David La Piana

Bill Coy, Mary Stelletello, and I are on our way to Honolulu for the capstone graduation event with our 7th class of PONO fellows. PONO is both a Hawaiian word meaning “righteousness” and an acronym: Promoting Outstanding Nonprofit Organizations. PONO is built on our firm’s Leadership Advanced program and provides a yearlong leadership development experience for up to 15 Hawaii nonprofit executive directors.

With our PONO partner, the Hawaii Community Foundation, this fall we will launch the Hawaii Emerging Leaders Program (HELP), which will adapt our proven leadership curriculum for non-CEO leaders in nonprofits in Hawaii. These are program directors, CFOs, development directors and other senior leaders who usually report to the executive director, and who may one day be executive directors themselves.

Looking towards the nonprofit sector’s next generation of emerging leaders, be sure to check out one of Rosetta Thurman’s latest blog posts, “11 Reasons Why New College Grads Should Pursue Nonprofit Careers” and Brent Copen’s recent post about the May 2010 HBR article “The Leaders We Need Now” at  our NonprofitNext blog.

I returned recently to Stanford Law School to give a guest lecture on nonprofit strategy to a class on social entrepreneurship taught by Suzanne McKechnie Klar. Suzanne founded Build, an amazing organization that provides real-world entrepreneurial experience for at-risk youth.  It was inspiring to meet a group of our most promising future lawyers and to learn how deeply they care about social justice. We had quite a lively discussion that reinforced the thoughtfulness of smart young people and the positive impact they are going to have on the world.

The UK nonprofit sector is served by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations or ACEVO.  This group sponsors workshops, master classes, networking, and other resources for the UK’s nonprofit leaders.

Unlike American institutions such as Independent Sector or the various state nonprofit associations, members of ACEVO are chief executives, from every subsector and every size organization. With more than 2,000 members nationwide, ACEVO is a professional association of leaders, not an organization of organizations.

I marvel at the breadth of their work and the seriousness of their purpose. Most of the ACEVO people I have met are under 40, many closer to 30, and the energy in their crowded offices is palpable. I think the U.S. sector could learn from this group, and perhaps it is time we formed a similar sector-wide leadership association.

I recently saw two news stories on kids and computers that caused conflicting reactions.

The first was a research study reported in the New York Times last month. It found that American teens basically spend every waking hour when they are not in school either texting, tweeting, surfing, or on their cell phones. They are connected 24/7. And my mom used to complain that I watched too much TV (around 3 hours a night)!

The second article, also from the Times, appeared on February 11. It described a wired school bus in Tucson Arizona. The story claims that boisterous and rowdy kids were tamed by the installation of a wifi connection so they can now do their homework on the way to school.  But I wonder how much time these kids are spending sending emails, surfing the web and otherwise doing their thing, rather than editing History essays or submitting their Biology homework, as the story claims.

So here is the part where I am conflicted. I worry that so much time spent online reduces opportunities for creative thought, friendships in the flesh, and exercise. Is this worry justified or is it just the 21^st century version of my mother’s concern that I was watching too much TV?

The opportunities to access information that teens and even younger kids have today are amazing, and whether they are ready for it or not, it is here. I recently read that a school somewhere was offering an online safety class for kindergarteners. Where does it end? Preschoolers lined up at baby Macs? Newborns lying in their cribs pushing their feet up to touch screen Internet-enabled virtual mobiles?

The most salient fact about all of this is our apparent helplessness to effect any change in our interaction with technology. We are, by mutual agreement, powerless. As soon as some new thing is created, we all flock to use it, whether we know how and why, or not. Will we someday make rational judgments about which technologies to embrace and conscious choices about how we spend our time, or are we simply consumers mesmerized by the next cool thing? And what does all of this mean or society?