Data Isn't a Four-Letter Word

Data Isn’t a Four-Letter Word: Measuring Your Impact (4 Sessions)

Taught by Naava Frank and Laura Shefter

This four-part learning lab will take you through the process of data collection, from start to finish, equipping you with knowledge and tools you can use to measure the impact of experiential education in your organization. Each session includes practical tools and worksheets, as well as resources from the Schusterman Data Playbook by Rella Kaplowitz. The learning lab will teach you about each of the four stages of measurement: determining your goals, collecting data, analysis, and communicating results. Together, we will apply these steps to measuring experiential education outcomes. As part of this lab, you can engage in your own data collection practice to apply your newly acquired skills and tools, with the support and feedback of a hevruta partner. Finally, you will learn important concepts, terms, and questions that will empower you to become a critical consumer of data. Upon completion of this lab, participants will receive a certificate of completion in “Using Data to Measure Impact.” 

Naava Frank

Naava Frank, Ed.D. is Founder and Director of Naava Frank, LLC. Naava consults to foundations and non-profit organizations on networks, professional development, and using data to be proactive and measure outcomes. Naava is a nationally recognized expert in the use of communities of practice and networks in the Jewish community. Naava holds an Ed.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. from Barnard College/Columbia University.

Laura Shefter

Laura Shefter is an Ed.D. candidate at the William Davidson School of Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary where she studies professional identity and professional development. She focuses on experiential education and has a background in Hillel work. Recently, Laura served as a coach for summer camp inclusion professionals who were doing action research. Laura has a B.A. from the University of Toronto, where she is originally from.   

The Experiential Jewish Education Network

The Experiential Jewish Education Network, funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, currently serves the 200+ graduates of the four experiential Jewish education connected programs launched under the Jim Joseph Foundation Education Initiative at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, The Davidson School of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University.

The Experiential Jewish Education Network strengthens the professional knowledge, skills, connections and leadership capability of experiential Jewish educators, increasing success, innovation, collaboration and engagement in the Jewish community.

Follow-Up

For more information about the Experiential Jewish Education Network contact Micol Zimmerman

To sponsor a webinar series or sign up to participate in a webinar series contact Naava Frank

Testimonial: "I am already supremely impressed with the level of professionalism this offering is providing."

Advisory Committee

Thank you to our Advisory Committee: Dr. David Bryfman, Deborah Grayson Riegel, and Rella Kaplowitz for their feedback, guidance, and support. 

Thank you to Pearl Beck for being a project mentor. Our appreciation to Mark Young and Dr. Jeffrey Kress of The Jewish Theological Seminary for their encouragement and expertise. Our gratitude to the Jewish Evaluation Network of UJA Federation of New York.  

Why Do So Many Online Communities Fail?

by Naava Frank

The good news is that technology has created unprecedented opportunities for people to meet like-minded peers to learn, collaborate and support each other. The bad news is that so many of these well-meaning and inspiring projects that have enormous potential to help people and strengthen causes, are failing. Not just in the Jewish community, throughout the nonprofit world, hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least) have been spent over the past decade on designing systems that ended up not being utilized. I don’t mean to point a finger – my guess is most of us have participated in, dreamed of, sponsored, or funded one of these projects. And there is no simple answer to explain what went wrong. What I would like to present today is a way of thinking that in my experience has helped communities succeed.

The idea is that when we focus on building a technology infrastructure, we often neglect to build an accompanying relationship infrastructure. The word community can be defined as “a group of people with a common background or with shared interests within society.” Those interests may be shared geography, affiliation, values, purpose, enemies or problems.

When you bring a group of strangers or acquaintances together for a gathering, a party, you don’t expect them to suddenly bond, reveal their secrets or foibles, or become best friends. So why do we expect that if we build a website or community platform which is even more remote than an in person gathering, people will jump in and participate? An online space has fewer social clues such as age, clothing, body language or accent than a face-to-face gathering. When we go online the only social clues we usually get are an email address or name, and if we are lucky a small image of the person. We all know how resistant we are to completing the profile section of online social platforms, even though it would help a lot.

So what would you do if you were a host or hostess at a cocktail party? You would circulate and get to know people, introduce people to each other that have shared interests, maybe set up some games or some interesting conversation pieces. You might encourage a few of the more gregarious folks to help make people feel comfortable. There might be some people you would not invite because they cause trouble.

In order to make online communities successful we need to pay attention to the relationships not just the technology infrastructure. We need to help people find each other and connect around shared interests.

What does relationship infrastructure consist of? Roles, protocols, norms, expectations, motivations, mission and purpose and other social structures. (Think about Daniel Pink’s work on motivation.) Note I said motivation – not incentives – research has demonstrated that incentives are only good for simple tasks not for complex knowledge based tasks. So let me be concrete about what relationship infrastructure looks like:

This past week I was working with the National Consortium of Deaf-Blindness – they are just finishing up a platform for a national community of practice that includes representative from 50 states. They want to introduce the platform to their 20 staff members. We talked about the usual approach – a technology training – letting staff get in the site and press buttons. The focus was on technology. Then we asked ourselves, how can we do this in a way that develops relationships – both relationships between people and relationships to the mission of the organization? We came up with the following protocol.

• We paired people up – intentionally thinking about who might benefit from doing this work together – make sure someone who is technology averse is paired with someone who is technologically comfortable. Maybe pair people who work on the same team? Or maybe pair people across teams?
• We sent them into the platform with an assignment. While they are in the site and “kick the tires” we helped them imagine what it would be like driving the car. We gave them some guiding questions to think about.
• Name 3 ways this platform can help you forward your mission.
• Name 2 technology improvements you would like to see for this platform.
• Name 1 surprise from this experience.
• We asked everyone to post these responses in the site so that others can see how their peers respond to the experience. (Thereby giving them another opportunity to get to know others – by reading their responses.)

Relationship infrastructures have to be carefully matched to the culture of the community, stage of development of the community (how well do people know each other) and many other factors. Just like technology may need to be revisited and upgraded, the relationship infrastructure needs to be revisited and changed as the community changes.

So next time you think about designing a technology platform for a community – don’t forget to take the time and effort and get the expertise you need to build the accompanying relationship infrastructure that will ensure the success of your investment.

Naava Frank, EdD, is a consultant and researcher focused on the impact of communities of practice and networks. She can be reached at naavafrank1@gmail or knowledgecommunities.blogspot.com

Cross posted from EJewishPhilanthropy May 2, 2013  check out the comments section of  this blog post on EJewishphilanthropy for some interesting follow up comments.

Client Journal - The 'aha' moment

Exciting session with clients today.

My work is helping people who are accustomed to working in a hierarchical way to make room in their repertoire for working in a networked way.  They are embedded in a hierarchy but when they want to work on engaging their constituents, they need to shift their thinking - and it's hard - it takes time and conversation and dialogue because its so far away from their experience of what it possible. 

I need to say things like "what would happen if we tried it this way."  Its soo exciting when that 'aha' happens like it did today! 

We were talking about how to get staff onto the new webplatform.  And our introductory buddy system visit (see blog post ) worked well so we had leaders identified who were ready to go. 

My clients wanted to go back to planning mode, which is their comfort zone, get teams ready to go into the platform as a group -- like the marines - no man left behind - and I said "what about if we just let the people who are ready start now."  The teams can reflect on and organize themselves after we have some action and facts on the ground in two weeks from now.

A light bulb went off -- all of a sudden they did not have to carry their team members on their back into the platform -- it was every man and woman for themselves.  It was exhilarating.

Also a little scary.  But I reassured them the order and structure emerge from the activities of the individuals. Instead of hierarchical control - we have other means of control - like peer pressure, norms, policies, taxonomies, technology structures.

It takes practice and reinforcement to keep the light bulb lit - but I know over time it will become second nature. And then my job is done. 

At least until the community moves into another phase of its development.