Monthly Archives: June 2014

4 Non-Directive Consultancy

George Lovell developed Non-directive consultancy, by providing training for church and community workers. He ran his organisation, called AVEC (the French for “with”), at Chelsea Methodist Church in London. (The link takes you to my sequence about non-directive consultancy.)  It ran from the 1970s through to the 1990s. After AVEC closed, George Lovell, with a few others, developed a course about consultancy, mission and ministry. George has retired but the course continues at York St John’s College. Consultancy for Mission and Ministry is an excellent course for anyone interested in non-directive consultancy.

What is Non-directive Consultancy?

Consultancy has something of a bad name primarily because of out-sourcing, where specialist consultancy organisations carry out tasks instead of employees. We all know where that’s led.

Non-directive consultancy does the opposite. It is a mutual method, aiming to empower the people who are doing the work. It starts with the assumption that the consultor knows their job. They may need help in thinking things through. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes they need help to see where they went wrong and how to move on from where they’ve ended up!

George Lovell’s two books, “Analysis and Design” and “Consultancy, Ministry and Mission” are the best introduction to the approach, although the course is essential if you want to learn the method.

1 Welcome to My Website!

There is a small stylistic point about the word “welcome”.  It appears on many home pages and should be taken out.  Why?

1 Owning Your Website

Last time I wrote about content management systems (cms) where the designer sets up a website so that their client has little control over it.

Maybe this made sense in the past but the big change is, these days maximum functionality is available to anyone who wants it. No-one needs a designer and they can set up and run their own site. (I’m not saying there is no need for designers, just that they’re not essential.)  I strongly recommend to my clients they steer clear of any arrangement that ties them into one designer or consultant in perpetuity. It is better to own and control your own site.

There are still many advantages to engaging someone to set up your site. It saves time and helps you make the right decisions.  A simple basic site should be relatively inexpensive. You might also pay a small retainer to a designer or consultant to look after the site, make sure the cms is up to date and deal with technical problems. If you own your site you can choose to end this arrangement at any time.

In the past website design was a technical and creative issue for the designer. Their creative flair was just as important as their technical know-how.

The creative side is something you may still wish to pay for; a custom-designed header or  website theme is likely to increase your costs and may be desirable if you can afford it. However, for most voluntary organisations whilst it might make sense to pay someone to help you make decisions, set things up and provide some initial support, an off-the-shelf theme and a basic design is all you need.

Behind these concerns there is another result of the massive increase in functionality. These days the focus is not so much on design as content. Design is costly and often not crucial for the success of a website. If you are providing unique content you will find your followers or members without the need to pay for an eye-catching design.  Some very successful sites are not much to look at but combine excellent content with the right site structure so that visitors can easily find what they are looking for.

So, what makes for good content?

This depends upon the nature of the site. A site devoted to icing cupcakes might have a lot of images, whilst a site devoted to classical Greek might have relatively few images. The copy on the cupcake site may be fairly routine, recipes and instructions. The Greek site might depend on exposition of texts from new and exciting perspectives.  Both may be successful sites.

However, there are a few things worth considering as pointers to good copy. Is it:

In short, these days you can do anything and in future posts I’ll show you how to do it!  What’s your experience of owning your own site?

5 Conversations Online: Websites

In this and next few Wednesday posts I continue the theme of conversations online and explore how conversations happen online. There are differences between online and offline conversations although perhaps they are more apparent than real.

Nothing possible in real life is impossible online, although some things are more difficult. If we don’t pay attention, we miss a lot of the value of online relationships.

Websites may seem to be an odd place to start. They are after all a one-way medium. I put stuff on my website for visitors to read. Ok that’s true but I need to know what my visitors want to read. Or rather I need to know which visitors I want to build relationships with by placing content on my site they want to read.  (I’ve just started a new Tuesday sequence about how a website can be written by and for its visitors.)

Many organisations design websites without a target visitor in mind. It cab be difficult to work out exactly who is the ideal visitor!

Many sites are about the site owner or their organisation. Why do so many voluntary organisations write at great length about their governance structures? Sometimes on the home page! It helps to take a step back and think about who you want to reach and what might interest them.  Who benefits from what your organisation does and how?

Things to Consider

To be part of a conversation the site needs to be designed so each page has one message leading to a call to action. The call to action is how you know there is a conversation happening at all! Too many sites don’t explain properly their call to action or it is an afterthought. For example, beginning the home page with a request to download a newsletter is not a good idea. The visitor needs to know something about the newsletter before they download it. Help them make their decision!

Also think about the exchange you want. Do you want them to download your newsletter or to subscribe to it? The former is hardly a conversation at all. The latter may be the start of a relationship.

All this is fairly limited. In future posts I’ll explore how you can enhance your website and online presence so that you can take part in conversations. How does your website engage with its visitors?

2 Who is Your Market?

Yesterday someone on BBC Radio 4’s “You and Yours” defined a market as small businesses providing a particular product or service. I suspect this is a common mistake. Businesses are evidence of a market but they are not themselves the market.

When we talk of the market as somewhere we visit, we mean the marketplace. Economists when they refer to the market, do not mean a place but rather the people who buy things or potentially buy things.

They are right. It is people who make up the market, not the businesses or the market stalls.

Another problem is how we think of the market. These days the collective noun for the people who take part in the market is “consumers”. This illustrates how the pressures of capitalism have distorted our thinking.

The purpose of the market is not consumption, it is community. We have moved a long way from understanding community as something that grows out of trade. These days we expect community groups to hold everyone together. They are entertainment for a few but can’t compete with the marketplace, the local economy, for building community.  Global interests have wrecked the local economy, leaving many people with no work and no marketplace.

In a world where multinational business extracts money from our pockets and transports it to off-shore tax havens, it is hard to remember or imagine the market as the hub of community life.

The market depends upon trust. Even corrupt practices need trust. If someone is flogging something substandard, I am not likely to buy it twice. I might buy it the first time out of trust, but I will know better in the future.

Traditional markets are places where people meet friends, buy and sell, worship, exchange news, hold courts of law, take a bath, relax …

We have separated buying and selling from the rest of life. Instead of seeing my business as something that enables me to enjoy life, it is normal to work for someone else to finance my debts. The idea of the freedom of the entrepreneur is not readily understood. There are major problems, especially if there are debts to be paid but  many self-employed people’s experience is their place in the market brings them freedom and enjoyment of life.

7 Citizens’ Organising

[amazon_link asins=’0679721134′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’markettogether’ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’4e0b520e-5dad-11e8-9735-af4bb1fcb2fa’] [amazon_link asins=’0679721126′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’markettogether’ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’66f0ea4d-5dad-11e8-aad2-d12c714ba9fc’]

Citizens’ Organising is an approach to community development from the United States and an effective mutual method. It can be traced back to the work of Saul Alinsky in the 1970s. His books “Rules for Radicals” and “Reveille for Radicals” are still worth reading. The Industrial Areas Foundation, who organise across cities in the United States, built upon his work after his death in the early 1970s.

Citizens’ Organising in the UK

Attempts  to introduce organising to the UK from the early 1990s were not very successful.  Whilst a few groups still struggle on it never really took root in the UK. However, organising is worth considering and it is possible to add elements into community development practice.

One essential element is power analysis. This means we need to understand who actually has power in a given situation. Sometimes it is important to name the powerful and target them for effective change.

Equally important is its understanding of activism and indeed, if we are to take activism seriously, then organising is essential to community development. Anger, seen as a positive emotion, powers activism. It is important no one person becomes essential to the organisation; power is held collectively, not concentrated in the hands of any one person.  So, roles are held for no more than one year.  This means everyone had opportunities to increase their experience of a range of roles, building a pool of capable people, enhancing  the organisation’s capacity.

The emphasis is upon building relationships and applying pressure to key power-holders.  Activists claim you have “no permanent friends and no permanent enemies”.  The pressure applied to power-holders aims to bring them around to supporting the interests of the citizens’ organisation.  If no-one within the organisation holds power, it is harder to buy out the organisation.

Learning More About Citizens’ Organising

[amazon_link asins=’1932805516′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’markettogether’ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’5027fa6c-5dae-11e8-bed1-a7680b584912′]The Citizens’ Organising movement is reluctant to write text books, preferring to pass on their methods through training. They have a point but it is also important to understand what they offer and so a few helpful texts have emerged over the years. One I have found helpful is “Building a People of Power: Equipping Churches to Transform Their Communities” by Robert C Linthicum.

Organising has traditionally involved churches because they are often the organisations that stay in neighbourhoods once everyone else has moved out.  Their persistence means they guarantee income through paying their dues and so the organisation is able to plan ahead.  Many other types of organisation can and do join citizens’ organisations, including other faith groups.

Have you used organising as a part of your development work or experienced a citizens’ organisation in your city?  What have you found helpful about their approach?

0 Case Study 2: Search Engine Optimisation

Last Friday, I described case study 2, my work with the Bristol European Jazz Ensemble website.  My client asked me about search engine optimisation (seo) and I thought it would be worth sharing my reply.  The interesting thing about this site is it uses WordPress.com and so seo is not so straightforward as it would be with WordPress.org or any other independently hosted site.  Another issue is my client is trying to promote the name BEJE and not the full name of the band.  This raises some issues.  Here is my response to his question, as I sent it.

“Here’s my response to your question:

Of more immediate concern is, the web site itself comes low down on a Google search of ‘Bristol European Jazz Club’, marginally better with ‘BEJE jazz’ and not at all just with BEJE. How can any of these combos get in the first 3/4 places with Google?”

Read this through to the end before you act on it!

Search Engine Optimisation is a rapidly changing area and in some ways it’s a lot easier than it was.  Let me summarise current search results [NB Blog readers: these results will change]:

That’s interesting!

A couple of observations.

1. Check your Linked-In and YouTube accounts and make sure they have clear links to the website on them.  Not just the link but also copy encouraging people to follow the link.  Why should they go there?  The description below the video on YouTube does not include your web address.  If you do include it, it will be added as a special kind of link, called a nofollow link.  Nofollow links are not followed by Google bots, so it won’t effect the website ranking in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).  However, people can follow it and so where the video is ahead of the website on the SERP, there will be a chance they’ll find their way to the website.  You need to place the link at the very start of the description: http://bigbromo.wordpress.com/ – to look just like this.  The reason is that when the video is described on other pages, it usually only reproduces the first few lines of the description, so for example, the url would appear on the SERP under the video.
   
2. In all searches but “BEJE” there are some sites mentioning the band.  Check they have links to the website.  If you know the site owners, ask them to add a link.  Eg thebristolfringe.com features the video only.  colstonhall.org has a link to the site but it is on their site as a naked url.  They need to use the anchor text “Bristol European Jazz Ensemble”.  Google doesn’t know what the url on its own signifies (the rules for YouTube are different and there you must use the url).  You could ask them to use BEJE but I would advise not to because at present BEJE on its own is not ranking.  (It appears to be Lithuanian for “the way”.)

You could visit all the sites that mention Bristol European Jazz Ensemble and check how they are referencing you.  You ideally want a link to your site with anchor text that says something positive, the name of the group is fine or something like “for brilliant jazz listen to B… E…” although that might be too long.  The name includes the words Bristol and Jazz which is a good foundation.

But Google “Bristol Jazz” and you don’t feature at all!  Is this a target search for you?

One thing to consider is having your own domain name.  I’m afraid I have to introduce the concept of “link juice”.  If you have a link from a website with lots of authority, then this link will be especially juicy (I think this is what passes for American geek humour).  The problem is your site is on WordPress.com, which operates a bit like Facebook.  People can link to your Facebook page directly but it is part of a much bigger site.  Your website is part of the bigger WordPress.com site.  This means the link juice is shared with the entire WordPress.com site.  You don’t get the benefit.  (Your site has a domain authority of 100% and a page authority of 1%.  This means all the juice goes to the WordPress domain and virtually none to your site.)The remedy is to get your own domain name.

You can do this by going into wp-admin and accessing the shop, where you’ll find you can purchase a domain name.  You need to think through the domain name – it should reflect the content of the site, eg bristoleuropeanjazzensemble.org.uk – you’ll be offered a choice of endings.  The fee is something like £5.99 per year.  There is no limit to the length of urls and the advantage of this one is it tells Google what’s inside the site (I think you can use hyphens to separate the words if you wish).  I wouldn’t use BEJE because it isn’t ranking and it doesn’t inform the search engines.

You need to decide whether you want your own domain name before you implement the other recommendations above because you don’t want to go round a second time asking them to change your url.  But a change in url is a good reason to contact your current back-links.

So, in summary

1. Invest in a domain name that reflects the content of the site.
2. Make sure the new domain name is on YouTube and Linked-In.
3. Contact sites you know have back-links to change the url and use more relevant anchor text.
4. Contact other likely sites and ask them to include a link.

1 Content Management System Problems

This new sequence about website maintenance, asks how to maintain a website using a content management system, eg WordPress.

A few years ago, you employed a designer to build a site from flat html and css. You would provide copy and images (or instructions about images) and the designer would do all the work. They installed the site on their server. They usually entered into a maintenance arrangement so the site could be updated by the designer.

Many voluntary organisations found it difficult to pay commercial rates. They found their sites were almost impossible to maintain and so rapidly went out of date. Unless you could afford a team to look after your site, updating websites was a big problem.

Content Management Systems

All this began to change with the content management system (cms). Designers were able to set up sites for their clients to maintain. Systems such as Joomla are still going strong. The way it works is the designer hosts the site, determines client needs, installs relevant plug-ins and offers training.  They may do a lot more to make the site distinctive but here my focus is on the cms.

This works rather well and should the client need to extend the site’s functionality, they return to the designer and ask them to upgrade their site. There are two potential problems:

If the client is tied to one designer and has staff who understand the technical side, it can be frustrating to have to work through a designer who has other ideas.  It can be worse for voluntary groups who may have an old website set up by a commercial designer at a charity rate.  If the designer’s main interest is commercial contracts, then it can be difficult to contact them perhaps after a couple of years and get the changes made.  Gratis work can be even more problematic.  A website is a long-term investment and people move on.  Many sites are inaccessible because the person with the passwords has gone!  This is simply failure to think through the consequences of a website as a long-term investment.

What to do with a Moribund Website

The client is left with a number of unattractive options.  They can:

1. Stay there and remain dependent on a designer who may in point of fact be out of date and not understand their business needs and simply no longer be interested in the work
2. Appoint a consultant to work with the designer to develop the site and hope they agree and the original designer doesn’t take umbrage.  This might work if the new consultant can get access to the host and upgrade the cms.  Sadly this is not always the case.  Charging for upgrades may be a nice little earner.
3. Set up a new independent site and transfer their domain name and content across to it.
4. Abandon the old site and start afresh with a new domain name

This can be problematic whether or not the client and designer get on. If the relationship is positive it can, especially for voluntary groups who are not motivated by profit, be an enormous step to move to independence. If the relationship has broken down it might be easier but the designer may not co-operate.

And of course when the designer disappears with their passwords, leaving an out of date site with the same name as the new one you create, it will forever present a bad impression to everyone who stumbles upon it.

Next time I’ll suggest an alternative to this model.  Have you any stories about how a website has become stuck with an old designer?

0 Selling Causes Online

Selling may seem an odd way to describe promotion of a cause! But we do sell causes, whether we work online or not. Over the years I’ve handed out leaflets for many causes, such as the peace movement, the environment and a political party.

Standing on the high street handing out leaflets, is participation in the marketplace. It always has been. Political and religious views have always been expressed in the marketplace, just as much as it is a place for buying and selling products and services.  All three depend upon conversation to make a sale.

Selling a Cause

The purpose of selling a cause is to get a response from the customer. This might be a financial response although sometimes finance can be illegal, eg buying votes, requesting donations without a license. Aside from finance, you may be seeking responses such as:

Why Causes are Different

So, the boundaries between causes and products or services, are not always watertight. Even if there is no financial exchange, there is little  difference between a cause and a commercial exchange. Given that some businesses give a lot of stuff away and see themselves as educational, some may be hardly distinguished from a cause.  The distinction is income destination from the marketplace; goes into private hands or to finance the cause or its beneficiaries.

If we imagine a spectrum from those who are out solely to make money through to those who have a cause and no intention to make a penny, experience shows both ends tend to move towards the centre. The money-maker, if successful may find they need a cause to build relationships with their customers, whilst the cause may find it needs finance to meet its aims. An entrepreneur with integrity and an efficient cause may find they meet somewhere along the spectrum.

The term “social entrepreneur” was in vogue a few years ago. Really, any successful entrepreneur has to be social because they must build relationships with their customers. The term aims to show commerce can have social roots. The present argument about  accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, rather than distribution of wealth among small entrepreneurs who make sure finance circulates in the economy, perhaps shows the tension between business and social causes is still current.

To what extent do you find the distinction between a cause and a business helpful?  Do you have examples of business people and causes working together for mutual benefit in the marketplace?

0 How to Write Copy

After several weeks of guidance about copy, today I finish this section with a few things you can do to improve your writing.

Remember, on websites people have a shorter attention span than they do for print.  They tend to scan the page, so anything that helps them is helpful, eg subheadings, bullets and numbered lists, short paragraphs and short sentences. Loads of subordinate clauses are generally not a good idea.  Consider how you can:

Have you any practices that improve your site’s readability?