CPsquare Member Blogs

Katya Andresen, Guest Post: How to convince your skeptical boss social media has merit

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:00 GMT

Courtesy of Katya Andresen, publisher of Getting to the Point

I am asked almost weekly how to convince nonbelievers in an organization give social networking efforts a try. So I thought I’d answer that question here and as an upcoming guest post on Beth Kanter’s blog, since she’s likely given you many good ideas of how to use social media – and you’ve likely run into internal roadblocks on the road to Web 2.0.

1. Change the subject: If you’re having a debate over the value of social media, you’re having the wrong discussion. The discussion should be about your organization’s goals – with web 2.0 being the means, not the end (see #2).

2. Make it about what your boss already wants: Don’t position your web 2.0 idea as a social media initiative; frame it as your initiative to support your boss’s goals, in your boss’s language.

3. Make it about the audience: A good way to depersonalize the web 2.0 debate is to make it about your target audience’s preferences rather than a philosophical tug of war between you and said boss.

4. Sign your boss up to listen: Set up Google Alerts and TweetBeep for your boss, so she or he can see that there are already many discussions about your organization going on online. Once this apparent, two things are likely to happen. First, it will become clear that your organization no longer controls your message online – so worrying about social media causing a lack of control is not worth fearing. That day is already here. Second, it will be hard not to want to join those conversations online – which is what web 2.0 engagement is all about.

5. Set some ground rules: Set a social media policy for your organization, so it’s clear how to respond to what you’re hearing - and what types of initiatives have internal support.

6. Start clear and small: If you’re going to start an initiative, make it a small one with clear goals so you know how to measure success.

7. Report, report, report: Share every little bit of progress and give your boss credit for it!

Last – a word of caution. Don’t think you have all the answers. This isn’t a crusade, it’s a learning experience for everyone. You boss’s recalcitrance may be well founded. Make sure there IS a good case for your initiative and if it does fail, share and learn from what went wrong. There is no shame in gaining knowledge from mistakes – for you, or your boss.

Flickr photo credit: cbcastor by CC Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license

This article was originally posted on Getting to the Point at http://www.nonprofitmarketingblog.com/comments/how_to_convince_your_skeptical_boss_that_social_media_has_merit/ by Katya Andresen:

Katya, blogger, writer (Robin Hood Marketer), COO Network for Good.

Finding a balance in natural history programmes

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:25 GMT

I find TV programmes that are all doom and gloom regarding our natural world so deeply depressing I can't often watch, however shocking. So I find a personal dilemma in George Monbiot's challenge to the BBC. Should I enjoy 'beautiful thrilling programmes about the world's wildlife' or join Monbiot in calling for more acknowledgement and explanation of political and environmental contexts? I do think he has a good point but I also don't agree that people necessarily believe, as a result of seeing these programmes, that all is well with the world's ecosystems. My research has shown that people develop many simultaneous understandings about our enviornment, not just one, and I think there's plenty around that shows all is not well. Though if, as he says, no BBC programme has as yet taken a look at effects of climate change in East Africa then I also think that needs to be addressed.

Mixed messages on state of the future

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:00 GMT

Interesting article in The Independent on impacts of the recession on taking action concerning climate change.
On the one hand

...researchers warning that global clean energy, food availability, poverty and the growth of democracy around the world are at risk of getting worse due to the recession...too many greedy and deceitful decisions led to a world recession and demonstrated the international interdependence of economics and ethics

and on the other hand

The good news is that the global financial crisis and climate change planning may be helping humanity to move from its often selfish, self-centred adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood... Many perceive the current economic disaster as an opportunity to invest in the next generation of greener technologies, to rethink economic and development assumptions, and to put the world on course for a better future.

Frank Barry, Guest Post: 4 Keys to Building a Successful Nonprofit Web Site

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:00 GMT

Courtesy of Frank Barry, moderator of NetWits Think Tank

We recently launched a new blog here at Blackbaud Internet Solutions. It’s been an exciting endeavor and given us a lot of insight into using social media for nonprofits and fundraising! Our main goal is to help you learn how to leverage our technology and the tools that make up social media. With that in mind I’d like to share 4 Keys to Building a Successful Web Site based on similar tactics we’ve deployed on this blog.

Before we go too far, let me start by saying, “Content is King.” Without great content, the following tactics and tools are limited at best. Focus on producing great content all the time. Put these tools in place. Then use what you learn from them to grow your site! Off we go.

1) Learn From Your Content

If you’re not learning you’re getting dumber! Use Google Analytics (GA) to see things like how many unique visitors you’re getting, what content is being viewed the most, what keywords or phrases people are using to find you and where people are coming from when finding you. This information is invaluable to your nonprofit – Giving you the ability become more effective with your online efforts. You may not know exactly what to do with this data all the time, but to be without it is to let opportunities slip through your fingers.

Think about how you could use Google Analytics – learn from the content you’re publishing to promote your nonprofit's fundraising event. What content is being viewed for the longest time? What content is producing the desired action of registering, donating or taking action? How can you optimize, modify and adapt?

This is only a glimpse into what you can do with analytics. For real meat check out some of the below posts by Avinash Kaushik – this dude will make you drool over the possibilities!

Check out:

Google Analytics Maximized: Deeper Analysis, Higher ROI & You by Avinash Kaushik
8 Great tips and the resources to educate you on each of them. Plan on spending some time on this and blow your boss away next time you bring her your web stats and action plan!
How Thick is Your Head and How Long is Your Tail? by Avinash Kaushik
Once you’ve digested this article check out the rest of his site. There’s loads of geeky data stuff here that will make you look like an analytics rock star!
Six Recommendations For Measuring Your Success by Avinash Kaushik
You say you don’t have a blog, I say you should REALLY consider starting one. Either way, this post will give you things to think about.
17 statistics to monitor on your blog by Darren Rowse
I know you may not have a blog, but the info still applies and there is a lot of useful information here.
Get this Google Analytics FireFox extension – Great additions to what you can already do with Google Analytics.

2) Make Your Content Easy to Consume

Remember, “Content is King” so provide an easy way for readers to subscribe to yours. More and more people are reading content, your content, via RSS through tools like Google Reader so make it easy to find on every page of your site.

Tip: Use Google FeedBurner which will allow people to subscribe via RSS or email. You will also get some great statistics which will help you with number one above.

Another Tip: Not sure how to get RSS from the Blackbaud Sphere CMS. Check out How to Use RSS in Sphere.

Not sure what RSS is? Check out a great video by Common Craft: RSS in Plain English

3) Make Your Content Easy to Share

Use a social bookmarking plug-in like Add This so people who like your work can easily share with their network. Make sure to put this in an easily seen and easily accessed area of every piece of content. You don’t want to make it hard for your readers to share, do you? As with number one and two above you get additional statistics from Add This which further helps you to evaluate the impact of your web site and how you can continue improving.

Not sure what Social Bookmarking is? Check out a great video by Common Craft: Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Why Add This? See some of the reasons here. or just think about their current usage:

"AddThis buttons can be found on hundreds of thousands of websites, and are currently viewed over 20 billion times a month by users all over the world, in over 20 languages."

4) Make Yourself Easy to Find on the Social Web

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (know about the new nonprofit call to action), LinkedIn and Flickr are becoming exceedingly important to any nonprofits online presence. It’s likely your organization is already using one or more of these social networks to engage with supporters, spread your message or raise money. Chris Brogan likes to call these places “outposts”. Your main website should highlight your presence on these sites so that your readers can connect with you in social ways online – they want to get to know you and they want to see that you are doing creative things in fundraising.

Check out:

Creating Social Media Outposts on Luis Grays blog by Mike Fruchter
Social Media Outposts: Maintenance on Luis Grays blog by Mike Fruchter
Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy by Chris Brogan
Home Bases and Outposts - How I use Social Media in My Blogging by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger

Bonus:

Use a URL Shortening Services!

New services such as bit.ly, tinyurl and budurl are emerging. They allow you to take any URL and shrink it! For example you can take the link to this page which is normally pretty long and shrink it to this http://bit.ly/4webways. A couple great things you will love:

It’s easier for you to pass out in your newsletters, mailings and other printed publications
It’s easier for your readers to share
You get more statistics for analysis! (See #1 above).

From Read Write Web:

"We don't want to argue that Bit.ly is the next Google, but the technology it's brought to market could be very important in the indexing of the social web. Bit.ly shortens links so they are easier to share, like TinyURL. The service creates a redirect from a short Bit.ly link out to a longer link on any web page. Allong the way the service analyzes the page being linked to, pulls out the key concepts discussed on that page, and then provides real-time statistics about where the link is being shared and how many people are clicking on it."

Check out:

5 reasons Why URL Shorteners Matter by Mashable
Why URL Shorteners Might be Bad for the Web by Joshua Schachter founder of Delicious

These are 5 things that you can implement pretty simply. Don’t put them off. Have questions? Please ask below and I’ll do my best to help out.

What am I missing? I know you have some great tips to share with the community here so please take a minute and help us out.

This article was originally posted on NetWits Think Tank at http://bit.ly/HkGc2 by Frank Barry:

Frank is a Consulting Manager at Blackbaud Internet Solutions. At work he helps nonprofits with technology, social media & online strategy. He also spends some time speaking at industry conferences. The rest of the time he enjoys family, learning, sports, food, friends & movies.

Scott Henderson, Guest Post -- Rethinking Your Database: From Sacred Collection to Engaged Community

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:00 GMT

Courtesy of Scott Henderson, publisher of Rally the Cause

#1 Thing You Need To Know from This Post:
The single most important asset of any non-profit organization is its relationships with its volunteers, donors, and other stakeholders. If you treat these relationships like sacred data collections instead of an engaged community, you are at risk of becoming irrelevant.

A More Detailed Exploration:
I spend a good portion of my time traveling across the country to attend conferences and meet with clients and prospective clients. Even in this digital era, the custom of exchanging printed business cards is alive and well. As you can see from the photo to the right, I have quite the collection.

But don’t confuse that collection of cards for a robust network of strong relationships. Getting the card is just like adding a new person to your organization’s database. If you do nothing to build the relationship, that business card becomes an artifact proving very little other than that you once had contact with the person.

The Historical Role of the Database
Common wisdom says that you can measure an organization by the number of people who are in its database. Historically, a central staff maintained this database and treated it like a sacred collection of artifacts. In an era when information didn’t flow so easily and it was very difficult to connect with people you’d never met, protecting that collection of records at all costs was a self-evident truth. After all, these records had taken a great deal of work to assemble and represented the lifeblood of your organization.

The Fundamental Shift Happening
Then something funny happened. The Internet made it much easier for individuals to connect with each other. With 1 billion owning personal computers, 1.5 billion having Internet access, almost 4 billion owning mobile phones, and easy-to-use software tools to connect and communicate using these devices, your expectations of the world around you have changed.

You expect to have much greater intimacy and immediacy with those people and organizations you care about. And, you’re not alone. Your donors, volunteers, and potential key stakeholders have the same growing expectations. Now, we can all search for long-lost friends as well as new and interesting people. It just takes a Google search or looking around on Facebook or Twitter to make them magically appear in front of you.

With the advent of opt-in communications, you now have access to a meta-database that includes much more robust information about your stakeholders, which they are freely sharing with you across many different online platforms…if you are on these sites and actively listening.

Accepting the Reality of Self-Organized Swarms
Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this Interconnected Age is how easy it has become for a small group of people to reach out thru their existing network of relationships to create awareness for a cause, layout the vision for leading this cause, and then assemble a mass of champions to achieve their goals.

No longer are these people waiting for non-profit organizations to reach out to them with your glossy annual report and well-crafted annual appeal letter. They are seeing the need and organizing their own armies. These self-organized swarms are a reality and will become even more prevalent.

“Mr. or Mrs. Non-Profiteer, Tear Down This Wall!”
The time has come to tear down the mental walls that you and your leadership team have constructed around the relationships most important to you. I’m NOT saying that you put your database out on the web naked as a jay bird for all to see. What I am saying is:

Stop treating your database as a sacred collection of data controlled by you and begin to see it for what it has always been: a dynamic record of the engaged community who want to help you achieve your mission.

You can’t just measure that community based on database records. You need to also consider the interaction you have with the people who have joined your Facebook Fan page, subscribe to your Flickr account, watch your YouTube channel, follow your Twitter stream, and choose to invite you into their lives from their online platform of choice.

This is critical for your organization to stay relevant, because it is this mosaic of relationships that you can use to mobilize people to rally around your cause. If you’re not doing it, someone else will.

A Sneak Peak of the Pledge to End Hunger Campaign Case Study
This spring when we launched the Pledge to End Hunger campaign (www.pledgetoendhunger.com) to coincide with the South By Southwest Interactive Festival, one of our main goals was to better understand how social media can be used to help non-profit organizations and cause marketing campaigns. [For a campaign summary, I recommend this post on Beth Kanter’s Blog.)

While we’re in the process of finalizing the campaign case study to share with you and the rest of the world, I do have some interesting data to share with you now regarding this topic of databases. One key thing we were seeking to determine was which would generate more traffic to the campaign website: existing email databases or Twitter followers.

Cultivated vs. Non-Cultivated Emails
Between the for-profit and non-profit organizations leading the Pledge to End Hunger, we had seven existing email address databases. Five of the seven databases had been cultivated thru ongoing email correspondences and had a demonstrated affinity for one of the organizations leading the campaign. The other two databases were a collection of people who had participated in eBay charity auctions and had little to no affinity to the organization keeping the database.

We consider the first five to be cultivated databases and the other two non-cultivated. All together, these databases totaled 132,831 names, with 57,831 from cultivated databases and 75,000 from non-cultivated databases.

Email Databases vs. Meta-Databases
To compare the results of these email databases, we put them against the Twitter audience of the fifty people who stepped forward as #HungerPledge champions. These were individuals from different geographic areas representing many different industry verticals who were willing to promote the campaign thru Twitter and blogs (if they published one). Collectively, they had contact with almost 208,000 people thru Twitter alone.

In the first seven days of the campaign, we used email and Twitter equally, so let’s compare the three in that period of time. So which database prevailed: cultivated emails, non-cultivated emails, or Twitter?

- 57,831 cultivated email addresses generated 2,204 visitors at a 3.8% conversion rate.

- 75,000 non-cultivated email addresses generated 19 visitors at a .03% conversion rate.

- 207,426 Twitter followers generated 4,154 visitors at a 2.0% conversion rate.

Conclusions from This Data
1. All Databases Are Not Created Equal - Organizations who cultivate their relationships with those in their email databases can mobilize a higher percentage of their known stakeholders when compared to individuals who mobilized their general Twitter audiences and even more than non-cultivated email databases.

2. You Don’t Need an Email Database – Social media makes it easier to tap into people’s existing relationships. Using fifty individuals, we amassed a larger audience and generated more site visitors than the seven existing email databases.

I’m sure there are many more great conclusions to be made here, so let me know what you think. Plus, here’s your chance to add to my broader thoughts about databases or (even better) challenge my notions.

Find me on Twitter: @scottyhendo

This article was originally posted on Rally the Cause at http://rallythecause.com/2009/07/05/rethinking-your-database-from-sacred-collection-to-engaged-community/ by Scott Henderson:

Scott is a cause marketing director for MediaSauce, helping non-profits and corporations use online media to pull off their next big thing.

Swine Flu Vaccination Plan

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:26 GMT

UK Swine Flu Vaccination Plan

As I write, a massive vaccination plan is swinging into action for the UK. There has been a noticable media cautiousness when reporting the swine flu story in recent weeks, perhaps a responsible reaction to a perception of over hype when the epidemic was still very young. This is ending now as daily reports of increasing fatality numbers roll in. People are understandably worried and cannot understand why schools and workplaces are not closing where the swine flu has taken victime, to help prevent the spread of the virus. In fact, any idea of containing the outbreak has now been dropped. It's too late, the disease cannot be contained, it has already spread widely. What would happen if we all stayed away from school and work for two weeks? – an interesting question but the emphasis now is on trying to keep serious cases to a minimum, and on vaccination.

The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population.

GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign.

Dr Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead negotiator on swine flu, who has been attending Department of Health meetings on the outbreak, said GPs’ surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years. Although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups. First, the jabs would reduce the chances of a shortage of hospital beds because of people suffering from swine flu. Second, it would reduce the effect on the economy by ensuring workers were protected from the virus.

“The high-risk groups will be done at GPs’ surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent.”

Holden said it was likely the elderly would be given their seasonal flu jab as well as the swine flu vaccination. The new vaccine is likely to require two doses.

Five Days Safety Fast Track for Swine Flu Vaccine

The swine flu vaccine will be safety tested and fast-tracked for use in Britain within just five days once it is developed.

In the week after the fictional Torchwood – Children of Earth, was shown on TV, with a government using an emergency vaccination programme as the cover story for taking ruthless action against their own population, people will want to know more about this vaccination programme before submitting their familes to it.

Some of the main questions will be:

What are the aims and objectives of the vaccination programme?
How safe is it, what are the risks?
Will the vaccine protect against a future, more virulent strain of the A (H1N1) virus widely expected?
If I've already had swine flu do I need to take the vaccine?

Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blog

Swine Flu Vaccination Plan

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-12

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

Engaged in our informal weekly cohort chat via Adobe Connect. #
What a fast day. Mowed the lawn, went to the hardware store, picked up some pizza, and did draft 1 of my article revision. Enough for today. #
Revising that article that almost gave me a breakdown yesterday. #

Next: Canada, US, and Iceland

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:23 GMT

As indicated in a 140 char note on Twitter, I'm leaving Europe. For a month, that is. I am going on a flight/roadtrip, part work, part vacation. Locationwise roughly as follows: Toronto from July 17th to 25th. Washington, DC from July 26th to 31st. Ottawa from July 31st to August ...

Alexandra Rampy, Guest Post: The Cool Factor About Mobile

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:00 GMT

Courtesy of Alexandra Rampy, publisher of SocialButterfly

Mobile. What do we do with this one word? We CAN do so much. Rather than go on, instead, I want to give some examples and highlight the cool factor of how mobile can add some out-of-the-box type thinking to an overall health and/or social marketing-related initiative.

(Granted, any initiative must go beyond cool, and must not be done solely for the cool factor. But, for creative juices, let’s show off some coolness.)

****************

Organization(s): The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the University of Georgia’s New Media Institute
Objective: Get the word out about National HIV Testing Day

Cool Factor: Personal PSAs, 24 Hours, and Collaboration.

In one day, more than 20 students from 6 universities and five AIDS organizations hit the streets with only cellphone video cameras to produce 8 short video messages to encourage youth to be tested for HIV. (Personal PSAs are those shared via mobile and social networks, in addition to being user-generated.)

****************

Organization(s): University of Auckland Clinical Trials Research Unit and Healthphone Solutions
Objective: Using Mobile SMS Technology to increase individual smoking cessation success.

Cool Factor: Txt2Quit. 480 Customized Text Messages. 26 Week Program.

This is a tested and research-based product produced to help individuals quit smoking. The program was presented at the Texting for Health Conference this past February, and hopes to provide the tool in multiple languages as well!

****************

Organization(s): The 2007 Live Earth Concerts, The Ethical Reputation Index and LightSpeed Research
Objective: 1) Measure the effectiveness among 18-45 year olds of event sponsorship and advertising in real-time and 2) Measure this audience’s interest in green issues raised by the global concerts and sponsors.

Cool Factor: Mobile as a research tool.

The first example was using mobile to raise awareness and increase a call to action. The second example offered a product to those working to stop smoking. This example expands the uses of mobile by showing how it can be used as a medium to conduct research. In case your curious, the response rate was 20% and most notably, the research was done, fast, with results given that same day.

****************

Organization(s): The Fair & Lovely Foundation and Hindustan Unilever Limited
Objective: Increase the visibilty and utilization of the Fair & Lovely Foundation’s scholarship program among women and girls in low-income groups in rural and urban India.

Cool Factor: Cost Effective. Wide Reaching. Full Approach.

All elements of mobile marketing were utilized in this campaign: an SMS Blast, SMS Shortcode (a code word/number individuals can respond to), interactive voice response, banner advertising, a microsite and the Lead Capturing Zone that induced the call to action for individuals to apply for the scholarship. As a result, over 44,000 student applied in 1.5 months and 2 million page impressions were gained from the banner advertising.

****************

Organization(s): Macmillan Cancer Support
Objective: Provide an alternative route to collect donations for those not wanting to donate online via credit or debit card.

Cool Factor: Mobile as a fundraising channel.

For this organization and through this campaign, SMS donations was the most successful mechanism with 59% of donations being made through text.

****************

Organization(s): Save the Children and Verizon Wireless
Objective: Provide lifesaving assistance during the natural disasters that occurred in China and Myanmar.

Cool Factor: Assists during times of emergency.

Individuals could text 4SAVE with the word ‘quake’ to donate to earthquake relief or the keyword ‘cycloce’ to contribute to the cyclone relief. Upon texting, a reply asking for confirmation will be sent and a $5 donation will be added to the person’s phone bill.

****************

Organization(s): Major universities and colleges across the country.
Objective: Implement an emergency notification system for all the University campus community.

Cool Factor: Campus Alert System. Emergency Preparedness.

Across the country, universities and colleges are implementing emergency alert systems through mobile and email technology to prevent another Virginia Tech tragedy. It’ll be interesting to see how other systems and institutions implement a similar strategy.

****************

Organization(s): mGive & Keep A Child Alive, mGive & the Washington Nationals, The MLB and the Children’s National Medical Center, mGive & The All-Star Game, Stand Up for Cancer, and Make a Wish Foundation
Objective: mGive & Keep A Child Alive: Move people to donate during Alicia Key ‘As I Am’ tour; mGive & the Washington Nationals: When the Nationals play the Houston Astros, fans will be asked to donate to the Children’s National Medical Center to fight pediatric diabetes through a mobile/text campaign; mGive & The All-Star Game, Stand Up for Cancer, and Make a Wish Foundation: fans will be asked to donate to these two non-profits during the All-Star game through a mobile program.

Cool Factor: Mobile Giving. Integrated Marketing.

Mobile giving is now becoming a trend. Through the Alicia Keys mobile campaign, over $40,000 was raised to support Keep a Child Alive. mGive itself is a social giving company that helps non-profits utilize mobile technology to increase their fundraising efforts. To see the latest campaigns (including combining broadcast television commercials with a mobile call to action), check out their blog. The Mobile Giving Foundation currently keeps a list of all 36 ongoing mobile giving campaigns.

****************

Organization(s): The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Objective: Provide a home site for of CDC’s mobile information about hurricane preparedness and the flu season.

Cool Factor: Government Goes Mobile.

Due to the increasing amount of dangerous hurricane like Katrina, Gustav and Ike, the CDC recently created a mobile Web site to further assist during times of emergency. I see this site growing as the use of mobile increases, but it’s a great first step and a good role model for other government agencies.

***************

Organization(s): Meir Panim (Network of Soup Kitchens in Israel)
Objective: Increase donations for the soup kitchens, while also communicating an individual’s impact on the cause.

Cool Factor: Shows Impact on the Spot.

Meir Panim ran an interactive campaign with banner advertisements asking individuals to ‘SMS for Lunch‘ a promotional interactive campaign: On their website a boy was featured, facing an empty plate. The site encouraged donations and once the system received the SMS, the banner changed to show a full plate of food with the boy smiling. Talk about realtime impact!

***************

The Mobile Marketing Association provides a larger list of mobile initiatives, separated by industry.
The Mobile Giving Foundation currently keeps a list of all 36 ongoing mobile giving campaigns.
The blog MobileActive.org has a directory listing of non-profits using mobile technology, as well as a list of tools and vendors.

From these examples, we’ve seen how mobile technology can be used to:

Raise Awareness.
Provide a product.
Be an instrument for research.
Be cost-effective, fast, and provide results.
Be a fundraising tool.
Be creative.
Encourage mobile giving.
Extend a current campaign.
Be another medium to integrate into a marketing program.

What other mobile campaigns exist that you think have an extra dose of the cool factor?

Flickr photo credit: Milica Sekulic by CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license

This article was originally posted on SocialButterfly at http://www.fly4change.com/http:/www.fly4change.com/the-cool-factor-about-mobile/213 by Alexandra Rampy:

Alex Rampy is a social marketing believer, blogger, practitioner, researcher and enthusiast who works and writes on social marketing, social change and social media initiatives.

Frank Barry, Guest Post: 4 Facebook Tips for Nonprofit Success – See What Others are Doing

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:00 GMT

Courtesy of Frank Barry, Moderator of NetWits Think Tank

Facebook is an ever growing force in the internet space and it looks like it will be for a while. With 200 Million users (and growing) it’s hard to ague otherwise. Facebook is also a great tool for nonprofits. It’s free, it gives you an immediate way to build a tribe and engage people in online community. Facebook also gives others the ability to share their affinity to you with their friends, family and co-workers. That said, you can’t just throw up a page and expect to be successful. You have to be thoughtful, strategic and knowledgeable. Four tips to help you get started.

1. Create a Page not a Group or Cause

Facebook pages give you a ton of great features that Groups and Causes do not. There is a place for each of the Facebook page types, but the generic “Facebook page” is the place to start. Here are a few reasons why:

You get a friendly URL like http://www.facebook.com/your-nonprofit-name-here
People can find you via Google. More people can find out about your Nonprofit because your Facebook Page gets indexed and is searchable inside and outside (i.e. Google) of Facebook. Which also means you can boost your search engine rankings (SEO).
No limit on the number of people who can express their support for your nonprofit by becoming your fan
Pages Have Access to Users’ Feeds - When Facebook users become a “fan” of your nonprofit page, they will be notified of your status updates every time you make one! Then they can comment, share and/or like your wall posts which then shares it with all their friends – now that’s viral.
Communicate with your fans regularly just to stay in touch or with special news, offers and information.
All the great features of Facebook are available - writing on the Wall, uploading photos, and joining discussion groups.
Add applications to your Page and engage your users with videos (YouTube Box), photos (Flickr Box) reviews, flash content, and more.
Integrate your blog/web site content via Blog RSS Feed Reader

Examples of Great Nonprofit Facebook Pages:

Excited to get started ... Create a page here

2. Participate and be a community like the Lance Armstrong Foundation

Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) is doing a great job participating and building community with their Facebook page. If you take a look at their page you’ll notice that there are hundreds if not thousands of people interacting there (I’ve added an image to the right – notice the red box towards the bottom). It’s not just LAF “shouting out” or broadcasting to their fans. As a matter of fact you’ll notice that the LIVESTRONG representative is talking with the people, sharing things, commenting, liking wall posts and more. They are fully interacting.

So what’s that mean for you?

Be active daily. Share news, video, photos, stories and what ever else makes sense for your organization.
Engage with your fans. Comment on their wall posts. Like things they share. Help people connect with others.

3. Get folks to engage with you in more than one way like the ONE Campaign

Check out the ONE Campaign Facebook page. Did you see that? They set up their page to go to a custom tab where they show people how to engage with them beyond Facebook. They do this with compelling imagery, a simple form and the ability to get to their main web site. Very nice!

Why is this important? Because we know that email is still a HUGE way people like to be communicated with. According to the “eNonprofit Benchmarks Study” done by NTEN (shout out to Holly Ross) email is still the “killer app” that reaches the most people. Open rates and click-throughs are holding steady.

We also know that having a ‘home base’ is vital to internet longevity. Facebook is an outpost, but your main web site should provide people with added value and ways to connect with your organization.

4. Stats, stats, stats …

Facebook Pages give you stats!! Awesome, I know. Administrators have the ability to see how well their wall posts and content are engaging people through the recently updated “Insight Portal”. You may be thinking “why do stats matter?”

As I discussed in a recent post (see 4 Keys to Building a Successful Nonprofit Web Site) stats are key to helping you improve your web site or in this case your Facebook page. By understanding your activity and performance, fan response, trends and comparisons, you are better equipped to improve your presence on Facebook. Actually, this data will likely help you improve your overall web efforts! Use the stats to gain valuable insight into what your constituents like, what type of content they interact with the most, what they tend to share with their friends and, maybe most importantly, what they don’t like.

See a sample of what the stats look like here

What is measured you ask?

User exposure- Actions and overall behavior relating to your Facebook Page.
Total Interactions - The total interactions metric captures all of the feedback Pages receive from Facebook users. Including media consumption and interactions per post, as well as the number of fans who have hidden you from their stream.
This number measures the aggregate count of Wall posts, Likes, Discussion posts and comments on any content such as photos, videos, notes or links in the past 7 days.
The goal of the metric is to provide an updated snapshot into how fans are engaging with your Page’s content.
Demographic Information - The locale breakdown and demographic information offers you access to detailed data about your fan base in an effective way that isn’t available on any other site.
Post Quality Score - One of the most important new metrics to pay attention to is your post quality score. That score measures how engaging your posts have been to users in the last 7 days. Posts that generate a high number of interactions (such as comments or Likes) per fan will improve the post quality score. Posts that do not draw interactions from fans will lower the post quality score.

Facebook offers many more great features, but I believe these are critical for nonprofit success on Facebook. If you don’t get these things right chances are you will have less of an impact on the community of people you are trying to engage and impact.

More Resources (I’d go through them in this order):

More on Social Media Strategy for Nonprofits:

Flickr photo credit: metaweb20 by CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

This article was originally posted on NetWits Think Tank at http://www.netwitsthinktank.com/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ifINKZOzFmG&b=4487123&content_id={EA4438F2-2529-4379-8A32-16EBD5D5BF90}¬oc=1 by Frank Barry:

Frank is a Managing Consultant at Blackbaud - Internet Solutions. He Blogs at http://www.netwitsthinktank.com, regularly speaks at nonprofit conferences and loves to see how technology helps nonprofits further their mission.

Pragmatism as an Episode of Constructivism

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:04 GMT

I am chatting with some colleagues right now, and explaining what I meant when earlier this week I referred to pragmatism as an episode of constructivism.

Pragmatism is a worldview or philosophy that is concerned with the application of what works in this or that context. If pragmatism is a paradigm that Creswell, in his Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, has separated out from the others (like positivism or critical theory), then it occurred to me that pragmatism is doing something based completely on the context. In other words, it is constructing a method or approach to an issue as needed. This sounds surprisingly like constructivism, just reconstructed in time as needed and when needed.

Thus, pragmatism is an episode of constructivism.

Nancy Schwartz, Guest Post: Don't Even THINK about Social Media until Your Web Site and E-news Are Working Well

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:00 GMT

Courtesy of Nancy Schwartz, publisher of Getting Attention

We have a family membership at an upstate New York sculpture center featuring outside exhibitions. It's a unique and beautiful place; one we can't visit that often (it's an hour away) but a venue we want to support. We joined for the first time this year.

The center has an incredible reputation -- because it's so unique and beautiful -- which has carried it far. So as a member, I expected to have the pleasure of a compelling series of communications, online and off. Didn't happen. Here's what did:

We received a thank you note for our membership (thumbs up) but it didn't mention any upcoming exhibits or events (where was the call to action, the opportunity to get involved at the next level?).
I went to the Web site but saw only an incomplete calendar of events for the next week (there are lots of concerts, tours, child projects there). The center is more than an hour away from the NY metro area, so most visitors have to plan ahead. It's not a drop-in experience. That's hard to do without advance notice.
So I emailed requesting to be put on the e-news list (didn't see where to subscribe online). But there's no e-news! Instead, I was told that they do have a twice-yearly print newsletter, the next issue coming in a few months but they'd be pleased to send me the last one.
Yet, the center has an active Facebook fan page (for those members and interested others who are even on Facebook), with 1,045 fans to date. I wonder how many members that includes; Storm King never told us about its Facebook page in any member communications.
Then we just received a full-color 16-page annual report, printed on heavy paper, featuring 10 pages of donors names. Expensive to produce and mail, but it has no value to me.

Even though we can assume every org has a range of target audiences, members have to be a priority for every arts and culture organization. For this one, we don't seem to be.

Here's what I recommend to the center:

List out the three or fewer target audiences you need to engage more effectively in order to meet the center's current goals. Members should be on the list. Then learn their habits and preferences (e.g. e-news vs. Facebook fan page).
Figure out how to engage current members so they become even more loyal. Make it easy for them (i.e. with advance notice of events) to become more involved. Make them/us want to be marketing messengers for the center.
Ensure your Web site and e-news (and despite the challenges of getting attention via email, you gotta have one) are tight, focused, timely and working for your organization...before you even stick a toe into social media waters.

Please share your suggestions for the center. What would you do if you were them? Tell us by clicking Comments below.

NOTE: Here are some brief guides to strengthening your Web site and e-news. For more, subscribe here to the Getting Attention e-update!

Flickr photo: al binami, View CC license

This article was originally posted on Getting Attention at http://www.gettingattention.org/my_weblog/2009/06/no-social-media-until-your-web-site-and-enews-are-working-well.html by Nancy Schwartz:

Nancy E. Schwartz helps nonprofits succeed through effective marketing and communications as the publisher of the Getting Attention blog and e-newsletter (www.gettingattention.org), and as President of New York City-based Nancy Schwartz & Company (NS&C)

Fast Company recommendation

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:13 GMT

I just noticed that Fast Company expert blogger Thomas Clifford has listed Shawn as one of 7 interesting storytellers to follow on Twitter. I better start following him :-)

The importance of deliberate practice

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:49 GMT

It took me a little while to work out what was happening. I snapped my first photo of the motor scooter with clip board attached in Soho but I only got a fleeting glance and then he was gone.

But my next sighting was far more informative. This time the motorcyclist was parked so I asked about the clipboard and what he was doing. It turned out he was learning to become a London taxi driver; he was learning was they call, "the knowledge."

It takes between 2 and 4 years to learn the 320 routes (they call them runs) required to pass the tests. The student is given 20 runs at a time to memorise and they ride their scooters along the routes remembering the vagaries of one-way streets and where the traffic jams happen, as well as the notable sights a tourist might want to see. The guy I was chatting to said the first 20 runs seem like a jumble but when you learn the next set of 20 patterns begin to emerge as one run partially coincides with another.

I've just finished reading Geoff Colvin's book, Talent is Overrated. His central theme (which I believe is shared by Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which I haven't read yet), is that high performers are not merely naturally talented (and perhaps talent has little to do with it), but they also engage in deliberate practice. That is, they design and perform a program of activities focussed on developing specific skills. For these future black cabbies they were deliberately developing their navigation skills in the pursuit of passing a test and at the same time actually enlarging part of their brain.

In Colvin's book I was taken with the story of how Benjamin Franklin developed himself a program for improving his writing skills.

“First, he found examples of prose clearly superior to anything he could produce, a bound volume of the Spectator, the great English periodical written by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Any of us might have done something similar. But Franklin then embarked on a remarkable program that few of us would ever have thought of.

It began with his reading a Spectator article and making brief notes on the meaning of each sentence; a few days later he would take up the notes and try to express the meaning of each sentence in his own words. When done, he compared his essay with the original, ‘discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.’

One of the faults he noticed was his poor vocabulary. What could he do about that? He realized that writing poetry required an extensive “stock of words” because he might need to express any given meaning in many different ways depending on the demands of rhyme or meter. So he would rewrite Spectator essays in verse. Then, after he had forgotten them, he would take his versified essays and rewrite them in prose, again comparing his efforts with the original. ”

This has got me thinking about what would a program of deliberate practice for developing your storytelling skills look like. Any suggestions?

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-11

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

New comment on “Ortega y Gasset and Pragmatism as an Episode of Constructivism” http://bt.io/j0 #
2 new comments on “Silence and Voice” and more http://bt.io/ge #

Next Generation EA

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:05 GMT

Come join us for Architecture Friday in Antwerp on 26 June about next generation enterprise architecture, as seen by two Australians and a Dane: Peter Bernus (wp) and Pat Turner, and me. If you want to participate, get in touch (you may get a discount code!). Peter Bernus chairs IFIP WG5.12 ...

Marc van Bree, Guest Post: Social media, money and the mission statement

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:00 GMT

Submitted by Marc van Bree, editor of Dutch Perspective

During last week’s League of American Orchestras conference, I was following the session on social networking on Twitter. Mark Pemberton, who tweets @aborchestras, asked where the “business” is in social media. In a blog post on the League’s conference blog, he wrote:

I found today’s Social Networking session interesting up to a point. But Russell Jones was spot on in his cry of “what about the dollars?” The speakers kept talking about the “new business model.” But Facebook and Twitter have no business model! They have no means of generating income.

Here is an excerpt of what I commented on his post:

Social networking is not “a business model.” Social networking is a tactic or tool in your strategy. Most managers will want to see dollars coming in from social networking in the short term. But that is exactly the wrong approach. Social media is not a short term solution. To think so is short-sighted.

Going into social media with the objective to sell tickets is, in my opinion, wrong as well.

There is a lot of pressure in marketing and public relations departments of orchestras to sell tickets. Fewer subscriptions bought and more single tickets to sell means more and harder selling. It’s not surprising that a lot of managers look at social media as an addition to their marketing and sales efforts.

In these departments, it might almost seem that selling tickets is the organization’s mission statement. I was glad to see another post on the League’s conference blog. Alan Jordan posted the following:

A constituency session comment re-iterated a line shared with me a long time ago from a concert hall manager in Concord, NH who passed away from cancer a few years back: the official moniker for 501(c)3s is not “non-profit,” but “not for profit.” For profit firms are obligated to their shareholders to produce results. We are obligated to the public to produce results, and those results are not necessarily—and most beneficially—financial ones.

In my comment to Mark Pemberton, I continued:

Although nonprofits need to make money to operate, they are not here for profits. Social networking/media can help you in your core mission: bringing art and music to people. It can extend the life of a performance and engage and build communities. And that’s a goal or objective too.

Beth Kanter writes about return on investment on the NTEN blog and hits the nail on its head:

If you approach ROI as a financial analysis only, you’re missing the point. An ROI process focuses on identifying and unpacking the benefits of efficiency and effectiveness and how these support your organization’s mission.

Well, what is your organization’s mission exactly? Let’s look at some of the mission statements from orchestras around the country:

New York
To maintain and foster an interest in the enjoyment of music and musical affairs, and to inculcate in its members in the community of New York city and the nation at large, an interest in symphony music and in order to foster such interest and the appreciation of music, among other things to cause the performance of symphonic and other musical performances in the concert and other halls, over the radio, television, by phonographic recordings, and in any other manner now known or hereafter to be.

Chicago
The central mission of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is to present classical music through the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Chicago, national and international audiences.

London
The LSO’s mission is to give the finest performances of music and make them available to the greatest number of people.

These statements speak of bringing art to communities and audiences the world over. While ticket sales and revenue are important for the financial stability of the organization, the statements do not mention financials.

Clearly, the New York Philharmonic’s statement was written decades ago—yet still pertinent—and I particularly like “in any other manner now known or hereafter to be.” Let’s add the Internet to the list.

Alexandra Samuel has an interesting article at the Harvard Business blog on why nonprofits are so good at social media. Although the article should have been more appropriately named why nonprofits are uniquely primed to be good at social media—because not many are so good—she does bring up a couple of excellent points. Alexandra writes that “in the nonprofit sector, relationships have always been the key currency.” How can social media build upon those relationships? She outlines five points, three of which I thought particularly noteworthy:

Engage your audience by speaking to their core concerns: What do your customers care about most, and how can you speak to those concerns?

Offer a mix of tangible and social benefits: What tangible benefits can you offer that will encourage their participation?

Innovate within the bounds of your core mission: What value or services do you offer that could be delivered through a social network or online community?

In the SWOT analysis found in my Orchestras and New Media e-book, I look at some of the market opportunities best suited to company strengths and capabilities: maintain strong relationships with patrons; extend the life of a performance; and open the door to other geographic and demographic markets. (Read the e-book for particular examples.)

Sure, it is okay to think about monetizing these market opportunities to strengthen your financial base, but more importantly, you should start thinking about how they can help your organization’s core mission of providing classical music to audiences in your community and around the world.

That’s your first order of business. Heck, that’s why you’re in business.

Above photo credit: amandabhslater by CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

This article was originally posted on Dutch Perspective at http://mcmvanbree.com/dutchperspective/archives/200906_id361.htm by Marc van Bree:

Dutch native Marc van Bree is a public relations practitioner in Chicago with more than 5 years of experience communicating—on and offline—in the nonprofit environment. Find him on Twitter @mcmvanbree

Lucy Bernholz, Guest Post: More thoughts on what is next

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:00 GMT

Submitted by Lucy Bernholz, publisher of Philanthropy 2173

[Cross posted from SSIR]

"Green Shoots" for New Philanthropic Forms

I’ve been writing about information as the currency of change for a long time. Everything I have seen in philanthropic innovation in the last two decades is predicated on this simple observation—there are two kinds of philanthropy products: financial products and information products. They used to be bundled together, in the form of foundation staff, personal advisors, or community foundation program officers. In these forms a donor got both services—a place to manage the financial assets that fueled their philanthropy and professional advice on strategy, grants, and outcomes.

In the early 1990s the advent of national donor advised funds showed that a huge market existed for unbundled products—donors would eagerly purchase the financial product by itself. Several billions of dollars in charitable assets were soon being managed through Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard and others who provide best-in-class financial accountability, responsiveness, and transaction processing, with no promises of strategic advice, support or other types of information products. The market worked—we’ve had two decades of new innovations, new customers, and new financial products for donors.

Nowadays, some of the same technological advances that led to scalable efficiencies in transaction processing are beginning to shape the landscape for information products and service providers. First, the broad and deep adoption of broadband access and a decade plus of online banking, travel booking, emailing and searching have changed our collective expectations about where information lives, how to get it, and whom to trust. Second, the massive storage and searching capacities that underlie systems like GuideStar now make it a commonplace assumption that basic information on nonprofit organizations should be only a “click away.”

From these “expectational starting points” new behaviors begin to sprout, leading to the possibility of new products. If financial information is a click away, why not more nuanced information? This leads to systems like DonorEdge or Blackbaud’s Nonprofit Central. If there is “professional vetted information available,” why not the insights of customers or volunteers, leading to innovations such as GreatNonprofits or Keystone’s constituent response work. And if I can get information on one nonprofit, why can’t I find lots of options for action in one place (SocialActions.org) or compare the work of multiple efforts (New Philanthropy Capital’s reports or Acumen’s Pulse system)?

These are exciting developments. And they are built around data—data that can be found, compared, searched, mashed up, re-purposed, questioned, and applied. The data are the currency of change.

And rest assured, today’s data systems and information products are just the beginning. How we use these products, build off these services, interact with them as individual donors or change makers, or iterate entire new organizational forms on top of them is what the future holds. The information products for better giving are not as good as they will be, we have not yet seen all of the forms they will take, nor are they widely deployed or integrated into other financial management tools. Yet.

But we’re getting there. In which case the landscape for philanthropic giving—the structures and tools that donors use to organize, aggregate, learn, give, and bank (literally) their philanthropic financial resources will change yet again. This might explain why we’ve seen a notable rise in independent philanthropic advisory firms (SeaChange Capital Partners, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors) in the last five years, why online giving markets (such as GlobalGiving and Kiva) have taken off, or why the never-ending stream of new social media tools are all quickly unleashed for giving-related purposes (Facebook Causes, Twitter fundraising, and blog/badge challenges). And it might be inciting new forms from familiar ones—new roles for community foundations or new services from donor advised fund vendors.

We should also plan on this changing landscape of information being full of the seeds of new forms. If you imagine that any donor, anywhere, has quick, easy access to meaningful, comparable, useful data on organizations they could support and issues they care about, what kind of philanthropic entity, service provider, financial tool, public/private partnership, broker, deal platform or relationship builder would you build? That is the question we all need to ask, no matter where we work in philanthropy now, because that is the well-seeded field on which all existing philanthropic enterprises are now playing. And that is the question that some innovator, somewhere, is working on, right now, in the proverbial garage.

Above photo credit: Olof S by CC Attribution 2.0

This article was originally posted on Philanthropy 2173 at http://philanthropy.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-thoughts-on-what-is-next.html by Lucy Bernholz:

President and founder of Blueprint Research & Design, blogger at philanthropy2173, and general philanthropy wonk.

Why Do Theoretical Foundations Not Require Evidence?

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:29 GMT

I am now on to reading some of Donald Schon’s work, specifically the first chapter from his Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. I have liked his work for some time, though have never read it, per se, for a class.

I am starting to wonder how people such as Schon, Wenger, Foucault, or Ortega y Gasset conceptualize or theorize about the world and how we make meaning out of it, and then the rest of us who engage in research rely on them for guiding frameworks and theoretical foundations? Few of that class of thinker provides much research-based evidence for their work, though in some way they get tapped to be quoted without their having to support their work in the same way that one who writes for peer review needs to do. While we can point to some being philosophers (and thus there is the result), I am not sure that Wenger or Schon would ordinarily fit into that classification.

I wonder if there is anything that explains how or why that happens?

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-10

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

Teaching my Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) class in Teaching and Learning at Pace University today. #
Got feedback for an article-in-process with a ridiculous timeline. Not sure how to get it all done by Sunday. #
Finished with the haircut. Now off to home for a conference call to prep for tomorrow's class. #
Off to my haircut. #
What a long day. #
I just noticed that Revolution Books is a block away and within eyesight of Martha Stewart's tv studio. Coincidence? #

Ortega y Gasset and Pragmatism as an Episode of Constructivism

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:00 GMT

Still reading the Cook and Brown (1999) Bridging epistemologies article from yeseterday. Would have gotten it completed today (even though I taught at Pace University in the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program today, where I am co-teaching NURS 840: Teaching and Learning in Advanced Practice Nursing), but I had a request for more revisions for an article that is scheduled to be published later this year. The problem—the revisions are a RUSH, and due by Sunday.

Farewell weekend

Anyway, one of the items in Cook and Brown is their assessment of interaction with the social and physical worlds comes from Jose Ortega y Gasset, one of many great thinkers I have never read (though I did just order his book of essays, History as a System, after the authors made several references to it). I was particularly touched with this:

Ortega abandoned the frame of the abstracted, analytic thinking self and throughout his work approached questions of epistemology, action, etc. from the perspective of ‘myself within this context.” For Ortega, what we can know and what we can do are not discoverable through an abstract Cartesian though experiment, but are products of ongoing concrete interaction between “myself” (or “ourselves”) and the specifics of the social and physical “context” or “circumstances” we are in at any given time (p. 389).

I really like the emphasis on the individual bringing meaning to this or that experience based on the context, and while this is generally considered American Pragmatism, I am now wondering if pragmatism is merely another frame of constructivism, just captured in time? In another way, is pragmatism an episode of constructivism?

Quote interesting this writing about my doctoral studies each day . . .

Kivi Leroux Miller, Guest Post: Tips for giving social media projects to interns

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:16 GMT

Submitted by Kivi Leroux Miller, publisher of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com

If you moan to 10 of your nonprofit colleagues about how you don’t have time to get your nonprofit on Facebook and other social media sites, I’d guess seven of them will tell you to get an intern to do it for you. (The other three? Two will just nod sympathetically and the other one will have no idea what you are talking about.)

If you are thinking about giving a social media project to an intern or a new employee who is a recent college grad, keep these four tips in mind. They’ll not only make your intern’s experience much better, but your organization will benefit too.

1. Make it a team effort, led by the intern. Social media is . . . well, social. And that’s why it holds so much promise for nonprofits. You can connect with friends of friends of friends you might never otherwise reach. But the organization needs to be at the center of this network, not some intern who is leaving in three months. The intern can lead the way and set everything up, but permanent staff, long-time volunteers and board members must be a part of it too. The team approach also gives your intern valuable project and team management experience, so she isn’t just sitting alone in front of a computer.

2. Be clear about why you are doing it. “Getting on YouTube” is not a marketing goal. Who are you trying to reach and with what message? What do you want these new friends you’ll make to do? Why is getting on Facebook or YouTube the right tactic? Know the answers to these questions ahead of time so that your intern and the team can create a presence online that complements your existing communications work.

3. Make training a part of the assignment — and you get schooled. For your social media project to succeed, the senior management of your organization needs to understand it. Even if you as the executive director or development director don’t login everyday, you still need to understand the culture and vocabulary of the site, what people actually do there, and how your organization is being represented. Give your intern at least fifteen minutes every two weeks to show you and other senior managers what they are doing online and to give you some quick lessons on how you can do it yourself.

4. Open your mind. If the only way you can see your nonprofit getting on to social media sites is by asking a younger person to do it for you, there’s a good chance that you don’t fully understand what it’s all about and just why “everybody’s doing it” in the first place.

For example, you may not be entirely comfortable with the idea that other people (those friends of friends you covet) may be talking about your organization and your issues in their own words, ignoring your talking points and failing to keep all the facts straight.

This is where you have to remember that social media is not just about pushing information out, but also about conversations about that information and collaboration that grows out of those conversations. Relax and go with it. Gently correct when it’s really important to do so. Thank your new friends for caring. You may be pleasantly surprised at the new ideas and insights you discover.

Want more? Check out our February webinars on online marketing basics, blogging for nonprofits, and creating online evangelists.

This article was originally posted on Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com at http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/2009/01/27/tips-for-giving-social-media-projects-to-interns/ by Kivi Leroux Miller:

Kivi is president of Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com, where she teaches a weekly webinar series for do-it-yourself nonprofit marketers.

Guest Post by Stephanie McAuliffe: 15andcounting.org

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:12 GMT

International Planned Parenthood Federation has an office on an alley in the Bermondsey section of London. I stopped by there and heard a bit about their 15andcounting campaign. It was great talking social media strategy and potential with Matthew Lindley, Development, Nuzhat Jabinh, Web Officer, Paul Bell, Senior Communications Officer and Chris Wells, Creative Design Officer. (You can follow on Twitter – @djwesto and @t_box, and of course @15andcounting) We exchanged resources and opinions at a furious and fun pace.

At one point Matthew said “You can’t make partnerships if someone has to buy into your brand”. This comment struck me as well aligned with some made by Vikki Spruill from the Ocean Conservancy. She got me started thinking along this line at a networks meeting where she was encouraging the branding of issues, instead of specific organizations.

15andCounting is a campaign to demand better access to sexual health services and education for everyone, regardless of your age, gender or where you live. The 15 refers to both the fiscal promises made by governments in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the age of the young people who need these services, who were born that year. The site includes a petition and a resource kits with tools, like stakeholders letters, so people can launch campaigns in their country. The site is in English, Español , Français and Arabic. Its fun to look at the petition and see people signed up from Djibouti to Brazil There is a cell phone component to the campaign that has caused it to really take off in South Africa. Check it out, http://www.15andcounting.org/.

Stephanie McAuliffe is the Director of Human Resources at the Packard Foundation. This post was originally published on Stephanie's personal blog, Starting Out

Places to meet for communities - an important ingredient

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:48 GMT

Three weeks ago I arrived in London for a couple of weeks work and a couple weeks holiday. One of my must-see destinations was the water pump in Broadwick Street, Soho, which was the main contamination source for the 1854 cholera outbreak (my family think I'm crazy). This pump is also the star attraction on John Snow's famous map showing the geographic distribution of deaths from the cholera outbreak and is one of the earliest example of epidemiology (in case you were wondering, I studied geography at uni). So imagine my surprise when I arrived at the pump to find it was also a community of practice meeting spot for Soho cycle couriers.

I wandered about the pump for a while taking photos (to the cyclists' amusement) and listened to their conversation, which of course consisted of telling stories of what happened in the morning and over the week. Nothing written down, no social software, just oral storytelling.

Finding or creating these places for community in organisations is an important step is supporting communities of practice. Ideally they should be somewhere you can eat, chat informally and know that when you arrive, there will be other people just like you to share your stories with.

You might be thinking, but what if my organisation is distributed and we can't get everyone in one place? Well, do what the London taxi drivers do, form clusters across the network to tell your stories. Here's a photo of one group of taxi drivers who meet on Russell Square (there is a little group of them behind the silver taxi).

To link across the small groupings the taxi drivers use technology: blogs, newspapers, websites, radio.

Meeting in small clusters for oral storytelling and linking across these clusters for wider knowledge sharing might be a useful pattern to adopt in organisations.

Wiser Earth: A (free) Platform for Networks of Networks and Communities of Action

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:13 GMT

I'm slowly inching back into a routine which includes blogging. I wanted to share with you some of what I learned today.

As part of my research at the Packard Foundation, I've had the opportunity to attend a lot of briefings and discussions related to social media and network effectiveness. This morning Peggy Duvette and Angus Parker from WiserEarth spent some time at the Foundation sharing their experiences in building successful online communities of action and networks of networks on the WiserEarth online platform.

I appreciated the introduction from Peggy and Angus because while I was aware of WiserEarth, I wasn't entirely clear what it offered and the benefits of using the platform. Now, I'm a fan!

Some history. WiserEarth's vision comes from NCI’s Executive Director, Paul Hawken, who recognized its need when researching his latest book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being, and Why No One Saw It Coming.

“I knew that if we could understand the connections and visualize the breadth of global efforts on behalf of social and environmental justice, we would recognize the largest movement the world has ever seen. WiserEarth is where this movement can begin to see itself.”

WiserEarth is more than a "green" online social network for individuals, although you join as an individual. The vision is to help the global movement of people and organizations working toward social justice, indigenous rights, and environmental stewardship to connect, collaborative, share knowledge, and build alliances. The WiserEarth platform does this through a variety of strategies.

First, there is the Directory - the largest international directory of non-profits and socially responsible organizations - approximately 110,000 from 243 countries. (There is also an Open API so this information can be repurposed on other areas of the web.) You'll also find a detailed taxonomy of issue areas related to social justice and environmental restoration.

But the most interesting part of WiseEarth platform is the groups feature. It allows groups of individuals or organizations or a mix to set up a space online to engage in discussion, share resources, or collaborative on projects. What's nice about this feature is that has a lot of flexibility - so you can set up private spaces, semi-private spaces, or public spaces. It's designed for networks of networks and communities of action, whether the network or community consists of people or organizations.

Some of the groups have been set up by organizations to convene workgroups of staff or collaborations across organizations and need a secure online space to do their work. For example, The Nature Conservancy is part of a group called the US Fire Learning Network group. The features inside of groups include discussion board, file archive, wiki, events, a map, and a number typical features to support online collaborations.

An example of "semi-private" group, is the Permaculture Alliance of California. This was initially set up by an individual passionate about permaculture and wanted to pull together all the various grassroots, ngos, and individuals working on the issue.

If you're like me, you're probably wondering what the heck is permaculture. Luckily, there are some subject matter experts here at the Foundation who answered:

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies. It was first developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications. The word permaculture is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture.

The intent was that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals could design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying Earth's ecosystems.

While originating as an agro-ecological design theory, permaculture has developed a large international following. This 'permaculture community' continues to expand on the original ideas, integrating a range of ideas of alternative culture, through a network of publications, permaculture gardens, intentional communities, training programs, and internet forums. In this way, permaculture has become both a design system and a loosely defined philosophy or lifestyle ethic.

So, what's very unique about this platform is that is flexible enough to support activists who want to weave together their personal networks around a particular sustainability issue. It can also support the work of organizations and networks of organizations. But, the value-added is that you find and connect with other people and organizations that you may not know about - just as you would on a social network like Facebook or Twitter. But the value here is that all members are interested in sustainability.

When you set up an account, it is much like setting up a profile on a social network. Except, that when you connect with others, you invite them to join your personal network. On your profile, similar to Facebook, you can see your friends photos and names, but you can also navigate through your social graph visually. Above is the visual representation of my social graph on WiserEarth - it shows me groups, interest areas, and friends. I click on a name and explore their network.

Peggy and Angus shared some tips for online community building. These include:

What are your goals? Pick three things you want to do together.
The importance of a technology steward or online moderator
Think about what you want to accomplish and pick the tools/features to support that work
You will probably be using a variety of tools
The importance of piloting an online space before going to scale(here's an example)

Geoff Livingston Guest Post: Follow @childfund and Help Feed Children

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:29 GMT

ChildFund International just rebranded from the Christian Children’s Fund last week as an effort to demonstrate a singular commitment to children’s welfare today and tomorrow (image: Faith Smiling by ChildFund, NZ). Along with the new brand are new Twitter (@childfund), Facebook, blogging and YouTube efforts.

To celebrate, ChildFund International is giving gifts of agricultural love and hope from the organization’s gift catalog for every 200 Twitter followers @childfund receives. These efforts will directly benefit children in Gambia, Zambia, Kenya and Ethiopia. There is no cap on on followers, and the offer will continue through July 27.

Each country has different needs so the gifts vary:

Chickens for a school in the Gambia
A goat for a family farm in Zambia
Mango trees in Kenya
Vegetable seeds in Ethiopia

As part of the effort, ChildFund International is sending Flip cameras to program directorate offices in each of the four countries to report back. They will share the recipients’ stories and photos with the social web. ChildFund wants to show folks how their efforts and these items benefit children and their communities. It is also a commitment not to simply promote, but to continue an accountable dialog with the social web.

So tell your friends. By simply following @childfund we can all make a difference in a child’s life.

ChildFund enlisted our help with this effort. It’s an honor to work with them to help bring their new brand to life on the social web, and work to directly benefit children in these four countries. The organization has served children since 1938 and helps 15.2 million children and family members in 31 countries.

Dubbed a “local blogging guru” by the Washington Post, Geoff’s award-winning book “Now is Gone” was released in 2007 and has been cited by the Wall Street Journal as a valuable resource for social media.

This post was originally published on the Buzz Binn

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-09

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

However, when I got home last night, I was as tired as the living dead. Did not even check email. #
One of my larger projects hit a big milestone yesterday, and we had a graduation and ceremony with senior leadership. Excellent day. #

Tori Tuncan, Guest Post -- The Lend4Health Journey: Social Media

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:16 GMT

Submitted by Tori Tuncan, of Lend4Health

I was flattered when @PeterDeitz told me he was going to include Lend4Health in his keynote address at the Connecting Up Australia conference. And when I read his transcript and saw his slides, I was intrigued. Peter had analyzed my use of Twitter and shared at the conference that I use it to communicate, in small increments of time, with those who choose to follow my tweets (which, for today at least, is 1,284 people). Peter's analysis of my "method" made me stop and take a look at what my "method" really is because, certainly, it has not been strategically planned out or even really considered until now!

Twitter
I started using Twitter on September 24, 2008, and my first tweet was, "Working on two new loan requests on Lend4Health." I had no idea what Twitter was or what it was for, but I had heard of it in the traditional media channels. I actually joined Twitter because I had just submitted my entry into the Ideablob contest and there were links to share your entry on "social media" so I clicked on Twitter and that was that.

In the beginning of my Twitter usage, I became obsessed with reading tweets and the links therein. I "favorited" almost everything, and I basically used Twitter as a personalized library. I followed anybody who seemed knowledgeable and well respected in areas like social media, social entrepreneurship, health issues, autism, non-profit technology, philanthropy, micro-lending, and Islamic finance. It was amazing to me that I could get all this great, intelligent information and that, because I could choose to follow specific people, the stream was already "filtered" and oftentimes already "digested" for my specific needs and consumption. That stream was fast-running and wide, but I learned as much as I could, asked questions, and connected with people and ideas I would have never known otherwise.

After a while, Twitter became my "home away from home." Lend4Health.org was my home, my spot, my domain. It was comfy because it was mine, and the visitors were friendly because they liked what I was doing. On the other hand, Twitter was kind of like going to a different conference every day, but with many of the same attendees. I was challenged by the thoughts and ideas presented there, but since I was seeing the same attendees day after day, I became familiar with their styles and moods.

Facebook
At the same time, I had gotten onto Facebook, first to connect with old friends from elementary school, high school, and college, but then to connect a bit with some "autism friends" -- those who I knew from the Yahoo group I frequented. Interestingly, after I started a Lend4Health Group on Facebook and posted a blurb about it on the site, I noticed that "Lend4Health'ers" (loan recipients and lenders) started to join Facebook themselves. This was interesting to me -- that people joined the Facebook social networking site specifically because I (Lend4Health) was there. It also surprised me that Lend4Health loan recipients would get on Facebook and join the same group as their lenders. To me, this was humbling honesty and amazing transparency. For anybody who might fear that the loan recipients were scam artists or would run off with the money, this Lend4Health group on Facebook demonstrated that these people were real people. They were not ashamed to interact with those who lent money to them, and they were not running away incognito; rather, they were putting their faces and their profiles right there. You might not know in which house they lived on the planet, but you had access to them on Facebook.

Bridging Silos
At that point, even though there were Lend4Health'ers on the Facebook group, they weren't really my "friends" in the Facebook sense. At the time, I now realize, there were three very separate communities: (1) The Lend4Health community (the families and lenders with whom I mostly communicated via email); (2) my Twitter community (analysts, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, and bloggers); and (3) my Facebook community (family and friends).

At some magical point, these three worlds started to converge; these silos started to crumble, and bridges took their place. I remember around the beginning of 2009, when I started working on Lend4Health full-time, some of my Twitter followers made loans on Lend4Health. And some Lend4Health Group members on Facebook started to "friend" me and each other. And, very slowly at first, some Lend4Health'ers started to join Twitter.

This convergence is still happening, and it is still to be seen what this will mean for Lend4Health. What is happening right now is that this larger "Lend4Health community" is overlapping in very un-planned, very organic, and very exciting ways:

- My Twitter followers are starting to make loans, tweet about it, and re-tweet my updates.

- My Facebook friends are starting to inquire about my strange status updates, post Lend4Health links, and make loans.

- Lend4Health families are starting to join Facebook and/or Twitter.

- Lend4Health lenders and recipients are starting to follow each other on Twitter; friend each other on Facebook.

And while this is still a very new development in the Lend4Health Journey, I can feel the energy rumbling and coming closer when I put my ear to the ground and really listen.

Individuals Within the Crowd
Currently, I realize that, although these groups are converging, each individual member of a group has a preference for his/her communications. There are some who resonate best with email. There are some who are Facebook addicts and who have tried Twitter but didn't "get it." And there are those who live and breathe Twitter.

So, as somebody who is trying to keep this diverse community engaged, get messages out, and respond to their queries, I believe I have two options. (1) I could try to make them all form-fit into my preferred method of communication, or (2) I can make myself fluid, flexible, and resilient enough that I can be in all of these places. While option #1 would be easiest and most time-effective for me, I believe doing so would push some community members away, most likely never to return again. Certainly, I could pick up new supporters to take their places in number, but each one of these supporters is an "early adopter" to the Lend4Health concept, and as such I think of them as the most important community members. These early adopters are the ones who believed in Lend4Health in its infancy and awkward adolescence yet took a risk to participate, so these are the people who may later spread the word most passionately. As such, I have chosen option #2.

Everywhere
I engage with lenders, curious observers, and loan recipients wherever they are, and wherever they feel comfortable, whether it be Twitter, email, phone, Facebook, or in person. My business card (which I hand out in bulk at autism conferences) includes all the ways I can be found: web, email, Twitter, Facebook, and cell. My email signature (which I use when posting personal questions and comments on autism-related Yahoo groups) includes all of these channels as well.

Is there a risk involved with this? Emphatically, yes. I worry that I will miss a Facebook post from a potential loan recipient. I worry that I cannot successfully "archive" within a specific email folder, an important, relevant communication I receive in a fleeting tweet. I worry that I am so scattered across these tools that I am not present enough on any one of them.

Current Usage
I have recently started using Twitter and Facebook as integral pieces in my (as of yet un-strategic!) communications strategy. Whereas I used to update lenders via email when a loan repayment was made or when a family sent a progress update on their child, I now also post this information for the masses on Twitter and (easily via TweetDeck) on Facebook. The goal is different. For the lenders, my goal in communicating this information via email is to give them updates on their money and their investment, and to keep them engaged on a consistent (usually monthly), ongoing basis. However, when I post this information on Twitter and Facebook, my goal is to plant seeds repeatedly with potential new lenders, but also to communicate transparently and even to archive the process. So, instead of an annual report summarizing the activities of an entire previous year's work, I am giving these updates real-time, as they happen. I do not think that many of my Twitter followers are hanging on the edge of their seats to get these 140-character updates, but, when they are seen over time, I think they provide an underlying sense that Lend4Health is open and transparent with its process, and that there are several points of entry available for a person to ask a question, criticize, laud, or participate in Lend4Health.

Moving Forward
I am intrigued to see where this all goes as it relates to Lend4Health and other organizations. It seems that so much of the current thinking and teaching being done is aimed at already-established non-profits who need to learn how to use social media tools in order to keep up with the changing times. I believe it will be informative for many of these non-profits to watch as neonate "clouds" and "tribes" like The Extraordinaries, TuDiabetes, and Lend4Health develop hand-in-hand with, and even from within, social media technologies and applications.

This article was originally posted on My Social Actions at http://my.socialactions.com/profiles/blogs/the-lend4health-journey-social by Tori Tuncan:

Tori is the Founder of Lend4Health.org, which facilitates community-funded, interest-free microloans for those pursuing optimal health.

Rebecca Leaman, Guest Post: What Else Can We Talk About? 10 Years Since The Cluetrain Manifesto

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:59 GMT

Submitted by Rebecca Leaman, publisher of Get your sanity back, Wild Apricot's non-profit technology blog

Ten years ago, Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger laid out 95 principles for communicating with customers online. The Cluetrain Manifesto, sounded a visionary wake-up call that the Internet would change — was already changing — the fundamental nature of the relationship between businesses and their markets. Parts of the book are nothing short of brilliant, while other passages still have us shaking our heads in confusion about the intended meaning, a full decade later.

Today, for its 10th anniversary, bloggers are revisiting the 95 theses of The ClueTrain Manifesto, thinking and writing about one thesis each.

Here’s #81:

Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?

There is more to life than money. Money is not the driving force for most people who are involved in charitable causes for the public good and social change and community actions. Money has value only as a medium of exchange for goods and services that are of true value… and so on.

These things we can agree upon, I believe — but, is money boring?

Not in the pit of an economic recession, certainly!

And not to a small non-profit organization who sees endless needs to be filled from ever-shrinking coffers.

Still, as a topic of conversation, money is undeniably one-dimensional. Someone has it, and someone else wants it. Simple as that.

But smart companies are getting it — that consumers want more than a simple financial transaction. Hence the rise in cause marketing.

A recent Edelman Canada study reports that three-quarters of those surveyed are more likely to buy a product if the vendor makes a donation to a good cause, and many are willing to change their buying habits — to pay more for a product — if by doing so they can do good in the world. Sixty-three percent said that brands spend too much on advertising and should put more money towards charitable donations.

People are looking for meaning beyond money.

For a non-profit organization, talking of nothing but money would mean that all your supporters would hear from you is a steady stream of requests for ticket purchases and membership fees and sponsorships and donations, followed — one hopes — by an accounting of how the funds were spent to further your oganization’s mission.

Non-profits, traditionally structured on the same top-down model as businesses are, might read The Cluetrain Manifesto to their advantage. Donors and members, like the customers of business, want to be more closely involved with the disposition of funds, at least to the extent of knowing the stories behind the appeals for donations. Accountability is a big part of it; but human connection is paramount.

Back in 1999, Nancy White checked in on The Cluetrain from a non-profit perspective, and saw that the conversation needed to go further and deeper:

People are tired of being inundated with selling messages. They have become cynical about them, which is frightening for those trying to deliver health education and community building messages. TV campaigns and government pamphlets are treated with suspicion and disdain. And they are responding to word of mouth more than ever.

This has significant ramifications for the nonprofit or “third sector.” For the few blue ribbon organizations that are well-connected to the big business circuit, life is sweet and the cash flows. But for the majority, especially the smaller and community based organizations, life has changed and it is time to get a clue.

An emerging trend is actually a throwback to a familiar model that has been embraced by unions, religions and, gasp, even cults. Develop a constituency. Serve them. Listen to them. Work with them, don’t have them work for you. Give them power and control and then fasten your seatbelts because all the rules change.

White’s response to The Cluetrain Manifesto was never completed, and I can certainly see why. The whole book is a bit of a wild ride into Utopia, some of the points so prophetic that today we take the power of online conversations and communities almost for granted; others so outright bizarre that critics can’t be faulted for laughing in their sleeve.

Still, like the wide-eyed idealism of the hippie era, The Cluetrain has left an indelible mark. The Internet may be led today by bright young adults who were still preoccupied with acne and prom dresses when The Cluetrain first rolled through, but the online world they grew up into is a fair reflection of that original call to action.

Look around you, and the evidence is clear:

Ten years ago, the Internet was largely a wasteland of billboards — static websites on the print publication model — with the occasional geek-dominated forum or BBS for two-way communication. Now, we’ve almost moved beyond talking of Web 2.0 because the interactive technology implied by the term has become so much the norm.

The technology is in place for the conversation between organization and constituency — all that remains is for the conversation to be encouraged in every organization.

You can still read The Cluetrain Manifesto online (free) at Cluetrain.com, and it’s worth doing so if only for a nostalgic sense of the breathless excitement that ushered in the first whispers of Web 2.0. And if you find it a bit heavy-going, Michael Mace and Rubincon Consulting have boiled down the best of The Cluetrain message into Ten Commandments for Communicating with People Online, which is both easier to absorb than the orginal, and arguably more readily applied by the kinds of slow-moving organizations that The Cluetrain aimed to reach, ten years ago today.

This article was originally posted on Wild Apricot at http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog/archive/2009/04/28/what-else-can-we-talk-about-10-years-since-the-cluetrain-manifesto.aspx by Rebecca Leaman:

Rebecca Leaman is the primary writer for Wild Apricot's non-profit technology blog.

Guest Post by Debra Askanae: You Are Not Local. You Are Social.

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:00 GMT

Submitted by Debra Askanae, publisher of Community Organizer 2.0

image by roadsidepictures under a creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license

There is no such thing as a local business anymore. Nor a local organization.

Consider the local mini mart, the most local of all types of stores. In general, people won’t walk more than 10 minutes or 1/2 mile to their local food mart. Why does the mini mart owner need to interact with his customers via social media? If people want something, they’ll just go there. It’s a fair question, easily answered by another:

What is Local?

I respond: Local is a Mindset. So is Social.

Local is You Talking. Social is Engagement and Conversation.

The local mini mart owner/manager is thinking old-school: bricks and mortar, customers searching for twinkies, chips and coffee, and lottery players seeking millions.Re-think your mindset out of Local and into Social about the same customer.

This time, the customer is sitting at home, wishing she had a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Does the local mini mart have it? Send an email or a Tweet. Can she swing by in her car, illegally park on the sidewalk (hey, they do it all the time in my neighborhood) and get out in 2 minutes? You betcha - IF - she could submit her order via Twitter with an approximate purchase time, and could be sure it would be ready when she arrives. What if she told her friends via Facebook that she was heading down to the local mini-mart for ice cream? She could take orders from them if they were also coming over to her house later. The Facebook update is free publicity for the online or email ordering feature at the local market. That is Social. Not Local.

A great example of a local shop using a Social mindset is Houston’s CoffeeGroundz, which created a Twitter account (@coffeegroundz) and unexpectedly realized that they could do a brisk business with Twitter takeout orders. You can read the whole story, in detail on Pistachio Consulting’s blog, here. CoffeeGroundz is a great example of Social, not Local.

Consider the PTO, the local Parent-Teacher Organization of the local elementary school, the most local of local organizations. A tired parent receives a note about his child, or an email from his child’s school, about the meeting. He goes. The typical meeting consists of parents talking about why the school isn’t doing something or that it should do something better. The PTO wants new ideas, wants to use them, and hopes to involve parents in school improvements. Maybe you attended, maybe not. Either way, you get an email update about what happened. Are you engaged? Are you ready to act? Nope, you’re happy eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and can’t be bothered. The PTO is too Local.

Now consider the Social PTO. The Social PTO is all about making it easier for you to engage, act and motivate others to create real changes in the school.

You receive the next PTO meeting invitation via one or more of these methods: email, a group text message on your mobile phone, a Facebook Event invitation, and/or a listing on the PTO’s chat group (such as a Yahoo or Google group). You are asked to contribute ideas to the agenda ahead of time via an online site. You are asked to invite others to the meeting through the Facebook share application, and you proudly display the meeting as a Facebook Event on your profile. If you can’t go, you can follow the meeting either via live web video, updates on the group site, a #hashtag on Twitter, or real time Facebook group updates. You are able to text your questions to the the vice-chair during the meeting with an assurance that they will be addressed. The meetings are more efficient with the use of pre-sent questions and agenda submissions. The PTO has created easy, potentially viral methods to further engage and recruit people and their ideas. You are engaged and ready to act. The PTO is Social, not Local.

Next time you are about to go to your neighborhood meeting, send a Tweet on Twitter asking if anyone wants anything from the local mini mart. I’ll take some mint choco chip ice cream, please.

It’s all Social now.

This article was originally posted on Community Organizer 2.0 at http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2009/03/20/you-are-not-local-you-are-social/ by Debra Askanase:

Debra is a former community organizer and executive director, and the founder and lead consultant at Community Organizer 2.0, a social media strategy firm for non-profit organizations and businesses.

Guest Post by Paul Lamb: The Religion & Technology Divide

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:00 GMT

Submitted by Paul Lamb, Principal of Man On A Mission Consulting

As an avid promoter of technology for social change, and as an active participant in a community of faith, I have often wondered why the two worlds remain so segregated? Particularly when faith-based communities (meaning the full range of formal and informal religious communities) are among the most active social sector organizations? Not to mention the fact that the lions share of giving in the social sector is directed toward religious institutions - so there are resources that could be brought to bear if innovation found its way onto the religious radar screen. If religious orgs are serious about building and enhancing community, why are they so behind in leveraging the latest and greatest technology tools to do so? And if nonprofit and do gooder techies are serious about social change, why aren't they tapping into some of the largest and most effective community-based organizations out there? It's a missed opportunity IMHO. I have found that most of my technology friends never talk about their spiritual activities even when they are religious or spiritually inclined, and most of the religious leaders I know are relatively clueless (I say this with all due respect) when it comes to the revolutionary changes occurring all around us due to technology & innovation.

Fortunately there are some murmurings. A couple of weeks ago, Time magazine ran a story on churches using Twitter during their regular services. And picking up on the Second Life media blitz a couple of years ago, NBC did a story on religion in Second Life.(BTW, if you haven't seen this "Guided Tour of Spirituality in Second Life" its worth a looksee).

Here are a great couple of postings on "Church 2.0", which offers an overview of some of the most cutting edge and technology-relevant happenings that involve faith-based communities. Not surprisingly, much of the most innovative work is being done in so called "Celebration" churches with a relatively young audience steeped in broadcast and digital technologies. Many traditional religious institutions are experiencing a decline in memberships and losing younger members - perhaps in part because they don't fully understand how to communicate in a changed world? Take a look at the official website of the Catholic Church, representing the largest religion in the world, and you'll know what I mean.

I sense a lot of fear among traditional religious institutions around embracing and leveraging technology change. They seem to fear losing control and having traditional hierarchies challenged in an increasingly open source and bottom up world. Ironically, the best of social media leads to the kind of direct peer to peer communication among people of faith that was the origin of most mainstream religions before formal institutions and hierarchies were established. No doubt the new technologies can be distracting and take away from mindfulness and rich spiritual practice, but they also offer tremendous opportunities for enhancing and supporting religious communities in unprecedented ways. And many folks don't seem to understand, as the book Groundswell articulates so clearly, at the end of the day it's really all about relationships and NOT the technology tools.

.It is for the above reasons why I have decided to rollout a "Technology & Spiritual Practice" program, designed to help faith-based communities make the leap into the brave new world of technology and social media. I am also interested in bringing together spiritual and technology leaders to come together and dialogue about the creation of next generation tools and a "Spiritual Web" to enhance (and not distract from) spiritual practice. It's time we bridged the relgion-technology divide, so I have put together some workshops to do just that. I would love to hear from folks who are also interested and active in this area?

With a little honest dialogue and collaboration, I think great things could happen here!

p.s. You can join a discussion on this topic happening now on Social Edge

This article was originally posted on Cool n' Conscientious at http://cooltool.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bridging-the by Paul Lamb:

Paul is a consultant, writer, wild-eyed entrepreneur, and nonprofit professional.

Bridging Epistemologies

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:20 GMT

I am reading what is turning out to be a more interesting article than I thought from its somewhat misleading title:

Cook, S. D. N., & Brown, J. S. (1999). Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between organizational knowledge and organizational knowing. Organization Science, 10(4), 381-400.

I am now struggling to understand their model of knowledge and knowing:

Alistair Croll, Guest Post: Using Twitter for Fundraising - Lessons Learned from Beers for Canada

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:07 GMT

This was originally published at the Rednod blog by Alistair Croll who among other things is the co-author along with Sean Power of Complete Web Monitoring recently published by O'Reilly.

Last week, we helped out our friends at Visible Government with their Beers for Canada campaign. In the end, the campaign raised just over $1,000 in two days; donations will help open government data to citizens and promote transparency in public offices. We learned a lot about what did and didn’t work, and in the interests of transparency, we thought we’d share some of the lessons we learned along the way (and see if we can collect some ideas for next time.)

How it worked

A week before Canada Day (July 1) we built and tested a simple site that encouraged donors to “buy their country a beer” — basically making a donation. We told a few key bloggers and Twitter personalities about it beforehand; then, on June 30, we started talking about it online. We continued to mention it, and amplified what others were saying, until midday on July 2.

From the outset, this was a short-term campaign built around a single day. We did this to give it urgency and purpose. We chose to start talking on June 30 because so many people were out the office (and away from their computers) on the holiday itself. But it’s important to realize the differences between a short-term campaign (minimal upfront work, strong word of mouth, modest goals, and real-time virality through Twitter) and a longer one. The timeframe also meant that most blog coverage only hit on July 1st (and thanks to all the bloggers who covered us!)

What worked? What didn’t? What would we have changed? Here’s a quick list.

What worked?

While this was our first Twitter campaign, we did manage to get some things right. Here‘s what worked:

We built analytics into the process. We used bit.ly (to track viral spread), Google Analytics (for goal conversions), Paypal audit accounts (to see donation amounts) and Clicky (for real-time web analytics.) Clicky is essential for short-term campaigns because it provides minute-by-minute visitor information, whereas most analytics tools only show traffic daily.
We made the action obvious. We had one simple goal for people to accomplish on the donation site: donate. We even broke it into three different tiers (beer, pitcher, and round) to make it straightforward.
We didn’t build it all ourselves. We used Paypal for donations; while it has its issues, it’s also a well-known and trusted brand, and we seem respectable by association. We also used free services like Google Groups and Clicky. This means we didn’t need to code too much.
We set up tracking with hashtags and keyword searches. This meant we could watch the activity online and amplify it or respond to questions.
We had plenty of ways for people to reach us. We had links to the Visible Government website, and generated enquiries there. We also linked to the Google Group discussion, which added new members and triggered conversations.
We had a great cause. The simple fact is that without a decent motive, you won’t have much success. People felt they were doing their civic duty by mentioning us, which helped spread. If your cause isn’t just, people will feel icky promoting it.
We tested it a lot. Even though we didn’t find every mistake, the launch was surprisingly smooth because we verified it properly and used real infrastructure (from our friends at Syntenic.)
We had a simple, catchy message. “Buy your country a beer” was strangely patriotic, and people liked it. Made To Stick is the bible for clear, simple messages. Early on in the design process, we were tempted to overload the message–something like, “Buy your country a beer and promote open interactions between federal government and Canadian citizens.” That wouldn’t have worked because it wasn’t simple. But “buy your country a beer” is intriguing. Remember that the tagline’s purpose is to provoke interest. Once you’ve got someone’s attention you can do things with it.
Set up Reddit, Digg, and other social news aggregators. We put badges on the Beers For Canada website encouraging people to Digg us and promote us on other social news aggregators. This made it easy for people to support us and spread the word.
We set the right kinds of goals up front. How do you know you won if you don’t know where the finish line is? One of the first things we did was set goals for the campaign. We wanted to see donations, of course, but we also wanted to see unique visits to the Beers for Canada site and how many went further to the Visible Government site. When we started we had no idea how the campaign would do so we focused less on numbers (500$ or 5,000 site visits) and more on what we wanted to achieve (visibility and engagement.)
We used calendar meetings to remind promoters. This was a neat trick. When we asked people to mention us online, we sent them a calendar invite as a reminder. This way we knew when they’d do it, and since most of the people we asked had an iPhone or a Blackberry, they could do it from wherever they were–particularly important on a holiday (though as you’ll see below, in hindsight we could have spread those out more over a longer period of time.)

What did we learn?

Here are some of the lessons we’ve learned, and the things we’d have done differently.

Beforehand, in the planning phase:

A short timeframe limits others’ ability to build online context about you. When you’re running a fundraiser, people want context. It’s a catch-22: If you do something quick and spontaneous, you’ll build excitement and mystery, but you won’t have the time to inform bloggers and the press about what you’re doing far enough in advance for them to provide details and perspectives. If you tell bloggers too soon, you lose the excitement.
Plan out your whole message before you send the first tweet.We carefully crafted website copy but didn’t think enough about who would tweet what, when. In a real-time campaign, your copywriting isn’t done when you publish the site. It’s constant, and it needs to be planned.
Schedule things, and have a single coordinator for the life of the campaign. At noon on June 30th, one of us put out our first tweet–and forgot to use the bit.ly URL that would track the spread of the campaign. This would have been avoided by having an initial schedule, and then having a single person adjust that schedule as things progressed and feedback came back from the analytics tools and the campaign. You simply can’t assume that ’someone’ will do it.
Be transparent and obvious. Make sure the people affiliated with the campaign are clearly identified. I was personally thanking a lot of our supporters but my connection to either the campaign or Visible Government was not clear since it was coming from my personal account. Not only does this keep your campaign transparent it help you build you reputation and social capital making it more likely you will get those people back for a donation. One possibility would have been to temporarily change our avatars to include a visual cue–like the Visible Government maple leaf–for all those officially behind the campaign.
Have a clear call to action. The website was pretty blunt about donations. We set it up, then told the world. What we quickly realized was that the Tweets themselves–not just the website–needed to be clear what we were asking people to do. Were we asking people just to tell their friends? To donate money? To watch the hashtag? To visit the site and learn more? In Twitter’s 140 characters, there’s only room for one call to action. You need to tell people what to do and make it easy for them to do it.
Facebook is for slow burn, Twitter is for ADD. Twitter’s like speed dating: you see something, and quickly decide if you want more. By contrast, Facebook favors a groundswell of support: as more and more of your friends like something, you do too. The duration of your campaign affects which social networks you’ll rely on. We shouldn’t have wasted time on Facebook for a campaign of this duration.
Define analytics goals better. We didn’t take the time to implement goal funnels within the system, which was a shame. What’s more, referral URLs are useless in a world where many Twitter users rely on Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop, or the Twitter client on their Blackberry or iPhone. To address this, we should have segmented shortened URLs using Google’s URL builder to inject metadata into the shortened URLs so we’d get a better idea of visitor source.

During the campaign:

Personal claims of action work best. Megabloggers like Tim O’Reilly, Om Malik, Austin Hill, Michael Geist, Tara Hunt, Mathew Ingram and others generated a ton of traffic and awareness. But the messages that generated the most donations–rather than just visits–were those where the RT testified to an action. Someone who said “I just bought a round - you should too” generated far more actual donations than someone who just said, “check this out”.
Have an FAQ–and update it. We drafted an initial FAQ that had lots of information in it, as well as links to Visible Government. We were able to direct people here if they had questions. But we were missing certain pieces of information (for example, why donations weren’t tax deductible) and took too long to respond to questions and update the FAQ.
Vary the message. Tweets about hashtag visualizations showing campaign growth, mentioning who was blogging about us, and retweeting others all kept the dialogue going, but they were done ad hoc and should have been better planned.
You only get one chance to make an impression. We live in an information-starved world. People will only click on a link once unless they think there’s new news. So if your first message says, “check this out,” they will. If after that you say, “donate to this cause” they’re less likely to: they’ve already seen it. Only when there’s new information–”50 people have bought their country a beer”–will the audience consider revisiting things.
Make the site interactive. If we’d provided people with somewhere to comment or share their thoughts–or even to suggest how the donations should be used–we’d have had more raw material for the campaign and could play back these comments to the online community that was discussing it. This also gives people a reason to check back and see how the discussion is progressing. Again, with a 36-hour campaign, this may be a lot more effort than you’re willing to expend, but we might have been able to use a Subreddit or some other already-built system.
Spread your messages over time. Lots of people agreed to help spread the message, but it happened all at once and the initial message quickly lost traction. It would have been far more effective to have one person mention us, then let the second person tell the world all the great things that happened after the first mention, and so on. By firing all of our guns at once, we didn’t let the message “snowball” and build on existing momentum. A campaign like this needs lots of ’seeds’ to get the message out.
Give donors a way to tell others automatically. We made it possible for people to tweet the site from a link on the site. But we should have had an option, selected by default, that made a tweet saying, “I just bought the country a beer and you can too.” This should have included a different shortened URL or analytics link, so we could differentiate first-visit traffic from viral donor traffic.
Respond in person. You can’t plan for everything so make sure you are ready to answer any questions both publicly and promptly. Also, thank people for their donations — but respect their privacy; if you can thank them through direct messages, great. If they made a sizeable donation, you can acknowledge it by saying, “someone just donated $100″ (or in our case, “someone just bought the country a round.”) Don’t single out donors publicly as they may not want the attention.
Keep people updated. If you’re tracking donations, tell people about the progress. Celebrate big donations or interesting blogs. The more you can show people that others are doing things, the more engaged they’ll be. Appeal to their inner lemming. We could have build a dashboard for statistics (donations, reddit ranking, retweet count, page views, etc.) We did discuss the amount of transparency we wanted (which is ironic for a transparent government initiative.) The real dilemma here is that you need to wait until the news is newsworthy. If we’d said, “hey, we have a total of $14 donated!” people would have discounted the success of the campaign.

After the campaign:

Have a next step. There’s a lot of positive sentiment about Visible Government now. We have some great ideas for how to use the money, including the forthcoming Code for Canada contest and an initiative to get computer science students to develop transparency applications. It’d be great if we had this ready to discuss when the campaign ended, because it would allow us to continue and amplify the engagement that the campaign generated. Plus, it’d let people feel good about what they’ve done. In other words, every campaign is part of a bigger picture of long-term connection with donors, markets, and audiences.

The results

Even though we didn’t focus on the numbers too much this time around, we still set some goals so we’d know what we were measuring. Not only did this give us a measure of success it helped evaluate the experience as a whole and focus us to come up with these lessons. We could clearly look at graphs and numbers and say “Yup. Nobody talked about us for over 4 hours,” and then wonder why.

Viral spread versus megablogger attention. This campaign was promoted almost entirely on Twitter and using our personal and professional networks to spread the word. We were fortunate enough to have some really influential people blog and tweet about it. But we didn’t see the viral growth among others’ networks that we’d have liked.
Conversion funnels and donations. Though tens of thousands of people read the tweets (these people have over a million followers collectively!), we only saw 1,642total visits, but that translated to about $1,000 in donations. Conversion rates were less than 0.2%, which we attribute in part to the passive message we used at first. In other words, the tone of the campaign emphasized attention (”visit this page”) over conversion (”please donate”).
Attention generated. Our bounce rate — the number of people who saw one page, then left — was only 51%, which is great: over 25% of visitors wanted to learn more about the campaign. What’s more, Visible Government saw a huge spike in attention. Compared to the previous week traffic spiked by 300%! We also have several conversations with the press underway as a result of the campaign.

In the end this was a quick-and-dirty campaign that raised some well-deserved money and got good visibility on a national scale. Along the way, we learned a lot about campaigning in a digital world, particularly one based on real-time word of mouth.

Now we want to hear from you. What’s worked for you before? What else should we consider for next time? What did we do wrong?

[Disclosure: Rednod’s Alistair Croll is on the board of directors of Visible Government]

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-08

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

New comment on “Reflective Journal for My Doctoral Studies – Do It Online?” http://bt.io/T8 #
I submitted a membership request for the Qualitative Research Consultants Association last week; no response yet. http://www.qrca.org/ #QRCA #
New comment on “Reflective Journal for My Doctoral Studies – Do It Online?” http://bt.io/Sv #
Check out my new SlideShare Presentation : Project Management 4 Training - Class 2 http://tinyurl.com/mkjm4a #
Getting ready to teach my online “Project Management for Training” class. #
Heading out to the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing to pick up some materials for an event tomorrow. #
I have been coordinating a ceremony for one of my projects tomorrow. I need some air now! #

Two ears, one mouth

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:51 GMT

I can't remember who first said to me "you have two ears and one mouth, and you should use them in that proportion" but it is one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received. Also, when working in many organisations, I notice it is not applied that widely. Shawn and I have come across two examples earlier this year where 'listeners' were let go and noisy and opinionated people were never considered to be candidates for retrenchment because of their 'visible contribution' to the organisation (it was probably more their 'audible contribution'). These sorts of decisions further undermine an organisation's capability to make progress with complex problems.

Listening has a vital role in tackling complex problems, such as any change initiative, either social or organisational. We use our Narrative Insight (story listening) techniques to explore and help make sense of the patterns relating to these complex issues. The following excerpt from The McKinsey Quarterly emphasizes why we should put more effort into listening and less into telling:

In a famous behavioral experiment, half the participants are randomly assigned a lottery ticket number while the others are asked to write down any number they would like on a blank ticket. Just before drawing the winning number, the researchers offer to buy back the tickets from their holders. The result: no matter what geography or demographic environment the experiment has taken place in, researchers have always found that they have to pay at least five times more to those who came up with their own number.

The lesson is clear - you need to listen to and act on the needs and perspectives of the stakeholders. Even if you don't like what they are saying. People value what they have a sense of ownership in and you need to listen to find out what that is. And where there is anger, resentment etc around an issue I have found the advice of Professor Brenda Dervin to be spot on.."anger dissipates when people are listened to".

If you happen to know of the original research referred to in the McKinsey article we would love to hear about it.

Reference: 1. The McKinsey Quarterly 2009 Number 2, pages 101-109

Guest Post by Heather McLeod Grant: Reflections on the Personal Democracy Forum

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:00 GMT

Submitted by Heather McLeod Grant, senior consultant at the Monitor Institute and a principal contributor to Working Wikily

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend the Personal Democracy Forum in New York – a conference about all things digital and democracy – now in its sixth year. I went to learn from thought-leaders focused on social media and its impact on politics, in the hopes that many of the lessons would be relevant for nonprofits, foundations, grassroots activists, and for our emerging networks practice at the Monitor Institute. As I discovered, PDF is very much a gathering of the “digerati”: politicos, pundits, journalists, techies, bloggers, consultants, activists, and of course vendors and sponsors. Speakers ranged from Mayor Michael Bloomberg (via Skype), to online ethnographer danah boyd, consultants from the Obama and McCain ’08 campaigns (and the Obama Whitehouse), academics and thoughtleaders such as Mark Pesce and Clay Shirky, and techno-celebrities such as Craig Newmark (Craigslist) and Gina Bianchini (Ning).

However, there were astonishingly few nonprofits or foundations present at PDF (unless you count academics from universities). I ran into a few here and there, but my guess is they represented less than 10% of attendees. Vince Stehle of Surdna was present, along with Chris Gates of PACE (Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement); and there were some grassroots organizers such as ACORN in breakout sessions. The audience was also more male than female (60%, according to one estimate), certainly more liberal than conservative (at one point someone asked how many Republicans were in the audience and only 10 people raised their hands, out of 1000+!), and disconcertingly white. The lack of diversity was a fact not lost on some speakers, who issued an invitation for any grassroots communities of color to attend next year, although whether or not they meant for free was unclear. I say all this not to harp on political correctness, but rather to point out that there seems to be a disconnect in the discourse about politics and technology with the actual grassroots, civil society groups who are so often organizing “on the ground”—and the very civil society groups who are doing the hard work of building democracy everyday. We need to start connecting these dots.

These themes of race and class were not lost on ethnographer danah boyd, who gave one of the most provocative presentations of the conference – quoting both Habermas and inner-city teens! She talked about how online social networks mirror off-line social dynamics, and described the phenomenon of “white flight” from MySpace to Facebook. While some have a Utopian vision of the Internet as the Great Integrator, or Ultimate Public Space, boyd cautioned against this naïve illusion and pushes us to work harder to cross the digital divide. (My teammate and fellow attendee Jake Samuelson has more on boyd’s talk in the following post.)

The other most compelling presentation of the conference was by Michael Wesch, from Kansas State, who talked about how YouTube and online video is shaping our notions of self and identity, allowing for new possibilities of connection and community. (He’s most known for his YouTube video: The Machine is Us/ing Us viewed 10 million times). He quoted the famous Marshall McLuhan: “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” He also talked about the modern day problems of alienation, narcissism, and anomie, embodied in the ever-popular flippant phrase of adolescents everywhere: “Whatever.” He believes that YouTube might hold the antidote to these problems of self-absorption: we know ourselves through our relations with others, and this new media is creating new ways of relating to others, hence new ways of knowing ourselves. He showed clips where people are unafraid to express their deepest hopes and fears to millions of strangers. With 20 hours of video being uploaded every minute to YouTube (up to 500,000 videos a day), let’s hope he’s right to think that YouTube can bring us closer together rather than driving us further apart.

A few other interesting highlights of the conference:

· Mayor Bloomberg, who joined by video since he couldn’t make it in person. (How appropriate for this audience!) He shared the New York City government’s efforts to make the local bureaucracy much more transparent and connected, a theme that echoed through several other plenary sessions exploring the White House’s use of online tools for engaging citizens in policy and local governments’ attempts to become more open and accessible.

· A breakout panel on how demographics are driving politics, where Simon Rosenberg, Morley Winograd (of NDN.org), and Jose Vargas of the Washington Post shared research on how the Millennial generation, and Hispanic voters are critical groups to cultivate for both parties. Currently both lean heavily Democratic and voted for Obama in ‘08. If their projections are to be believed, the increasing shift to southwest states, coupled with the rise of these two voting blocks means that Democrats are much more favored to win going forward than Republicans, who have an aging, white, south-eastern base.

· Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook, who talked about how social networks are being used for social change, particularly as an organizing tool for local revolutions such as those in Columbia and Iran. Facebook now has 200M users, the majority of whom are outside of the US. She sees social networking sites as the outlet for people to forge connections on many levels: “People want to connect not just to each other, but to issues, causes and movements… The small actions we take every day on Facebook are the ones that prime us for big actions.”

· Alec Ross from the State Department, who talked about “21^st Century Statecraft,” a concept of foreign relations that is focused on the power of networks. “Technology says that power and input doesn’t have to be the exclusive privilege of the few, but can be used to empower citizens,” he said. Most interesting was his ambition to broaden diplomacy to include not only state-to-state communication but also communication that is state-to-people and people-to-people. As an example of this new approach he highlighted how Obama’s speech in Cairo was translated live and broadcast on TV, the Internet, and mobile phones. “Now what we’re looking at is the potential of citizens to push governments,” he said. “It’s a dynamic that is dominating the mindshare of diplomats.”

I’d like to close, on an appropriate note for Independence Day, with these insightful words from Ross: “If Paul Revere was a modern citizen, he wouldn’t have ridden down Main Street, he would have just tweeted – and we would have never known his name. Everyone who lives in our network society now has the power to be a Paul Revere. Everyone who has Twitter now has a global distribution network.”

This article was originally posted on Working Wikily at http://workingwikily.net/?p=832 by Heather McLeod Grant:

Heather is a published author, speaker, and advisor to high-impact organizations; she recently joined the Monitor Institute as a senior consultant. She is the co-author of Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, which was named a Top Ten Book of 2007 by the Economist.

Next Research Project Ideas

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:11 GMT

This is my first foray into sharing my doctoral journey, specifically through my decision to share my 5-10 minutes a day of writing about my process and thinking as per my program’s recommendations in our current module (and which I discussed here and here). I hope that reflecting aloud may be helpful for others who are considering this for themselves—either as a model for what can be done, or as a suggestion for what to avoid (the challenges or the process of sharing here itself).

I have to begin thinking about my research ideas for this module, which is entitled Development of Professional Practice. I really like this concept, and think it is more than fitting that I am developing this practice, and exploring it in my own life, here, where my colleagues (both current and future) can join me on the journey.

As I am beginning to formulate my ideas for this mini-project (around 3800 words, +/- 10%), I am going to consider some of the concepts that interest me, as I think some brainstorming is in order:

identity and learning
autoethnographic inquiry (both as a researcher and as studied in others who engage in this)
exploring various personal identities, and the transition from one to another
transformative learning
reflective practice related to constructivist / critical frameworks
individual identity development and self-definition within communities of practice
juggling of identities as a process of personal learning

Will have to play around with these, and see what feedback my cohort offers.

Links for 2009-07-07 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:00 GMT

Documents and links ‎(warninginformation)‎
by Rikard Lövström, Sweden

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-07

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

After teaching tonight with so little sleep last night, I am at zero energy. Not even checking email tonight. #
On my way to the business school; my new class begins tonight. #
Leaving to deliver a final set of instruments to be validated. #
Somebody by me sounds like they are coughing up a lung. #

Farewell, Michael Jackson

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:55 GMT

August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009

Your music and art touched me, and I will miss you terribly. Rest In Peace.

Guest Post by Carie Lewis: Sharing is the New TAF

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:23 GMT

Submitted by Carie Lewis, publisher of Carie Lewis | Social Media Evangelista

If you haven’t implemented sharing tools on your emails yet, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to engage existing advocates, recruit new ones, and drive substantial traffic to your website and campaigns.

Granted, this is no small feat. For us, it took 2 weeks for me to figure out how to rig the code so that it worked in our content management system and pulled the right information when posting to Facebook and Twitter. But the payoff was well worth it. Preliminary results showed that just in the first day of enabling sharing features on our email, we got 500 tweets and over 15,000 visits to the web version of our email from Twitter alone.

Now, that’s great, but it wasn’t perfect. As Beth has stated before, I’m a HUGE advocate for the listen, learn, adapt method and not afraid to fail before I succeed. It’s frustrating but I don’t give up; I learn from my mistakes and apply the lessons to future campaigns. This project was no different.

I was so excited that I got the sharing features to work properly that I didn’t even think about tracking. When we sent out the email (you can see it here.) and my boss asked me how it did, I blanked. He wanted to know how many people shared and viewed it per service, and how many people viewed the web version of the email.

I had no idea.

I could see in Tweetdeck that people were sharing it on Twitter, because I have keyword searches set up for our brand. That was really exciting to see all the activity, but I wanted actual numbers. I was able to scrounge some stats by using Tweetmeme and bit.ly for Twitter, but had no idea what the Facebook impact was or how many people viewed the page. We didn’t have a unique URL for Facebook, and we didn’t have Google Analytics tracking codes set up on the web version of the email. Oops.

So, for the next email we sent out, I used trackable URLs from Google Analytics for both Facebook and Twitter. The URL you shared on Facebook now looked like this:

http://community.hsus.org/humane/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=34514987&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=share&utm_content=34514987&utm_campaign=email

And the URL you shared on Twitter was a shortened bit.ly URL linking to this:

http://community.hsus.org/humane/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=34514987&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=share&utm_content=34514987&utm_campaign=email

Oh yeah, and I made sure the Google Analytics tracking code was installed on the web version of the email. Don’t forget that.

Now, I was able to see stats in Google Analytics for each separate medium. My predictions were correct; sharing on Facebook almost doubled that on Twitter. The numbers were significant, and when I shared them with my team, they were floored.

By adding this simple feature, we’re enabling and encouraging people to spread the word, and making it as easy as possible for them to do so. And we’re seeing how well its working by making sure we can track everything.

Here’s how to enable sharing for your emails:

For Facebook Share: Grab the code off the Share Partners page on Facebook, but take out any javascript. There’s also some great info on that page about how to configure your code to make sure Facebook pulls the right information into the title and description when sharing. Replace the URL with the web version of your email.

The trick: if the web version of your emails begins with “https”, you have to take off the “s”. Sharing functions are not fully compatible with secure pages just yet.

For Twitter, you can set someone’s status by using “http://twitter.com/home?status=check+out+this+link:+http://bit.ly/xxx”.

The trick: make sure you use the + signs in place of any spaces. Then, shorten the URL to the web version of your email using bit.ly or your favorite URL shortening service. We add “(via @humanesociety)” in there to give our Twitter account a little extra exposure.

Note: You might be wondering why we didn’t use an existing tool like AddThis or Share This. While those tools are great (we even use them on our website), they just didn’t do everything we needed for email.

Some best practices:

If you’re using a CMS like us you’ll need to make sure you’re using an email wrapper that pulls unique meta data into each email.
Take the time to tweak and customize your sharing code. By simply adding “via @humanesociety” anytime someone shares on Twitter, we’re giving our Twitter account huge visibility.
Make sure you use tracking codes from your stats program so you can track your success. Use unique URLs for Twitter and Facebook.
You’ll get better results if you ASK. Basic constituent engagement – if you ask, more will participate. We did a “PS” in our first sharing-enabled email asking people to share it.
If you’re sending out a big campaign email, set up keyword alerts with something like Tweetdeck or Tweetbeep. Some people like to customize the Tweets that they share, so you may not see it. For instance, when we sent out the first email, I started monitoring the keyword “Petland” so even if someone took out the “via @humanesociety” or changed the title, I still saw it.
Don’t be afraid to respond to people who aren’t following you when you come across something. I found many people talking about going to Petland and thinking of buying a dog there. I replied and introduced them to our campaign, asking them to consider adoption instead. Starts the conversation in hopes of educating and changing behavior.

Traditional Tell-a-Friend methods like email and web forms are not dead; but like any other emerging technology that’s out there, we have to recognize that people are sharing information in new and different ways than they always have. And we have to adapt by fitting these methods into our communications strategies or we’ll simply fall behind.

Has anyone else implemented sharing features on their emails? I’d love to see examples of how other organizations have made it happen and how it has worked for them.

This article was originally posted on Carie Lewis | Social Media Evangelista at http://cariegrls.blogspot.com/2009/07/sharing-is-new-taf.html by Carie Lewis:

Carie is the Internet Marketing Manager at The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and uses social media to make the world a better place for animals.

Guest Post by Stacey Monk: Dogooders Won’t Change the World (Alone)

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:53 GMT

Submitted by Stacey Monk, founder of Epic Change

There’s an ever-burgeoning number of forums, chats, conferences, meetups destination websites, competitions, you-name-it, for dogooders. Call us social entrepreneurs, changemakers, social innovators, nonprofiteers, the delta sector, np techies, community benefit professionals, pick your poison, there’s a growing number of places we hang out - with one another. Just yesterday I read a tweet that called the #nonprofit twitter tag a “cavernous echo chamber.” Ouch.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love you people. I think you’re some of the most brilliant, passionate, tireless, amazing humans I’ve ever met. To be truthful, I’d rather hang out with you than just about anybody. And I think it’s good that we’re building such a fun, vibrant community…but not good enough.

There’s these kids sitting at the other lunch tables in our global cafeteria. They’re jocks, geeks, artists, musicians and cheerleaders…and we need their help. Doing good isn’t our job, it’s everyone’s. And as long as changing the world is relegated to a sector, it will never happen.

Photo by clyatt.jasper (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license)

A few weeks ago in response to a post I wrote on the cultural bias of social change competitions, Michael Lewkowitz of Igniter.com commented:

“I am painfully tired of destination [sites] for social entrepreneurs/changemakers or any other community…Changemaking needs to engage others both to make the change happen and to probe/test/evolve the venture itself. To me, what we’re hoping for is vibrant ecosystems of changemakers from all places, backgrounds, and disciplines pushing the frontiers of the world we want. An ecosystem where its members connect, interact, and support not just the people in their circles but people they ‘bump into’ based on some ‘random’ interest and connection. This is about facilitating discovery, nurturing trust, sharing experiences, and light-weight focused request/responses.”

I think he’s right…and, online and off, I’m beginning to make it a priority to hang out with folks outside our dogooder set. Last week, I spoke at the 140 Characters Conference in NYC. While everyone in the room was changing the world in their own way, very, very few were in our sector. There were social media folks, musicians, print and television journalists, scientists, fashionistas, and more. Even on the “social media for social good” panel, I believe I was the only one who actually worked within a nonprofit or social enterprise.

As I sat there, I was reminded again that societal change is not the domain of nonprofits or social entrepreneurs; it’s created by musicians, politicians, journalists, technologists and so many others. Here’s just four key conversations that I thought had deep significance for the social change community:

(CAUTION: F-bombs below. )

ANN CURRY | Today Show News Anchor | @AnnCurry
On empathy & telling stories that matter

The quotes below are taken from a New York Observer story about an incredibly interesting panel that included Ann Curry, Robert Scoble, and other journalists from CNN, FOX and NBC in a discussion about the evolution of journalism in the context of Twitter and social media. You may find some of these comments in the thoroughly engaging video as well, though some of the Ann’s more salient points didn’t make it into the footage.

“Here’s what’s pissing me off: The reason I have to fight every time to do these stories [like Darfur] is because the truth is that it’s hard to get the majority of Americans…to care.” (not in video)

“Often times, when we go into foreign countries, one of the worst mistakes that we make as mainstream media people, as any kind of media people, and I hope this changes with the advent of citizen journalism, is that we are unable to empathize in a way that sees their story truthfully…We often go in as Americans telling the story of how Americans see the story going on somewhere. That is a huge mistake.” (starts around 16:46)

“I want you, whether you’re in the Congo or Darfur or if you’re in Iran or if you’re in Tanzania, Kosovo…you shoot that story like it’s your mother, your brother, your sister, your father and your cousin and you tell that in that way because that’s actually the road, I think, to not only clarity and truth and understanding. But I think it’s also the road to really fully becoming global.” (starts around 17:27)

How can we develop audiences, cultivate care and empathy, and find alternate funding that doesn’t require public popularity so that important stories get told?

CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN | Rolling Stone Music Critic| @1000TimesYes
On the limitations of silos & crowdsourcing

“That dude John Burn [an earlier presenter] was up here saying that ‘Twitter makes it easy to find stuff that pertains to you.’ And he thinks that’s awesome. That’s the fuckin’ problem!…I can always learn about stuff that’s important to me; that’s easy. I want to learn about stuff that isn’t important to me. I want to be exposed to things.” (starts around 7:01)

“Crowdsourcing killed punk rock…Crowdsourcing kills art…It’s bullshit. You wanna know why? Because crowds have terrible taste. People have awful taste…it’s all this music that rises to the middle, this boring, bland, white-people guitar music. It fuckin’ sucks. I hate it…It’s not the music that’s the best, it’s the music that the most people can stand. It’s the music that the most people can listen to. If you let the people decide, then nothing truly adventurous ever gets out and that’s a problem.” (starts around 7:21)

What’s the appropriate role for crowdsourcing in the context of social innovation? What ecosystems facilitate serendipitous discovery and collaboration? How can we ensure truly revolutionary, “punk rock” ideas get found, selected & funded?

WYCLEF JEAN | Musician | @wyclef
On poster children & social investment

“I hate these poster child looks of these kids that look so hungry…like ‘please give us money.’ …I hate that because I was one of those kids. There’s a happy side to these kids and this is what we try to focus on with Yele Haiti.” (starts around 20:58)

His interviewer interjects with a comment that ends with “It’s a really dire situation I think.” Wyclef responded: “It’s a dire situation, but it’s a hopeful situation. Hopeful in the sense that you can still twitter from Haiti, …you have an airport in Haiti so…if we can give this country a little bit of boost, it will get itself back on its feet…Unfortunately it’s either that you’re poor or you’re rich, there’s absolutely no middle class. I think one of the things that we can start doing in helping to move this country forward is education…[and] jobs…Investors have to feel like Haiti is a safe place [so] they can actually go back to Port-au-Prince and start investing…because you can do as much charity work as you want to but unless you start to bring business and infrastructure into a place you’re gonna always find a group of kids that are crippled.” (starts around 22:30)

Are we sharing stories and imagery that undermine the dignity and humanity of the very people we’re trying to serve? Are we building sympathy or empathy? How can we build partnerships between nonprofits and the corporate sector such that our successes build upon one another?

DREW OLANOFF | Geek & GOGII Community Director | @drew
On the power of individual storytelling & fun

“When I was diagnosed [with stage 3 hodgkin's lymphoma]…I wanted to do something good. I wanted to turn this experience into something positive…so, basically, we released BlameDrewsCancer.com which allows you with a twitter hashtag, #blamedrewscancer, to blame anything you want on my cancer.” (starts around 4:35)

“[there's] a [new] feature that is amazing and fun…A song is being written…Anything we can do to get the community involved because twitter has alot of artists, alot of musicians…anything we can do to come together…2 weeks ago was my first chemo treatment I felt like crap and I sat there and I read these tweets and they made me laugh. And it helps. And I appreciate it.” (starts around 6:50)

Drew’s engaging an incredibly diverse group of collaborators with his personal story - from coder friends, who developed his website and this cool new twitter tetris game, to musicians, who are writing a song, to businesses like FreeCreditReport.com, who partnered and donated to the cause.

Are there tools we can create that help people tell their own stories in fun, personal, engaging ways that change the world? How can we re-humanize giving? How can we reach out in creative, compelling ways to bring a diverse group of people together around important causes and ideas?

Perhaps that question is the most important of all: how do ecosystems emerge in which conversations like these, with participants from many sectors, evolve further and lead to collaborative action and real change? I also had the opportunity to catch up with some folks at TED while I was in New York and I shared some ideas and posed the same question for them: how can “ideas worth spreading,” which originate from amazing people of incredibly diverse backgrounds, evolve into mass collaborative action from the top-down and the bottom-up to bring them to global scale?

The 140 Characters conference is being re-broadcast in its entirety Monday, 6/29 and Tuesday, 6/30. I assure you there’s many other interesting conversations that may inspire ;) Details are available at http://www.140conf.com/140conf-rebroadcast-june-29-and-june-30th.

This article was originally posted on The Epic Change Blog at http://epicchange.org/blog/2009/06/28/dogooders-wont-change-the-world-alone/ by Stacey Monk:

Stacey is the founder of Epic Change and TweetsGiving.

Guest Post by Alexandra Samuel: Engagement planning worksheets to engage your users and move them to action

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:30 GMT

Submitted by Alexandra Samuel, CEO of Social Signal

How can you use the web to engage your members, supporters or the public, and move them towards a specific action?

That's a common question from nonprofits who are diving into social media. Whether you're looking for your online visitors to contribute photos, forward your issue alerts, make a donation, or contact policy-makers, social media can be a powerful way of engaging your audience and driving them towards action.

But it's often hard for nonprofits to figure out how they can engage people effectively online. It's hard enough to get visitors to your site or social media presence, let alone drive them effectively towards action. In our session at NetSquared today, we used Social Actions as a case study in engaging online community participation, and shared two strategy tools that can help you make your nonprofit site more engaging. Today, we're releasing those tools to the nonprofit community under a Creative Commons attribution/noncommercial license.

1. User profiles
"Nonprofits", "seniors" or "businesses" don't visit your web site, log into your online community or post photos; individual people do. Sarah, the communications director of that nonprofit across town, logs into your web site. Kim, a grandmother living in Oregon, posts photos of the pothole in front of her house. Luisa, who owns a small deli, leaves a comment on your blog post. When you're trying to reach or engage an audience, you need to think in terms of the individual users who will be using your site, and look at your online presence from their perspective.

Our user profile worksheet helps you get to know your target users. Download the worksheet, and complete at least one worksheet for each type of user you want to engage in your site. We find that getting inside the head of a typical user can help you identify the best ways of bringing them to your social media presence, and the content, tools or relationships you can offer to get them engaged.

2. Engagement planning worksheet
Engagement is a process, not a destination. It's helpful to think of a ladder of engagement that begins with your target audience finding your organization or site, and then moves them to a higher level of interest until they are ready to act.

Our engagement planning worksheet helps you identify the steps that move your target audience from casual site visit to active participation. Complete a worksheet for each of the users you've profiled in the user profile worksheets. Each "rung" on the ladder should specify 1-3 content features, tools or activities that will appeal to the user you're targeting.

Together, the user profile exercise and engagement planning worksheet help you see your social media presence from your users' perspective. By offering the content, tools or relationships that your audience members care about, you can move them towards the actions and results you need.

Need help? Let us help you find your engagement opportunities.

The Social Signal team can help you identify the social media approach or features that will engage your users and move them up the ladder of engagement. Complete a user profile worksheet and an engagement planning worksheet for up to three different user types, and send them to us for review. We will:

review your web site or social media presence to assess your online message and focus
analyze your worksheets to understand your audiences and target actions
schedule a call or video meeting to review your engagement planning worksheets and discuss the steps you have envisioned for moving your users to action
deliver a memo summarizing the 3-5 social media promotions, tools or content features that will be most effective at moving your target audiences from interest to action

For NetSquared community members only, our engagement opportunity finder package is $500 when you book online (value: $1,000). Contact us to schedule a call to review your completed worksheets.

This article was originally posted on Social Signal at http://socialsignal.com/blog/alexandra-samuel/engagement-planning-worksheets-engage-your-users-and-move-them-action by Alexandra Samuel:

Alexandra is the CEO of Social Signal, a social media agency that helps organizations use the social web to engage their members and customers in meaningful conversations.

Beth NB that you'll want to leave out the bottom part of the post -- the "need help" part -- and either re-upload or link to the downloads of the attached PDFs in that post.

Guest Post by Amy Sample Ward: Want a peek at my RSS: Here it is!

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:10 GMT

Submitted by Amy Sample Ward, publisher of Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech

When it comes to “nptech” or nonprofit technology, there are more blogs and organizations and resources than any one person can find, let alone keep track of! I’m no exception. I’m overwhelmed daily, just like everyone else, by the amount of information that’s available from, for and about our sector of technology and social benefit. So, my response is simple: I want to share my RSS reader with you. What’s in my brain, can be in yours!

Amy Sample Ward’s Version of RSS

Why?

This is just a starting place. There are other places you can go to find more blogs and resources as well, like Alltop and even WeAreMedia. So, why did I do this? I want to help support those just starting to investigate the options of social technologies for social change work, as well as give something back to those already invested and contributing to the community. Opening up my RSS reader (well, except for my mom’s blog and that kind of thing!) is something I have wanted to do for a while because it

provides an opportunity for me to offer a bit of value back to the larger tech+change community that is so valuable to me
is aligned with my core values of collaboration and sharing
creates a chance to improve this collection of feeds by and with my community

What?

My public RSS reader is built on Netvibes, which is a free, web-based RSS reader. This is a place to find blogs or RSS feeds from research or organizational websites - all focused on the large intersection of social technologies and social benefit work. This is free to use and publicly accessible. As you will see, it has many different tabs to try to help with the information overload of juggling so many great content sources. Check it out!

Join me!

I would love for you to visit the public RSS reader, but even more so, I would love for you to suggest feeds that should be part of it! You can either comment on the News & Resources page, or email me with your suggestions.

This article was originally posted on Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech at http://www.amysampleward.org/2009/06/11/want-a-peak-at-my-rss-here-it-is/ by Amy Sample Ward:

Amy is a communicator, collaborator and catalyst in the tech for good sector and the Global Community Builder at NetSquared.

Guest Post by Amy Sample Ward -- The Power of Vision: Review of “The Pollyanna Principles”

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:59 GMT

Submitted by Amy Sample Ward, publisher of Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech

Hildy Gottlieb’s new book The Pollyanna Principles is a handbook for starting a revolution in social benefit organization design and practice, but it isn’t the revolution. What’s the catch? Well, it is going to take everyone, whether you are part of an organization or receive services from one, whether you are a philanthropist or a volunteer, whether you work for a for-profit business or are a community member. For social benefit organizations to truly “work” we all need to be part of the design, the process, the success.

“When we assume we are separate, we build systems that reinforce that separateness. When we assume we are interconnected and interdependent, we build systems that reinforce those connections."

The Six Pollyanna Principles

There are six core statements that represent The Pollyanna Principles and they include:

We accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for.
Each and everyone of us is creating the future, every day, whether we do so consciously or not.
Everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not.
“Being the change we want to see” means walking the talk of our values.
Strength build upon our stengths, not our weaknesses.
Individuals will go where systems lead them.

The Pollyanna Principles boil down to a similar premise I have blogged about before: we are creating organizations that

are vested in the social issues they work towards ending in such a way that they require those issue to persist
are built in a bubble
are consistently missing opportunities to succeed by operating like a business (with competition) instead of as a living part of the community.

You can find previous blog posts (with great conversations in the comments) here, here and here.

Why I’m excited about The Pollyanna Principles

We have a huge opportunity before us to remodel our social benefit organization structure. There is so much talk both online and offline, from inside organizations and from outside, that “nonprofits are broken.” We’ve done step 1: admitted that we have a problem. Now, what? Well, as Hildy explains, we need to start driving our work with our vision of how we want the world to be, instead of what the problems are before us. What does that mean? Well, imagine that your organization said you wanted to have a public education system in your state that provided opportunities for all students to learn, fair pay for both teachers and staff, opportunities for growth for students, teachers and staff, and an entry point for all students to enter the “real world” prepared. You can imagine that by operating under that vision (instead of focusing on drop-out rates, teacher pay scales, or job skill training) that partnerships with the community, new opportunities for learning exchanges and career paths, and much more start to take shape organically, naturally.

Collaboration is a huge focus of mine: Finding ways for organizations working in the same sector to share calls to action to amplify the impact, helping organizaitons understand where their work aligns to cross pollinate across their networks, and so forth. Reading the Pollyanna Principles was like finding a twin I had been separated from at birth! But, that isn’t to say it’s the complete conversation. This is truly a great starting place from which we can all move the conversation forward.

There are still many questions I have and that I imagine all organizations, boards, volunteers, community members will have when they read the book. But I want to, am ready to, ask those questions and answer them as a community. Questions like:

How do we truly create community planning opportunities as funders that include all members of the community when the “community” of interested people is often limited to the grantee pool?
How do we begin to change the cultural view of nonprofits in society/by the community so that the public, those who use the services or are otherwise affected by nonprofits’ work can have a stake in the responsibility to create organizations making real change and all of the community is shaping its future?
How do we help organizations redefine their “community” to understand the entire ecosystem in which they operate?
And many more...

What’s Next

The Pollyanna Principles is about social benefit organizations, but it’s really about community. Community is the most important thing to me, and I truly believe that we can’t create any amount of change, any amount of real world impact, or any lasting effects without participation, ownership, and shared responsibility by community members in the work these organizations do. This means we have to have community members represented in building and implementing an organization’s work, as well as building grant programs from funders. We need to have those receiving the services and those delivering them in constant collaboration. We need people in the community to expect organizations to succeed and take a stake in making sure they do.

So, what’s stopping us from doing this? Hildy says it’s the Culture of Can’t that we are all accustomed to operating within that holds us back. Can we move to the Culture of Can? Are we ready? What are the Can’ts holding you or your organization back?

I’m ready to start: to start asking questions and coming up with answer, to think and share collaboratively, and to really focus on the vision we share for a better world and work towards that goal instead of focusing only on the problems - are you? I’d love to hear your ideas!

You can learn more about The Pollyanna Principles at: http://pollyannaprinciples.org

This article was originally posted at the Stanford Social Innovation Review at http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/entry/the_power_of_vision_review_of_the_pollyanna_principles/ by Amy Sample Ward:

Amy is a communicator, collaborator and catalyst in the tech for good sector and the Global Community Builder at NetSquared.

Links for 2009-07-06 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:00 GMT

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-06

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

My Business Communication MBA class begins tonight. I was up late tweaking my slides and presentation rubrics. #
4 new comments on “Silence and Voice” and more http://bt.io/Ep #
Surprised by how many people are still in the Hudson River Park. Am I the only person who has to go to work in the morning? #
Incredible traffic on NY 17 on the way to NYC. Never seen it so backed up. #

Now I've Got Swine Flu – Really

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:20 GMT

First Person Swine Flu

I have written about swine flu recently from an epidemiological point of view but now, unfortunately, I'm in the position of being able to provide a first person account of the disease as it progresses in my own body.

I've been ill for two days, not had a thing to eat, and the symptoms showed no signs of easing up. Then the sore throat and cough started up, adding to the intestinal discomfort. Temperature still fluctuating, so it was time to call the GP. Linda phoned in for me, but could only speak to the nurse and they made an appointment, if you call it that, for a doctor to call back and talk to me which they did a few hours later. After a question and answer session which I was really not able to cope with very well, she decided I needed Tamiflu which is being sent out to chemists, not on prescription but as part of the emergency preparations for the swine flu pandemic, or any other flu pandemic for that matter such as avian flu ( H5N1) which is also on it's way perhaps, but was suddenly overtaken by the swine flu A H1N1 virus, first reported in Mexico.

Swine Flu In London

So anyway, after some fussing over which was the nearest chenist and whether they had stocks yet, Linda went out to get the tamiflu. Apparently there was a queue of people there, all for the same purpose, so this gives an idea of how widely the swine flu has spread around London now. No hype, it's here amongst us and multiplying fast despite it being high summer in England now.

Tom Reynolds, the London ambulance driver reports that ambulance call outs have increased dramatically:

Our call rate has gone from the normal 4,200-4,500 calls per day to around 5,200-5,700 in the last few days. This is an increase of around 26% Rather obviously this is having us run ragged.

The tamiflu arrived and I've taken one tablet so far as well as some rehydrating fluid. It's too early to expect anything positive but adding nausea to the symptoms was most unwelcome. Unpleasant as this is, not to mention extremely inconvenient (we were due to go out to the theatre tonight) it's generally less severe than ‘normal' seasonal flu. Not the headcolds that some people call ‘flu but influenza.

Thanks to the people who sent well wishes via twitter and facebook etc, and for suggesting I might as well write about it – it's a useful distraction in between times. For those concerned about Linda, she's not 100% but doesn't seem to have gone down with the swine flu, which the doctor said would usually be both at the same time, but there's some evidence that people who had Spanish Flu in the 1967 epidemic have some residual immunity.

PS: The Symptoms of Swine Flu

People might need to know so here are the symptoms in order of appearance in my case – for others it may be different. Look away now if you don't want read it.

Diarrhea
Stomach pain
Fever – high temperature
Total loss of appetite
sore throat, mild head cold symptoms
tickly cough with phlegm
weakness
nausia

The only one missing is muscular aches and pains I think.

Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blog

Now I've Got Swine Flu – Really

PhD Process Reflections

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:08 GMT

I have received such helpful feedback based on my posting yesterday, “Reflective Journal for My Doctoral Studies – Do It Online?,” that I think I shall begin, somewhat carefully, sharing my daily thoughts about my journey through the process (or at least the current module). I will try to do this with political care (not mentioning colleagues by name, not giving away everything in the program, etc.) that will focus on my own developing thoughts in this process, rather than the process itself.

Of course, writing as if some of this can be considered independently is ridiculous; that is one of the things I am noticing based on our intense reading of some of Wenger and Lave’s earlier works around social learning / networked learning / communities of practice. In some ways this all makes a lot of sense, in that the very process of thinking about even writing about this publicly, with my own community’s feedback and guidance, is part of the process itself.

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2009-07-05

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:59 GMT

Anybody familiar with The 7th Biennial International Auto/Biography Association Conference in 2010 in the UK? http://tinyurl.com/mxndfl #
Desparate for a latte. Need 4 shots now. #
Ate at the Sherwood Inn in Skaneateles. #

Twitter for Churches

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:09 GMT

Rebecca Egolf, I think, recommended The reason YOUR CHURCH must Twitter; making your ministry contagious by Anthony D. Coppedge and I've recommended it to several people since buying the $5 e-book about a week ago. So it comes with excellent ecumenical credentials, since her recommendation said, in effect, that it was “good for synagogues, too.” (I noticed that the book is scrupulously non-denominational but it's clearly American Evangelical.) Indeed I think that the book would be helpful for leaders of all kinds of spiritual and religious communities. Beyond that, it's a nice example of how to teach people that a tool like Twitter needs to be approached in the context of ongoing social practice. It combines lots of basic how-to instructions and hints at how Twitter could be used in the every-day life of a church. (Because I'm in the final stages of publishing a book myself, I have to mention two typos that I noticed: it should be “Dr. Edwin Land” on page 54 and “People's lives are busy” on page 29; also when I printed it there were no page numbers which makes it clumsy for referencing passages.) The many screen-shots that are included are very good, too.

There's a practice. This book is more than just a manual on how to use Twitter. (There are certainly enough of them out there by now.) What struck a chord with me was the feeling that it gave me a window into some of what being a pastor in a church is about. Pastors are pivotal leaders who play a very complex role in their communities. Sometimes they are domain spokespersons, sometimes team leaders (of volunteer or paid teams), and sometimes learners trudging along the path. Most interesting, you get the sense from reading this book that there is a widely distributed community of practice of church pastors who have a lot to learn from each other. (It's a professionalized occupation, or calling, where seminaries have had a gate-keeping role, so learning from each other may need more support than it did a generation or two ago.) But the book suggests that pastors need to learn from each other about handling issues of connecting with church members selectively and impactfully, with personal privacy, and with marginality (e.g., not just being ‘relevant on Sundays only'). All these issues come up in the context of using Twitter for a church. So, bottom line, the practice of being a pastor is similar to that of leading many other communities of practice. There could be a lot of learning on both sides.

There's a community. I love the way Coppedge suggests that there's a real social network out there that can provide examples and support. (And he just names names like spiritual entrepreneur Dave Ferguson or digerati pastor Terry Storch). Following them or Anthony Coppedge himself obviously gives you access to that community. But I found it surprising that his book didn't mention hashtags. Beyond increasing traffic with such things as #followfriday, hash tags are an obvious way for conversations within a church or among a community of pastors to take place. Why not advocate hashtags like these?

There's a learning agenda. Finally, the book is filled with nice quotes that suggest an authentic learning agenda. For example:

“The Church cannot be content to live in its stained-glass house and throw stones through the picture window of modern culture.” — Robert MacAfee Brown

Although the worry may not be stated in terms of stained glass, I've heard Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Buddhists voice very similar concerns. Relevance and connection are very important. Addressing the issue will take more than Twitter.

Leading a dance movement

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:08 GMT

I found this great video here in a blogpost about leadership in blogging. It's moving when there is a turning point and people come running to join in the dancing. The first 10-15 people seem to play an important role.

So who are you? Are you the one starting something new? (I'm not!)

ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT TO CATCH THE EARLY-BIRD DISCOUNT!

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:01 GMT

If you’re intending to register for the two-day Masterclass in Washington DC on July 30-31, with Steve Denning and Seth Kahan, on Getting Change Right through High-Performance Teams, register by tomorrow Friday July 3, and get the 33% discount. For more information, go here.

Lessons in high-performance from a village in France: delighting clients

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:57 GMT

It is seven-thirty in the morning in a little village in the south of France. The village is Golfe-Juan. We are just a few kilometers from the big modern city of Cannes. But the scene I am looking at is as different from a big city as it is possible to be.

On this pleasantly crisp June morning, the sky is blue. I am sitting at an outdoor table of a cafe called La Fregate, sipping an espresso coffee.

As I sit, the rich, irresistible smell of warm fresh bread is wafting across the one-lane street from the the boulangerie called Mille Epis The bread is baked on the premises by people who are masters of their craft. Even at this hour, clients are coming to pick up their freshly baked baguettes. They usually buy two. It is no use buying one baguette. The bread is so tasty and aromatic you will have eaten one on the way home.

It suddenly dawns on me that the citizens of this little viilage have a lot to teach us about high-performance teams. To find out what, go here.

Free teleseminar: Tuesday July 7 at 11am Eastern

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:55 GMT

Continuing the second of the FREE 3-part Live Teleseminar series with Steve Denning and Seth Kahan, Getting Change Right thru High-Performance Teams. Tuesday July 7 11am For more information go here.

Links for 2009-07-01 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:00 GMT

Business VoIP Services | Junction Networks

Gordon Ramsey as change facilitator

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:17 GMT

Image by jo-h via Flickr

Yesterday I watched Gordon Ramsey while he was trying to change a restaurant in Brighton that wasn't doing well. I'm not that much interested in cooking, but I like watching him as a change facilitator. He works very much as an external expert- he's not the type of relax and see what happens... I think this works in his case because he is a well-respected cook-advisor. (for many other advisors who are not that famous it may not work!).

He had a very strong intervention explaining the financial situation using a cake metaphor. He took all ingredients and called them the various costs- personnel costs etc. Then he backed two cakes: one with balanced ingredients and one with unbalanced ingredients. He actually backed both cakes and showed it to the restaurant owner. Saying that she needs to balance the costs like you have to balance the cake ingredients. Though a simple metaphor- it actually made her cry because it was so true.

Lesson on metaphors: they can be very strong if used well and recognised by the problemowner.

I read another nice metaphor that I often use for myself in my head about social media. I read it in the guest blog by Hilde Gottlieb on Beth's blog. I'm quoting it here:

Imagine this conversation.
"I am thinking about getting a phone. Who should I call? What should I say to them? How long before the phone will help us reach our goals?"
Sounds silly, of course - but that is really what we are asking when we ask, “What should I talk about on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace?”

Links for 2009-06-30 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:00 GMT

Webcalldirect
similar to jajah.com
High Definition Audio Conferencing And Audio Conference Services | HiDef
(used to be highspeedconferencing)

Links for 2009-06-28 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:00 GMT

Gov Web2.0 showcase
Examples and discussion about government agencies using social media
100 Awesome Open Source Tools for Writers, Journalists, and Bloggers | Online Courses

Two-day Masterclass: July 30-31, 2009 Washington DC

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:09 GMT

Get the 33% early bird discount on 2-day Masterclass in Washington DC on Getting Change Right through High-Performance Teams: July 30-31 with Steve Denning & Seth Kahan Register by Friday July 3 http://bit.ly/FFpKn

Free teleseminar: Monday June 29 at 11am Eastern

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:07 GMT

Announcing FREE 3-part Live Teleseminar Getting Change Right thru High-Performance Teams. Starts Jun 29 11am http://bit.ly/qC4Lo

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:05 GMT

Read my review of de Botton's The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work: "one of the wisest and funniest books you will ever read" http://bit.ly/bJZdu

Don't second guess me

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:24 GMT

I am working on a project requiring a major organisational transformation. On Monday, the division's chief heads off to Canberra to get a mandate to make the change from head office. One of his biggest concerns is head office continuously second-guessing him as he leads the organisation through the change process. He recognises that in complex situations there are no correct answers and there are likely to be many different opinions about what should be done, and head office has a habit of trying to micro-manage things.

I suggested using a story to demonstrate how head office second guessing might be fatal to the change process. This story from a BBC program 'The Human Mind' came to mind:

In October 2001, a fire crew was fighting a fire in a disused bingo hall in Leicester in the UK. Even though it was big, the fire chief decided it was safe enough to send the crew into the building. They were starting to make progress in knocking the fire down when the fire chief decided something was wrong, and ordered his team out of the building. The team protested, unwilling to give up the progress they had made. But the fire chief insisted and as they exited the building it exploded in a massive fireball. If the decision to evacuate hadn't been made the entire team would have been killed. It turns out that the fire was one of the rarest and most dangerous phenomenon in firefighting - a backdraft. The fire chief had never experienced a backdraft before, he just knew that something was wrong and they needed to get out. In the ensuing investigation it turns out there were three things that were unusual: the smoke was more orange than usual, air was rushing into the building rather than out of it, and the fire was unusually quiet. The fire chief was right in his decision, he just didn't know why at the time.

Relating the story to being second-guessed by head office might go like this. "Imagine if head office were there at that fire. There was no evidence that anything unusual was happening, the team were arguing against the chief (they wanted to stay and fight the fire) and they were making good progress. Chances are that head office would have overruled the fire chief and told him to keep fighting the fire, and the entire team would have been killed. And the head office decision would have been perfectly rational and the whole thing written off as a tragic accident."

Image Editing lesson 2 : The Clone Tool

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:50 GMT

The second video tutorial in this series about image editing concerns the use of the Clone Tool. In the first lesson we looked at image editing with Layers, and again I'm using the Seashore free image editing software for Mac but the same principles apply to many other image editing software packages.

Image editing with the Clone Tool

Click here to view the embedded video.

One simple use of the clone toolis to extend some background over part of an image that doesn't fit in, effectively making some obtrusive feature vanish. The limitations to this are that the background has to be something relatively uniform. If you want to try your hand at editing the photograph used as an example in this tutorial then you will find it here on Flickr with a creative commons license that allows derivatives to be made and published, with attribution.

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Image Editing lesson 2 : The Clone Tool

Pumping as fast as we can

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:50 GMT

For a couple of years it wasn't “a book” but just “an update”. After our ideas started getting more interesting and more useful, I took to taunting my co-conspirators Etienne Wenger and Nancy White that what is now Digital Habitats “is actually a book.” Later, when we all admitted that it was indeed a book, we decided that it would be faster and easier to self-publish. We could write what we wanted, address an audience that may not yet exist, and be just as theoretical and just as practical as we wanted. And we did just that, learning all kinds of things as we went.

In the end we hired Michael Valentine to do the diagrams and book design, Peter + Trudy Johnson-Lenz to help with the editing, and Sunday Oliver to produce the index. Even with complete professionals on board with the project, we still maintained a do-it-yourself style. But I'm not sure about “fast” or “easy.”

An example of how doing it ourselves makes things not so fast was when we were looking at the “completed” index recently. We found that we had an entry for “folksonomy” in the glossary but it had disappeared from the book itself. Should we remove the entry from the glossary even after it was type-set? We decided that the index entry should point to the glossary and also say “See tagging,” index an entry that still had several mentions in the text. All well and good except for the fact that Etienne took it as a challenge to improve on the index. And he did find an instance where we had misspelled Marc Coenders' name along the way and he will undoubtedly improve the index. But, working on the index do-it-yourself style has to get squeezed between hosting visitors from Hong Kong and Sydney, flying across the Atlantic Ocean at least once, and finishing overdue reports for less forgiving entities than you, the potential reader of the book.

So if not “so fast” or “so easy,” does self-publishing still seem like such a good idea? I think so. We're still going to use a print on demand service and sell the book through Amazon and other channels. But we've decided to have CPsquare be the publisher of record in order to segregate the work from other projects and streamline it. Who knows what surprises lurk in the segregation and streamlining? As Jean Lave said, “That learning occurs is not problematic. What is learned is always complexly problematic.”

References

Jean Lave, “The Practice of Learning”, p 3-32 in Seth Chaiklin and Jean Lave (eds) Understanding Practice; perspectives on activity and context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Overcoming objections to social media reblogged

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:57 GMT

I found a great post by called Using social media in your nonprofit: overcoming objections, written by Debra Askanase. She writes about the need to engage in social media as a nonprofit, because conversations are happening online anyway. Her angle is more an organisational identity building angle, whereas I investigate the potential of social media for professionalisation and learning. But the objections are very recognisable.

She lists 5 objections she heard while presenting about social media

1. It’s not safe! What about the BU Craigslist killer? (someone REALLY asked this question in the presentation)
2. What if our biggest rival pretends to be us online?
3. Social media means a lot of work and we don’t have the staff time to do that.
4. There is no place in our organization for social media
5. People will attack us online with negative critique.

For each objection, she gives some answers. I liked the practical example of two organisations that practise 'online listening' through social media:

Carie Lewis from the Humane Society of the US (she’s their Brand Ambassador) holds a 9-minute staff meeting every day to inform each and every one of the HSUS employees about “what’s going on that day - PR, what people are talking about on Twitter, etc.”

Wendy Harman, of the American Red Cross, writes that “We distribute a daily social media update email that contains a sampling of most relevant mentions.” Everyone must be involved. No more silos.

Other objections I often hear are fear for using software that is not within the organisation's firewall, fear for information overload (not seeing the trees through the forest). In development low bandwidth is also used as an excuse. Yet, taking into account how many people you work with are comfortable using social media is a necessary step. I think a lot of the objections boil down to fear for the unknown, something new.

One newspaper article was very sceptical about twitter in terms of social relations, fearing that the loose relationships are mistaken for real relationships. I think that is typically a view of a person who hasn't experienced twitter. If you do, you see it is a new communication means that people use, but it is complementary to all other means.

See also the 10 objections to social media I blogged earlier on.

Publicsphere - Government 2.0

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:00 GMT

Senator Kate Lundy hosted yesterday's Publicsphere #2 event on Government 2.0. I attended Parliament House for the morning and 'watched' online throughout the afternoon (using the live blog, video stream and the twitter traffic (#publicsphere). It was interesting to watch presentations to an audience of 150 people, the majority of whom had laptops open and were twittering (about the event in the main) and googling relevant info to add into the twitter traffic. Personally, I felt a little overwhelmed by the many channels of information and didn't get much value from the presentations themselves.

Things I liked about the event were:

15 minute presentation format - this forced speakers to have a few clear messages
The diverse technologies available meant there was something for everyone
Meeting some very interesting people and catching up with some people that I haven't seen for ages
It was very well organised and all up it ran pretty smoothly
Seeing the passion in Kate Lundy's eyes for getting this stuff happening

Things I didn't like about the event were:

A constant stream of presentations with no provision for discussion. It appeared that the organisers thought that electronic interaction via twitter and commenting on the live blog obviated the need for people to speak to each other. Exacerbating this was the preference for eating into the few breaks to make up time.
Realising that I couldn't cope too well with the multiple inputs while attempting to build a mind map of things that resonated with me (and watching others appear to handle it with ease). I did learn a lot about twitter on the day.

One of the key themes was the urgent need for change in the people component of the equation. Politicians and public servants live in a culture where behaviour is focussed on control of information, avoidance of risk etc. Not that they have any bad intent, they just live in a world where this is the norm. Nearly every speaker touched on this issue. Nonetheless I expect that tradition will hold and only a miniscule proportion of funding will address the change component. One approach is to find out government positive deviants and work out how to influence others to adopt their behaviours and methods. There must be some out there.

Yes we can, but very slowly (and not always)

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:41 GMT

Image via Wikipedia

In a newspaper magazine I read about volunteers who go to work in Uganda in "alsof je de trein naar Zandvoort neemt". I agree with the conclusion drawn in the very realistic and recognisable article: see volunteering in countries like Uganda as an investment in yourself, and don't expect to change anything in 1,2 or even 6 months. There was a great example:

Two Dutch teachers: we were going to form couples with the Ugandan teachers to guide the children. However, we noted that these teachers were already a bit tired of volunteers because they try to change everything. Someone introduced a method from Dalton, with a traffic light system. Red means by quiet, Orange- you can ask questions and Green - you can talk freely. Whenever we entered, they would quickly put up the traffic light, but they would never use it.

This sounds like a very real situation. What can we learn from it in terms of change management?

1. You need to have a constructive helper relationship before you can facilitate change. People need to trust you and your interventions. There is imported trust (or mistrust) too. The Ugandan teachers were already tired of the volunteers. So for any volunteer it would be harder to build a relationship with the teachers in which they trust their interventions.

2. Change within a short time period will only work if it fits within the main system and respects the change rhythm of the people involved. The Dutch teachers frame of mind is too different from the Ugandan situation. Only small changes (single loop) changes are possible. Deeper change processes affecting the way we work take much more time.

The Great Glen Way

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:11 GMT

At the end of May we walked 73 miles from Fort William to Inverness along the Great Glen Way. Stayed at the Great Glen hostel in North Laggan and the Loch Ness Youth hostel - both very good. We got pretty wet in the first couple of days, as the rest of the UK basked in sunshine. But it was good to see the forests, the Caledonian canal, the lochs and the hillsides in all weathers. Fantastic plants! Felt great to be out walking each and every day, catching up with old friends, and away from desk, computer and the general busy-ness of life in southern England. The walk was more varied than I expected. Here's a little of what we saw.

Links for 2009-06-21 [del.icio.us]

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:00 GMT

loband
Type in the URL of a website you want to see with low bandwidth

Not just a journey...

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 06:45 GMT

I started work this week on a major change project. Our 'three journeys' concept for embedding change and making strategies stick is really resonating. I must admit to walking into the project with some trepidation...a broken organisation that needs to be fixed or 'blown away' (a nice metaphor...not!). After four days there I feel a sense of enormous optimism. There is an alignment of circumstances that provide a great impetus for change. This is the project of a lifetime for the leadership team - the permission to create an amazing transformation.

On Friday afternoon one of the team noted that it was not just a journey we are starting on, its an adventure.

New Brazilian Swine Flu Discovered

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:55 GMT

A new strain of swine flu has been discovered in Brazil, showing that the type A H1N1 swine flu virus is fully capable of mutating.

New Strain of Swine Flu Discovered in Brazil - Infectious Disease - FOXNews.com

A new strain of the swine flu virus has been discovered by Brazilian scientists.

The scientists uncovered the new strain after examining samples from a patient who was hospitalized in Sao Paulo in April, Agence France-Presse reported.

The 26-year-old, who developed flu symptoms after returning from Mexico, has since made a full recovery.

The variant has been called A/Sao Paulo/1454/H1N1 by the Adolfo Lutz Bacteriological Institute, which compared it with samples of the H1N1 swine flu from California.

It was not yet known whether the new strain causes more severe infections than the current H1N1 strain, which has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization.

Nearly 36,000 people in 76 countries have been infected with the H1N1 virus, according to the latest figures from the WHO, causing more than 160 deaths.

So they don't yet know if this particular strain of swine flu is any more dangerous than the one which has recently been declared a global pandemic, but the fact that a new, separate strain has been identified already could arose fears of a repeat of the 1918 H1N1 Spanish flu virus pandemic which evolved into a much more harmful strain, eventually killing tens of millions of people around the world just after the First World War.

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New Brazilian Swine Flu Discovered

Links for 2009-06-15 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:00 GMT

Flip Video Spotlight - Storytelling

Are your community's lurkers healthy lurkers?

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:36 GMT

I facilitated a teleconference with Mirjam Neelen for CPsquare. Mirjam is doing a thesis on this topic and shared her literature research with us. It struck me how much more you dive into a topic if you have to facilitate it, you suddenly feel more responsible and really invest in the topic. I've blogged about lurking before, investigating whether lurking in online forums is a sort of legitimate peripheral participation that leads to people learning about the practices of a community of practice. This time we tried to analyze whether lurking in online forums is a problem or a bliss for companies. The definition of lurking is as people who NEVER post, hence they don't share their questions, ideas or suggestions online.

What did I learn about lurking? First, most of all recognized that lurking can be very positive. Lurking into an online forum because you feel you are a novice can make you more expert. Or scanning a wide variety of online forum to know what's happening in other fields (helps boundary crossing). Something that really struck me in Mirjam's paper was the observation by Stegbauer that if participants remained inactive for the first four months, the likelihood for them to become active was minimized. I recognized this from my own behaviour. That means there is a crucial period to try and get participants active, to stimulate active participation. Mirjam outlined a wide variety of barriers that may lead to lurking behaviour and withold members from posting:

Interpersonal barriers- loss of face
Procedural barriers- people don't buy into the recommended ways of sharing (could be called preferential barriers?)
Technological barriers - lack of technological aptitude
Cultural barriers- crosscultural differences

'Healthy' lurking processes are probably situation where people are novices and learn by lurking or interdisciplinary lurking. It becomes unhealthy when important information and knowledge is missed out because of the above mentioned barriers. Suppose an online community is missing out all major experts because they continue to change offline, then some bridging needs to be done to ensure the online community doesn't become marginalized and mediocre. I guess an analyisis of inbound trajectories whereby people move from lurking to being active or core members are key to seeing whether lurking is healthy. What are the community's practice to stimulate sharing of ideas and perspectives?

What did I learn about online facilitation? I made it into a sort of exercise in online facilitation for myself, designing and online-teleconference-online sequence. The idea was to collect lurker stories online, discuss the research focussing on lurking behaviour in online corporate community forums, and go back online to brainstorm about research questions. The first part worked well, but there was no energy to go back online to discuss the research questions. I think I should have changed the initial plan into a topic that might have attracted more energy for the participants of the teleconference, like research methodologies. What really paid off was to prepare it all together beforehand in a skype session. That's an investment that really pays off in terms of quality.

2009 – A Year of EA Books

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:06 GMT

If you are into EA-books, you can look forward to 2009. There will be at least three books you must read. We are working hard on getting our book ready for publication. There is still no set date for publication/availability, but we still say 'early 2009', and will self-publish the book ...

Accept uncertainty, prepare for surprise

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:54 GMT

Interesting article from Ian Scoones on UK preparations for swine flu. He refers to Emery Roe and Paul Schulman's recent book High Reliability Management. Scoones is critical that 'early warning approaches' that rely on local knowledge have been largely ignored in our top-down culture. He concludes:

Preparing for a pandemic means preparing for surprises – and being ready to respond rapidly and flexibly under conditions of uncertainty. As the experience with avian influenza has shown, this may require more than simply the top-down, "active and aggressive" technocratic responses being urged.

Roe and Schulman also suggest a need to work more with local knowledge and to value the skill and judgment of middle-level professionals often taken for granted. Skills are needed to work with uncertainty and to prepare for surprise, including systemic thinking. Our government seems to have focused on trying to control....including trying to control how we sneeze. Scoones' article points to rather different priorities and lessons to be learnt here.

See me typing life..

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:04 GMT

This week I'm not too busy- great to read and write! Wrapping up a project. Feels like I have more room to think of new things to undertake. One of the really unnecessary things I discovered in livetyping. It shows exactly how you typed something, including the typos :).

LiveTyping.com (through Willem Karssenberg). I'm lucky I'm not working for a company- they'd probably think I'm wasting my time though it's really clearing my head and refreshing me.

Might be something I will never really use, but it's nice to know this is possible. Another nice thing to play with is 1001 fonts. I really like the handwriting fonts.

Image Editing Lesson 1 : Layers

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:04 GMT

Seashore image editing Video

On request I've made some Image editing tutorial videos and this is the first in a series of at least five. Lesson one is an introduction to using Layers. Layers are essential to the construction of drawings and can be used in a similar way when building up effects onto photographs. They make it much easier to come back and change or redo image effects later by leaving each stage intact - a process called non-destructive editing. Anyway, here's the video from youtube, I hope you will bear with me and keep watching, it gets much more useful after a bit of a slow start I know that - and your comments and reviews are very welcome both here and on the youTube page.

Free image editing software for Mac

The software I'm using is called Seashore and it's an open source image editor for Mac using the native Cocoa interface, so it feels like a proper Mac application, not a migrated one.

You can download this free software from Seashore at Sourceforge. If you find that iPhoto doesn't do all that you want and photoshop is just too big and cumbersome then Seashore could be the image editing application to get you started on acquiring some really useful skills.

Future image editing Tutorial Videos

The next four tutorials will cover:

Using the clone tool effectively
Selecting colours and applying changes
How to photograph a ghost
Subtle use of tinting

If you'd like to receive notice when these are published then you need to subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog and join the newsletter (see sidebar)

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Image Editing Lesson 1 : Layers

Follow the instructions or think for yourself?

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:23 GMT

I found this cartoon on the blog of Marnix Catteeuw. If you can't read the text, you can go to his blog. It was originally posted on the xkcd blog.

I fell into the same trap when I was trying to locate a physiotherapist with google maps. I thought it was handy that you can locate them on the map immediately. I discovered later that the good old fat yellow pages had many more referrals than google maps..

Great reminder that good professionals think for themselves and don't routinely follow the instructions..

Useful conversations for fledgling CoP

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:18 GMT

On Tuesday I worked with three new communities of practice in a government agency. Each group was quite different but in all of them we talked about the things the groups should do first. I promised to send them ideas on conversations they might consider early on. Here is what I have come up with so far.

Purpose: an important discussion early on is to determine the purpose of the group - why it exists. While many groups will have similar descriptions of their purpose (learning, tap into the organisation's knowledge in the domain, solve problems faster, standardise practices etc), each group needs to have this conversation.

Knowledge Market: this process encourages participants to identify things they can offer (specific techniques, documents etc) and things they need to learn or need help with. This process can be done face to face or via teleconference. It helps the group build relationships and to start sharing their knowledge and expertise.

Community Orientations: a concept developed by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White and John Smith and described here. In this activity groups discuss the areas they will focus mostly on in the short term.

Discussion tables. This activity is designed to get groups talking about the things they can do to improve their practice in the selected domain. In this conversation useful things to think about are things that will make the biggest difference for the domain and things that will make their work easier/better/more enjoyable/more rewarding.

What others are there?

Schein's ten step culture deciphering process for enterprise2.0

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:32 GMT

I've reread Schein's Organizational Culture and Leadership. I read it in 2001 with the organisational change processes of Ghanaian organisations in mind. Now I'm reading it with social media introduction glasses. It's been a joy to read it, such good understanding and so practically applicable.

About a learning culture in organisations Schein writes that we don't know tomorrow's world,but we know it will be different, more complex, more fast-paced and more culturally diverse. Hence the need for organisations and their leaders to become perpetual learners. So there is a need to speed up our learning processes and mechanisms. I think social media can contribute to that. But there is a paradox with culture in organisations, culture being a stabilizer, a way to make things predictable. Strong cultures are stable and hard to change. So does it mean that we need more flexibility to change assumptions? A rapidly learning organisation will change its assumptions too.

How and when to assess cultural dimensions? Schein is very strongly saying that it is not useful to assess culture as part of a desire to change the culture. Rather, there should be a clear goal, an organisational problem to be worked on. If that problem has cultural dimensions, it would be good to assess culture and how the shared assumptions support or get in the way of solving the problem of the organisation.

If that is the case, you can use a ten-step culture assessment process to decipher the assumptions at work within the organisation. The steps role from obtaining leadership commitment, via group interviews to identifying artifacts and espoused values. From there you go to the shared tacit assumptions and identify cultural aids and hindrances in relation to the stated problem.

How does this relate to social media introduction in organisations? I think it is very relevant because social media is not introduced out of the blue, but linked to a certain objective. (see the POST model from the Groundswell). If you take the additional step of doing a culture assessment, it would help to decipher assumptions at play which help or hinder the use of social media. Though you may generalize by stating that you need a 'open' or 'knowledge sharing' culture this is so general that it's not helpful. The culture deciphering process could help you to find cultural or subcultural elements that need to shift. And elements that are already in place that match the use of social media for a certain objective. It will definitely increase the chances for success I strongly believe.

I would be very interested in trying this process out in an organization!

Newsletter Addenda

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:14 GMT

Newsletter subscriber, Ross Nicholson, rightly points out that Tom Peter's said "Ready, fire, aim" not "Ready, aim, fire," which I incorrectly wrote in the last newsletter. It seems automatic pilot kicked in as I was writing that sentence.

By the way, did you know you can see all our newsletters online? Just go to http://www.anecdote.com.au/newsletters.php We typically published the newsletter online a week after we email it to our subscribers.

Why don't positive stories carry?

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:42 GMT

Something got me thinking about City of Port Phillip's Non Crime Hotline this morning. They have a phone number you call to report good news stories. I rang the council and found that Peter Strecker was now in charge of this initiative and he told me that it was in hibernation. It turned out that they got very few calls. There received some great stories, like the one about the busker who had a fight erupt in front of him so he started playing "Always look on the bright side of life" and everyone started laughing and the fight stopped. But there wasn't enough to sustain the program. So why are we reluctant to share positive stories?

Perhaps part of the reason is that it's hard to see the impact sharing a positive story might have. When we tell the busker story we can see it's amusing and uplifting but perhaps not that instructional unless you're a busker. Whereas a negative story gives us a warning on what to avoid. Consequently we are only willing to exert a small effort to pass on positive stories and ringing a hotline and listening to a recorded message might be too much of an impost. If we were aggrieved in some way (a negative story) we probably have more energy to have our story heard and therefore more willing to jump through some hoops.

Swine Flu Pandemic Level 6 to be Declared

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:55 GMT

Swine Flu at Level 6 - Pandemic

The World Health Organization today said it was getting closer to officially declaring a Swine Flu Pandemic Level 6 and level six is the highest level you can get, reflecting the global spread of the type A H1N1 Virus.

So it'll be a pandemic, meaning it's now everywhere, but the new strain of flu virus itself is proving to be a lot less severe for sufferers of swine flu symptoms. The percentage of deaths is remarkably low for a completely new strain.

The WHO's six phase system for declaring a pandemic focuses on how widespread the disease is, not how dangerous. The organization's flu chief says the disease has reached 64 countries and infected nearly 19,000 people, so it's well on the way to becoming endemic everywhere. The danger then, is of the new virus mutating further into a strain that is more deadly than that currently spreading.

While the overwhelming majority of cases have been reported in Mexico and the US, the swine flu is increasingly spreading from person to person all over the globe, causing more than 100 deaths worldwide. The WHO calls the situation “moderate” rather than “mild” while some experts have reported patients with symptoms different from those expected and the virus is causing severe infections in some healthy, young adults. A worrying sign.

What is a Pandemic Level 6?

Phase 1: virus discovered in animals but not infecting humans.
Phase 2: Animal influenza virus known to have spread to a human, indicating a potential threat.
Phase 3: Sporadic cases or small clusters of influenza disease in people, no sustained human-to-human transmission. The virus has not yet reached a level of transmissibility among humans to cause a pandemic.
Phase 4: Verified human-to-human transmission with “community-level outbreaks”. This marks an increased risk of pandemic, but not yet inevitable.
Phase 6: Pandemic phase. Community level outbreaks in at least two countries in different WHO regions, on top of level 5. A global pandemic is now under way, and probably has been for some time already.

Swine Flu has been spreading geometrically from human to human in both North America and Japan in Asia for more about two weeks so why is the WHO still waiting to declare a level 6 pandemic?

Well, at a World Health Organization meeting on May 18th, 2009, several countries urged the agency to use great caution in deciding whether or when to declare a full-scale pandemic. UK Government Health Minister Alan Johnson was the leading voice for caution, according to press reports from that meeting. He warned that moving to phase 6 could unnecessarily trigger costly and risky actions such as switching from production of seasonal flu vaccine to pandemic vaccine, even though the virus so far seems mild.

Johnson said a pandemic declaration should also reflect the severity of the disease, not just its geographic extent, thus changing the agreed protocol designed exactly for such a situation. ”It's very important that that's reflected in your ability as to whether to move from 5 to 6,” he said. “So I would like to propose that you have more flexibility in that rather than follow a mechanistic process.”

Johnson was backed by New Zealand, Switzerland, and the head of the Pan American Health Organization, according to reports.

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Swine Flu Pandemic Level 6 to be Declared

What makes early adopters of social media successful?

Sat, 30 May 2009 23:31 GMT

Following the first question in my interview with Beth Kanter where she talked about the challenges to nonprofits of social media, I asked her what made early adopters successful. She tells the story of The Humane Society of the US whose first attempt was a dismal failure, but who went on to try again and were more successful, and over three years became very successful.

What made them successful was the ability to reiterate, experiment, understand what worked and refine what they were doing over time.

Challenges of social media to nonprofits

Sat, 30 May 2009 22:45 GMT

The other day I interviewed Beth Kanter, who thinks and writes profusely about how nonprofits can use social media. The interview (on my blog in four parts) was to share at a workshop with local development activists in Portugal who were meeting to discuss how to use social media for social change in Portugal.

I this first video I asked Beth to say something about what she does and what she finds are the biggest challenges for nonprofits in relation to social media. She talks of three challenges:

The importance of learning - even though the stuff has been around for a couple of years - we're still in the early stages of learning how to use it and make sense of it. We're still in an experimental phase and so we won't get it right the first time. It's very much a situation of learn as you go and of "failing informatively" (Clay Shirky). That's not easy when non profits are short of resources and time and needs patience.
Organisational culture - social media challenges us to work in different ways and change isn't comfortable.
Social media is more comfortable to younger people and so we're seeing a process of reverse mentoring going on.

In addition to the challenges Beth talks about I also see (especially in larger nonprofit organisations) a reluctance to rock the boat of the Media, Legal or ICT department. Even an organisation that starts embracing the idea of social media can be fearful. Here is an excerpt of something I wrote for an organisation who wanted to start using social media, but who were reluctant to take on a blog unless it was tightly controlled and with comments disabled:

"Social media tools (including, but not only, blogs) don't replace a traditional website or internal communication procedures. They are complementary to them and represent a different philosophy. The paradigm shift in social media tools is that people who were traditionally users, readers and consumers of information become the creators of easily publishable information. A blog, for example, is about sharing authorship, linking and integrating - it is not about PR or broadcasting or transmitting content.

Nor is using these new tools just an improved way of doing old things, it is a change in mindset about how you do things. The philosophy behind them calls for different ways of viewing (and accepting) how people connect and learn from and with each other. The risk for an organisation is that they contain an element of "not knowing" and are not so easy to control. The advantage is that they have proved themselves to be an effective means of engaging and connecting people directly (in a people-to-people process rather than an organisation-to-people one).

In your case you are not creating another webpage, you are creating an additional and complementary tool that is participatory, quicker and which will include more voices across the network. Successful use of new tools has not come from trying to control those voices (think of Amazon's book reviews that can be quite negative) but rather to open it up to many voices and to become more digitally savvy i.e. to keep up with how to use the tools while also being aware of the potential risks.

So a question for me is if you are committed to take on the mindset for using social media tools. The organisational mindset for adopting tools is much harder than the resolving the technological aspects. We have been talking here about a blog - all these issues will compound in leaps and bounds when we start thinking of all the other tools. Media and ICT departments need to be part of this changing mindset as they are understandably concerned over issues of image, security and technical support. While it is important to address those concerns it is also important to bring them into the mindset of social media."

Counting Down to Book Launch

Fri, 29 May 2009 18:29 GMT

This has been a great week, for several reason, but most notably because our book, Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment, Agility and Assurance, is now in AuthorHouse's hands and should be ready for ordering very soon. On the book's website, we have published the Table of Contents and ...

Fledgling Baby Birds

Thu, 28 May 2009 02:12 GMT

It's peak season for fledgling baby birds in our garden right now and every day seems to bring new additions to the hungry crowd.

The baby great tits have been a joy to have around for the past week or so, with a blue tit family sometimes keeping them company.

Then yesterday fledgling baby sparrows made an appearance, followed by young juvenile starlings today. I have a feeling there must be some young robins about but I haven't seen them yet, likewise for the wrens who can be heard singing early in the morning but tend to stay in the cover at present and we know there are gold crests around but they just wizz past so fast you don't notice until after they've gone.

With all this going on just outside the window it's difficult to get any work done!

Photo Credit: Blue Tit Fledgling from a pic by David Friel )

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Fledgling Baby Birds

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Be aware of the fourth time assignment

Fri, 22 May 2009 14:35 GMT

I read somewhere about Sweden's 1967's shift in left-hand driving to right-hand driving. On the Monday following the shift, there were less traffic accidents, 125 reported traffic accidents, compared with a range of 130 to 198 for previous Mondays. Most had anticipated more traffic accidents. It is likely that the higher attention by drivers contributed to the lower number of accidents.

When my daughter learned how to cycle at the age of 4, I was very careful. When we cycled I cycled real close to her and held her neck near traffic. So she learned to cycle steadily. After roughly 6 months, I slowly started to pay less attention to her and got more confidence in her skills. Then, once when we were very near home she rode her bike behind me (normally in front of me), and a man came from the side and ran into her. It wasn't too bad, but she had some wounds because she fell with her face on the steer of the cycle.

I think knowledge workers may be at their best when they do a similar job for roughly for the third time. The first two times they gain experience. The third time is the best, small mistakes from the first times can be corrected. The fourth time assignment there is a risk that you loose attention and make unnecessary mistakes. Of course there may be individual difference and task differences. And you can argue that for knowledge workers, every assignment is unique, so it's hard to have a really similar job.

I started thinking about this when I thought about learning from mistakes. Somehow I don't believe in learning from mistakes. Most of the times, we know the mistakes but there are other reasons for underperformance like lack of attention.

What do you think? Do you recognise this? Or do real masters never loose their attention?

The co-evolution of technology and organising

Thu, 21 May 2009 22:02 GMT

The technology we use changes the way we organise and the way we organise effects the technologies we use. This hand-in-glove interaction is called co-evolution. Take the example of the invention of the spinning frame during the industrial revolution of the 18th century. The spinning frame made possible large scale cloth production and created the need for factories, which in turn affected how water and steam were used to drive machinery in those factories.¹

Are we seeing a similar co-evolution between information dissemination technology and how knowledge programs are organised? The two killer apps for the PC have been the word processor and the spreadsheet. With these two tools we were able to create documents. Consequently many knowledge sharing initiatives focus on creating and sharing documents. This limited us to sharing what we could write down.

YouTube started in 2005 (here is the first video uploaded to the site). It’s a site for sharing videos. Now that it's easy to share videos more companies are building this form of information dissemination into its knowledge sharing programs. The interesting thing is that the tool changes the type of knowledge shared. It seems to me that videos encourage us to share practices and tell a story of what happened or how to do something. This type of knowledge helps us share values, principles and lessons in a more compact and digestible way. Sure, documents can be used to do that too but that wasn’t the default use and it took so much effort.

As we witness the rise of the video we'll need to develop other skills to make the most of it. Most importantly, you guessed it, video creators will need to be adept at finding and telling stories. Just as we learned the language of documents (structure, headings, font sizes, margins, footnotes etc.) we will need to learn the language of video. And that language will partly involve characters, events, action, time and place.

1. Beinhocker, E. D. (2006). The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics. Boston, Harvard Business School Press.

London public workshops in June

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:02 GMT

Just a quick note to say it is just over 4 weeks before we get together in London for our two workshops (24 & 25 June). Looks like we have a good turn out but if you are thinking of coming along I need to get all the registrations complete in the next two weeks.

Send me an email if you want a registration form and here is the description of the two narrative based workshops.

And just to get a bit of a flavour for my approach you might like to check out this presentation I did this week.

Storytelling for Community Engagement

View more presentations from ShawnCallahan.

Joint decision-making about tool use in teams

Tue, 19 May 2009 13:55 GMT

Nancy White has a blogpost called Technology Stewardship and Unexpected Uses that resonates with what I'm working on. I'm consulting various people in organisations about the choice for online tools and how to introduce them for use by teams, groups or networks. What I noticed is that quite a lot of them would like to choose a tool, get up to speed with it themselves and then train others. However, in this networked world, it is my belief that we can be more participatory than that, with more chances of success.

Together with Sibrenne Wagenaar I wrote a Dutch article called "So you wanna be a virtual team?" - have to admit here that the Dutch are a little bit crazy giving an English title but the rest is really in Dutch- . In the article we try to explicitize our own way of working. We state that, amongst other things, it is good to:

Start with an exchange of experiences with tools for collaboration; start with familiarity
Choose a starting toolset together with the team
Stimulate an experimental culture within the team
You can introduce new tools but don't overdo it
Monitor individual feelings of ease and unease

It's hard to find the balance though between deciding for a group and trying to facilitate a participatory decision making process because for some tools may be new. It's a bit of an art to know when to lead and when to use knowledge and experiences within the group.

Nancy White has some useful additions on how to introduce technology:

It is about a dynamic evolution of practices and applications of the technology, not about the installation or the simple availability of the tool. So here are some practice hints.
Role model your experience and practices with tools, but don’t present them as the only options.
Watch for experimentation and amplify new, useful practices. Better yet, encourage community members to talk about and share their practices.
When members ask for tool adjustments based on their experimentation, work hard to accommodate rather than block innovation. This may mean going to bat with “higher-ups” to gain permission, or to allow the experimentation to fly “under the radar” until you can make a case for the value of the changes.
Encourage the fringies - the people who push the limits of a tool. Make them allies rather than enemies. Their pushing of your buttons may also create the innovation that you need to foster wider adoption.

In short develop shared leadership with regards to all these decisions. Though it may seem you know the best use of a tool, it's worthwhile to foster joint decision-making and let the routines within the team evolve organically within the team.

I'm curently reading Schein's organisational culture and leadership again, hope to draw some lessons from his insights too.

Location Independent Working

Sat, 16 May 2009 11:38 GMT

This year I shall be conducting at least two experiments in location indepndent working and this post is about the first episode, so far.

Location independent working has been a long term goal of mine for many years. I'd like to be able to enjoy an optimum climate by migrating in tune with the seasons, do a lot of continuous touring, and be able to take advantage of property letting opportunities.

I'm in the middle of my first week long experiment working from a location independent from my usual home and workplace. It's supposed to be a gentle introduction to the practice, but has turned out to be considerably harder than I anticipated. I'm actually at my mother's house in a small village with no facilities, and with only intermittent and slow internet access. I don't have my main workstation computer either, but I do have a fairly recent second computer and an EeePC notebook.

The lack of internet is a temporary obstacle, but not the only one. It should be possible to get a USB dongle that supplies some kind of dialup/3G access in most places, albeit much slower than landline broadband in London. At present there are two of us sharing one dongle that only works when the weather is perfect
and even then seems to drop back from so called 3G broadband to an ordinary mobile phone 2G connection which is barely usable. We've tried different rooms, orientations, and using the dongle with and without an extension cable. Upstairs and downstairs reception seem to be about the same. But like I say, that's only one aspect of struggling with getting stuff done from another location.

It took the first few days just to get used to not being able to work online constantly. I've developed some alternative tasks I can get one with, but it's surprising how when one is writing something, creating rich media content, that in theory sounds like it could be done offline, how frequently you do need to access online services. It's been a habit built up over many years.

Tired of ISP based pop3 email accounts, I shifted to gmail almost as soon as the beta service became available. I maintain working information on private wikis and online documents. My Flickr photostream is more extensive than the iphoto library on any single machine. Reacting to interruptions has been a major stimulus to tackle the tasklist.

But the first thing I learned really, was that the physical workspace is so important. I'm not much of a laptop worker so I got set up at a desk with a borrowed monitor which ought to provide a workstation similar to what I have at home. But of course the room just doesn't feel the same. Things like relative postion to the window and door, and the height of the desk and chair are obvious factors that need to be set up as close as optimum as possible, but things like acoustics, lighting and proximity to whatever else may be going on in the house can become determining issues as to whether it's possible to get on with productive work or not.

I found it better for any kind of writing task that needs a bit of flow, for example, to venture up into the back garden and sit in the shed – sorry. 'summer house'. I used to laugh at the 'shed workers' who built themselves a cubicle in their own grounds but now I think I can see what makes the idea seem tempting.

On the plus side, without the usual online distractions this has provided an opportunity to create some different kinds of content that I might not normallly get around to. I thought I'd do some Screencasts because this is a good way to create video content but then realised that most screencast require an active internet connection, because they are usually demonstrating online tools and techniques. I did manage to think of some functions that are better done by installed offline applications, and image editing is one. Video editing and music production would be others, so there are plenty of tutorial ‘how to' screencasts that can be created in these circumstances.

The other thing is to write lengthy pieces of narrative that depend mainly on previous experience and life history – autobiographical storytelling. I don't seem to have done much of that yet though.

So the internet connection, such as it is, can be used just to keep reassured that there is nothing untoward going on out there with my websites that might need urgent attention. Once I've got used to that, the compulsion to keep checking stuff should subside and I'll be able to concentrate for longer periods on the offline tasks that can be progressed in between real world distractions.

Location Independent living is a promise that has been enabled through new technologies but is a practice that requires a lot more than technical skills to get right.

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Location Independent Working

UK Online Communities

Theatre Breaks Newsletter

Fri, 15 May 2009 01:31 GMT

I just had a thought, which is that you might have read one of my posts here on DARnet about theatre breaks in London, thinking I'd be putting some special offers in here.

I don't think I'll be doing that here though, this is the DARnet blog about odds and ends related to distributed research, wikis, Andy Roberts music, epidemiologoy, CoPs, social objects, London, web tools and all sorts of randomness. A hotch potch of themes really, which is just way it's evolved over the years.

If you *were* looking for the theatre breaks newsletter, (and it will become more and more worthwhile in the coming months), then that's over on the theatre breaks blog where I'm an editor:

http://usefulwiki.com/londontheatre/newsletter

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Theatre Breaks Newsletter

Any tool can do, culture matters

Thu, 14 May 2009 01:11 GMT

I'm writing blogging tips for a book we're writing and one of the tips is to create a rhythm of posting. I had a good blogging rhythm but now I seem to loose it! So I need tips how to keep your rhythm. All the holidays in the Netherlands starting from queen's day on 30 april are definitely fun, but don't help me to keep into any rhythm. But let's try to stick to a weekly rhythm and blogging about a past experience still lingering in my head.

In a teleconference Davee Evans, active participant in wikipedia organised by CPsquare I was very much struck by the complete unimportance of selecting the right tool for online interaction. What's really important is creating a culture of exchange. Since my consultancies started to include online methods for learning and collaboration a lot of the initial questions I get are about help to select the right tool. Or sometimes people have selected a tool and want to know how to tweek it. Though engagement in an intake conversation, all the other questions about introduction, designing the change process, the facilitation of the online interaction surface rapidly. Nevertheless, most of the time I also do some tool advice because I have the feeling that's part of the expertise asked of me. So both clients and myself seem to be drawn to tool selection.

What was the example? Davee talked about a voting process taking place in wikipedia about combatting vandalism. From the teleconference minutes:

The "flagged revisions project" is an attempt to deal with the enduring problem of vandalism. It's a very slow community process held in a very peculiar local style of discussion. Voting, with the pro's and con's about voting, happens in a free text space that is unique.

You can see the polling process in the picture displayed or by clicking on this link. What's interesting is that the tools used are in my opinion not the most appropriate for the job. The poll is done in the form of an online discussion in a wiki. I'd say you need an online survey tool to conduct a poll. And if you want to discuss an issue, you need a discussion thread function. What the wikipedians do, is use the wiki they are so familiar to and write in a threaded fashion in the wiki page that seems to work for them.

A strong example of the fact that when culture of working together online is very strong, the tool doesn't really matter. (it definitely put my idea about the best tools upside down!).

The vital role of business storytelling—new Anecdote whitepaper

Tue, 12 May 2009 21:47 GMT

Thanks to all my Twitter friends who helped me refine this article. It was a fun process that reinforces for me the strength of social computing approaches for collaboration.

The main purpose of this whitepaper is to introduce senior leaders to the idea of business storytelling and demonstrate its importance, especially in the increasingly complex and unpredictable world we live in. It also provides some approaches to how you find and recount your experiences in a business context.

I encourage you to send a copy to your CEO, or better still your CFO and CIO, and help them realise that people only remember what they feel and despite the painful sounding name, people don't feel bullet points.

Stories and video how-to guides—screencasting Salesforce.com

Tue, 12 May 2009 14:47 GMT

A couple of week ago a 28 year old naval engineer delivered his baby son based on watching some DIY YouTube videos. When I heard this news I realised that the DIY video's time had come and it wouldn't be too long before we see its wide adoption in organisations.

I've been a long-time user of screencasting technology such as ScreenFlow as a way of recording how to do things on your computer. As an example here is a 3 minute guide on how to establish a cash flow schedule in Salesforce.com.

How to establish a schedule in Salesforce from Shawn Callahan on Vimeo.

Notice how I've preceded the instructions with a story that conveys why it's important to go through these steps.

The TED presentation commandments

Tue, 12 May 2009 01:35 GMT

Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

If you don't know what TED is, you don't know what you are missing. You can see some of my favourite TED videos here.

This list is from Presentation Zen.

Green Eggs

Mon, 11 May 2009 01:39 GMT

Green Eggs, but no Ham

I still haven't found out what these green eggs are, carefully laid out on a yellow iris leaf, like snooker balls in a frame.

If you look close up on the original picture at maximum size I think it's possible to make out a circle of little hooks on each egg, like velcro presumably to help them stick to the leaf.

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Green Eggs

Yellow Boat

Summer Theatre Breaks

Sat, 09 May 2009 09:02 GMT

London Theatre Breaks in Summer

Do you head for the beach in the summer or enjoy the city life at its best? Are you a Sun lizard or a culture vulture? Newquay rave parties or London theatre breaks? Well I like both really, always have done.
Wide open skies, summer breezes and casual attire are not only to be found at the coast though. Modern London is full of outdoor seating, cafe terraces and the numerous parks and green spaces are appreciated by people of all ages just enjoying the warm sunshine, with city workers on their lunch breaks joining the tourists, families and digital nomads.

** book London Theatre Breaks **

Riverside Theatre Breaks

I know I tend to bang on about the riverside quite a lot but that's because it's such a cool place to be and nearly everything happens within a half mile or so or the Thames in London. The Thames is big, and it's tidal and salty.

The National Theatre is on the Southbank for example, next to the Royal Festival Hall within a short riverside stroll of London's Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Maritime Greenwich is always worth a visit and so is the London Bridge, Borough Market, County Hall and Tower Bridge area. You're in a huge metropolis but Ice-creams, picnics and sitting on the sea wall are the things to do, as well as people watching and Pimms.

Theatreland in Summer

In the theatreland area of London, around Soho, you can have a restaurant meal or drinks served at a little pavement table, just like in Paris or Barcelona and the choice of cuisine is actually wider. For the real night birds there's at least one street where the bars and clubs stay open all night. You can easily get away from all the fuss if you want though, just dive down a side street and walk ten minutes and you will often find yourself in a quiet mews area with with a leafy square and shady benches.

Top Shows for Summer Theatre Breaks

Musical Theatre Breaks

London theatre break deals combine top tickets to one of the big West end musicals or a play, with at least one night's hotel stay plus any optional extras such as discount rail fare, London Eye reservation etc.

So the first question is which show to choose. The chances are, you already have something in mind that you've always wanted to see on the London stage such as Les Miserables, Grease, Chicago or Phantom of The Opera. Perhaps the new Oliver or Wicked.

There are a couple of less well known show you could also pick, such as Sister Act ready for the sumer season, and Spring Awakening which has been throughly recommended. For something that's already been proven elsewhere you might go for Priscilla the musical, if you like that sort of thing - and who doesn't?

Favourite musicals are probably going to be Hairspray, We Will Rock You, Dirty Dancing and Jersey Boys.

West End Plays

Musicals dominate the West End but there are a few more plays to choose from this year, although usually for shorter runs so it depends more on your possible dates for drama theatre breaks. Look out for short runs of Alan Bennet plays, Harold Pinter, Shakespeare's Othello with Lenny Henry and Samual Becket's Godot.

Calendar Girls runs until September 19th 2009

while Woman in Black, The 39 Steps and The Mousetrap seem to run and run forever.

Check Theatre Breaks Availability

Select the show and choose a date first, then enter the hotel details and rail travel.

When you press “check availability” you'll be taken to the results on the Show and Stay site, from which you can make further searches if necessary until the perfect package is made up for you. Or use the following link to begin a new search from London Theatre Breaks:

** book London Theatre Breaks **

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Summer Theatre Breaks