Raised Eyebrow Blog

Two years ago, Emira & I went to South by Southwest (AKA SXSW) for the first time, and presented a panel called “Boss Lady” that featured tips for online business owners from several of the savviest women entrepreneurs we know: Vickie Howell, Jenny Hart & Alex Beauchamp, all of whom appear in the pages of our book, The Boss of You. We had such a good time that we knew we wanted to go back as soon as humanly possible, though last year we were too busy getting our book out the door to attend the conference.

But this year we’re back, this time with a panel that we hope will prove helpful to geeks of both the design and techie varieties – both camps are in full force at SXSW’s Interactive conference, which is a pure, 24/7, all-out geekfest – who are looking to bring their values into their paid work, whether it’s by learning to work with clients in the nonprofit sector, creating apps that help mission-driven organizations work more effectively, or infusing some environmental or social-justice savvy into their workplaces. The panel’s called “Socially Conscious Geek: Makin’ Money While Doin’ Good”, and it takes place Saturday, March 13^th.

The topic was inspired by a topic our friend Noah Scalin (of Skull-A-Day and Another Limited Rebellion fame) spoke about at the 2009 HOW Conference. His focus was more on graphic design, since that’s his area of expertise, but when I asked him about riffing on his ideas for an interactive design audience, he shared his materials with me with typical generosity. (This is a guy who lives and breathes a DIY, share-and-share-alike mentality that a lot of designers could learn from. But that’s a topic for another day.)

This time I’ll be attending the conference solo, while Emira spends some time with her new baby; my co-facilitator for the session is Leif Utne, a friend and colleague who works for Zanby, a software company that specializes in supporting online social communities for change. Leif’s background includes a stint as the publisher of Worldchanging.org, and lots of experience building online communities; he’s also a journalist, activist and social entrepreneur.  Zanby is used to support The UpTake, a web video community that among other things was heavily involved in documenting the RNC and DNC prior to the 2008 election, and was also engaged in citizen vote monitoring during the election. He brings both amazing facilitation skills as well as a solid understanding of how businesses and nonprofits can work together in mutually beneficial ways.

We’ll be conducting our session in a highly interactive, inclusive format called a Core Conversation: Leif and I will be kick-starting the discussion and planting some seeds, but the idea is that whoever shows up will have a chance to step forward and contribute questions and ideas – so I’m really excited to see how it develops.

We’re hoping to address questions like:

• What is a socially conscious geek?
• How can I specialize in socially conscious work and earn a living wage?
• What are some of the unique opportunities and challenges of specializing in socially conscious work?
• What is the difference between non-profit and no-profit clients?
• How do I make the transition from corporate work to working with non-profit and/or mission-driven clients?
• What is the “triple bottom line” approach to business?
• What are some examples of alternative business models that are emerging among socially conscious geeks?
• How is socially conscious work different than “green” work?
• What are some examples of clients I might be able to work with as a socially conscious geek?
• How should I market myself to values-driven clients? Is it different from marketing to corporate clients?

Ultimately, though, the decisions about what we cover will rest with whoever shows up. So please help us spread the word – and if you’ll be at SXSW, we’d love to see you there!

There’s a lot of birth talk around the office these days. On top of Emira’s rapidly approaching due date, I find the birth of a new year often turns one’s thoughts to past accomplishments and new beginnings.

We’ve got one more birthday coming up on February 1, as our studio celebrates its tenth anniversary. It’s a little dumbfounding, I’ll admit, to think that it was ten years ago that Emira and I set out on our own and hung out our shingle – in some ways it seems the time has passed in a heartbeat, while in others it feels like a lifetime ago that we were working in a corner of my bedroom.

Beyond moving our desks out of my apartment, we’ve passed a few milestones in the last ten years. I’d like to mention just a few:

• Our first client was the Vancouver Recital Society, who we’re delighted to report is still working with us. (This past year, in addition to supporting online sales for their 2009-10 season, we also launched enhancements to their home page design along with a brand-new blog.)
• In 2005, we hired our first employee – the brilliant and witty Chris Torgalson, who we’re proud to say is still a member of our team. Since then, we’ve expanded to a staff of six.
• We’ve launched hundreds of websites for hundreds of clients, ranging from social justice activists, to research institutions, political parties, health agencies, and international consumer product manufacturers. The variety has been staggering and hugely inspiring – there’s never a day when our clients don’t teach us something new.
• When we founded Raised Eyebrow in 2000, Content Management Systems were new, and mostly in use on large, enterprise-level websites. We coded our websites by hand, page by page. For about five years now, though, we’ve been developing sites using open-source CMS platforms: first Typo3, now Drupal and WordPress.
• We’ve navigated a constantly evolving technological environment, that has seen changes such as the spread of broadband access, which made online audio & video widely accessible, and the dawn of Web 2.0 and social media.
• Emira and I published our book for women entrepreneurs, distilling the wisdom we’d earned in building Raised Eyebrow into a guidebook that encourages both budding and established entrepreneurs to build businesses that reflect their values and care for their staff, clients & communities.
• We’ve begun offering workshops on social media, publishing with WordPress, and other topics. Watch for more of these in 2010 and beyond – we’re excited about extending our longstanding commitment to sharing knowledge into this new context.

We set out ten years ago to create a small, sustainable business doing what we love, and it’s incredibly rewarding to look around and see what we’ve built over the course of a decade – with a lot of help from our amazing clients and staff. We’ve got ambitious plans for the next few years, too – but right now it feels good to pause briefly and raise a virtual glass to celebrate how far we’ve come.

Is there a better term for “nonprofit”? A recent article by Dan Pallotta at Harvard Business blogs begins, “Anyone who has thought about it for more than a nanosecond agrees that ‘nonprofit’ is about the worst possible summary we could give of ourselves and our work.” He goes on to argue that the nonprofit sector could stand to define itself in terms of what it is, rather than what it is not. (It’s a great post, and well worth reading, as are the unusually thoughtful comments that accompany it.) Pallotta’s suggestion is we move to using the term “Humanity Sector.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across the idea of renaming the nonprofit sector. Tom Suddes makes a compelling case in favour of using “for impact” instead — though personally, I’m not sure that distinguishes this sector from the business & government sectors in any useful way. Surely we all want to make an impact? (That being said, if you ever get to hear him talk about fundraising, do yourself a favour and go — he has some amazing insights and a great deal of charm.)

I’m also not convinced of the “humanity” moniker, because the nonprofit sector includes a lot of organizations that really don’t focus on humanity — there are astronomy educators and environmental justice warriors and all kinds of other groups for whom “humanity” isn’t the emphasis. I’ve heard “third sector” (which feels awkward & low-priority), “non-governmental” (okay, but uninspiring), “community profit” (can’t the community profit from corporate & governmental work as well?), and “public benefit” (see “community profit”) — but none of those work for me either.

Although I love the idea of moving away from “nonprofit,” I’d really like us to find an option that is both broadly inclusive of the wide variety of organizations within the sector, and clearly distinct from the focus of for-profit and governmental actors. Because the key differences that mark nonprofits are legal in nature, perhaps “nonprofit” is the simplest option.

But there is one other suggestion I quite like, with a couple of reservations: “the delta sector,” as proposed by Robert K. Ross in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Yes, it sounds a bit like a Star Trek reference. But here’s his pitch:

Robert K. Ross, president of the California Endowment, a health foundation in Los Angeles, says he’s got just the word: “delta,” the Greek letter that signifies change. So, no more talk about the “nonprofit sector,” he said at the closing session of the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.

It’s now the “delta sector.”

“We need to be more intentionally about change and transformation,” he said. “Business as usual is leaving too many families broken and too many families and folks with hopelessness and despair.”

I’m not a hundred percent sold on “delta sector” — I’m not sure it works for arts organizations (or many conservative groups that actively resist change), and I’m also not convinced that change is a worthwhile motive in and of itself — but I like the sentiment behind it, and indeed behind all these ideas. It warms my former-English-major heart that so many good people are putting so much brain power towards thinking about the importance of language, and I’d love to see the nonprofit / for impact / humanity / delta sector wrestle with this some more and see if we can’t come up with a better name.

Vacation’s only just over, but we are hitting the ground running here at Raised Eyebrow, and there are just two days left to apply for our Front-End Developer posting. If you’re passionate about clean code and building fabulous websites, and you’re looking for a position where you can learn from some of the best code artisans in town and work for clients who are making the world a better place, look no further.

We offer a friendly and healthy workplace, a client list that includes national and local nonprofits, mission-driven businesses, and government agencies, and a very competitive salary & benefits package. If you (or someone you know) might be a fit, please check out our posting & send your resume & cover letter in by 5:00 PM on Thursday, January 7th.