On one hand, we hear organisations talk about mission and vision, goals and direction. Abstract things. Intangible and immeasurable. Lofty ideas and ideal outcomes.
On the other hand, those same organisations want to know the schedule, measure the progress, manage the resources. Concrete, tangible things. Outputs. Inventory.
Philosophically, this distinction is thousands of years old. Heraclitus thought that everything changes all the time, that the world is in constant flux. For him, intangible things that are constantly in a state of becoming, much like the sometimes unachievable missions of organisations, can never be, they can never materialise. Parmenides viewed reality as static. In his world you can measure things, they are predictable. It is his thinking on which we built most of our scientific knowledge and our ability to measure the world and our activities in it.
The problem isn’t us having these two views on the world or wanting to have a vision of what could be achieved and a schedule for achieving it, the problem is expecting to be able translate between them. Our organisations can have a mission, and they can measure and manage their efforts, but we can never connect the two. The schedule doesn’t tell us if we’re heading in the right direction. Mission and management don’t mix.
Non Functional Requirements are used in software systems design to describe how, and sometimes how well, a system does what it’s supposed to do. They might include things like reliability, security, usability, or anything else that sets the constraints and restrictions for what the system does. They are different from functional requirements which describe what the system should do.
Maybe social systems like teams and organisations require Non Functional Knowledge in how and how well their systems behave. Maybe the depth of Non Functional Knowledge of those acting on and being acted on within the system has a bearing on how successful the system operates.
We need to know more than just what the work is, we need to know how to do it, how to do it well, and how to do it as part of an interconnected system that involves lots of other people.
Copy and paste is probably the most impactful productivity tool in the modern workplace.
Imagine not having it. Think about having the rewrite everything that you want to move within a document or from one document to another every time.
Now imagine what more we could copy and paste. Think about what copy and paste actually enables and what it means for how we conceive of work.
Copy and paste, of text and images, of templates, but more importantly of ideas, means not having to start from scratch every time. It means always being able to build on what went before because what went before can be easily taken into a new context. Copy and paste is a ratchet mechanism that enables progress to occur, work to become more efficient, ideas to build and grow.
Every time you creating something new, ask yourself how you can do so in a way that makes it easy to copy and paste next time you need it.
There are two ways to do undertake a role. In an isolated way or in a networked way.
Working in isolation sees the job as having a defined remit of only doing the work that your job title implies or your job description defines. It regards individuals as separate from each other and producing discrete outputs that are then used by others acting in isolated ways.
Working in a networked way sees the role as part of an interconnected system. It means working to improve how the organisation works as a whole ahead of what works for the individual. Connected working contributes to the overall activities and performance of the system, it recognises that global optimisation is a better goal than local efficiency.
How do we work in more networked ways? Smaller and less self-conscious contributions might be way. Collaboratively producing a document might be a small example. Recognising that there is organisational gain to be achieved by sharing knowledge could be another. Informal coaching and feedback between lots more people.
I had a slightly surreal phone call. It was from someone inquiring about something I’d been involved a few years ago. After the call I wondered about how they found my number. A quick Google search and I found lots of websites had my phone number. In promoting the thing I’d been working on I had added my phone to a website. Lots of other websites scraped that website and so it’s data became their data.
A product manager, or someone assuming the responsibilities of a product manager, made choices about how those websites were going to work. They considered ‘their user’ as the person visiting their website and wanted to provide a wide range of information. They assumed that data on the public web is free for all to use. And they probably didn’t spend a great deal of time thinking about the original owner of the data, how they should have some control over how that data is used, and what problematic or harmful things could result from it being used in ways they didn’t intend.
Today, product managers working with public data sets or building products that allow users to share information about themselves publicly have no excuse for not considering the wider impacts of their choices. It’s irresponsible to assume that because data is open for all to see that this means it’s free for all to use. It’s irresponsible to push the responsibility for making those choices onto users and not inform them of the risks or give them the tools to manage the data they share.
Luckily for me, the thing I was working on was very niche so I don’t expect much interest and I’m pretty good at ignoring phone calls, but it made me think about how once we’ve added something to the internet we lose control over where it goes and how it’s used.
As a concept, ‘charity’ refers to the social contract we all enter into as members of a society. The social contract says that we have a responsibility to contribute towards the betterment of others in society even if we don’t know them.
As a behaviour, ‘charity’ is the fulfilling of that social contract. There are many many ways for individuals to commit private resources to public good. Those resources may be time, money goods, expertise, in fact anything with transactable value. Sure, some people choose to renege on their responsibilities, or even deny the contract exists, but such is the freedom of a democratic society.
As an organisation, a ‘charity’ tries to encourage people to fulfill the social contract in service of a particular cause. The wide variety of charities for the wide variety of causes allows for anyone to contribute towards a cause that matters to them.
Web3 provides a governance layer for the internet. It offers technologies and protocols that allow applications to enable a paradigmatic shift in how the transactable elements of society; money, data, rights & laws, are processed. It offers the possibility of moving from a centralised model, where we rely on an institution such as a bank to govern the exchange of money, to a decentralised system of processing money between people without intermediaries.
Web3 utilises blockchain technology as a tool for distributed consensus, or to put it another way, a means of everyone agreeing on something because everyone can see that it happened. A transfer of ownership of a unit of value is recorded, immutably, in a way that
Why is web3 important for charities?
As with all new technologies, web3 will enable charities do the same things in different ways, such as accept donation, but with cryptocurrencies rather than fiat, and run charity auctions, except with NFTs rather than physical goods. Charities will start with this type of incremental innovation. But, and far more importantly, it will empower them to do different things. Charities will create radical innovation. Charities will create dramatically different ways to achieve their charitable purposes, and enable people to contribute to a cause and fulfill the social contract.
Web3 drastically alters the need for centralised institutions. As Decentralised Autonomous Organisations become better understood, providing a means of moving the bye-laws and decision-making of an organisation into smart contracts, a charitable organisation acting as intermediary to manage the distribution of donations will be replaced with peer-to-peer networks, with governance encoded into a smart contracts, and with the supporter members of the organisation having equal voting rights about how the rules of those smart contracts are written.
This future frees the charity from dependence on other centralised institutions like banks and marketing platforms too. When the next big social network emerges to replace Facebook and Twitter it will be built on the blockchain. As users migrate to a platform that doesn’t trap them by locking-in their data so they can be advertised at, so to will charities move their social marketing and find new ways to connect people to causes.
The labour market of the web3 future won’t have employees. Charities will offer up contract work with the briefing, completion and payment all handled through smart contracts. DACO’s will have no need for large teams across multiple departments, only hiring in developers to create smart contracts that govern the work.
What might a web3-enabled charity sector look like? No one knows yet. But it will come.
Miro is a visual working tool that allows us to draw diagrams and maps in a visual way.
Why do we use Miro
Humans are visual creatures. If dogs invented Miro it would be using smells, but since humans invented it, and we use our eyes lots and think in visual ways, Miro allows us to communicate things visually. Visual communication often helps us understand more quickly than written communication and allows us to show the relationships between things.
We use Miro to do work in visual ways because it helps us think through how we understand something, plan how things should work, and communicate and collaborate more effectively.
Getting started
Creating an account
To create an account, go to https://miro.com/ and sign-up using your Prince’s Trust email address and password of your choice.
The side menu allows you to move between different groups of boards, and the boards within the groups are shown in All boards.
In a board
The more things that are added to a board the harder it can be to find the thing you’re looking for, but there are a few things that can help.
We use Frames (more details below) to group together pieces of work, and every frame has a unique link. Any link you see for a Miro board that has ‘?moveToWidget’ in it is for a Frame. To find particular Frames in the future you can bookmark the link.
We also use Cards (more details below) to help us find work. Cards can have tags which show up in the search. These need to be set in advance, so if you are working on a board and it has a Card in the top left corner feel free to add whatever Tags make it easier for you to find where that Card is in the future. You can add Tags that describe the work, or project or your name. Clicking on the red tag in the search results will take you to that card.
The basics of using Miro
Zooming in and out
In the bottom right corner is a map of the board.
When starting a new diagram its best to start at 100%. This means you can zoom in and out, which will make navigating around the board easier.
You can zoom in and out by clicking on the plus and minus symbol on the map or by using the plus and minus keys on your keyboard.
Scrolling around
If you want to move around a board, it’s often easier to zoom out a bit first so that each move covers more of the board and then zoom back in. You can use the up, down, left and right keys on your keyboard to move around the board. You can also click on the pointer icon to change your cursor into a hand and then click and hold down on your laptop trackpad to swipe around the board.
Frames
Frames provide a background and a way of grouping work together.
To create a Frame, click on the Frame icon and select the dimensions.
You can then click on the title of the frame to change its name.
To resize the frame, click on the edge and drag it to the size and shape you want.
To change the colour of the Frame, click on the frame to open the menu, click on the ‘fill color’ icon, and select the colour you want.
To get the link to the frame to share with others, click on the edge of the frame and a menu will appear. Click the three dots to see all the options and click Copy link. The link to the board is now copied to your clipboard so you can paste it wherever you want.
Once you have the Frame set how you want it, it’s a good idea to lock it by clicking on the anchor icon in the menu. This will prevent the Frame from moving around as you move Shapes and Post-it Notes around.
Pointer
The pointer allows you to do two things: when it’s an arrow it lets you select things, and when it’s a hand it lets you move the board around. You can change between the two by clicking on the Pointer icon in the left menu.
Post-it notes
Post-it notes can be added by clicking on the Post-it note icon. You can then change the colour and size of the note. It’s a good idea to add a key to your frame to explain what the different colours of notes mean, and to agree conventions like ‘Bigger post notes are for more important things’.
Text
You can text boxes by clicking on Text icon. Text boxes have a menu that allows you to change the font, the size of the text, its alignment, etc. As with the Post-it notes, it’s a good idea to agree with everyone working in the Frame what different fonts and sizes mean.
Shapes
Shapes can be added by clicking on the Shapes icon and selecting the shape. Shapes can have text written them and have a menu that allows you to change border colour, background colour, text colour, etc.
Connection lines
Connection lines can be added by clicking on the Connection line icon and selecting the type of line, or by clicking on a Shape or Post-it Note and then clicking on a blue dot. You’ll then be able to drag the Connection line to the blue dots of another Shape or Post-it Note. Making sure the Connection lines go to a blue dot means that if you move the Shape or Post-it notes the line will move with it. Connection lines have a menu that allows you to change colour, thickness, etc.
