How I came to do what I love (Updated June 2011)
I came to do what I love not as a result of a grand plan nor promotions within organizations where I’ve worked. Rather, I came to do what I love as a result of strategies I developed and employed in support of my vision of connected, educated, and empowered citizens collaborating amongst themselves and with those who serve them towards common objectives.
Consistently these strategies have made it possible for me not only to do what I love, but also to work on progressively larger scales, expanding the impact of my work from my immediate neighbors to the entire nation.
These strategies are:
- Expand established professional roles to encompass more than is required or expected.
- Build teams and develop organizing models supported by social platforms to empower citizens and civil servants to connect, communicate, and collaborate on their own time and around common objectives.
- Engage influential individuals and leverage these relationships in support of my vision.
The following details illuminate how my career has progressed a result of those strategies:
On The Verge, Inc. Braintree, MA 2001 - 2006
As the Senior Associate, my role was to sell, consult, implement, train, and support work groups to leverage the ACT! contact management solution to manage relationships effectively with the goal of increasing sales and service delivery.
At On The Verge, I created a robust project management system to track the various stages of project life cycles, refined client management techniques to ensure satisfaction and maximize upsell opportunities, and developed an engaging training curriculum to ensure that my clients were empowered to succeed.
The result: I built a powerful referral network of satisfied clients and partners who in turn helped me to fulfill my revenue goals.
Neighbors for Neighbors, Inc., Boston, MA 2004 to Present
As the Founder and Volunteer Chief Executive Neighbor, I built and continue to direct the operation of social networksthat allow neighbors and civil servants to connect, share resources, and participate in activities with and for each other in the neighborhood where they live.August 2004: After two neighbors were robbed at gunpoint near a subway station, I distributed 500 fliers informing the community about what was happening in our neighborhood and inviting them to a community meeting with the police to discuss what we could do about crime prevention on a neighborhood level. At that meeting, sixty people came to learn what we as a community could do to protect ourselves: "Neighbors who know each other are more likely to look out for one another," said one of the police officers who attended that meeting and whose words have continued to guide my work. At the end of the meeting, I asked what neighbors felt the next step should be, and they suggested a neighborhood social where we could meet more of our neighbors. So we did. Ninety people came; thus, NFN was born.
After coordinating a few more neighborhood socials I again asked what our next step should be. They responded, "Let’s organize a meeting where we form groups that keep us together over time.” We did. Over the next two years each of our "Community Organizing Expos" were attended by over 250 neighbors.June 2006: I taught myself how to engage the media, and Neighbors for Neighbors began to have a major presence in the press. In a Boston Globe article titled "Mighty Neighborly: Social theory comes to life as communities fight crime", Thomas Sander, Executive Director of the Saguaro Seminar for Civic Engagement at Harvard stated, "What they've figured out how to do... is how to keep people together after the threat is gone." Not only were we able to figure out how to stay connected as a community, but our network of neighbors also continued to grow. This is what eventually led to my employment with the Boston Police Department.
Boston Police Department, Neighborhood Crime Watch Unit, Boston, MA. Program Coordinator. 2006 to 2008 February 2006: After seeing what my neighbors and I had accomplished, I happily accepted an invitation to be compensated monetarily for what I had loved to do in my free time. I was able to empower neighbors citywide to deter crime by increasing their connection to one another and the police in a fun and social way.My day-to-day duties required me to organize, promote, and attend up to three neighborhood meetings a week. Each year, I attended around 250 such meetings, built their first Contact Management Database system, e-newsletter,blog, and eventually, the first-ever law enforcement-sponsored neighborhood social network.
2007-2008: I was able to double the number of new groups the unit started each year, increased annual event fundraising from a $5000 to $30,000, and grew event participation from ten thousand to over fifty thousand people. In the pilot neighborhood where I developed what became known as the Coalition Organizing Model, the result was a 16% decrease in Part-1 crime over 12 months.This role was my first foray into a position that allowed me to combine my passion for community organizing, empowering the community, and facilitating government-to-citizen collaboration through social platforms.
The Nametag Project: US, Canada, and the UK, 2007. Founder and Nametag Evangelist Keeping in mind that neighbors who know each other are more likely to look out for each other, I embarked on an experiment to see if wearing a nametag would encourage just that. So I vowed to wear a nametag for all of 2007, and founded The Nametag Project.
Summer 2007: I pitched an idea to the Superintendent of the Bureau of Field Services at Boston Police: Nametag Day at Fenway Park. We handed out 10,000 nametags at Fenway Park during a Red Sox game with the help of 150 volunteers. By December of 2007, nearly 20,000 people had joined me in wearing nametags, and we received press coverage from The Boston Globe, National and Boston CBS and FOX Affiliates, NECN, The Hallmark Channel,The Miami Herald, and Vermont Public Radio.
Be the Change Inc./ServiceNation, Cambridge, MA. August 2008 to March 2009. Director of Online Operations and Partnerships August 2008: Emily Cherniak, Alan Khazie's Chief of Staff, whom I had meet the year prior called and said, "Joseph, we need your help now. McCain and Obama will be at our Summit in New York City in three weeks and our online presence is in shambles. Can you help us?" I quickly triaged their needs and focused my efforts on working with their vendor to complete their website before the summit.After establishing and maintaining their online presence, I was asked to go to New York for the summit to oversee their online operations. During the summit, I managed all content-capture, publishing, blogger relations, and live-streaming of the event on their website. When I returned home from New York, they officially hired me as their Director of Online Operations & Partnerships.
Over the next six months of the campaign, I directed and managed the development of ServiceNation.org through two more development iterations, including preparation for a massive surge in site traffic due to a possible Presidential “Call to Service”. I helped coordinate online service pledges between the White House, Facebook, and the Corporation for National and Community Service and coalition partners for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I also directed online operations for our seven official Presidential Inaugural events including a live broadcast with MTV at the Youth Ball.January 2009: Following the Presidential Inauguration and the passage of the Edward M. Kennedy Service Act of 2009, the needs of the organization changed and my position was dissolved. I took this opportunity to reinvest in Neighbors for Neighbors.
April 2009 to May 2010; Neighbors For Neighbors 2.0 Given the success of the Neighbors for Neighbors network in Jamaica Plain, I decided to take a risk and simultaneously build online social-networks and teams for every neighborhood in the City of Boston to empower a wider audience of neighbors and attempt to secure funding.Gina Bianchinni, the CEO of the Ning.com (the social networking platform that powers NFN) whom I had come to know, spoke about NFN at the Personal Democracy Forum in 2009. One of the audience members, Laurel Ruma from O’Reilly Media emailed me and encouraged me to present for the upcoming Gov 2.0 Expo.
September 2009: At the O’Reilly Media Gov. 2.0 Expo I demonstrated how Neighbors for Neighbors served as a powerful example of Gov 2.0 in action, how it expedites government and citizen communication and collaboration to solve problems. At the expo I networked and brainstormed with a great group of fellow innovators including Steve Reseller from GovLoop.com with whom I’ve continued to collaborate.
Related Videos:
September 2009; Velocity Saloon: When Gina Bianchinni was unable to attend CEO's for Cities Velocity Saloon(Grand Rapids, MI), I was asked to attend on her behalf. The goal of this event was to help Envision the “Good Life” in American Cities. This experience was invaluable to me. As the event unfolded, I got the distinct impression thatjust as thoughtful design and architecture are critical for cities to thrive, so is online social infrastructure and the ability to communicate and collaborate with one’s local government.October 2009; City of Boston and Neighbors for Neighbors Announces Official Partnership: On October 24, 2009, Mayor Thomas Menino, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis and I announced the Official Partnership between Neighbors for Neighbors and the City of Boston.
Related Video: Live Stream Archive of Announcement
December 2009; Blue Print For Service: Steven Rivelis, President of Campaign Consultations and former colleague from my work with Be The Change/ServiceNation, asked me to serve as Expert Facilitator for the Cities of ServiceBlue Print for Change Service Citizen Engagement workshops. In this role I helped attendees to think out-of-the-box to empower citizens to create solutions.May 2010; Ford Hall Forum: I was asked to help put together and present a panel titled “The Emerging ‘Fifth Estate’: Can the likes of Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks help solve real government problems?” at the Ford Hall Forum, the longest running public lecture series in our nation’s history.
Related Video: Archive of the Forum
Through my work on Neighbors for Neighbors, I established enough of a reputation as an innovator in government-to-citizen engagement that the Department of Homeland Security learned of my efforts.
May 2010 to January 2011; U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC. Community Engagement Strategist, Contractor.
Reporting to the White House Liaison and the Assistant Commissioner of Public Affairs of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Iserved as the department’s first Community Engagement Strategist. My role was to manage DHS’s first social network Our Border, and support the integration of social media into U.S. Customs and Border Protection public engagement programs, pilots, and campaigns.
February 2011 to Present; GovDelivery/GovLoop, Washington DC, Director of Professional Services.Upon recognizing overlapping professional passions, synergies, and the demand for government digital communication services, Scott Burns, CEO of GovDelivery, Steve Ressler, Founder of GovLoop.com, and myself, Joseph Porcelli, decided to formalize our relationship. In February, 2011, I joined the GovLoop and GovDelivery team as Director of Professional Services.Today, my team supports government organizations that want to incorporate multi-channel communication and engagement strategies deeper into the organization’s mission in order to expand program awareness, accelerate adoption of online services, support citizen engagement, improve citizen services, reduce service delivery costs, and complement and support existing staffing.What motivates me in this role is that I have an opportunity to help model how 21st century government engages its citizens, and transform how government develops outreach programs, campaigns, policies and operations per the White House Executive Orders Open Government Initiative and Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service.
In summary:
What excites and sustains me is the new spirit of transparency, participation, collaboration, and customers mandated by recent directives. This spirit, fueled by the needs, desires, and ambitions of fellow government and citizen innovators increases efficiency, effectiveness, trust, and empowers citizens - our nations greatest resource - to help themselves and each other.
My career has been propelled by the collective actions I’ve taken beyond the defined responsibilities of my professional roles and has been invigorated by social entrepreneurial initiatives I’ve founded and led. The wonderful network of “Power Neighbors” with whom I’ve enrolled have made critical introductions and amplified the reach of my story by publishing and inviting me to share what I’ve learned and accomplished with their broad audiences.
I envision spending the next ten years of my life continuing to develop integrated online and offline social platform-powered models that transform how government and citizens engage and evolve together to solve problems and fulfill opportunities.
