Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

RIP: Ergo Keyboard - 1997-2008

Today my 11 year old keyboard died. (Full body view here) I'm devastated.  If you look closely, you'll see the coffee stains.  And, my panic button.   The letters had worn off.  Most importantly - I can't type as fast (I do like 100 words a minute on it).   

I got the keyboard after experiencing some carpal tunnel issues when I learned how to hand code HTML and was coding for hours a day.  I sure hope there is a replacement out there ...  It was called the "natural keyboard" from Microsoft.

I also had a catastrophic computer crash which required wiping the hard drive and reinstalling windows (rebuilding the RAID array too).   While a pain, everything was backed up.   This happens every time I'm about to do an important preso and I take it as a good omen.

And I really wish we had freegeek here in Boston to recycle it.

 

Great Governance: How can board members use social media to supplement face-to-face meetings?

David Wilcox is helping Board Members of Housing Associations in Wales to figure how to use social media strategies and tools to supplement their face-to-face meetings.   He started this group blog called "Great Governance" to host a conversation and collect ideas from other people.

Face to face meetings for board members of an association of nonprofits is a precious resource, not to be wasted.   I think you need to have a discussion about how would the use of social media tools make that time more effective?  Face-to-face meetings have something over online communication: Inspiration.  So, what value does inspiration provide?  What parts of face-to-face meetings are not inspiring and could not take up valuable time if there was some communication online pre-meeting?  Think beyond the cost savings of gas and travel costs. 

BTW, I reposting this video of David even though I can't hear it - computer crash, hard drive reformat, reinstalled windows, speakers aren't yet back up .. but I trust David and thought it might add to the context.   Now,  need another latte 'cause have had no sleep. 

I'm so happy that the computer crashed AFTER I had a chance to Skype into the session yesterday with David, Nick, and Laura. It was almost like being in the room minus the jet-lag.  The downside is that I didn't get a chance to go to the pub and pick up any video interviewing techniques from Nick.  Or ask who to do some geekily recursive videoblogging with David and Nick (happens usually after the first beer).

Transparency, Social Media, and Dealing with Criticism

Flickr Photo from Wokka

Almost as a model of how to deal with negative comments to a post, Jeremiah Owyang has invited his critic, David Charback, to write a guest post.  The criticism was that Owyang's advice was not sophisticated enough.  Charback's witty post describes a fictional (but ripped from the headlines) situation of a corporate blogger who has to address a customer's negative, vocal, but accurate criticism on the customer's blog.    He makes this point:

The integration of customer service into social media marketing programs is a logical imperative and usually will follow right on the heels of integrating corporate communications. The effects of the “new Better Business Bureau” are the ones that are going to strike your organization between the eyes first. How you invite your customer service teams into the medium can spell the difference between harmony and hatred.

There was a quote in the comments that said, "Some companies are just not quite ready for true ‘transparency’, and by definition not quite ready for social media."    It made me think about this post on the Now is Gone Blog that offers some advice about transparency. 

Social media brings out the extremes. Go full force and claim social media the savior of all that ails or stick your head in the sand and pretend the world is not changing. A social media effort that is forced or running scared will not be successful. 

Solis continues, “Yes, so openness and transparency are “the new black.” But don’t take it at face value. Think about it first.” 

You don’t have to put all your cards on the table. Understand derived value and expectations of your long term social media strategy. Business is still business.

So, fellow nonprofit communications professionals, I remixed David's scenario and replaced the word "corporate" with "nonprofit."  I replaced the word "customer" with "client" or "stakeholder" or "audience" or "donor" or "supporter."   And I changed the word blogger to social networker or facebooker.   I've created a totally fictional nonprofit scenario:

The "Seagulls Global Internship International"  places college students in rural seaside villages around the world to learn about techniques to prevent seagulls from harassing local villagers while they eat al fresco.  The organization recently went through an extensive image/re-branding strategy.  As part of that a new logo design was created, changing from a concrete illustration of a seagull to a post modernist abstract version of a seagull.

Almost all the college students in the program are on Facebook.  The organization has an official Facebook Group and Cause, but many alumni of the program have also started their own groups to express their affiliation with the organization.   These groups are not "controlled" or "managed" by the organization.

Yesterday, the Internet strategy staff person who supports the Facebook Group visited the student-created groups and found that they have posted a humorous and slightly distasteful remix of the new logo.  (Use your imagination) There was also a discussion thread about why the students hate the new logo and an online petition to get signatures to lobby the organization to revert to the old logo.   

Having just spent a lot of money on a new logo design which is printed on everything from t-shirts to business cards and on the new web site, the Communications staff is not likely to change it.   The student group thread and petition did not have a lot of signatures or comments yet.    What do you do as the social networking manager?  Do you ..

• Do what the seagull in the photo above is doing to the complainers?
• Do you post a response to the Facebook Group telling the students they have no design sense?
• Do you post a response to the Facebook Group (and elsewhere) explaining the design process, logo, and branding strategy?
• Do you ignore them - saying don't feed the trolls?
• What do you tell your colleagues in the communications department and your boss who sort of skeptical of Facebook, but understand that it is a necessary evil given your audience.

Now let's say that you discover Sherman and Peabody's Wayback Machine, what you have done differently about the logo creation process?

John Kenyon's New Blog!

One of my favorite nonprofit tech consultants and brilliant trainer and dear colleague, John Kenyon, has launched a blog!  And, I'm so honored to be featured in his about photo - that's from last year's LASA conference where I had a chance to do a video blog post with John about his thoughts on video blogging.  John is at LASA right now. He wrote a blog post about his session and I was going to comment, but looks like he turned comments off.

It made me wonder why?  Concerns about spam, criticism, or email overload?  I think that comments are just as if not more than valuable the writing itself.   (I just did a training on that very topic)

What is your feeling about the value of comments to blogging?

Getting the Most out of Social Media for Nonprofits: LASA Circuit Rider Conference Panel Session UK

This morning I got really early so I could participate in a panel for a conference with UK NpTechers organized by Laura Whitehead. (See the conference page at Lasa’s website for further details).  This social media for the nonprofit sector panel also included David Wilcox of Desigining for a Civil Society and Nick Booth from Podnosh.

I got Skyped in for 10-15 minutes for a Q&A with Laura and the audience.    I shared some learnings from the recent America's Giving Challenge Campaign which raised a total of $93,000 (included the $50K prize) from 1829 donors (1650 official count on 1/31 at 3 PM EST) in 50 days.   The points include:

(1)  In the 5 campaigns I've done, it has evolved to a personal, socially networked fundraising campaign.  Set up as experiments and learned and refined what works.

(2)  Make it personal - not a speech from an organization, but a conversation from the heart

(3)  If you really want them to love you, tell them a story.  I described the three story telling strategies I used throughout the campaign.

(4)  The hacked ladder of engagement - I'm noodling with this - it is a mash up of community organizer's ladder of engagement with personal fundraising campaigns and online social networks.    What's important is that people go through different stages of involvement and participation in your campaign and your strategy has to move them along.   You have to make it easy to participate.

The challenge is scaling your personal fundraising passion and getting other people to go out evangelize or instigate on your behalf.  I've been analyzing the campaign for examples and insights which I'll probably talk about next week at GSP as part of "Giving Good Poke."

(5)  The 3 R's Move Involvement:  Relationship building, Rewards, and Reciprocity.  I gave some examples.

(6)  Fun! Humor! Passion!  Urgency!  Competition!  work together to build momentum and can lead to tipping the tuna in the last legs of campaign.

(7)  Saying thank you in creative ways to build a bridge to your charity/cause.

I got some terrific questions that got me thinking.

A.)   Were donors from just the US?  Were they one-time?  Were they new donors?

The donors came from around the world literally.   I think in all my campaigns combined I have donors from every continent.  I have to do a geographic analysis.    Roughly 35-40% new donors - 20% repeats or donated to more than one campaign (I don't have all the numbers from the last campaign - and I had tabulate with a spreadsheet -- the limitations of the back-end of some of the systems we've used)

B.)   Was the effort worth your time?

I did this all volunteer, while still doing my day job.  I lost a lot of sleep, but it was worth.  How?   Let's talk about dollars.   Since my first campaign in November 2006, I've raised over $200,000 - half of that prize money from Yahoo/NetworkforGood and Parade/Case Foundation.   We've more than doubled our email addresses/names in our database - so for prospecting it was valuable.    Some softer benefits or intangibles - we have a great collection of stories about the impact of the work that we can recycle and use, the visibility for the organization has increased,  we're cultivating some of the new donors for major gifts (not from the recent campaign, but previous ones - we're in the middle of $3 m endowment campaign), and the attitude of people within the organization has become more favorable towards social media and online fundraising.

C.)   Was there anything that you feared by opening it up for your supporters to fundraise on your behalf?  Were you concerned that they would go message, not include your branding, etc?

The Sharing Foundation is an all-volunteer organization - so we're not a big institution with paid staff and logos and branding and messaging.   Also, I'm probably working more as an "extra organizational" activist - so I am unencumbered by these types of fears that might be imposed from within.

With that said, I did have a huge fear.  That I would miss out on winning $50K for the Sharing Foundation.  That drove me.

My advice to you is loose your fear gradually and incrementally over time.   I did this with each of my campaigns - trying a small step towards "opening my kimono" until I was comfortable being naked.  For example, my biggest fear in November 2006 was whether or not I should blog about or ask professional work colleagues to give money to my personal charity.  So, each experiment was a small lesson in fearlessness.

Can't wait to do this again in a few hours with the repeat of the panel. Right now they're playing the social media game!   

Thanks Bora!

poke
Originally uploaded by vbora85.

Bora poked me and sent me this screencapture for the presentation . now to use this in a fun way.

Poking Beth

Poking Beth
Originally uploaded by amysampleward.

Thanks Amy!  Been trying to figure out a good title visual for the presentation and realized that I could poke myself and screen capture.

Giving Good Poke: Using Social Apps and Social Media for Social Causes at GSP next week!

I'm working on a brief presentation for next week at Graphing Social Patterns called "Giving Good Poke: Using Social Apps and Social Media for Social Causes."  So, I have been immersed in boiling down 50 days of socially-networked fundraising strategies and stories into a succinct and engaging presentation about the America's Giving Challenge.   I thought it might be easy peasy, but it is hard work.

Lately, I've been asking myself a question, "Why don't I just do the same old presentation ... and use the same slides?"  If you look at my slideshare collection, I have like 50 different slide shows ...  It can be torture to be creative all the time, but I get bored with myself if I tell the same stories all time.   The real reason is that I keep implementing new campaigns, trying new techniques and tools, and new projects. Presenting (and putting the stream of learning into a powerpoint) is an opportunity for some reflection and storytelling and learning after the fact.   

To be honest, I'm sort of scared, although the session last week with Laura Fitton (Pistachio) and her advice has helped reduce some stress.  Any advice to calm my nerves?

I didn't come up with the title, but considering I gave a talk at BlogHer last summer called "Getting It On(line) for a Cause: Raising Money" and I'm on a panel at SXSW called "Pimp My Nonprofit: How Nonprofits Are Using Web Tools To Kick Ass Online" it sort of fits.

If you are one of my Facebook friends, can you help me about by poking me and taking a screen capture of the "Poke Beth?" screen?  And if you could upload that in Flickr.   I'm trying to make a title slide and you can't poke yourself.   And, if you are a Facebook friend and your name is Beth - just ignore the pokes.

poke
Originally uploaded by vbora85.

Bora poked me and sent me this screencapture for the presentation.  Thanks so much!

Poking Beth
Originally uploaded by amysampleward.

Thanks Amy!  Been trying to figure out a good title visual for the presentation and realized that I could not poke myself and screen capture.

Minnesota Nonprofits: Message-Medium-Mission Conference

I'm coming to Minnesota at the end of the month to give a keynote at Message+Medium+Mission Conference, nonprofit tech conference co-sponsored by the good folks at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and MAP for Nonprofits.

If you are planning on attending, I look forward to meeting you.  If you're thinking about coming, hurry up because the early bird discount is only available until Feb. 29th.   You can register here.

The conference description:

Message + Medium + Mission is designed to provide an overview of current and emerging technology resources and tools and specific hands-on information to help you create effective communications to reach and engage your audience. The conference is designed for nonprofit leaders and practitioners at any level of experience.

The speakers and the sessions look awesome.   I've been following around Holly Ross, executive director of NTEN, on the conference circuit and Holly will be here too.  She is leading a session called "Technology Leadership for the Technically Challenged."    There's a session on different types of social network sites called "Why I Hate Facebook" by Peter Fleck from the University of Minnesota Extension Family Development

There's a session called Digital Youth and Analog Adults that looks interesting, lead by Graham Hartley that I hope to live blog or tweet.  There's also a session called "Conversation Marketing: New Media Communication Strategy" by consultants at Tunheim Partners.   The description sounds like a great compliment to the session  I'm facilitating in the next time slot using the Social Media Game.   My session will consist of small group work where participants can take some of their learnings about Social Media from throughout the day, have a conversation with their peers, and begin to think about putting it into practice. 

Beth Dunn is a Tech Star!

Last month I got a chance to hang out with nonprofit tech blogger Beth Dunn in Woods Hole.    She's been honored as a tech start at @bar.  Congrats!

Social Business Relationship Development

Chris Brogan tweeted about this blog this morning and I when I read the post it got me thinking. This graphic is a mashup of Priscilla Brisbane's illustration of Levels of Engagement in advocacy campaigns with this blog post from the Social Organization's blog about how how business relationships and how technology helps or hinders.  I've been thinking a lot of about in terms of online social networking strategies and person-to-person fundraising techniques.

Here's the framework as described by the Social Organization blog:

The first stage is the encounter.
This encounter can be  physical or virtual and the channel (in person, over the phone, email, webinar, etc.) will partially determine how quickly the relationship moves to the next phase.

The second stage is recognition.
This happens when both individuals can put a name/face with a context. The fastest way to get to the recognition stage is to have an interaction that is highly relevant and has something to offer - an idea, a perspective, an experience.

The third stage is relationship development.
Once two parties recognize each other they can move into building a relationship.  To build a meaningful relationship there much be a joint initiative that advances the relationship.

The fourth stage is friendship.
Friendship - whether in the social or business realm - represents a degree of trust above that of colleagues.   A true friendship will allow two people, ironically, to operate more autonomously because they trust each other and the decisions they will make so constant re-calibration and discussion is not needed - and that saves a lot of time. 

The fifth stage is intimacy. 
This stage is not appropriate for most relationships - close and enduring, not necessarily romantic.  In the business world intimate relationships do have a place - some bosses, mentors, and colleagues will progress to this stage and it enables even more synergy and speed but this stage is difficult to achieve and can rarely be achieved through the intent of one person.

There is the question of what communications tools are appropriate for what stage of relationship building? I wonder if you can map specific tools to specific stages?  I also wonder how and where face-to-face interaction is needed to build trust or move the relationship further.

One of the things I've noticed recently is that my social networking profiles have been really helpful in helping me get to the encounter and recognition stage with my blog RSS subscribers.   Many people will request to be friends on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIN or Plaxo and I always ask people I don't immediately recognize how we know each other.  Lately, people have been saying they are blog readers.    So, this allows me to put a name, face and context.

In the relationship building piece - Facebook can sometimes be a pain or maybe it is my more rapidly ocuring senior moments ... I remember someone, part of their name, and their context. I want to point to them or connect them with someone -- and I can't remember enough to easily find them on my growing Facebook list of friends.

 

In the early 1980's ("olden days"), I was the general manager of small chamber orchestra located in Cambridge.  The rolo-dex was one of my favorite tools for relationship building.   I used it all the time to thumb through and find the right people to connect or bring together for whatever project or reason.   I had a huge rolodex and it was color coded. I stapled people's business cards to the rolodex cards. I'd flip through if a person didn't immediately come to mind or if I couldn't immediately remember someone's full name or contact information.  I just wish my Facebook friends or my gmail address book worked well for that purpose.

As your personal network grows, what tools do you use to support relationship building?  What techniques?

From Kiev With Love: Teresa Crawford's New Blog

Teresa Crawford is in Kiev doing a workshop on Web2.0 for NGOs there.  She used the  Social Media game developed by David Wilcox.   We had a few Skype conversations about this week.

She's also just started a blog called the "A Spot" with colleague Matthew DeGroot. They work for the Institute for Sustainable Communities. 

Her first post is about her experience leading a social media workshop for staff from NGOs in Ukraine. This was part two of a series of workshops sponsored by the Ukrainian Citizen Action Network which is a USAID funded program based in Kiev but serving all of Ukraine. Her organization, Institute for Sustainable Communities, is the parent organization to UCAN.  The first workshop was an all day event introducing the basic tools and concepts of social media. For this second workshop they focused on strategies for using these tools.

On her post, she describes the scenarios that the groups identified.  Here's an example:

In this case a loose group of NGOs and individual activists wanted to launch a campaign about the Right to Freedom of Movement with a goal of reforming the process for receiving passports. To do this they would build a small team, connect them with an e-mail discussion list and an ICQ network, arm them with digital cameras (every cell phone has one) and digital video cameras (many cell phones have them) and send them out to film the long queues for passports, these would be posted to youtube and a video/photoblog. Once they built up a set of resources and developed a common set of demands they would enlist the citizen journalism community to blog about the issue. They would use a website forum to field questions and complaints from citizens about this issue and compile a top 10 list of issues related to freedom of movement which would form the basis of an online which would be physically to submitted to the Ministry. Using crowdsourcing and flashmob technologies they would bring people together for demonstrations, protests and community actions to draw attention to the issue.

Teresa notes that the game was effective in helping participants move away from focusing on the tools or what has been dubbed  "fondling the hammer" and focusing on strategy.

I've done the game in different ways -- sometimes have left up to the small groups to come up with a scenario or have give them a scenario (an organization, mission, goal, and context).   Either works.   With the groups are charged with identifying a scenario,  often there is the starting with a blank page panic.  What happens sometimes is that a member of the group offers up their organization and the rest of the group provides peer assistance.

Giving the groups scenarios also works, particularly in all-day workshops and if groups also do work on the metrics and how they might measure success along with a strategy.   This is harder to do when you are introducing social media for the first time. 

Here's Teresa's presentation.

NpTech Tag Summary: NpTech Slide Decks, Twitter Saves Children, and Visualizing Information for Advocacy

One of the above is the actual cover of "Visualizing Information for Advocacy" - a must read booklet from Tactical Technology Collective.


NpTech Conversations


So, you want to build a MashUp?  Take the NetSquared Mashup  Challenge!

Drew Bernard has a review of a new guide by the good folks at Tactical Technology Collective called "Visualizing Information for Advocacy"


Nonprofits are from Mars, Designers/Techies are from Venus from the alldaybuffet describes some classic communications issues between nonprofits, designers, and technology staff.  It notes, "Maybe the answer is an intermediary b/w tech and design volunteers and the non-profits they’re working with–something like a consulting company or creative manager."  There's also another article on a similar theme that focuses on the describing the problem -- or why nonprofits, designers, and techies can't talk to each other.   Perhaps
the skills identified in this workshop or sessions at the upcoming NTC designed to look at change issues that technology surfaces from the viewpoint of executive directors or IT staff might help.


Gavin Clabaugh  tells us how to embed "Skype Presence" in a SharePoint Web Part.

Teresa Crawford is in Kiev in the Ukraine doing a workshop on Web2.0 for NGOs there.  Here's one of her training presentations.

Deborah Finn has written a SEO primer called "Search Engine Optimization for Nervous Nonprofit Novices"
and she is seeking feedback from SEO mavens.  There's a good round up of links to blog posts and articles by other nonprofit techies and SEO mavens.  For a step-by-step tutorial on SEO techniques for nonprofits,
Wild Apricot's 30 Day Guide to Search Optimization is a good choice, while Search EngineLand site is probably the subject matter expert of choice.

Beth Dunn's "Money for Nothing, IT for Free" has a post about the importance of considering the total cost of a technology investment even if it is free and some advice for getting started.  This guide on the Total Cost of Technology from the ICT Hub may also be useful.

For more NpTech Talk, see this roundup over at the NTEN blog.

Social Media

A couple of really useful  posts on Facebook and Nonprofits.   Ethan Zuckerman gives a summary of Pros/Cons of facebook Activism, a presentation by Imran Jamal and the Burma Global Action Network.  The good folks at Care2 (Heather Holdridge, Justin Perkins, and James O'Malley) have a detailed case study on the NTEN blog about the top Facebook winner of the recent Case Foundation America's Giving Challenge.  There's also a profile of the Humane Society's recent $50,000 contest win from Microsoft.

Net2 ThinkTank gives up a round up of how Nonprofits and NGOs are Using Mobile Phones and SMS for Social Change.  Lots of good stuff from Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net and Katrin Verclas and Corey Ramey at MobileActive.


Twitter's CEO has learned that short is sweet, flexibility is essential, and applications shoudl work so that people don't have to be at their computer all day long. Nate Ritter gives a brilliant example of how Twitter could help save the lives of missing children.  The Chronicle sets up a twitter account to broadcast links to blog posts. 

With streaming video tools that are free - like Ustream.TV - I imagine we'll see more people video streaming from professional conferences like next month's NTC Conference in New Orleans.  This post shows you how to jury rig a DIY periscope for your webcam if it is built into your laptop screen. This is useful if you want both broadcast AND use your laptop to take notes (or answer email).

According to TechCrunch, Bloglines experienced a major outage, leaving many who use bloglines taking a serious look at alternative RSS readers and exporting and backing up our OPML files.


Are you spending too much of your day in your email?   Here's a couple of GTD tips for processing your email and being more efficient from LifeHacker.   Empty Your Inbox with Trusted Trio and How To Stop Checking Email on Nights and Weekends.


NpTech Slide Decks

SlideShare is like YouTube for powerpoint presentations.  It also offers groups where members can share slide decks.  There's even an NpTech group that has to date 115 slideshows and 31 members.   Here's a roundup of recent additions:

Social News for Social Good is about how to build buzz with Digg by Jonathon Coleman and the slide show he presented at Forum One - Social Sites for Social Good.  The presentation describes the benefits of using Digg and shares some before/after results. He also talks about how, contrary to some observations, Digg just isn't empty traffic.  Haven't dug into Digg yet?  No problem, I dug into the NpTech + Digg tag archives and pulled out this terrific Beginner's Guide To Digg.  Check this recent interview to learn more about Jonathan's secrets to using social media tools for success. 

Social Metrics:  The Search for ROI in Social Media by Steve Latham of Spur Digital.   Be sure to check out slide 13 that answers the question, What Can We Measure for Web2.0?"  Also worth checking out is this slide show on Social Media Measurement techniques and Greg Cangialosi's ROI of Social Media which coins a new phrase, ROE (Return on Engagement).

I'd Like That To Go: The Impending Mobile Revolution by Holly Ross, NTEN, is the slide deck from her presentation at the TIG Legal Services Conference about mobile campaigns and use of mobile in program delivery.  If you're coming to NTEN's NTC Conference next month, you can experience this technology first-hand. You can find all the presentations from that conference here.


New (to me) Blogs

Building Foss for Society Blog is the blog for the Humanitarian FOSS Project a collaborative, community-building project that was started by a group of computing faculty and open source proponents at Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and Connecticut College.

Drew Bernard has a blog about conversation, technology, activism, and life.

The NpTech Tag started as an experimental community tagging project in 2005. A loosely coupled group of nonprofit techies and social change activists decided to use the tag "NpTech" to identify web resources that would create an ongoing stream of information to promote and educate those working in nonprofit technology. Many individuals tag hundreds of resources each week. Through TechSoup's Netsquared project, blogger Beth Kanter, was commissioned to write a weekly summary.

 

And if you’re enjoying this blog, please consider subscribing for free.

The Bloglines Plumber Has No Idea ...

I read a lot of feeds for a lot of different projects.  I use two different readers - Google Reader and Bloglines - and have multiple accounts on each to manage projects.  There are a couple of reasons for that --

• Easy to manage multiple projects with lots of feeds - and I don't get distracted.  If I had better discipline, I might be able to do with folder organization.
• I train people on both RSS readers, so I like to keep my fluency on both.

I keep all my NpTech feeds (there's like 200 of them) in a bloglines account.   Bloglines experienced a major outage over the weekend according to TechCrunch which explains why I have chunks of my NpTech feeds missing and otherwise screwed up.  Ugh, it's time for me to come up with a new tool or switch everything to Google Reader, and perhaps rethink my work flow.

Anyone else out there read 500-1,000 feeds for different projects?  What tools/workflow do you use?  Well, off to export my OPML files from bloglines.

The NpTech Tag Summary will be coming shortly -- blame the plumber.

Mashups with Social Impact for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge

 

Via Britt Bravo

Do you have an idea for how a mashup could be a tool for social change?

Can you imagine a way to combine data that would increase awareness around an issue?

NetSquared, a project of TechSoup, is awarding a share of $100,000 in prize money, and a trip to the NetSquared Conference, to the top 20 winners of the NetSquared Mashup Challenge.  You don't need to have tech expertise to submit a project to the Challenge, just an idea for a change you want to make that could be facilitated by a mashup.

Wikipedia defines a mashup as, "a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool."  So, for example, MAPLight.org brings together campaign contribution data and legislators' voting records to raise awareness about the connection between money and politics.

Submit your idea for a mashup with social impact by MARCH 14, 2008 at 5 PM PST.  Submission forms are available at http://www.netsquared.org/mashup

As you know, I do the weekly roundup of NpTech for NetSquared and they've just asked me to work on another project related to this MashUp contest - to pull together a resource list.   

So, if you were teaching a workshop called "So You Wanna Build A Mashup?,"  what resources would you include on a organized list of resources?   Some categories:

• General definitions and examples: 
• API sources: (point to places where one finds open APIs)
• Data Sources: (pointer to open data sources that would be relevant)

 

Why You Didn't Hear About Cyclone Ivan's Destruction in Madagascar and How To Help Support Relief Efforts

Flickr Photo from Avylavitra

Several weeks ago I wrote a post on BlogHer about Foko Madagascar and Joan Razafimharo, an amazing blogger, social change activist, and woman working in Madagascar and other parts of the world.  She was the recent winner of my son's Green Geek Charity Contest and we contributed a small amount to the charity of her choice, SOS Children's Villages.

Joan sent us a note tonight thanking us, but also letting us know of a terrible natural disaster in her country:

Hey Harry and Beth,

I just celebrated my 26th birthday today! (but I enjoy saying " I am only 20 ") I this is the best gift ever! 

So I had great time eating my favourite chocolate waffle when watching Harry my favourite green geek. I've been corresponding with the people at SOS Village Madagascar (for the next blogathon) and I know they'll appreciate the visibility and donation you did with this video.

 

On a sadder note my country was just swept by a cyclone last week-end and this time it is my turn to use your tips on fundraising and social media to help the people back home. I haven't slept much working on this project (but feeling really motivated!) and I can't thank you enough for the informations your blog provides us.

Cyclone?  Okay, maybe I've been really busy and wasn't paying attention to the media, but I didn't recall reading about it.   A few clicks around Joan's personal site and I found this post from the Daily Green.

Once again, it's cyclone season in the southern hemisphere. Once again, Madagascar is reeling.

Once again, you probably didn't hear a thing about it in the U.S. media. 

Last week Cyclone Ivan – a storm mentioned worriedly in my last post – collided with the island nation as a borderline Category 3/Category 4 storm. (The Daily Green reported on its initial impact, when 11 were reported dead.) Ivan's track is pictured below, with darker purple representing Category 3 strength and lighter representing Category 4.

The Foko site has a round up of YouTube Video coverage, including this one which gives a glimpse of the destruction.  Reports suggest 15,000 are homeless because of the storm, and 22 dead.  If you read Joan's blog or Foko, you will learn that Madagascar is a very poor country.  Natural disasters like cyclones are not only deadly, but can cause economic damage to the vanilla crops, an important source of income because it is a key export.

As this disaster has been largely ignored by the American media, it points to the value and importance of alternative sources like blogs and sites like Global Voices which provided this round up on the damage caused by Cyclone Ivan and the relief efforts.  Joan has been an important contributor to these roundups, providing amazing coverage at her blog, The Purple Heart.  There is a slideshow from this blogger,  google map showing the path of destruction, and photos in Flickr from avylavitra.

Joan says that if you want to donate to the relief efforts, Care in Madagascar is working in country and you can donate online here. (I just did).

Interview with Jonathon Colman: Social Media Secrets from a Green Geek

Jonathon Coleman's Twitter Avatar

Jonathon Colman is the Associate Director of Digital Marketing for The Nature Conservancy, where he works on a team that is charged with the strategic marketing and promotion of The Conservancy's primary web site, nature.org. His team includes writers, designers, and web producers.   

 

Tell me a little bit about you

I’m a product of the Great Lakes and have a degree in technical writing from Michigan Technological University. I’m also a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Burkina Faso, West Africa), and am even now preparing to move from Washington, DC to Seattle immediately following a two-month fellowship in Australia.  I've packed everything except for my laptop, the wireless router, all seven Avett Brothers CDs, and the beloved coffeemaker.

You've experimented with quite a few Web 2.0/Social Media tools during your time with The Nature Conservancy. I'd like to know how you convinced your executive directors/senior staff to go for it?  What were the concerns?  What type of case did you make?

I was (and still am) so convinced that social media and web 2.0 sites were the right way to grow our constituency and awareness online that I dedicated a lot of personal time to pursuing them both before- and after-hours. My wife and the aforementioned coffeemaker can both attest to that. So the case I made in the beginning was one of personal commitment.

But I’m also blessed with entrepreneurial leadership who aren’t so risk-averse that they can’t see the value of investing in the future. And they challenged me and my colleagues to prove the value of our web strategy through constant testing and the presentation of hard-core data. Or, in another way of speaking: data talks and bull sh!t walks. The Conservancy, as a science-based organization, places a lot of value in numbers and data-driven arguments. Luckily enough, one of the most interesting parts of engaging in social media is how you can measure just about everything that you do. The real challenge, of course, is to determine the meaning behind those numbers.

It’s taken us a long time to build up credible, authoritative profiles and groups on sites like Care2, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, and StumbleUpon – a lot of our initial efforts weren’t exactly home runs – but now that we’ve laid the foundation, we can get a huge response from these networks for our campaigns. So each time we complete a major effort on these social media venues, we measure our results and report back on our progress. The case I’m making now is not one about how good we can do if we get involved with social media, but how much better we can do if we get even more involved.

Tell me about some of the strategies you've used to integrate social media into your communications campaigns -- and tell me how you measure success?  What metrics?

We have two main guiding strategies that help us direct our efforts. The first is to get people off the mouse and onto the keyboard. This means that we see a lot of value in commenting, linking, tagging, and the like; sometimes more so than just an empty visit to our site. I feel that someone who’s engaged enough to write a sentence or two or to participate in a conversation or to upload a photo with a caption is a person who’s inspired and compelled enough by our mission and success to take the next step.

 

Here’s an example of a comment that I feel really illustrates this point. In response to a post on Digg about the Conservancy’s efforts to help preserve Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, a user wrote: “This is one of the most breathtaking places I have ever seen. The photos are amazing, and the craziest thing is that 20 minutes ago I never knew it existed. Amazing job by the conservancy.” Even though this comment was made on digg.com and not on our nature.org web site, I’d still say that we succeeded in getting this person engaged in our conservation efforts.

…which is a good segue into another principle strategy of ours: connecting with people where they are rather than making find us. Like many organizations, we used to be under the false impression that “if you build it, they will come.”  But nowadays, we’ve come to think different about how we conduct outreach. Rather than force people to come to our site and remember another username and password, we’re happy to find them where they’re already engaged and introduce them to the Conservancy in venues of their choice.

Our Flickr photo contest is a good example of this philosophy in action; we could have held the contest behind closed doors and made people sign up in order to submit and view photos... but wouldn’t that have just upset people and driven them away? Rather than build our own photo-sharing application, why don’t we just use Flickr’s awesome toolset and leverage the strength of their community? That way, we let Flickr and Yahoo worry about developing the technology while we’re left to focus on what we do best: get people involved with nature and their share their passion for our planet with each other.

In terms of metrics, I like to look at measures of activity that involve more engagement than simply viewing a page or joining a group; the ones that get me all hot and bothered are when people participate in a discussion or upload a video or comment on a story. I think that you’re doing something right whenever you can inspire people to create new meaning that didn’t previously exist.

 

Okay, let's fondle the hammer ... I'm going reel off the names of some tools that I've observed you using and would love your best piece of advice or tell me a story about how you've used it in your org.

Stop: Hammer-Time!

• StumbleUpon
  I routinely bookmark and comment on environmental news, green blogs, and stories about sustainability and alternative energy technology. One of our foremost social media strategies is to try to link to and promote as many stories as possible outside of our own site. This helps us be good community members and avoid issues of spamming. But for the Conservancy’s big-ticket stories, online applications (like our carbon calculator), or priority social media presences, I’ll send the link for our landing page to all of my contacts and ask them to give it a positive review.
  
  StumbleUpon referred nearly 17,000 people to nature.org this past January, and what most marketers don’t know about StumbleUpon is that the traffic performs in a manner that’s nearly identical to organic search traffic – these visitors stay on your site, travel to pages beyond just your landing page, engage with your media, and click your calls-to-action. For free.
  
  
• Digg
  We just had (and are still reeling from) our best results ever from Digg: 76,000 visitors in a single day, including more than 18,000 visitors in a single hour (300+ people/second, if you can but dig it). All this traffic came to our brand-spanking new Everyday Environmentalist feature, which helps people learn simple ways that they can be more green.
  
  Now, in keeping with Digg visitors, these folks just viewed the landing page and most of them immediately left without viewing any other pages. But that’s OK, because our popularity on Digg drove in 50+ links from blogs, including a few elite sources like The Huffington Post and Cisco.com, and also caused “spillover” popularity into other social news networks. The real value from this particular success on Digg wasn’t so much the initial spike in traffic, but the increased SEO positioning and second wave of visitors coming from blogs and other sites.
  
  
• Facebook Causes
  The Nature Conservancy’s Cause is now growing stably at around 1,000 people per week. We’ve also earned over $3,000 in the past month. The secret to our success is to reach out to the brilliant folks developing applications like (Lil) Green Patch and I Am Green, who are already donating a portion of their ad revenue to the Conservancy.
  
  We’ve asked these application developers to make that donation of earnings directly to our Cause on Facebook – this has the benefit of allowing them to report back to their users in a way that makes them highly accountable. Why? Because those visitors can go straight to the Conservancy’s Cause and see the donation for themselves without ever leaving Facebook. And while they’re there, a lot of these visitors are deciding to join up and donate. So the developers are happy because they have proven legitimacy and we’re happy because we’ve gained all of these application users as an engaged audience.
  
  
• Twitter
  Honestly: I’m far too unfocused to blog, so I turn to Twitter to publicize my social media campaigns, usually the ones on Digg. I have anecdotal evidence that a handful of friends following these tweets (all of them nptech pros) actually click through and vote on the stories. Twitter, Pownce, even IM can be used to draw people into your campaigns, but most folks never think to leverage these common, everyday tools for that purpose. But quite frankly, I think that there’s nothing more fun than using social media to promote social media.
  
  
• Flickr
  Beyond posting my snapshots  of dogs, monuments, and my wedding in New Zealand, I don’t use Flickr very much. That said, my colleagues Sue Citro and Evan Parker have had great success running the Conservancy’s annual digital photo contest on Flickr: the 6,400 members and 64,000 images posted to date only tell part of the story; the real success has been in those photographer’s engagement with the Conservancy.

So, what are you going to do in Australia?

I’ll be leading a series of workshops for the Conservancy and our nonprofit conservation partners throughout the continent on how we can achieve more online. We’ll be covering all sorts of exciting things like how to build a web strategy that works, measuring ROI from our efforts online, conducting testing, getting started with search engine marketing and S