Month: November 2013

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Creating Higher Consciousness Organizations

A group of business people having a meeting

November is the 11th month and we just passed 11-11. I thought I’d play a bit with the numbers to begin this blog.

The number One represents new beginnings. Double 1’s for 11 represent pillars or gateways. The number eleven represents Higher Consciousness or Master Teacher Mind.

In this week of 11-11 we have a chance to walk through new gateways and find ways to connect with Higher Consciousness.

What do you want to start or see emerge new in your work?

What do you need to see or understand with the Beginners Mind or the Master Teacher Mind?

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Higher Consciousness Organizations

Many executives, leaders, and management authors refer to organizations as if they were an entity of their own. Aside from the legal status, organizations don’t exist on their own.

Organizations are made up of people. Those this seems obvious, it’s good to reflect on the true nature of organizations.

  • Organizations don’t behave unethically, people do.
  • Organizations aren’t creative, people are.
  • Organizations aren’t successful, people accomplish results for the organization.

Next time you hear about organizations performing poorly or well, look deeper to find out what the people within the organization are doing.

In my book, “Path for Greatness“, I describe Higher Consciousness Organizations (HCOs). I give examples of people and organizations that typify the characteristics of HCOs (See chapters 16 & 17).

Click on the link below to hear a webinar for Organizational Development consultants. I describe new ways of organizing and new characteristics of organizations that are emerging.

http://flvnetwork.com/v/6i6y

Creating Higher Consciousness Organizations

As new forms of organizing occur, new ways of conceptualizing organizations are needed. In this month of new beginnings and Higher Consciousness, I invite you to have a conversation with your colleagues and professional peers.

What new forms of organizational structures, values, guiding principles, communication, and relating do you envision and want to bring forward?

*****

Follow Linda on FB: https://www.facebook.com/LindaJFerguson for more blog posts and updates. 10th Anniv cover

Share Linda’s 10th Anniversary edition of “Path for Greatness: Work as Spiritual Service” as a gift for a colleague, friend or family member. Available on Amazon- Click HERE

Sign-Up on Linda’s website- www.lindajferguson.com to live and work from the heart- Transformational Empowerment

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How Do You Curate Content

A lady working on laptop creating content

Curating content is defined as selecting, organizing, and presenting content, mostly for online use, either for searching or marketing, or actually any form of business or profession. How do you curate and communicate your content? How do you provide information smoothly and quickly?
First you have to select it, then organize it and make it presentable. It has to be valuable, accurate, and searchable. As with writing the content, you need to:

  • Know the target audience.
  • Ensure that the content is reusable and relevant.
  • And depending on the system being developed, note if the content is to be classified or confidential and design accordingly.

To get started:

  • Locate templates and models to give you some ideas as to how the architecture of the content should be established; getting started to build a system is not an easy task.
  • Group and categorize the content (e.g., by project or types of documents or by videos, diagrams, etc.) for easy access. Organizing them is not the only key to having a good searchable structure or system. Know what you want your system to present, to be able to do or to provide.
  • The content also has to be formatted in such a way as to be visually presentable and easy to use. Getting the right look and feel of the system will not only make it more appealing, but more useable as well.
  • Find where existing content is being stored and then decide on not only the (possibly) new location (cloud, database, etc.) of the system, but how content will now be stored and also who will be in charge of the content and the processes involved in creating and maintaining the system.
  • Again as always, if this is a global company, translation processes need to also be considered.

To ensure that the content is valuable, visualize a user needing access to the content. Develop some scenarios and make sure the framework is suitable for the user. You can also mail out a survey or questionnaire and gather needed information. You might want to say you are setting up a test case. Find out what users want in the searchable system. Once you have a prototype, have users try it out and see where adjustments need to be made.

Also, note the costs that need to be considered in maintaining the content. The above are only a few of the many things that have to be considered. There are resources and packages available that can be of assistance, but you need to know what you want and need for curating content.

Don’t forget that once a system is established, plan ahead and create contingent plans for any unexpected delays and bottlenecks, and ensure that all problems can and will be resolved. To ensure the system is working well, set up a tracking system and always get some feedback to its functionality.

If you have are involved with curating content, please leave a comment as to what has to be considered before developing a curated system and your experiences.

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College Courses in Crisis Management

Students studying together

The spike in visibility of crises has most certainly resulted in changes to how organizations operate, and alongside that trend another is growing, albeit more quietly – that of training people to fill the variety of emergency and crisis management roles that are emerging.

Check out this description of one such course, from a Kansas City Star article by Mara Williams:

Any of your college classes go like this?

There is Stephanie Eiken, dangling 40 feet in the air from a rope attached to a harness strapped around her waist while she stages a mock rescue from a forest fire lookout tower.

Classmates, meanwhile, tend to people playing victims of an F5 tornado. An injured pregnant woman. A man buried under concrete. A person pierced by a metal bar. Complicating matters are burning buildings, closed roads and knocked-out bridges.

It all was part of a three-day training exercise for 50 students in Northwest Missouri State University’s new comprehensive crisis response bachelor’s degree program. Such training is becoming more common for college students as a growing number of schools nationwide offer degrees in emergency management and crisis response.

Many of today’s top emergency and crisis management pros learned on the job, but it sounds like the next generation may come equipped with skills and knowledge that used to take years of facing real action to master. We’re excited to see how they put them to use, and what new achievements they’ll be able to reach as a result!

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. and editor of Crisis Manager]

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What Makes Teamwork Work?

Group of people working together as a team

Most leaders know it’s important to work with their team to define goals, but the conversation shouldn’t stop there. You also need to agree on the mechanics of how the team will get the work done. Here are four things that must be clear to every team member.

1. Roles and Responsibilities.
Every member needs to know their role or assignment on the team – what they’re responsible for doing. They also need to know how their work contributes to the overall work of the team. Of course, roles need to remain flexible. You don’t want people rigidly adhering to “my job” or exclaiming “not my job!” when others need help. Clarity as to who does what when lessens the common occurrence of things falling through the cracks.

Related: Getting Accountability

2. Work Processes.
Few teams need or should have a notebook full of policies and procedures. But every team needs common agreement about how it does its basic work. A good example is the way decisions are made. Who’s involved in making what decisions? What are the agreed-upon steps for evaluating alternatives and making a choice? Another is internal communication. How often will the team meet online or face-to-face? What is the purpose of the meetings? How will members keep each other informed — through what reports and discussions and how often? This is essential for effective teamwork.

Related: The Elephant Metaphor: Who’s Right?

3. Rules of Engagement.
These are the shared values, norms and expectations, sometimes called team culture, that shape the daily give-and-take of team members both live and online. They are the social glue that keeps interactions productive and prevents constructive disagreement from turning personal and dysfunctional. So what are the “rules of behavior” regarding lateness, dress, after hour activities, openness about disagreements, attendance at meetings and a whole host of other things that need to be explicit?

Related: On the Road to Abilene

4. Performance Metrics and Feedback.
What measures of progress, developed how, by whom, and how often, will be used to assess progress in meeting goals? How often will performance reviews of the team as a whole be performed? The advantage of clearly defining how progress will be measured is that members will be able to assess themselves. Your role as leader then becomes guiding the search for solutions rather than convincing members that a problem exists

Management Success Tip:

In the teams you lead, have you taken the time to sort out these things? As mundane as they may seem, it’s important to be explicit about them. Talk about them and write down the key ones. Don’t assume, especially as teams become increasingly virtual and cross-cultural, that the ones you want will emerge spontaneously. These are the often forgotten ingredients so essential for team success.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

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Six Essentials of a Powerful Online Press Release

Businessman reading from his laptop while smiling

PRWeb

 

 

 

How to Get Found … and Heard

Your competition knows how to rise to the top. Here’s a quick guide to getting the attention of the search engines and your target customer who is searching online. According to PRWeb.com, if you follow these tips you’ll have a professional, concise and powerful news release.

Headline

Get your readers’ attention here. Provide information but don’t use more than 60 characters. Most importantly, use your best keywords in the headline. Write your headline and summary last to be sure you include the most important keywords and information captured from the release.

Summary

Your job in the summary is to entice your reader to want to know more. Give a synopsis of the contents and a brief description of your business and the information you’re sharing. Use keywords! Make sure you announce your company’s name within the headline, summary or first few paragraphs so you immediately link the information with your organization.

Dateline & Lead Paragraph

FORMAT: City, State & Day, Month, Year PLUS the most important information you want to announce. Grab your reader’s attention here by simply stating the news you have to announce. Ideally, keep it down to 25 words or less. Best practices are to keep the lead paragraph compelling and simple, and remember to use a keyword.

The lead and first paragraph of a press release announces what you have to say, providing answers to as many of the critical “who, what, when, where, why (your reader should care) and how” questions that are relevant to your story.

Body

Now’s your chance to tell your story. And, like any news story, the purpose is to provide your reader with information. Remember to keep your tone neutral and objective—like a newscaster, NOT an advertisement. In 300-800 words, elaborate on who, what, when, where, why and how (include keywords!) The media typically lifts this information if they pick up or reference your release.

Add details to your story that support your claim, add interest, or reinforce what you are trying to say. These can include quotes from key staff, customers or subject matter experts, statistics, charts, etc.

Boilerplate Statement

In the press release world, this is typically your “About the Company” sentence. Be sure to use hyperlinks to your website.

Contact Info

Contact information provides the media and everyone else interested in what you have to say a way to reach you. It should include your company name, telephone number, website, and an email address.

The Finish

When you’ve finished writing, proofread for typos and do a final check to make sure it’s clear, timely and free of advertising hype, direct marketing and spam. Do this a few times and it becomes second nature.

For these pointers, we thank PRWeb.com, an online news release distribution service.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

The Web Powered Entrepreneur

Ms. Chapman’s new book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is now available at:

· Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

· Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Using Client Stories, A Question of Ethics?

Ethics signage

A Guest Posting by Sue Smith

An issue was raised in a listserve: “As someone more used to working with the clients, I have become more and more concerned about the exploitation of clients and ‘their stories’ as fundraising tools. I am constantly being asked to ‘provide a client or two’ who are willing to be interviewed, photographed, [and] have their story shared. One part of my brain understands the necessity, and I have rarely felt the results were anything less than tasteful. But another part of me is very uncomfortable with the notion of ‘using’ our clients to get money from people.”

Susan responded:
The decision to make a gift is, above all else, an emotional one.

People don’t support agencies like yours because they like the idea of it or what it does. They support you because you have a track record in making a difference in people’s lives. They support your organization because it helps people.

How do they know that? They know because your organization takes the time to illustrate what they do by telling people’s stories.

Although we’ve all heard people say that they support an organization because they “like what it does,” what they really mean is, “We like what you do for people.”

You’ve heard it zillions of times before — people give to people. They don’t give to equipment, programs or bricks and mortar — they give to [obtain/maintain] equipment that saves people’s lives, or [to fund] programs that make the neighborhood a better place for people in which to live/work, or to [erect/renovate] buildings that will provide shelter for people, etc. etc.

Telling an appealing story about a person or family who has received support, help, and services is a powerful way to illustrate what your organization does.

If you say the same thing, but in the abstract, via the words of the Board president or Executive Director (i.e., “Our program is unique because it, blah, blah, blah…”) you’ve distanced your potential donor from a powerful experience — the actual experiences of a person who receives direct benefit. That’s what encourages people to give.

Second, by allowing your agency to use a personal story, you provide a consumer/client/patient with a good way to give something back to the agency and to help the agency do something it needs to do on an ongoing basis — raise funds.

Most clients/consumers/patients would love to have a way to help the agency that has helped them. Not all can volunteer time or give money. But many people who have received services are delighted to share their personal stories to help other people who may be in a situation similar to their own, or to help the agency that has been so helpful to them.

Of course, when we tell people’s stories and they are good enough to allow us to do so, we should be mindful of the fine line between telling a good story and exploiting a person’s misfortunes. We should also be careful not to compromise a person’s right to privacy/confidentiality.

But you shouldn’t assume that every time a PR or fund development person approaches you for [the name of] a good client to interview, or for a possible anecdote involving clients, that the request constitutes exploitation or is in some way using them.

I used to ask rehab staff, nurses, physicians, teachers, etc., in various NPO’s where I have worked as a development director to think about people who used our services and whose stories were compelling. They would come up with several suggestions and they would talk with that person on my behalf to see if they were willing to share their stories. I never had anyone say no.

In almost all cases, they allowed photos, were able to read/approve the copy I created and, for direct mail, I told the story in the first person and asked the client/consumer to sign the letter.

We had wonderful results!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sue Smith, a long-term development practitioner and consultant,
currently serves on the staff of the Mohawk Valley Community College.
Sue can be reached at Ssmith@mvcc.edu
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Have you seen
The Fundraising Series of ebooks ??
They’re easy to read, to the point, and cheap ($1.99 – $4.99) ☺
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

If you’re reading this on-line and you would like to comment/expand on the above, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of this page, click on the feedback link at the top of the page, or send an email to the author of this posting. If you’ve received this posting as an email, click on the email link (above) to communicate with the author.

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Is Training Airport Security a Dirty Word?

security

tsa

It seems the Transportation Security Administration or TSA does not train its agents in any of the soft training skills. Is “nice” a dirty word? It is a four letter word, but come on!

I’m not being insensitive. I know the TSA has had a rough time of it, especially recently when they lost one of their own to some idiot with a gun. I am being insensitive…to some idiot with a gun. My family and I were traveling this last week, and our hearts go out to the family of the TSA agent who was shot.

I’m ashamed our condolences may have come up short. I’m sure we weren’t alone. I’m not justifying… “Tourists”…are focused on one thing: getting away to have fun and no one is going to stop them. Serious is gone. There was also an important world negotiation on how much the major world powers were willing to allow Iran to refine uranium to “weapon’s grade” levels and I doubt many tourists–especially those who were on the cruises noticed. Out of site – out of mind.

Now, back to the TSA… In the back of our minds, selfishly so, the incident was just bad timing on our parts. “Security is not going to be fun,” we know that. ” We don’t blame TSA for not being in a good mood on that particular. After all, one of their own was shot.” But selfishly we went about our business of going on vacation and trying not to think about it much. We should say, “tragedy” as it is for one family.

Were we worried someone else was going to rush the security point we were in and target it? Oh, no. We were more concerned about taking our shoes off, making sure we wore slip-ons to make the process faster and easier. We made sure liquids were in plastic bags, and laptops were at the ready, and we bitched when pulled aside for additional security measures. All the while, who is protecting the ones protecting the airport and planes? And us?

As I always do when I travel, I look at every experience as a way of talking about training. I do have an interesting story to tell about language training and tourism in Roatan in the Honduras, but we’ll keep going with this one for now…as we move past the American tragedy and onward to my real topic.

TSA-personnelFor me and I know for others, anytime we travel we wince knowing we have to go through security. The children and I were whisked on through (pre-screened or something like that) and my wife got the works, complete with body search. I feel a joke coming on…let’s just say it’s because my beautiful wife is so much better looking than I am that she was selected for this honor. Okay, it was random. My opinion: what may be good for public relations, I’m not so sure is good for safety. I hope they have equipment they aren’t telling us about.

Although it was a bit chaotic as always, we got through it with everything we brought along. It seemed a bit dicey. I’m always afraid we’ll leave something behind. Here’s the truth of the matter. How many of us have traveled and the TSA agents were just as abrupt, rude, and insensitive as always. What especially ticks me off is when behavior affects the children, the handicapped, and the elderly? There is an easier way. With training, of course.

Training suggestions:

  • Have an agent or even a lower paid employee monitor what goes in and what goes out to ensure the same articles come out and go to the right person. I would think that would be basic. The airport is always warning passengers about strangers and keeping an eye on our bags at all times, just in case someone should put something in them while they are unattended.
  • Have TSA agents smile and not make us feel like idiots or the enemy. Some of us don’t do this all the time. Hint. Those with children and/or elderly people. If it’s a ploy, your smile will give would be terrorists a false sense of security.
  • Train them in social skills if the above doesn’t work.
  • Train them in more than one language for at least the basic things you need us to do. It would be nice to have someone who can recognize an agent who is having difficulty communicating with a customer. The inability to communicate is not the fault of the customer; communication is a two-way street.
  • Train agents that saying “please” and “thank you” does not diminish their authority. Police do it. Military do it. If we didn’t learn to be polite in kindergarten, our parents, grandparents or guardians taught us. It’s basic civility. I remember my youngest son, who was ten at the time, had left some orange juice in his backpack during a layover, burst into tears when the TSA agent grabbed his bag, searched it ferociously while making a little boy feel like a criminal. A little gentleness would have accomplished the same mission and the little “criminal” would still be there.

agent-securitySo, there you go. Airport security varies. Smaller airports tend to be easier as far as security goes since they aren’t so crowded, therefore, not so hectic. All airports wouldn’t be so tense with a few manners being used by all parties. I’ve seem rude passengers, too. Who hasn’t? People in a hurry to have fun are some of the rudest people around. Funny isn’t it? They seem to care the least about the people around them who could make life so much easier if they received a smile and a thank you from a customer as well.

Security’s not there to ruin your vacation, or did somebody miss the memo; they’re there so you don’t get blown out of the sky. Let them do their jobs. I want to make it easier. I put safety first. If for some reason, someone has a good reason for needing expedited service make accommodated services away from the crowded–even if it’s their own fault for being late to the airport. There are stupid jerks everywhere, in every part of the world, speaking every language. The opposite is true, too. What we don’t know won’t hurt us and one less complaint. Peace.

Happy training.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

As the Host of the Blog site, I ask that you take a look at my new blog that focuses on other topics than training. My training/speech blog is still out there, but I’m letting it die in cyberspace. My best selling e-book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development is out. I need to tell you that I know Cave Man is not spelled that way and that is on purpose. The Cave is where we work, play and live. Read the book and you’ll get it. I hope to have two more following it soon.

My futuristic e-novel, Harry’s Reality, is a look at what happens when society gives up control of the mismanaged dying planet to an evolving artificial intelligence. It is also available at any bookstore that sells e-books for direct downloads to your reader, and directly through Smash words. By the way on my blog site you’ll find snippets of the novel and a coupon for a free download of my novel through Smash words. Happy training.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

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What I Learned about Leadership from the Blue and Gold

Leadership Text on Black Background

My career started a long time ago. A combination of luck, timing, and a few connections helped get started in a career I didn’t even know I would like at the time. It turned out to be a career that I loved and stayed with for over a decade. Along the way, I had successes and I made mistakes (some of them more than once.) And in that time, I learned so much. So much more than one could ever learn by hearing a lecture or reading a book.

It was during that period of my life that I learned a few very valuable lessons in business. One of the most valuable was a true understanding of the power and influence of a good leader on the success of the business. There were many lessons of this throughout those early years, but the most impactful was the moment I realized that my leadership style was the biggest obstacle to consistent success of my business.

For me, this realization didn’t come in one swift epiphany moment. Instead it was little episodes of learning that came from the frustrations of failure. Many of those failures came with inconsistencies in performance and results. Some financial, some operational, and some customer focused. But the one or two that really made me stop and self-reflect were the failures with people.

It was through those that I realized the issues weren’t because of them, they were because of me. At the time, I had a great leader of my own and was blessed with an organization that was committed to leadership development. And as luck would have it, my self-reflection coincided with a two-day leadership retreat where we spent hours discussing how to build results through others. I had heard much of this before, but that day I listened more intently and I took notes and I generated ideas.

When I got back to the store, I implemented a couple of those ideas. And I noticed a change. A change in my people and as a result changes in my results. On all levels. My store had always been a high performing store, but now we were the top performing store in a district of high performers. Then we started seeing regional and national rankings where we were at the top consistently.

And we celebrated. We as a team shared in this success. It was my behavior that needed to change so that their success could be realized. The success of that store wasn’t about me, it was about me getting out of their way.

So leaders, get out of their way. It’s not about you.

 

This blog is dedicated to all those people who were part of my early career at the gold and blue. Hopefully you had as much fun as I did and learned as much as well.

 

Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 16 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. You can contact her via email smazurek0615@gmail.com

Follow me on twitter @Sherimaz.

 

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Social Engineering – You Are the Weakest Link

A lady using a smart phone

The most vulnerable point of access to your data isn’t a computer, but a human being

Cyber security has been a hot topic as of late, but few are discussing the fact that humans are actually the weakest link in the information security chain.

While hackers do employ some seriously powerful tools, it’s often just as easy to trick their targets into revealing too much information, or even unknowingly installing malware on their own systems.

For those of you new to the term, here are a few examples of social engineering tactics being used on the web today, from Consice-Courses information security expert Henry Dalziel:

1. Social Networks

Having your Facebook account hacked can easily result in having a friend (who is a genuine friend of yours) asking for cash because their “wallet was stolen” whilst they were travelling. Clearly, receiving an email from a friend is exactly that: from a friend, so the barrier of trust is completely open.

2. “Someone has a secret crush on you! Download this app and find out who it is!”

This social engineering attack also comes from social networks like Facebook. Facebook applications are for the most part free from any malware of bad intent, but some still contain nefarious objectives. The wording of the app is all too important and needs to touch some fundamental human emotional buttons, because, as the title of this entry states, who wouldn’t want to know who had a “secret crush on you!”

The “I love you” computer worm that attacked millions of Windows personal computers May 5th 2000 started spreading as an email message with the subject line “ILOVEYOU” and the attachment “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs”. The success of this download was due to the wording.

3. “Click this link!”

On the same subject of effective copy to entice a social engineering attack, social engineers title an email to solicit an action – i.e. getting the user to “click here”. Again, the attacker’s ideal set-up is to have gained access to a user’s social account or email account. The inherent trust that you will have to open and click on a link from someone you know is second nature. Visiting an infected site or page from an email can install malware on your machine, either by a Java drive-by or another means. Another good example is Twitter spam that we often receive which contains the subject “Did you see this video of you?” again it’s a play on words. See the 2nd “secret crush” scam and you’ll see how being able to connect on an emotional level will ensure a pretty decent success rate for the hackers.

4. Fake office IT Support

This is a pretty varied but very popular social engineering attack whereby someone pretends to be an IT Support Technician and offer to fix a “broken computer” or an “infected machine” that contains viruses and malware. All you need is confidence and authority in your voice and choice of words. Again, refer to back to our Hacker Hotshots event with Chris Silvers and listen to some of the calls that he and his team made to solicit passwords and other sensitive information. In some extremes examples the attacker will actually enter the business and pose as an IT Technician. We learned about a technique called “tailgating” when we compiled our Concise Courses ComPTIA Security+ Information Pack – which is actually a unit within section 3.0 Threats and Vulnerabilities of the syllabus. As the terms suggests, tailgating is when the attacker attempting access to a building will purposely wait near an office lobby waiting for real employees to enter the building with their genuine ID cards – as they open the door they politely hold the door open for the attacker. Appearance is vital for this to work. Being dressed like an IT Technician would for that particular organization will certainly greatly assist this particular social engineered scam.

5. Phishing lures

Receiving an email that claims that you have not paid for an item on eBay can very often solicit an action from an unsuspecting victim. You might think that that is a ridiculous scam that will not affect anyone, but as long as the attackers are sending out millions of messages like that – their success rate can be low but yet profitable. Like several other social engineering attacks listed in this post, the eBay Phising Lure Scam also works on a human emotion. EBay users are very aware of the impact of receiving negative reviews, therefore any message that arrives in their inbox from someone who seems to be from eBay often will result in an action being taken. When the user falls for this attack they can be send to a spoofed eBay page that looks just like the real login page with the user’s login information being captured and then used against them to withdraw funds etc. Withdrawing funds from eBay is often possible owing to the fact that many users login information for their eBay and PayPal accounts will be the same. One solution with this particular scam is to manually open up a browser and hit your account yourself – is there a message in your eBay inbox? If yes then it is genuine. If not, then ignore your other message.

6. “You have been dismissed” or “Help victims of ‘fill in the blank’ natural disaster”

Social engineering tactics are becoming increasingly specific. Sending out blanket emails to hundreds of employees saying that regrettably their position at the organization has been terminated and that they must download a certain form etc can have a decent success rate. Why? Because perhaps there was a rumour circulating that redundancies were inevitable owing to the financial crisis. Timing is everything with this scam.

Unfortunately, every time there is a natural disaster there is an associated social engineered attack. Again, as is consistent throughout this blog post, the natural disaster scam along with the redundancy email is associated to human emotion for curiosity.

7.Hijacked Twitter hashtags

Social engineers just need to look at what is trending on Twitter to fabricate or hijack a hashtag that has an embedded link to a malware site or Java Drive-by.

With studies showing that under 1/4 of all organizations do any type of social engineering training at all, most targets are an easy slam-dunk for a skilled manipulator. Mark these words – as we base more and more of our operations around a digital model, preventing social engineering attacks from being successful WILL gain traction as a must-have component to any crisis management plan.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. and editor of Crisis Manager]

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Stewardship – an Important Grantsmanship Component

Stewardship – an Important Grantsmanship Component

In a previous post, I introduced “A Four-Step Process for Effective Grantsmanship,” including:

(1) prospecting for foundation funding,
(2) cultivation,
(3) grant proposal development, and
(4) grant management and stewardship.
(See Chapter Five in my ebook: Grants & Grantsmanship)

So far, I’ve provided a lot of information on steps one through three, as well as on grant reporting (part of stewardship), but I neglected to introduce step four with a post on stewardship.

This post is that introduction:

The Association of Fundraising Professionals defines stewardship as, “a process whereby an organization seeks to be worthy of continued philanthropic support, including the acknowledgement of gifts, donor recognition, the honoring of donor intent, prudent investment of gifts, and the effective and efficient use of funds to further the mission of the organization.”

Although the term is most often associated with individual donors, it is also an important element in your grant program. As I have said in previous postings, “relationships are at the heart of all fundraising activities, and grants are no exception.” Stewardship encompasses the activities you undertake to maintain and build relationships with your foundation grant makers.

As with individual donors, stewardship of foundations encompasses three elements: gift acknowledgement, donor recognition, and reporting.

Gift acknowledgement is straightforward: send written acknowledgement of the grant within one to two days of receipt of the grant, typically a letter signed by your executive director. It is also a good idea to have your ED call the foundation manager or trustee to thank them personally.

Donor recognition is more involved and can include any or all of the following:
•  Listing the foundation grant in your annual report, on your website, in e-mail and social media communications
•  Writing a press release about the foundation grant and what it means to your NPO’s clients
•  Including the foundation name on a donor wall or other named space signage
•  Honoring the foundation at an event hosted by your NPO

An important consideration for ALL donor recognition is to involve the foundation’s leadership – either the manager or trustee – before you publically recognize the grant. They may want to remain anonymous, or they may want as much publicity as they can garner and will want to help craft the messaging. Either way, the recognition you provide should be what the foundation leadership wants to receive.

Reporting encompasses formal grant reports as well as informal communications on your NPO’s accomplishments. I covered formal grant reporting in my March 1, 2012 post, “The Dog Ate My Foundation Report,” and included a number of ideas for informal communications in my June 14, 2012 post, “Who Moved My Funder.”

I’ll conclude this post with WHY stewardship is an important element in your grant program. For the simple reason that it’s much easier to retain a donor (in this case a foundation grant) than to recruit new donors, and stewardship is critical to donor retention.

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Lynn deLearie Consulting, LLC, helps nonprofit organizations develop,
enhance and expand grants programs, and helps them
secure funding from foundations and corporations.
Contact Lynn deLearie.
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