Malcolm Gladwell: One Character Trait That Will Make You Disruptive. When people talk about what it takes to transform a field or a world, they leave out one crucial component, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell told the audience at the World Business Forum on Tuesday.
"What's really behind it? " he said. "What are the preconditions that make that kind of change possible? " Too often, he said, the list of explanations is short. "We talk about the importance of technology and knowledge and resources, having the kind of money to make it happen," he said, "but we don't talk about frame of mind--attitude. Using the powerful story of shipping magnate Malcolm McLean, Gladwell revealed how having the right attitude is critical to effecting great change. McLean's fuel-trucking gig led him to become something of a leader in the trucking space. Here was the problem: Shipping took forever, and so did loading and unloading the cargo. By the mid-1950s, when McLean was already a household name among American truckers, he decided to switch industries. Investing in Fundraisers Who Cultivate Wealthy Donors Pays Off, Studies Find - News.
Jeff Jowdy-Everyone Needs Reminding. Using Imperfect Metrics Well: Tracking Progress and Driving Change. Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the Winter 2010 edition of Leader to Leader.
It has been republished here with permission. The strategic plan is done. The objectives are clear. The time frame is set. The Board has done its work…until someone utters the word metrics. Strategic plans are most vulnerable not in their development, but in their implementation. But measurement is a daunting field. Not being able to afford the time and money to develop excellent metrics, nonprofits often have to glean whatever value they can from using imperfect metrics. What Should Be Measured? We see metrics at a fragile point conceptually. But all the really important things seem almost impossible to measure. Metrics are equally constrained by the technical requirements of good measurement. Nonprofits need not choose between having “no measures” or the high cost of developing perfect measures. But how could an imperfect metric be useful?
Case #1 Case #2 Case #3 Building Better Metrics. Angie Moore - Are We Focused on the Wrong Metrics for the Long Run? "Not everything that can be counted, counts — and not everything that counts can be counted.
"~ Albert Einstein Do you have a report monster? It's OK, you can admit it. Let's face it — in an effort to be better fundraisers and marketers, we may have created our own monster. And where there is information, there is reporting. The great news? Our data evolution is real and can be seen across every type of nonprofit. So, as with every evolutionary process, it's time to go to the next stage — moving from focusing on all the data to focusing on the right data. Fundraisers are the kings of data — especially the direct marketers.
What are you trying to measure? By now, you should know that my point of view and blogs are much broader than just a single program or a single donor type, etc. How healthy is my donor base? The first thing to understand is that not all data fall into the same category. What is the quality of the information that is at your disposal? Overwhelmed? Dig Deeper When Examining Fundraising Results. Fundraisers Need to Better Integrate Direct Mail and Online Marketing : Page 1 of 1.