Management Consulting 2.0

A Strategic Technology Initiative for Boston and Beyond

Management Consulting Services and Database Designs Associates announce a new strategic technology initiative for the Greater Boston nonprofit community. “Management Consulting 2.0” aims to increase the overall awareness and use of emerging new Internet technologies to advance nonprofit missions and effectiveness. Popularly referred to as Web 2.0, these technologies comprise a whole series of new tools, many low cost or free, that open up new ways of communicating effectively, developing community partnerships, connecting up actors and stake holders on critical issues, encouraging collaborative learning styles.

 

Management Consulting 2.0 (MC 2.0) will include four specific activities in 2007:

 

Web 2.0 Training Series

We are pleased to sponsor a monthly series of free brown-bag lunches on the Web 2.0 theme. These will be open to select nonprofit leaders and managers to introduce the strategic significance of the new technologies from a management and planning framework. We will fill in the gaps of implementing and using these technologies in a second series of longer, technical workshops for program staff.

 

The brown bag series will begin with these topics for this spring:

April 4: Web 2.0 and the nonprofit community.

Follow-on topics (tentative schedule):

May 1: Open Source Content Management and the future of nonprofit web sites.

May 29: Who’s using social networking sites like MySpace, Care2, change.org and second life for community building?

June 26: Using Web 2.0 Technology to Connect Communities and Build Sustainable Networks

How Web 2.0 is changing donor management and constituency relationships--a new look at "CRM".

For more information about this free series,
write to mc2 at dbdes.com

Strategic Assessment and Planning

We will undertake focused engagements with select individual organizations to create comprehensive strategies for technology investment rooted in today’s new technological realities. We have pooled our knowledge and experience with nonprofit strategic planning generally, the consulting process for effective, mission critical software and web systems, and specific approaches to new Web technologies to offer a different kind of nonprofit technology planning.

 

An assessment will determine the technology needs and opportunities for significant improvement in organizational effectiveness. These areas include back-office operations, data and network security, data and document management, internal and external communications, and staff development. The outcome will be a strategic technology plan including the following:

· Technology Vision and Goals –how technology, particularly emerging technology, will enhance mission and goals for more effective service delivery and organizational efficiency.

· Basic Operational Recommendations, including an emphasis on “quick-hits” that require smaller investments, but result in cost savings.

· Strategic Investments that focus on the mission. Cost benefit analysis will be conducted on the multiple investment options for each potential investment.

· Timeline and Budget Scenarios for the multiple options will be presented.

· Evaluation metrics to determine scope and scale of effectiveness of technology implementation and to allow improved management of the IT Portfolio.

 

CIO Services

As a follow on to the technology planning process, we will offer a strategic IT management capability to those organizations needing assistance with implementation and management. Many small and medium sized organizations simply can not sustain the management of effective change in technology because of the prioritization of mission critical activities. To carry though with the education and planning, we will offer an outsourced strategic technology management capacity for small and mid-sized organizations through an ongoing technology management.

 

Technology changes so rapidly that most nonprofits can’t keep up with not only the technology, but how to most effectively and strategically use new tools and capabilities. We will provide a management capacity on an annualized contracted basis for the following activities:

· Strategic technology assessment and planning – mapping strategy to most effective technologies

· Innovations to more effectively address the mission

· Vendor management

· Technology implementation project management

· Briefings of senior staff on latest technologies and implications for organizations

 

Open Source Content Managed Websites

Rounding out our Management Consulting 2.0 initiative, we will focus on implementation services for one key technology initiative in 2007: adoption of and migration to content management system-based web sites for effective nonprofit web communication.

 

We have gained significant consulting experience with several key new technology offerings for web site management. While we will continue to support and advise organizations on others as appropriate, our focus will be on the powerful combination of Drupal plus CiviCRM (contact management), or Joomla and CiviCRM. We will offer a standard package of site makeover in new format, training in effective content management and news for the community you serve, effective customized “member only” sections for community engagement and project coordination, electronic news, and use of on-line constituent relationship management for fund-raising and events on its own or integrated with internal databases.