I’ve decided to steal borrow inspiration from another Saskatoon freelancer, Sheena Greer of Colludo.ca, and start a weekly miscellaneous post. These Tuesday Thoughts will summarize recent happenings on this site and elsewhere related to community-based reseach, evaluation, and planning, as well as upcoming events and initiatives in Saskatoon. Unlike Sheena I won’t be providing muffin recipes, though if anyone is interesting in providing such goodies I would be more than happy to review them as part of this series.
Without further ado, let’s start!
From Last Week
- The second update on my planning for Strong Roots, where I move beyond the abstract and start Getting to Goals.
- Don’t just accept that your program or service won’t reach all of its intended audience! Ask Who’s Not Here, and why – the answer may be more useful than you think.
Around Toon Town
- Personal plug – I’m a co-founder of Social Innovation YXE, a network of individuals and organizations interested in connecting, sharing, and learning more about social innovation in our fair city. Our next meetup is Wednesday March 5 at Station 20 West, visit the Picatic page for more info and to register!
- The City of Saskatoon is seeking public feedback for planning growth up to half a million people (double our current population!). There’s an event tonight if you read this in time, otherwise sign up on the Growing Forward website to learn about future events more than an hour in advance.
- Speaking of Sheena Greer, she’s looking to start online chats for non-profit folks in Saskatchewan.
Around the Web
- Seven Steps for Effective Brainstorming – creativity does not necessarily need to be unstructured! (MIT Sloan Management Review, via Lifehacker)
- Some advice from Stanford Social Innovation Review on non-profit organizational mission, including drop the vision and values, and “go deep” rather than broad to avoid mission creep.
- Consultant Caren Oberg lists some tools for conducting evaluations on tablets.
Have some constructive feedback on this format? Got content for future posts? Let me know!