning a trip to Paris I might find in my search hotels, reviews, discounts, maps, historical info, and now tips from friends who have been there, or even become aware that someone I know will be there at the same time.

But more than the search engine as the window into the world, these changes position me as the center of the universe, with information orbiting me.  Helpful, perhaps.  But what are the implications?

The Filter Bubble

But the flip side of all of this is the narrowing of our worlds. Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble describes how because of the search algorithm (the ‘filter’), we don’t even know what is being hidden from us.  What we’ve done and sought in the past strongly influence what we are exposed to in the future “leaving less room for the unexpected encounters that spark creativity, innovation, and the democratic exchange of ideas”.

Now that’s not so radically different from the way we lived prior to the internet.  If I live in a particular neighborhood or my kids go to a particular school, I’m more likely to be friends with those people and remain in that orbit.

But other recent research shows that young people today, while fairly technically savvy, have not been taught skills to evaluate the information they find.  “Google’s a trusted web site,” says one British student in a BBC segment. She used the first result Google returned and didn’t really think about it any further.  While teaching a course at the high school Genesis program at Brandeis University a few years ago, I challenged my students to do a research project with limited access to resources:  Only books, internet minus Wikipedia and the top 5 Google search results, or anything.  As you can imagine, the results were vastly different.  The students who were limited in their online search had a much deeper understanding of the material because they were exposed to many more sources and forced to evaluate and synthesize the information.

The bottom line here is the difference between information and knowledge.  We often confuse the two.  Google’s shifts may change the way we access information, but it is our responsibility to create our own knowledge.   And it is the responsibility of educators and parents to recognize that this process of knowledge creation and meaning making is different today than it has been in the past.  We must teach these skills, and illustrate to students the implications of Google’s decisions, lazy searching and the conclusions we draw.

Happy searching and socializing.  And don’t forget to get outside of your own orbit from time to time.

More on Google’s recent change:

Mashable: Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut

Huffington Post: Google ‘Search Plus Your World’ Brings Google+ Into Search Results

New York Times’ Bits Blog: Google’s Social Move Attracts Critics

New York Times’ Bits Blog: Google Adds Posts From Its Social Network to Search Results