Tomorrow, the beginning of our Crowd Wisdom program, will be another experiment in giving responsibility and power our Steinberg interns. We'll get together in the morning to share ideas on whatever topics the interns want to talk about.

The question I have needed an answer to for a long time is this: How can I help interns be productive and energetic at the beginning of the day? Our interns are great, and we already have a strong working environment, but the mornings usually seem to start off just a little bit slowly.

I keep a long mental list of problems, issues, and concerns, and I'm always on the lookout for solutions. (I suspect most managers and teachers do this.) I recently read a terrific article in The Atlantic entitled What Makes a Great Teacher?. The story is largely about Teach for America's efforts to discover what makes great teachers so great. They identify practices like walking around the classroom (instead of staying glued to the chalkboard) and having an established routine for each day, so students know exactly what they'll be doing next.

It immediately struck me that many of these insights are easily applicable to management. One of the practices that interested me was writing a Problem of the Day on the chalkboard every morning, and students who come in get right to work on the problem. Could I do something like this at work?

Interns often have great ideas that I'd like to flesh out some. Mark Averell, for example, suggested an internal website that would aggregate Sacramento- and Capitol-related news sources, tweets, legislative hearings, and district events. After he built it, he asked me for ideas of other resources he could add to the site to make it useful for interns. Other interns working on projects hit roadblocks, and come to me for ideas to get around the obstacle. I can make suggestions, but I would rather tap into the creativity and intelligence of all the interns in the office.

So, Crowd Wisdom! Each morning we'll get together to solve problems and share ideas for doing things. I've created with a list of things to discuss, and each intern can vote for the things they want to talk about most. Each intern has 5 votes, which they can allocate however they like between topics. Interns can add topics that they think other interns would like to talk about.

What will prevent this from becoming a traditional, energy-sapping meeting, or an artificial "motivational" pep-talk? Well, meetings in our office have never been the soul-numbing affairs they seem to be in other offices. We all seem to enjoy our meetings as opportunities to share what we've all been working on. This probably has something to do with the fact that my boss doesn't use meetings as an opportunity to lecture the rest of us - our meetings are used for sharing information and ideas. We'll use Crowd Wisdom get-togethers the same way.

We'll only meet for 10-15 minutes, and we'll focus on exercising creativity and taking action. Interns in our office are already excited about work (interns often ask if they can come in more often than they're currently scheduled), so I'm not worried about it becoming an artificial event. I think this sort of program wouldn't work if they weren't already motivated.

But I think the biggest reason I'm confident Crowd Wisdom will be a success is that it's another opportunity for interns to exercise their creativity and initiative. This event isn't about me; it's about the interns and their work. They'll choose what we talk about.

This will also solve another problem I've been having - I can't keep interns' to-do lists stocked, because they work too quickly! Mornings are especially dry, because it takes me a little while to pull together new tasks. Interns currently jump into working on their Ownership Initiatives, but this will give them the opportunity to work on something else in the morning in case their Initiative is on hold for some reason. Beyond this, it will also create a get-'em-started atmosphere in the morning as we convene around a shared problem to solve. This is as much about creating team spirit as it is about providing tasks for eager interns.

I'll post updates as Crowd Wisdom develops and evolves. Share in the comments if you have some regular form of morning check-in with your colleagues or subordinates to get things started in

This is part of an ongoing series of posts about creating and strengthening an internship program. The posts are compiled on the Internships page.

If you go about recruitment and interviewing well, you will make your management job considerably easier by choosing someone who does not need much hand-holding. This does not mean that you won’t need to manage at all, though. There are several important principles and techniques for managing effectively.

Prepare in advance: Create a list of projects and tasks your intern(s) can work on. Interns will quickly lose enthusiasm for an internship if they feel underutilized – even faster than if you give them nothing but grunt work. Make sure you can keep your interns busy and productive.

Create teams of interns: If you take on more than one intern at a time, form them into a team (or teams) to work together on projects. This increases morale significantly, encourages mentoring by the more experienced intern, and stimulates the interns’ creativity and problem-solving abilities. They will solve more problems on their own, and you will spend less time answering simple questions.

These teams can be cross-functional (e.g., including people with different skill sets, such as a designer and a business major), but they need not be if you have multiple interns from the same background.

Assign responsibilities, not just tasks: Interns want the opportunity to take responsibility for a project or goal, and will best be able to exercise their creativity and skill if you give them some freedom to decide how best to accomplish their goal. In one of our offices, we assign intern teams a project to accomplish. We consult with them initially about how best to accomplish the goal, then ask them to discuss it, and come back to us with ideas of their own. We often find that they have thought of things that hadn’t occurred to us. We expect them to report back to us frequently about their progress so we can make sure they are on track, but are often pleasantly surprised to find that they have made more progress than we expected them to make.

Assigning responsibilities requires some trust, and it is best to ease into this practice by first assigning projects that are a little bit forgiving of errors and missteps.

This is part of an ongoing series of posts about creating and strengthening an internship program. The posts are compiled on the Internships page.

There are ways to catch a new intern up to speed without killing your own productivity. If you don’t want to regret the whole intern experience, it’s important to take some of these steps to save yourself headaches.

Create training materials: Spend some time creating instructions for how to accomplish various tasks interns will have to complete on a regular basis. A shared set of Google Docs (docs.google.com) is probably the easiest way to share these sorts of resources. A set of word documents on a shared computer drive is also very easy to create and manage. Time invested up front creating instructions will pay off many times, especially since interns sometimes need to refer back to instructions multiple times as they get the hang of new tasks. (The alternative is being prepared to explain the same thing over and over again.)

If you have a microphone, it is extremely easy to record and narrate “screencasts” (videos of your computer screen) to show how to do certain things. There are many websites that allow you to create a screencast for free (such as www.screencast-o-matic.com), without requiring you to download software. If you can record these videos without revealing proprietary information, you can upload them to Youtube for easy reference, and link to them from your written instructions.

Rely on the expertise of veteran interns: If you take on more than one intern at a time, veteran interns can be an excellent training resource for greener interns. Interns generally enjoy sharing their expertise and knowledge with trainees, and they learn more through the teaching process than they otherwise would.

This is part of an ongoing series of posts about creating and strengthening an internship program. The posts are compiled on the Internships page.

Interns can help your organization extend its reach without increasing its staff budget. Interns are much more than just free labor; they can also contribute their creativity and energy. You can provide an excellent opportunity for interns who want to acquire specific job skills, and who want to learn about nonprofits more generally. If you already take on interns, you can probably improve your program.

IS YOUR ORGANIZATION READY FOR AN INTERNSHIP PROGRAM?

Before you embark on creating an internship program, be sure an internship program will really work for you. Consider:

Will you have time to oversee an intern (or interns)? A smart, skilled intern will not require hand-holding, but you will still need to commit some up-front time training a new intern, and some ongoing time to answer questions and oversee your intern. A good, well-chosen intern can help lighten your load, but if you can’t even spare a few minutes to get someone started, taking on an intern won’t be practical.

Is there real, meaningful work for the intern? Most interns want more than just a learning experience – they want to know they’re making a genuine difference for your organization. They’ll be unhappy if they feel they’re doing make-work. On the other hand, while interns may be willing to do grunt work all day, you won’t be making the best use of them if you don’t give them a chance to stretch their wings by making full use of their skills. They can contribute more if you give them something they can take responsibility for.

Are the skills and positions you’re looking for appropriate for an unpaid intern? If you are looking for a position that requires a lot of expertise or confidentiality, you may be better off hiring someone.

Recall the story of Rumpelstiltskin, in which a miller’s daughter is locked into a tower after her father promises the king she can spin straw into gold. Imagine the possibilities of someone who can turn worthless straw into valuable gold! Now, imagine that your nonprofit (or other community organization) can spin its own gold.

The Charismatic Organization makes the startling assertion that the most important resource for an organization is social capital. And unlike other resources (financial capital, physical capital, human capital), organizations can create social capital from scratch.

What is social capital, and what makes it so valuable? Social capital is the cumulative strength of connections and relationships between people. In fact, you frequently invest in your own personal social capital – when you do, you probably call it networking. In an organization, a strong, cohesive, productive culture represents a large amount of social capital. An organization with few lines of communication between different departments, or to the outside world, lacks social capital.

Social capital is valuable in part because it gives an organization access to other forms of capital (e.g. financial and human capital). Shirley Sagawa and Deborah Jospin, the authors, make the case that organizations should focus first on building internal social capital, then use that to build external social capital. This will bring more money, participants and recognition to your organization, not to mention more success.

How does an organization build social capital internally? Sagawa and Jospin emphasize the importance of having a mission your entire organization understands, building a strong, cooperative culture, and “people-focused management.”

A reliance on data and a habit for innovation, are two other aspects of a successful organization that do not pertain directly to building social capital, but which are nonetheless important. Your organization may be motivated to move quickly, but without the right data, you can’t be sure you’re moving in the right direction. Constant innovation helps keep the organization adapted to its environment.

Once an organization has built internal social capital, it can use that capital to build external social capital through active communications and outreach. The mistake many organizations make at this point is having too few ways to get involved – many organizations only involve outsider as donors and newsletter recipients. Charismatic organizations provide myriad ways people can get involved.

The Charismatic Organization presents an interesting, fresh and unique perspective on the strategies to build a successful organization. The book challenges you to build social capital in your organization. And after reading this book, I, for one, am ready to begin.

Changes are taking place quickly here in the internship program! These are actually updates from a month ago, but things have been so fast-paced that I haven't had time to write about them until now.  

I used to be concerned about starting up intern mentoring (as I've mentioned before). The intern retreat we held convinced me that senior interns actually wanted to be relied on as experts. I was still worried that setting up interns to mentor each other might be logistically difficult.  

Well, I should have trusted more in the skills of my intern crew. When Ryan started up in early June, I told him to ask Mark and Jeysree (two senior interns) questions. Both of them were extremely helpful in getting him started. Besides saving me work, this had two unexpected benefits: I got to see how other interns did tasks (which allowed me to make corrections), and it built morale between the interns.  

Our first completely intern-planned ownership initiative was completed, as well! Jeysree and Mark carried out the first of the Community Office Hours successfully. Now that Mark and Jeysree will both be gone from the office, I'll have my first practice transitioning a project to a new set of interns.  

Last month I also started Jeysree on our first official Learning Project. The idea of the Learning Projects is that we will offer interns specific skills to learn, and assign them a project (e.g., an ownership initiative) that will force them to practice this skill. The ultimate goal is for them to become proficient at a new skill.  

Jeysree was working with the Prezi presentation platform (prezi.com). I haven't quite figured out a way to integrate learning projects, though - they sit a bit uncomfortably alongside the ownership initiative structure. Ideally they would mesh, but I'm having trouble finding ways to work them together. Perhaps I need to spend more time matchmaking between interns, skills they'd like to learn, and projects that could benefit from those skills.  

The success of the learning projects idea may depend on whether interns are more attracted to a project because of the skills it will offer them, because of the project itself, or because of the people already working on the project. If the latter two are strong attractors, I may need to focus on assigning learning projects to interns already on projects, rather than trying to match interns based on skills they want to learn.

I promised myself I wouldn't do any work this week on vacation, either on Davis Dollars or for Senator Steinberg's office. Co-op Camp is a beautiful camp in the Sierras, and I only see most of my friends from camp once a year.

Well, I didn't quite end up doing work...but I also did end up getting involved in two different flavors of management while at camp (as the Teen Director, and in general camp management). I'm now involved in managing Davis Dollars, the internship program in Senator Steinberg's office, the Davis Cooperative Community Network, and Co-op Camp.

I've been the Teen Director at camp for about five years now, but this year I've really taken the program to a new level. While my role in previous years was really not much more than chaperon, this year I've been leading the teens in running projects and workshops for each other.

I met with them at the beginning of the week to talk about what activities they'd like to do, and particularly what skills they'd like to learn, and to share with each other. Emily led a workshop on handstands and cartwheels, for example. Keith led a handful of teens in getting video testimonials about camp from every camper, so we can share what makes this camp so special. I treated my job as director much more like my role at Davis Dollars and in Senator Steinberg's office - I'm focusing on empowering the teens to create programs they're interested in, instead of relying on me to entertain them.

I'm also making my first forays into general camp management, at the invitation of the three current camp managers. Because many of the campers come from co-ops of one sort or another, lots are interested in helping make camp a better place, but many I've spoken to have found it difficult to get involved. I know Heather, Chip and Victor (the three current managers) feel overwhelmed by everything they have to accomplish every year. (They're not paid.) I think everyone would agree that the three of them have become a bottleneck purely by virtue of the huge amount of work that has to go through them, and I think we would all like to share the work around a bit more.

So when Heather invited me to take on a management role, I took the opportunity to talk to her, Chip and Victor, and several others interested in getting more involved about how we could make it easier to campers to contribute to preparation for camp.

I started by creating a Google Group to replace our old email list so that we could have a small group of administrators authorized to email to our entire list. (Previously every email had to go through Heather, Chip or Victor, and it wasn't feasible for them to handle this all on their own.) This will make it easier for other campers to let everyone know about camper meet-ups during the year, fundraisers, and other important news.

I also created a set of Google Documents to help us coordinate on our various activities during the year. This way campers can log in and find out, for example, that we still need $1,500 in prizes for our auction, and can begin to solicit donations from businesses. (Before, this would have required prior authorization from Heather, Chip or Victor, and things get slowed down when 20 people who want to contribute in different ways all have to filter through three people.) In a lot of ways this isn't any different from all my other management experience - I'm trying to empower people to make a contribution. People want to get involved, and it's just a matter of making it easy for them to do so in a coordinated manner.

Nonprofits and community organizations are often chronically understaffed, and I'm wary of getting involved in Co-op Camp management because I don't want to be drawn into a huge tangle of tasks to get camp coordinated for next year. As I get involved, I'll insist on being given specific responsibilities, and the freedom to accomplish those responsibilities with minimal interference. As I've found from managing my hordes of interns, people are a lot more interested in doing grunt work if it's in the service of a responsibility they've been given than they are in doing grunt work that has been assigned to them.

As with my interns, my ideal contribution would be to enable campers to share their talents to improve camp. There are lots of folks who want to help put on the carnival, or bring new campers, or offer a great workshop. Right now the centralized management structure has made it difficult for some people to contribute. Heather, Chip and Victor recognize this, and were happy to hear that the Google Documents might encourage people to put their heads together outside of camp to prepare for next year.

So now I just have to figure out how to share information and responsibility in a meaningful way, while helping coordinate everyone’s contributions so collaboration doesn’t turn into chaos. Wish me luck!