Weeknote Feb 08–11
I spent every day this week coordinating, scheduling, interviewing, and designing the programme for the Catalyst Definition Programme We Are Open Co-op is running for a cohort of 10 charities.
Talking to everyone
In order to eliminate some of the ambiguity around what our cohort needs in this programme, I set up one to one interviews with each charity. I’ve been running these meetings over the past two weeks. My agenda was mostly about getting to know each charity, listening to their expectations and doing a digital transformation readiness benchmarking exercise.
What I’ve learned is that we a wide range of services, target audiences, digital competencies and ideas. We have charities working with youth and others working with adults. There are people focused on music and art and others focused on policy advice. We have cultural institutions with 50+ staff as well as small charities working with just a few people. What they all have in common is an eagerness to learn and an experience of the Catalyst Discovery programme.
Coordinating everyone
I asked everyone to fill out a Doodle for us and we determined that Tuesday and Thursday afternoons will suit people best for live sessions. We’ll do full group learning sessions, small group practical sessions, a geeky, tech focused session and hold office hours each week in the program.
We’ve set up a landing page inside of the Catalyst Notion site, so that our cohort participants have everything all in one place. We’ll grow and change it as we go. Special thanks to Erica Neve and Pedram Parasmand, digital folks from another agency, who shared their Notion project management template and saved me loads of time.
Taking a journey with everyone
The next 10 weeks will require some flexibility and understanding, as we take a journey together. Since the charities are in different places, we’ll have to use some big brain thinking to adjust some of the activities to apply to each context. Every one is starting out in a somewhat nebulous cloud of information. Our task in the Definition programme is to get to…a Definition of what can be done!
We’ll make and build and prototype solutions ranging from strategic solutions to technical ones. Along the way, we’ll introduce new tools and techniques, ways of thinking, and, of course, some good, old-fashioned participatory methodologies charities can use to flex their engagements with their audiences.
It was an intense week of planning and programme design. Now it’s time to start producing the materials we’ll need to help these charities clearly define their challenges and take steps towards eliminating, as one charity put it, the “digital debris” that’s come from the pandemic forcing people into the digital world.
Do you have a digital transformation, techie or culture project you need some experts on? Get in touch!