Binus Technology Day
Wednesday, September 08, 2010 | Author: vrey
Binus Technology Day


Ikutilah festival teknologi informasi (BINUS Technology Day) yang akan diadakan pada tanggal 06, 07, 08 dan 09 Oktober di Kampus Anggrek. Acara ini bersifat free dan dipersembahkan untuk seluruh BINUSIAN.
Rangkaian acara BINUS Technology Day yang dapat BINUSIAN ikuti adalah :
1.       Seminar
06 Oktober 2010 (13.00 – 17.00) – Auditorium Lantai 4, Kampus Anggrek
iPhone Application Development. By : Mark Hanusz, Founder of PT. Equinox

07 Oktober 2010 (13.00 – 17.00) – Auditorium Lantai 4, Kampus Anggrek
Blackberry Application Development. By : Research In Motion Representative

08 Oktober 2010 (13.00 – 17.00) – Hall of Fame Lantai 3, Kampus Anggrek
Turn On Mobile Life with Samsung Mobile. By : Samsung Asia Pacific Representative

Acara ini bersifat Free & mendapatkan e-certificate. Untuk pendaftaran seminar dapat diregistrasi melalui new BINUSMAYA (http://newbinusmaya.binus.ac.id)

2.       Exhibition
Kunjungilah pameran teknologi informasi yang luar biasa di kampus Anggrek. Ikuti acara yang luar biasa pada Exhibition pada tanggal 06, 07, 08 dan 09 Oktober di Plaza Kampus Anggrek. Menangkan doorprize dan nikmati tema Exhibition yang selalu berbeda setiap harinya.

Tema acara panggung acara harian Exhibition :
06 Oktober 2010 : Apple Technology Day
07 Oktober 2010 : BlackBerry Technology Day
08 Oktober 2010 : Samsung Technology Day
09 Oktober 2010 : Final Round : Innovative Ideas on Mobile Application Competition

3.       Competition
Ikutilah kompetisi dengan total hadiah sebesar Rp 5,000,000 untuk para BINUSIAN. Untuk informasi lebih lengkap dapat dilihat pada http://www.ict.BINUS.edu/metamorph/competition.asp
Saksikan Final Round Competition pada tanggal 09 Oktober 2010 pukul 09.00 di Plaza Kampus Anggrek. Dapatkan hadiah khusus bagi yang berpartisipasi menjadi voters untuk memilih hasil karya terbaik dari finalis Final Round : Innovative Ideas on Mobile Application Competition dan menangkan doorprize menarik saat Final Round.
Untuk informasi selengkapnya hubungi : Junny Wijaya (jwijaya@binus.edu) – 0817-9831326
Army Museum of Singapore
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 | Author: vrey
Honour the past
Live the present
Inspire the future
Penemuan Klorofil Terbaru Mengejutkan
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 | Author: vrey
Penulis : Yuni Yuli Yanti
Source: Penemuan Klorofil Terbaru Mengejutkan


PARA ilmuwan Australia terpukau pada klorofil baru yang ditemukan selama lebih dari 60 tahun.
Ditemukan di Shark Bay, Australia baguian barat, pigmen baru itu dinamakan klorofil f.

Menurut sebuah penelitian yang diterbitkan di jurnal Science, klorofil tersebut dapat memanfaatkan energi cahaya lebih rendah daripada klorofil yang dikenal sebelumnya. Ini adalah jenis kelima molekul klorofil yang dikenal di Bumi.

"Klorofil baru ditemukan bersama stromatolites--struktur seperti bebatuan yang dibentuk oleh bakteri fotosintesis yang disebut cyanobacteria," kata penulis utama Dr Min Chen dari Universitas Sydney.

Pengujian penyerapan spektrum optik dari klorofil baru mengungkapkan bahwa ia bisa menyerap gelombang cahaya lebih panjang daripada klorofil lainnya, 10 nanometer (nm) lebih panjang dari klorofil d dan lebih dari 40 nm lebih panjang dari klorofil a.

Klorofil adalah molekul penting dalam fotosintesis sebuah proses yang memungkinkan tumbuhan, alga, dan beberapa bakteri untuk mengubah karbondioksida menjadi gula dan oksigen dengan menggunakan energi dari sinar matahari. Sampai saat ini, fotosintesis dianggap hanya terjadi dalam cahaya yang terlihat mata manusia, antara 400 nm sampai 700 nm. Ini sama seperti klorofil yang sangat terbatas hanya menyerap cahaya dalam rentang ini.

Ini menjungkirbalikkan peristiwa pada 1996 ketika para ilmuwan menemukan sebuah cyanobacterium yang bisa berfotosintesis menggunakan cahaya di luar spektrum yang bisa terlihat, yakni pada 710 nm atau di area inframerah. Bakteri ini menggunakan molekul klorofil yang dimodifikasi bernama klorofil d.

Sejak penemuan ini, para ilmuwan di seluruh dunia telah bingung oleh klorofil d bagaimana bisa mendapatkan energi yang cukup dari sinar inframerah untuk fotosintesis.

Sekarang pelajaran tentang fotosintesis perlu ditulis ulang lagi dengan penemuan sebuah klorofil baru yang dapat menyerap cahaya yang lebih rendah dari energi foton, yakni 720 nm.
"Menemukan klorofil baru ini benar-benar membatalkan gagasan tradisional bahwa fotosintesis membutuhkan cahaya energi tinggi," kata Chen. (*/Xinhua/OL-5)
Lesson Learn from Huawei
Thursday, August 19, 2010 | Author: vrey

Background

Huawei yang awalnya dianggap sebagai "Daud" yang menantang perusahaan-perusahaan raksasa seperti Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel, Lucent, Motorola, dan Samsung, dapat menguatkan posisinya secara global dan menjelma menjadi "Goliath" dalam kurun waktu 10 tahun. Pada awal tahun 2000, Huawei mempekerjakan tidak lebih dari 20 ribu pegawai di seluruh dunia. Namun, dalam 10 tahun jumlah pegawainya mencapai 97 ribu orang yang 27 ribu diantaranya tersebar diluar China. Pada tahun 2000 pendapatan Huawei baru 100 juta USD, tetapi pada akhir tahun 2009 dapat mencapai 21,8 milyar USD dan ditargetkan naik 20 persen pada tahun 2010.

Causal (Why this thing can be done?!)

Hal ini dikarenakan aura semangat orang muda yang meletup disana. 46 persen pekerjanya (sekitar 43.700 pegawai) bekerja pada departemen research and development. Investasi yang dikeluarkan untuk research sekitar 10 persen dari revenuenya setiap tahun (sekitar 1.95 milyar USD).

Can we do this too?

Of course! If they can do that, of course we can do also. Research and development department is needed in every company that moves in technology. That's why there is IT Directorate! Visit us at http://ict.binus.edu/
Source: Huawei, Keajaiban China
C Sharp - send email
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 | Author: vrey
Here is the code to send email via C sharp application. It can be applied on desktop or web application.
Use it wisely.
    private void SendEmail(string sendTo, string from)
    {
        MailMessage mailMessage = new MailMessage();
        mailMessage.From = new MailAddress(from);
        mailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;
        mailMessage.To.Add(sendTo);
        mailMessage.CC.Add("vrey@binus.edu");
        mailMessage.Subject = "Subject";
        mailMessage.Body = "Content in HTML format";
        SmtpClient smtpClient = new SmtpClient(smtpclient);
        smtpClient.Port = 25;
        smtpClient.Send(mailMessage);
    }
Meaning of Roses
Sunday, February 14, 2010 | Author: vrey

"Oh the roses are so lovely– thank you so much, dear. So why did you give me fifteen stalks?" the girl asks. "Huh? Hmm– well just thought the bouquet look nice with fifteen." Ha you just got yourself shoot!
The meaning of roses: the color of roses; the number of roses each has got their meaning. Do you know that 11 roses represent "You are my treasured one; the one I love most in my life" whereas 15 roses represent "I am truly sorry, please forgive me"? Now isn't that a total twist of the meaning for the roses you gave? What had meant to be a message of love has just turned into a message of apology; implying you was guilty of something?
Before you try to impress that someone with that bouquet of roses, make sure you know the meaning behind it, the meaning of roses; what the number of roses represent.

- Red Sincere Love & Respect, Courage & Passion
Send red roses to convey the message of your passionate love for that someone; saying "I love you"
- Pink Grace and Gentility, the rose of sweet thoughts.
Send deep pink roses to show your appreciation & gratitude; saying "Thank you" Send light pink roses to convey admiration and sympathy
 
- Yellow In the Victorian times, yellow roses meant jealousy. But today, they signify friendship, joy, gladness and freedom, the promise of a new beginning.
Send yellow roses to brighten up someone's day; to congratulate your friends and loved ones during Joyous occasions.
- White Spiritual love & Purity, the rose of confession, the bridal rose; "You are heavenly", "I am worthy of you"
Commonly used as traditional bridal bouquet during weddings to symbolize a happy love. You can nevertheless use them to convey the message of "You are heavenly, I miss you"

- Lavender Love at first sight and enchantment
Send lavender roses of course, to convey the message of your "love at first sight" with that special someone. You can nevertheless also send them if you would like to make a special impression.
 
- Orange Passionate desire, pure enthusiasm and fascination
An excellent choice for a new relationship that you wish to pursue further. It can nevertheless also be referring to a new business partnership.

Meaning of Number of Roses:
- 1 Rose Love at the first sight; you are the one
- 2 Roses Mutual love between both, deeply in love with one another
- 3 Roses I love you
- 6 Roses I wanna be yours
- 7 Roses I'm infatuated with you
- 9 Roses An Eternal love, together as long as we live
- 10 Roses You are perfect
- 11 Roses You are my treasured one; the one I love most in my life
- 12 Roses Be my steady
- 13 Roses Secret Admirer
- 15 Roses I am truly sorry, please forgive me
- 20 Roses Believe me, I am sincere towards you
- 21 Roses I am devoted to you
- 24 Roses Can't stop thinking about you, 24 hours everyday
- 33 Roses Saying "I love you" with great affection
- 36 Roses I will remember our romantic moments
- 40 Roses My love for you is genuine
- 50 Roses Regretless love, this is
- 99 Roses I will love you for as long as I live
- 100 Roses Harmoniously together in a century; remaining devoted as couple till ripe-old age
- 101 Roses You are my one and only love
- 108 Roses Please marry me!
- 365 Roses Can't stop thinking about you, each and everyday
- 999 Roses Everlasting and Eternal love

Now that you know the true meaning of roses, you won't go wrong.
"Do you know why I gave you a bouquet of 11 red roses, my dearest dear? Cause you are my treasured one, the one I love most in my life" Hmm–? Don't you think the girl will be more impressed with you?
Whatever the occasion, there is always a rose color or combination that will express your feelings. Isn't it more meaningful that you chose the color that conveys a specific message for that special someone? The recipient might not truly understand the meaning behind the roses sent but well, there's always the accompanying card? Along with the roses, your message will be delivered.
So why not send some roses to your loved ones today? It might not seem much of an effort on your side but think about it, wouldn't they be thrilled and surprised to receive a bouquet of roses say, in the middle of a boring day at work?

Source: Meaning of Roses
Gaudeamus igitur
Tuesday, February 09, 2010 | Author: vrey
Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus!
Post iucundam iuventutem, post molestam senectutem
nos habebit humus.

Ubi sunt, qui ante nos in mundo fuere?
Scandite ad superos, vadite ad inferos,
ubi iam fuere!

Vita nostra brevis est, brevi finietur,
venit mors velociter, rapit nos atrociter,
nemini parcetur.

Vivat academia, vivant professores!
Vivat membrum quodlibet, vivant membra qualibet,
semper sint in flore!

Vivant omnes virgines, faciles, formosae!
Vivant et mulieres, tenerae, amabiles
bonae laboriosae!

Vivat et res publica et qui illam regit!
Vivat nostra civitas, Maecenatum caritas,
quae nos hic protegit!

Pereat tristitia, pereant osores!
Pereat diabolus, quivis antiburschius,
atque irrisores!
Joel Barker - Vision and Action
Saturday, January 30, 2010 | Author: vrey
~Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.~
Joel Barker
Turning wood into bones
Sunday, January 24, 2010 | Author: vrey

A novel - and natural - way of creating new bones for humans could be just a few years away.

Scientists in Italy have developed a way of turning rattan wood into bone that is almost identical to the human tissue.

At the Istec laboratory of bioceramics in Faenza near Bologna, a herd of sheep have already been implanted with the bones.

The process starts by cutting the long tubular rattan wood up into manageable pieces.

It is then snipped into even smaller chunks, ready for the complex chemical process to begin.

The pieces are put in a furnace and heated.

In simple terms, carbon and calcium are added.

The wood is then further heated under intense pressure in another oven-like machine and a phosphate solution is introduced.

'Very promising'
After around 10 days, the rattan wood has been transformed into the bone-like material.

The team is lead by Dr Anna Tampieri.


"It's proving very promising" she says. "This new bone material is strong, so it can take heavy loads that bodies will put on it.

"It is also durable, so, unlike existing bone substitutes, it won't need replacing".

Several types of wood were tested before they found rattan works best.

That is because of its structure and porous properties, which enable blood, nerves and other compounds to travel through it.

Dr Tampieri says it is the closest scientists have ever come to replicating the human bone because, she says: "It eventually fuses with real bone, so in time, you don't even see the join".

The new wood bone is being closely studied at the nearby Bologna University hospital.

That is where orthopaedic surgeons like Maurillo Marcacci are monitoring the sheep tests.

The x-rays of the sheep's legs show the progress they are making.


Particles from the sheep's own bones are migrating to the bone made from wood.

Within a few months, the real and the artificial bone will be like one continuous bone.

Mr Marcacci says that existing bone substitutes, like metal or ceramic, or bones from dead bodies, all have their drawbacks.

He says for people with major trauma accidents or cancer, the current range of alternatives can be weak and do not fuse with the existing bone.

The new wood bones, he says, could be a major step forward.

"A strong, durable, load-bearing bone is really the holy grail for surgeons like me and for patients" he says.

The new bone-from-wood programme is being funded by the European Union.

Implants into humans are about five years away.

But with no signs of rejection or infection in the sheep, there is real hope here that a natural, cheap and effective replacement for bones is now possible.

Bones from wood could soon be opening up a new branch of medical science.

Source: Turning wood into bones
How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell
Saturday, January 23, 2010 | Author: vrey

This is a lesson learn for client who has pay a consultant for design. Please remember that you hire the consultant for good, so leave it to expert, or you will make a trouble to yourself, just wasting your money and time (and the consultant time of course).











Source: How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell
The Four Phases of IT/Business Alignment
Tuesday, January 05, 2010 | Author: vrey
Ensuring IT alignment with the business has traditionally been viewed as the CIO's job. However, successful IT/business alignment entails more than executive level communication and strategy translation.

CIOs who achieve alignment typically do so by establishing a set of well-planned process improvement programs that systematically address obstacles and go beyond executive level conversation to permeate the entire IT organization and its culture.

One commonly used methodology is the "IT/Business Alignment Cycle", which introduces a simple framework that the IT organization can adopt to manage a broad range of activities.

The four phases of the cycle are: plan, model, manage, and measure.

Following this cycle fosters organization-wide shared expectations between business and IT managers, and defines a common framework for a broad range of activities that together serve to align IT and business objectives. The cycle also identifies best practices and common processes within and between IT functional groups to make IT/business alignment sustainable and scalable.

This framework functions best when integrated and automated with software applications and monitoring tools.

The Cycle

Now let's examine the four phases individually, describing the activities, best practices, and benefits associated with each phase.

Plan: Translating business objectives into measurable IT services. The plan phase helps close the gap between what business managers need and expect and what IT delivers.
According to Giga Research, IT leaders in poorly aligned organizations are still attempting to explain technology management issues to their business colleagues and have not made the leap to understanding business issues and communicating with business managers on their terms.
To close the gap between what business expects and what IT delivers, IT needs an ongoing dialogue to clarify business needs in business terms. Without an ongoing dialogue, IT may not be able to determine which IT services to offer or how to effectively allocate IT resources to maximize business value. Furthermore, when business needs change, IT should adapt and modify the service offering and IT resources appropriately.
CIOs should mandate the use of a disciplined service level management process that will lead to agreement on specific IT services and service levels needed to support business objectives. IT management can then translate service definitions and service levels into underlying rules and priorities that empower and guide IT resources.
Finally, IT needs a way to measure and track both business level services and the underlying capabilities that support the services.

Model: Design infrastructure to optimize business value The model phase identifies resources needed to deliver IT services at committed service levels. This phase involves mapping IT assets, processes, and resources back to IT services, then prioritizing and planning resources that support those business critical services.
The bottom line in measuring the success of alignment is the degree to which IT is working on the things about which business managers care. That means IT must have processes in place for prioritizing projects, tasks, and support.
To successfully prioritize resources, IT needs a service impact model and a centralized configuration and asset management repository to tie the infrastructure components back to specific IT services. This combination is essential if IT is to effectively plan, prioritize, and consistently deliver services at agreed-upon service levels while also reducing costs.

Manage: Drive results through consolidated service support The manage phase enables the IT staff to deliver promised levels of service. CIOs can ensure that their organization meets expectations by providing a single location for business users to submit all service requests, and by prioritizing those requests based on pre-defined business priorities.
Without a single point-of-service request, it is difficult to manage resources to meet agreed-upon service levels. Moreover, without a method for effectively managing the IT infrastructure and all changes, the IT staff faces the risk of causing failures.
To ensure the effectiveness of the service desk, the IT staff needs to provide:
  • A method for prioritizing service requests based on business impact.
  • A disciplined change management process to minimize the risk of negatively affecting service level commitments.
  • An IT event management system to monitor and manage components that support business critical services.
  • The underlying operational metrics that enable service delivery at promised levels, as well as the means for measuring and tracking the progress of service level commitments using these metrics.
Measure: Verify commitments and improve operations The measure phase improves cross-organization visibility into operations and service level commitments.
Traditional IT management tools operate in functional silos that confine data collection and operational metrics to focused areas of functionality. They typically relate more to technology than to business objectives.

Component-level metrics and measures are certainly important for ongoing service availability. However, to support real-time resource allocation decisions, these measures must be interpreted in a broader business context, including their relationship to business-critical services. Without a business context for interpreting measures and metrics, isolated functional groups can't get a holistic view of IT services that support business objectives.
By committing to the cycle and integrating and automating activities using software solutions, CIOs can align their whole organization to make systematic improvements that overcome obstacles.
Mary Nugent is vice president of Service Management Solutions for BMC Software.

Source: Mary Nugent
11 Ways to Think Outside the Box
Tuesday, January 05, 2010 | Author: vrey

11 Ways to Think Outside the Box

Thinking outside the box is more than just a business cliché. It means approaching problems in new, innovative ways; conceptualizing problems differently; and understanding your position in relation to any particular situation in a way you’d never thought of before. Ironically, its a cliché that means to think of clichéd situations in ways that aren’t clichéd.

We’re told to “think outside the box” all the time, but how exactly do we do that? How do we develop the ability to confront problems in ways other than the ways we normally confront problems? How do we cultivate the ability to look at things differently from the way we typically look at things?

Thinking outside the box starts well before we’re “boxed in” – that is, well before we confront a unique situation and start forcing it into a familiar “box” that we already know how to deal with. Or at least think we know how to deal with.

Here are 11 ways to beef up your out-of-the-box thinking skills. Make an effort to push your thinking up to and beyond its limit every now and again – the talents you develop may come in handy the next time you face a situation that “everybody knows” how to solve.

1. Study another industry.
I’ve learned as much about teaching from learning about marketing as I have from studying pedagogy – maybe more. Go to the library and pick up a trade magazine in an industry other than your own, or grab a few books from the library, and learn about how things are done in other industries. You might find that many of the problems people in other industries face are similar to the problems in your own, but that they’ve developed really quite different ways of dealing with them. Or you might well find new linkages between your own industry and the new one, linkages that might well be the basis of innovative partnerships in the future.

2. Learn about another religion.
Religions are the way that humans organize and understand their relationships not only with the supernatural or divine but with each other. Learning about how such relations are structured can teach you a lot about how people relate to each other and the world around them. Starting to see the reason in another religion can also help you develop mental flexibility – when you really look at all the different ways people comprehend the same mysteries, and the fact that they generally manage to survive regardless of what they believe, you start to see the limitations of whatever dogma or doxy you follow, a revelation that will transfer quite a bit into the non-religious parts of your life.

3. Take a class.
Learning a new topic will not only teach you a new set of facts and figures, it will teach you a new way of looking at and making sense of aspects of your everyday life or of the society or natural world you live in. This in turn will help expand both how you look at problems and the breadth of possible solutions you can come up with.

4. Read a novel in an unfamiliar genre.
Reading is one of the great mental stimulators in our society, but it’s easy to get into a rut. Try reading something you’d never have touched otherwise – if you read literary fiction, try a mystery or science fiction novel; if you read a lot of hard-boiled detective novels, try a romance; and so on. Pay attention not only to the story but to the particular problems the author has to deal with. For instance, how does the fantasy author bypass your normal skepticism about magic and pull you into their story? Try to connect those problems to problems you face in your own field. For example, how might your marketing team overcome your audiences normal reticence about a new “miracle” product?

5. Write a poem.
While most problem-solving leans heavily on our brain’s logical centers, poetry neatly bridges our more rational left-brain though processes and our more creative right-brain processes. Though it may feel foolish (and getting comfortable with feeling foolish might be another way to think outside the box), try writing a poem about the problem you’re working on. Your poem doesn’t necessarily have to propose a solution – the idea is to shift your thinking away from your brain’s logic centers and into a more creative part of the brain, where it can be mulled over in a non-rational way. Remember, nobody has to ever see your poem…

6. Draw a picture.
Drawing a picture is even more right-brained, and can help break your logical left-brain’s hold on a problem the same way a poem can. Also, visualizing a problem engages other modes of thinking that we don’t normally use, bringing you another creative boost.

7. Turn it upside down.
Turning something upside-down, whether physically by flipping a piece of paper around or metaphorically by re-imagining it can help you see patterns that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent. The brain has a bunch of pattern-making habits that often obscure other, more subtle patterns at work; changing the orientation of things can hide the more obvious patterns and make other patterns emerge. For example, you might ask what a problem would look like if the least important outcome were the most important, and how you’d then try to solve it.

8. Work backwards.
Just like turning a thing upside down, working backwards breaks the brain’s normal conception of causality. This is the key to backwards planning, for example, where you start with a goal and think back through the steps needed to reach it until you get to where you are right now.

9. Ask a child for advice.
I don’t buy into the notion that children are inherently ore creative before society “ruins” them, but I do know that children think and speak with a n ignorance of convention that is often helpful. Ask a child how they might tackle a problem, or if you don’t have a child around think about how you might reformulate a problem so that a child could understand it if one was available. Don’t run out and build a boat made out of cookies because a child told you to, though – the idea isn’t to do what the child says, necessarily, but to jog your own thinking into a more unconventional path.

10. Invite randomness.
If you’ve ever seen video of Jackson Pollock painting, you have seen a masterful painter consciously inviting randomness into his work. Pollock exercises a great deal of control over his brushes and paddles, in the service of capturing the stray drips and splashes of paint that make up his work. Embracing mistakes and incorporating them into your projects, developing strategies that allow for random input, working amid chaotic juxtapositions of sound and form – all of these can help to move beyond everyday patterns of thinking into the sublime.

11. Take a shower.
There’s some kind of weird psychic link between showering and creativity. Who knows why? Maybe it’s because your mind is on other things, maybe it’s because you’re naked, maybe it’s the warm water relaxing you – it’s a mystery. But a lot of people swear by it. So maybe when the status quo response to some circumstance just isn’t working, try taking a shower and see if something remarkable doesn’t occur to you!

source: Dustin Wax
When “Best Practice” is Bad Practice
Tuesday, January 05, 2010 | Author: vrey
“Best Practice” Issue #1: The Answers Are Outside Us
One issue that became clear in the Twitter chat this week is an issue I raised in The Pollyanna Principles - that organizations have much to build upon, and that when we use systems that build upon a groups’ own wisdom, they are more likely to own and then act upon the results.

Best Practice throws all that out the window. Best Practice assumes the answers have been predefined from outside the group, and that failure to adopt what the rest of the world is doing will be perceived as less than professional.

Best Practice suggests the group isn’t smart enough to come up with its own answers. Best Practice leads to seeing others (especially consultants and academics) as having those answers.

Encouraging a group to rely on Best Practice, then, is reinforcing for the group that they are not as smart as those other experts. Rather than empowering a group, reliance on Best Practice takes their power away.

In a world where boards so often feel like fish out of water, deferring to EDs out of their own sense of inadequacy, encouraging a board to focus on externally imposed Best Practice simply reinforces that sense of inadequacy. Use of Best Practice therefore creates weaker, less confident leaders, who do not own the results of their work, because that work was generated outside them - by experts providing externally developed Best Practice.

“Best Practice” Issue #2: Who Says It’s Best? And What is Best About It?
Blue Avocado points out that what is commonly accepted as Best Practice is more often than not simply common practice - what everyone else is doing. (Can’t you just hear your mother asking, “If everyone else was jumping off a cliff, would you?”)

Board gurus often cite all the Best Practice sources - BoardSource, Standards for Excellence, even the articles at our own Community-Driven Institute Library.

But what makes those sources “best?” Best at what? If, as an example, board effectiveness is measured by board participation and enthusiasm, or by an accountability-for-the-means checklist - but not by the extent to which that board is aggressively pursuing the organization’s vision and mission in the community - is that really “best?” Or have we replaced our vision for what is possible with a set of minimum standards and simply chosen to call those “best?”

“Best Practice” Issue #3: When “Best” is Actually Bad
That leads to the hardest issue to face: What happens when what is touted as Best Practice is actually harmful?
Best Practice in Governance that rewards accountability for the money (means) with zero accountability for community-driven results (ends).

Best Practice in Board Recruitment, that provides a matrix of pro bono roles to be filled (attorney, accountant, PR person, etc.), when in fact, recruiting board members for the purpose of receiving pro bono help is actually a direct cause of micromanagement.

Best Practice in fundraising (and in providing funding as a grantor) that teaches organizations to become more competitive / to sell themselves as “better than their competition” - while simultaneously bemoaning that those groups have trouble working cooperatively with the very organizations they have been instructed to “differentiate themselves against” (i.e. make themselves appear to be better than).
In just these 3 cases, adherence to Best Practice leads to and reinforces
  •  a lack of board accountability for end results in the community
  • board micromanagement
  • the assumption that organizations must treat the very people who care most about their mission as enemies
These practices move far beyond simply being “not best.” These Best Practices have caused dramatic harm - within individual organizations, within the Community Benefit Sector as a whole, and within the communities we all care about.

What To Do Instead?
If we humans are more likely to feel ownership of work we create ourselves, the answer becomes clear: Have groups establish their own “Best Practice.”

For simplicity’s sake, let’s use the board recruitment example. By scrapping the Best Practice board recruitment matrix, we can facilitate the group’s wisdom instead, asking such questions as:
  • What are the qualities we want to be sure every board member has?
  • What are the qualities it would be nice if some had, but not everyone needs to have?
  • What are pro bono positions we wish the organization would attract? (Let’s be sure to recruit those separately as volunteers, rather than assuming we must add these folks to the board)
  • What are the characteristics we never want to see on our board, ever ever ever?
From the lists of answers to these and other questions, each group will own its recruitment criteria and from there its recruitment process. And the same method of asking and encouraging the group’s own wisdom could then apply to all the other issues for which groups seek outside expertise.

As you seek to inspire and energize your board, your staff, your volunteers - even your donors - you may just find this lack of Best Practice to be the “best” practice of all!


What This Means for Consultants and Other “Experts”
As consultants, we are used to being asked for our expertise. Everything about the way we do our work changes, however, when instead of assuming the answer is outside the group, we assume the answer is in the room, and that our job as the consultant is to guide the group to find its own answer.

If we see our role as inspiring our clients’ own wisdom, then the consultant will ask instead of telling. Instead of a magic bag of checklists and answers, the consultant will have a magic bag of probing questions.

Instead of enforcing external standards, the consultant will practice eliciting a group’s own standards.

The consultant will still have topic-specific knowledge to inject into the discussion where needed. But that topic-specific knowledge will be a perk, an incentive for the group to want to learn more, rather than the definitive word.
In the end, the approach you choose will come down to a question that is simultaneously simple and complex: How much do you trust your own judgment and ability? And how much do you trust the judgment and ability of your clients?

source: When “Best Practice” is Bad Practice