Influencer Tribe Interview #1

Last week I did my first online interview.  I was asked by Alex Swallow, The Influence Expert, to feature in his new series which features interviews with people in The Influence Expert community.

Alex Swallow has been the Chief Executive of a national charity, founded his own organisation and grown a large online following. In February 2016 he launched 'The Influence Expert' which is about helping you grow your influence to increase your impact.

I was delighted to be the first person to feature in this brand new series.  You can read my interview here which tells you more about me and my work.  Alex comments: 'Felicity gives some great insights into her inspiring work supporting charities with talented volunteers.'

I would love to hear what you think.

Join the Pro Bono O.R. LinkedIn Group

If you are interested in using your analytical stills to help third sector organisations across the UK please join the Pro Bono O.R. group.

This group is for current volunteers or those interested in finding out more about Pro Bono O.R.


It's purpose is to provide a space for updates, discussion, support, advice and to for members to post relevant information.
Thanks

Pro Bono O.R. - some important information

I have a few requests as well as some important information to pass on.

Firstly the South West O.R. group (part of The OR Society) has asked if Pro Bono O.R. would give a talk at one of its events in late Feb/early March.  As well as giving an overview of the scheme I am looking for a couple of volunteers who could talk for 15 minutes about why they joined the scheme and about a project they are working on/have worked on (what they have/are doing) and the impact it has.  The event will be in Cardiff at 5:45pm on either a Tuesday or Wednesday.  Please let me know by the end of November if you'd be interested (travel expenses will be covered).  

Additionally The OR Society has other Regional Society Groups across the country as well as Special Interest Groups (SIGS) who would be interested to hear from volunteers, please get in touch if you would be happy to present at one of these groups (pleased note you do not need to be a member of The OR Society).

Secondly I have created a LinkedIn group for volunteers and those interested in Pro Bono O.R. https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8422271&trk=my_groups-tile-grp Please do sign up, the purpose of the group is to provide a space for updates, discussion, support, advice and to for members to post relevant information.

Thirdly please do share the news about Pro Bono O.R., both to analytical professionals who might want to get involved and to third sector organisations you may have connections with.  We just completed our 40^th project this week and the scheme continues to go from strength to strength.  If you do have connections with a third sector organisation who you think would benefit from Pro Bono O.R. support please do get in touch and I can pass on an information pack.


Lastly, I’d just like to say a big thank you for your continued support of the scheme. The feedback I get from both volunteers and the organisations we work with is overwhelmingly positive – the time you give really does make a huge difference!

Make your new year's resolutions count in 2015

As we start 2015 most of our new years resolutions will go something like this: 'I must try and eat less', 'I must exercise more', 'I must drink less', etc.

Let me set you a challenge and give you two alternative new years resolutions for 2015 that could make a real difference for both yourself and others around you.

1) Volunteer

Use your skills to help third sector organisations.  There are many ways which you can do this; if you have Operational Research/analytical skills then why not get involved with Pro Bono O.R.?  Pro Bono O.R. worked with over twenty UK based third sector organisations in 2014.  The volunteers were able to provide a wide range of support from problem structuring, facilitation, data analysis, strategic review, impact measurement and much more.  The volunteers all reported a positive experience, here's what a few of them had to say: 

"Working as a pro bono volunteer is a great way to contribute some professional expertise to some truly worthwhile causes.  The Third Sector is full of people who feel passionately about their Mission, so working with them is invariably a positive learning experience"

"I've really enjoyed working with third sector organisations and found the staff extremely positive about the contribution we make"

"Being a volunteer was a great way to make a real difference for an organisation with people that were clearly passionate about what they do. At the same time I've added some interesting people to my network and expanded the breadth of projects I've undertaken on my CV"

To see more about becoming a volunteer and to see some of our completed case studies, please visit the webpage

2) Charities/third sector organisations look into Pro Bono O.R.

UK based organisations in the Third sector can  benefit from O.R. consultancy at no cost. The Operational Research society is offering third sector organisations the opportunity for free consultancy to help reduce costs and improve utilisation of limited resources.  

Pro Bono O.R. completed 10 projects in 2014 and the feedback we had was overwhelmingly positive:

"We are enormously grateful for being able to benefit from the advice and support of such a knowledgeable and experienced professional, who was able to raise challenging issues in a

sensitive and helpful way"

"We've benefited hugely from your work and support in all areas of the project, and from an organisational perspective you've enabled us to take a highly professional approach to increasing the efficiency of our charity"

So what are you waiting for, surely you should be saying 'I must volunteer more' and/or 'I must take up the free support to help my organisation to be more effective and efficient in 2015'

Please visit the webpage to find out more, or follow me on twitter (@FMcLeister) or LinkedIn (uk.linkedin.com/in/FelicityRoseMcLeister)

Pro Bono O.R.:Reaching new heights

Well what an exciting month November has turned out to be for Pro Bono O.R. I have made some great connections and the scheme has generated the most number of monthly project leads to date.  Really looking forward to seeing the impact O.R. will make to these organisations and hearing the feedback from both the organisations and volunteers.

Pro Bono O.R. is all about helping third sector organisations, whether that is by increasing efficiency, helping to reduce costs, plan strategy or demonstrate impact, there is usually a way O.R. can help.  

This month Pro Bono O.R. has also gone global with the American OR Society (INFORMS) set to launch their own Pro Bono O.R. scheme in 2015.  One of our own members of the Pro Bono O.R. steering group went over to San Francisco to present a talk about Pro Bono O.R. at the INFORMS conference.

This month we have 10 new projects leads from third sector organisations across the country.  Many of these are as a result of cross working with other schemes.  A few months ago I heard that the Government Statistical Service (GSS) had teamed up with NCVO to launch the 'Voluntary Sector Placement Scheme for Government Statisticians'.  This scheme seeks to match up voluntary sector organisations with government statisticians for short placements.  As this scheme was similar to our own I got in touch to find out more.  As a result they had several project requests that best suited Pro Bono O.R. and that they were able to pass on.

I've had some really beneficial meetings, one of which was with the Head of Charities and Social Enterprise at Baker Tilly.  We are working together to hold a breakfast event in 2015 to promote Pro Bono O.R to charity leaders.  Additionally we are planning to hold a workshop in Cambridge similar to the one we held at GMCVO which will explain what Pro Bono O.R. is and look at how it can help improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Could you organisation benefit from Pro Bono O.R. or are you an O.R. professional who would like to volunteer some time to work on Pro Bono O.R. projects?  I'd love to hear from you felicity.mcleister@theorsociety.com

How I succeeded on social media

Back in September 2013 the only social media I used was Facebook for my own personal use.  Until I started my role as the O.R. Pro Bono Project Manager at The OR Society I hadn’t given much thought to how vital social media could be to an individual’s job role and to the wider organisation.

I started out small, I got myself a Twitter and LinkedIn account and then a few months later started a blog.  Before you start it is important to determine what you want to accomplish by using social media. 

For me there were several reasons for using social media:

•          To increase the awareness of O.R. to third sector audiences, explain what O.R. is, how it can help and that free support is available via Pro Bono O.R.
•          To engage with members of The OR Society and the wider O.R. community to inform them about Pro Bono O.R. and encourage them to sign up as volunteers
•          Through promotion of Pro Bono O.R. to increase the awareness of The OR Society, to increase traffic to the website, to improve member retention as well as encourage new members to join.

To succeed Pro Bono O.R. needed third sector organisations to sign up to receive support and then volunteer analysts to carry out projects. 

Initially I needed to choose which social media platforms to use.  Firstly I signed up to Twitter, this was really useful for sharing information about Pro Bono O.R.  Although I needed to grow my follower base I knew this would take time so I used other twitter handles in my tweets such as @TheORSociety, @Reachskills, @NCVO etc. because if they retweeted my tweet I could reach their followers.  I also created a hash tag #ProBonoOR which I put on all my tweets so that any information or conversations could be easily found through the search function.  I decided who I wanted to follow which in my case was third sector umbrella organisations in order to keep up to date with third sector news as well as individual third sector organisations and O.R. organisations and individuals.

It is important with twitter to make the most of the 140 characters you have, it is best used for short conversations and sharing information.  I try to post opinions, questions, reply to posts whilst including my hash tag, other twitter handles and links to other places like my webpage.

Next I got my head around LinkedIn.  Firstly I spent time on making sure my profile was right, this is the first impression people get of you and it will be at this point people decide whether to connect or not so it is really important to spend some time one this.  LinkedIn for me has been my most valuable social media tool.  It has allowed me to make connections with people that I otherwise would not have had the chance to.  I joined groups which looked like good places to learn and contribute too, such as The OR Society and a third sector sub group where I can post information about Pro Bono O.R.  Through that I have made many connections with O.R. professionals.  I also joined groups that were third sector related, through these I promoted Pro Bono O.R. and made lots of useful connections.  As you grow your connections LinkedIn will then suggest people you may want to connect to.  I have made some of my most valuable connections by this means and has led to some really successful Pro Bono O.R. projects which benefits the organisations, The OR Society and the volunteer.  LinkedIn is useful for sharing short updates, connecting with individuals and groups and sharing information and ideas.  A more recent feature which I like now enables you to write longer posts and you can monitor your views, likes and comments.

Lastly I started to write a blog.  Having never had any experience with blogs my first point of call was google for some tips!  I found a host site called blogger, built up my profile and got going.  What I found important about blogging was to use eye catching titles to entice your reader to open the link and read further.  Trying to write regularly e.g. once a week and keeping your blogs interesting is important.  As well as my own stuff I often share what others have been saying.  Once I write a blog I share the link on twitter and LinkedIn with a short summary to get the readers interest.  My blog is now the centre of my social media strategy where I get most engagement.  As a platform I can extend what I’ve said in other mediums and provide more breadth and depth of information. 

Over the last year I have learnt more about social media and I must say I think a lot of it is about giving it a go and learning as you go.  I use all the social mediums weekly and will adjust what I post depending on my audience and the medium.  Once you have your audience you need to keep them interested so I keep them updated about Pro Bono O.R. and things that are of interest in the third sector and O.R. community.

The reality is that, done effectively, social media success can be achieved in an easy, straightforward manner.   The key is start small and build your social media engagement slowly. 

The value of LinkedIn for Third Sector organisations

Having recently read Alex Swallow's post on 'How LinkedIn changed my life' it really struck me how valuable LinkedIn has been for Pro Bono O.R. (Operational Research). It has helped me build up connections with people I would never have been able to otherwise and has enabled me to explain what O.R. is and how it is and can really benefit Third Sector organisations in the UK.

To then back this up I then received an email yesterday from Karen Weaver (CEO of HARCVS) who has written an article on how LinkedIn offers opportunities for charities:

Linking In offers opportunities for charities

'Volunteers find their way to charities via many routes and of course take on a wide
variety of roles. In recent years social media has become a valuable additional channel and HARCVS has just benefited from excellent support from a volunteer which commenced with LinkedIn.'

To find out how Karen discovered Pro Bono O.R. and how the project went please read the following article on pages 6-7: Care in Action Newsletter