Two exciting and not-to-be-missed events are approaching in June: Social Tech Training and MagNet.

The first -- from the people behind Web of Change -- is Toronto's very first Social Tech Training at MaRS.

From the event Web site:

We've gathered the best and the brightest leaders in this sector, and we've put together an agenda that will help take your organization to the next level. Each participant will emerge with new technical, creative, and leadership skills, a powerful network, and a customized, comprehensive “Web 2.0 Plan” for their organization.

Rob Purdie and I are both on the faculty for this event and we managed to meet up in London last week to hammer out some session ideas, and to review the draft agenda. We're both pretty stoked to be party of what's sure to be the one of the most memorable training events of the summer.

And, just two weeks earlier, Magazines Canada is holding their annual MagNet conference. MagNet offers the forward-thinking magazine professional a phenomenal mix of seminars, round-tables, featured speakers and workshops designed to enlighten, provoke and inspire.

This year I'll be delivering a session for small magazines on "Website Makeovers Made Easy" on Wednesday, June 4th, at 10:15 AM.

With two to choose from, you have no excuses! Register early.

Photo of Kirsten Jordan (Taking IT Global) and Andres Dussan (Askoka) by Michael Lewkowitz

How often have you sought to answer questions like "how can new technologies support social change that has impact, durability and scale?" or "is it possible to foster collaboration, sharing, and even co-development of technology solutions rather than everyone building their own or working in isolation?" Well, last week, I was surprised to find myself in a room with some of Canada's brightest minds when it comes to social innovation and social technology (that is: technology in support of social innovation). We gathered early in the morning on July 26th at MaRS to do some brainstorming on how best to support innovative organizations to leverage appropriate technology, execute technology projects successfully, and how to build capacity for ongoing innovation and sustainable technology operations.

The session was convened by SiG@MaRS -- one node of Social Innovation Generation -- a new collaborative initiative of the McConnell Foundation in partnership with the University of Waterloo, Plan Institute for Caring Citizenship and MaRS Discovery District to foster and support social innovation in Canada. Jason and Michael did a great job bringing together a wide range of practitioners and a good dash of innovators, which helped keep the conversation focused (mostly) on practical opportunities to evolve Canada's social technology landscape.

In preparation, I'd made some good progress at slogging through the book Getting to Maybe, which features a lot of stories from Canada's social innovation "scene." Michael also asked us to think about our burning questions and existential dilemmas in this space, and to come prepared with a story from personal experience that has the potential through social technology (tools and/or thinking) to catalyze or facilitate systems change in the social sector. So here's my story:

Technology is a trojan horse

It can be used to bring organizations together around a purely pragmatic need -- like sharing costs, knowledge, or human resources -- and then, as if like magic (well... maybe with a sprinkle of intention and facilitation), it becomes a slippery slope toward more radical collaborations. Anyone who knows me well knows that I've been saying that for years, and thanks to some great collaborative organizations and talented colleagues, I even have an opportunity to practice what I preach from time to time. Most recently that's been through the two-year old Canadian Independent Media Alliance, and the recently launched Electoral Data Consortium initiative. Honestly: there's nothing more "viral," than the infectious passion of working with people who are committed to what they do (and doing it well).

A key to successful technology projects is intermediaries

In my experience, at the core of most successful social technology initiatives is intermediaries. These are the folks that are in the trenches every day living and breathing everything that is what we understand to be important social technologies -- e-mail campaigns, Web services, mobile applications, online fundraising, social networks, etc. -- and sharing their experiences out to innovative organizations. These are the circuit riders, the non-profit technology assistance providers and implementors, the civic data libertarians, and the progressive software development providers and developers. Lots has been written on this topic in the US -- like this, this, and this -- and I still feel that we desperately need some of these concepts explored in the Canadian context. Time and again I've experienced socially innovative organizations trying to take on the role of software development managers (often unsuccessfully). Intermediaries are the shepherds that can alter the course of this familiar story.

A key to successful collaborative technology projects is network leadership

Now, if having an intermediary is one promising strategy toward technology playing a supportive role in social innovation, what would be the potential of a whole network of intermediaries on the entire field of innovation? Network theory teaches us that the value of a network is increased exponentially with the addition of each new node -- and social network theory says that we'll only need a handful of "connectors," "mavens," and "salespeople" to make this happen in Canada. However, that's not enough. I feel that the next level for both social technology and social innovation movements is network leadership. I think that Mark was getting at this when he spoke of "organic leverage" -- the combination of emergent intelligence, and network influence -- and I would take that even one step further; I would say that we need to find ways to support intermediaries to find leadership development opportunities that focus on openness, sharing, collaboration, and a commitment to setting those intentions in their work, and in their network.

At the end of the day, the questions that I hope I was able to share clearly were: How do we develop more intermediaries, How do we develop more network leaders, and How can Canadian grant makers play a bigger role in catalyzing the necessary networks, and helping innovators build the necessary relationships?

Maybe you have a few ideas? I know I do...

Got a great note last week from Nick Moraitis about the launch of Social Tech Brewing in Australia. The first event is set for later this week in Sydney, then moving to Melbourne in the coming months. I met Nick when he was here in Toronto working with Taking IT Global and we kicked around some ideas about successful community-led events -- thought I'd quickly recount them here:

• Stay away from speaker-at-front-of-room syndrome (which we fell victim to frequently at the Toronto events) and leverage other models like Speed Geeks and Demo Camp-style speed presentations.

• Personally, I feel that many of these events happen too frequently. When we switched the Toronto Social Tech events to every six weeks it really took the pressure off having to organize a monthly event; and when we switched to every other month, it really took the organizing pressure off and seemed to attract more people at each event. My advice: pace your series and focus on quality content / participants -- there's no rule that says an event has to happen every month.

• Size doesn't always matter, but good participation does. In the end, I felt that Social Tech events in Toronto were getting too big and too diffuse (not that they were anywhere near the size of Toronto's BarCamps or DemoCamps). They lacked the continuity of common experience and the solidarity that brings; participants came from far and wide and conversations become very general to accommodate everyone's needs. Some of the best events that I attended were small -- maybe 10 - 15 people -- where we could really delve into a topic and come away with new ideas & energy.

• On the participation front, my personal take is like this: be as specific as possible about the reason for convening the event, and about the type of participation that is expected, and about target participants that would really add to the event. I'm a huge fan of networking for the sake of networking in the context of things like market-building, or business development, or just plain ol' socializing. However, in the context of building "communities of change," I've found that a broad participant base can work against group cohesion. Ultimately, that is part of what happened to Social Tech brewing here in Toronto: for me it was an attempt (that was not clearly defined) to build a community of change, but that for others it was a regular networking / socializing space.

Anyway, that's my three cents on community-led events and building communities of change. :-)

Congrats to Nick for getting Social Tech Brewing off-the-ground in Australia! My friend Simon who lives in Adelaide pointed out that BarCamp has also made it over to that side of the world recently too.