Laura's Notebook | Technology for Non-profit Organisations, Social Media and Accessible Website Design

Jaded About Social Media For Change?

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:21:20 GMT

Joe Solomon shares his and others responses with a collaborative conversational article over on the Netsquared blog - ‘Jaded About Social Media For Change? - Let’s Talk About It!‘

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Resources and examples of nonprofits using twitter

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:00:06 GMT

Head over to Beth’s blog where Beth Kanter shares some great examples of nonprofit organisations who are using twitter, resources to help get you started and the post includes a slideshare presentation by Laura Lee Dooley on Why Twitter Matters. View the article - Nonprofits That Tweet: Roundup of lists, resources, and examples.

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Audio talk about accessibility for website content administrators

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:31:40 GMT

Recently an event was held WxWM (West by West Midlands) which brought together a wide range of people coming together to network, discuss the web and social media. One of the talks during the event was from Andy Mabbett who spoke about web accessibility and delivered an enthusiastic and vibrant overview aimed at content administrators of websites (and useful for designers and those commissioning websites too!).
As well as hearing the talk (link to MP3 audio file here), you can listen to questions from the audience.
The recording was made by Rhubarb Radio (a Birmingham Community Radio Station), listen to more of the recordings from the day at Rhubarb Radio’s West by West Midlands featured page.

Listen to the MP3 Audio on Web Accessibility (opens in a new page).

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The Dog’s Trust shares it’s successes with using social media

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:47:57 GMT

Many charities are reaping the benefits and the value of using a mix of different media can reach out to supporters and help to raise awareness of their work. Earlier in the week, I read and mentioned Allan Benamers’ thought inspiring post on Build a Nonprofit’s Technology Assets from the Ground Up which starts at the baseline of your organisations mission and climbing up the pyramid of technology needs.
A good example of one charity climbing up that pyramid is The Dog’s Trust, a UK charity with not only a strong clear mission, but is also using and integrating a vibrant mix of media to reach out and connect with supporters.

Alex Goldstein, Social Media and Community Editor working for the charity the Dog’s Trust shared her experiences of using the ever popular Twitter in a recent interview by Graham Charlton at Econsultancy.

As well as providing some examples of how and why the charity uses Twitter and the benefits it has brought to them, Alex also offered some valuable tips to help other organisations looking to use social media to connect and build support. And, Twitter is not the only social media tool they use to communicate with, the Dog’s Trust have a blog, use Facebook, MySpace Flickr, YouTube and more, as well as having their main website. All in all the Trust is using a wide mix of media to reach a wide audience.

As well as the examples of how using Twitter has made a difference to the Dog’s Trust I really enjoyed this of part of the article, where Alex shared some valuable tips with their approach for other charities:

Excerpt - “The only tip that really matters to my mind is to be authentic. Have a name, a personality, and a sense of humour. Guide the conversation so that you have a comfortable, productive balance of professional posts (links, campaign, info etc) and personal moments.

People don’t follow a mailshot, but they do follow a person who also happens to tell them about some important work that’s of interest to them. You’re in someone’s virtual living room online and you have to treat that as their personal space.”

I highly recommend reading the full article. Head over to the article at - Should more charities be making use of Twitter?

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Pyramid of nonprofit technology needs

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:57:11 GMT

Allan Benamer shares an excellent first part of a two part posting on how nonprofits should have a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when it comes to implementing technology, starting at the baseline of your organisations mission and climbing up the pyramid of techonology needs. Essential reading for small nonprofits, head over to - Build a Nonprofit’s Technology Assets from the Ground Up.

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Social Media and accessibility reminder

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:06:59 GMT

An article on Third Sector website shares insights from at a recent social media conference raising awareness that by focussing too much on social media such as Twitter, Flickr, blogging and podcasts for campaigns and marketing, it could exclude people with visual or hearing impairments as well as those who have no access to the internet. Read the full article at Social media ‘might alienate disabled’.

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Social Media Building Blocks, a webinar shared

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:31:36 GMT

Amy Sample Ward, the vibrant Community Builder for Netsquared, shares her slides and notes from the first in a series of ‘Storytelling & Social Media’ series from NTEN and TechSoup Global webinars. See the slides and the full post at ‘Building Blocks of Social Media - Webinar Slides and Notes‘.

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Risks and opportunities for users of social networks

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:08:19 GMT

Henny Swan explores and shares some useful insights of the risks and opportunities for disabled and older users accessing social networks across devices. Read more at Is it time for social networks to grow up?

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Benefits of blogging for nonprofits

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:23:55 GMT

Still undecided if your organisation should start to blog or not? John Haydon shares an excellent list of the benefits of blogging at 22 Ways A Blog Can Rock Your Non-Profit’s Social Media Campaign.

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Turning a complicated plan into plain english

Laura Whitehead | Laura's Notebook — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:07:40 GMT

Find local government consultations and plans hard to understand? Read how a group of bloggers have innovated by turning the Big City Plan for Birmingham into plain English so that residents can easily understand, feedback and comment on the plan. Head over to Parboo’s weblog to read Talking about the Big City Plan…

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