Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Get Involved in Gustav Online Volunteer Efforts

Photo by Christine

As you know by now, Hurricane Gustav looks even more destructive than Katrina (see this round up from Lisa Stone, BlogHer, of the news reports and links).  Three years ago, in the wake of the devastating storm, social media and others started organizing online.  This time, online organizing efforts using social media are happening before the storm hits.   

Take for example this widget created by Cerada,  Hurricane Gustav widget for iPhone, mobile device or Web site/blog, which allows you to list yourself and indicate whether you are offering
shelter, looking for someone or are an evacuee.  The widget's resources
tab also answers the following questions asap:

• CNN Coverage of Gustav
• Gustav Wiki
• Gustav08 on Ning
• Gustav podcasts from NOAA
• How do I add a resource?
• How do I find an evacuee?
• How do I let people know where I've evacuated to?

Andy Carvin of NPR's Social Media guru, interrupted his self-imposed summer blogging siesta, to help organize online efforts and coordinate volunteers.  For coordinating online volunteer efforts, he has set up a social network called the Gustav Information Center. He is hoping it will work  like Katrina Aftermath,
with aggregations of content generated by the public, news orgs and govt agencies.  He notes that the social networking tools will allow folks to use it as a place to coordinate volunteer activities. 

He has also set up a wiki called GustavWiki.com, initially populated with content from pages created three years ago for Katrina.  He's asking folks to go through each page and make sure the information is accurate and appropriate for Gustav. If you want to volunteer for a page, see the wiki to-do list
discussion on Gustav Information site.

Inspired by the Twitter feed that Nate Ritter set up to aggregate news during the San Diego Fires in the Fall of 2007, Joe Solomon (aka EngageJoe) set up GustavFeed on Twitter. It aggregates feeds from many sources.

Grace Davis, who was enjoying the last few days of summer on the deck, is now taking a lead helping role on the Gustav Information Center.  (She posted this update of evacuation list links on her blog earlier).

Claire Johnson from the Red Cross points us to the Red Cross Online Newsroom and is also giving updates on Twitter @redcross.

You can also follow updates about Gustav on Twitter.  If you search on the hash tag #gustav, you'll find many relevant threads.  In addition, there are people on the ground in the Hurricane's path providing live updates:

@GustavReporter
@UrbanReporter
@MarkMayhew

Social media is making easy for those of us who are not in area effected by the storm to volunteer.  So, why not volunteer to help add or edit content on the GustavWiki.com or use any one the above sources to help spread the word.

Additional Resources

The Authentic Eccentric
CauseWired, Coming Round Again
Connie Bensen, Power of Social Media

Andy Carvin Sets Up Gustav Information Center on Ning

Photo by Corburn

Andy Carvin launched the Gustav Information Center on Ning, and through social networks, word is spreading fast - the hash tag #gustav is being used.  Home Depot already using the tag to update on stories in the Hurricane’s path. (hat tip Tom Watson)

As we wait for Gustav to hit, Tom Watson gives us reflection about social media and Katrina --  How will the use of social media and with Gustav may it different this time.

Reflection and Analysis: Gnomedex Real-Time Social Fundraising Experiment

Click to see the larger image

My most recent experiment involved Twitter, fundraising, and an integrated offline component at the Gnomedex Conference in Seattle.  I was able to raise $2,657 to cover the costs of college tuition for Leng Sopharath, an orphan in Cambodia in just 90 minutes. By the end of the conference, the total had climbed to $3,774.  I've been a little shell shocked for the past few days, but wanted to share this reflection and analysis of the Gnomedex fundraising experiment.

The secret sauce to success for nonprofits and social media is reflecting in action. This is a technique I've used as a trainer, but it also works beautifully for social media projects.  I'm going to call it AMORE.

A=   Action
M0= Monitor
RE=  Reflection on results - rinse and repeat.

To monitor and reflect, you need collect both quantitative and qualitative data.  Avoid data collection for the sake of data collection or you will pollute your reflection. And while you can use this method to do an ROI analysis, the real gold is the deeper understanding of what works and what doesn't.  It's called double-loop learning.

Here's my AMORE step-by-step recipe:

• Set up a simple and small experiment, identify some outcomes and metrics
• Watch it closely as it unfolds
• Use feedback in action to adjust as you go
• Document in action in as much detail as possible
• Integrate quick email interviews as you say thanks with donors, pattern analysis of comments or blog posts
• Wait a few days and do an after action review or deeper meta analysis (this post)
• Apply your learnings to the next project

How did I raise $2,657 in 90 minutes? Why was it a success? It replicable?

First, let me repeat the caveat that my smart colleague, Katya Andresen points out:

These results are not typical.  This story is the fundraising equivalent of the bikini-clad woman in the Slimfast ad - a special success story.

(Although I did learn from a commenter on Katya's post that I'm not alone - Flower Dust raised 1800 of it in 18 hours, 800 in 15 minutes).

This is something you probably can't duplicate if you're just starting out because I've spent five years using social media to build and nurture a network and banking social capital.   It's the network, stupid!  And the network weaving.  Plus the Whuffie factor. That's a prelude to all of this.

I started with very small and modest projects and have used AMORE along with intensive experimentation.

Flickr photo by Beth

Second, let me omplain about analysis tools at my disposal with the hopes that some smarter readers can point me to some better tools.  What you see above is a social network analysis I created with Gnomedex schwag (and some pennies I borrowed from Chris Brogan) to illustrate the type of report I would like to be able to generate automatically.

I need social network analysis software as the back-end to the donation software that tracks who donated because of whom or at least heard about it via one a friend.   So, I did the above analysis manually -- taking the spreadsheet of donor names and comparing it with the list of gnomedex attendees, previous donor lists, and tracking the tweets or blog comments or guest book that mentioned someone else.  So, this is rough ... Here's some numbers:

• 30% repeat donors to a Leng Sopharath campaign
• 70% new donors
• 50% gnomedex attendees (not including the pass the Fez which was 30% of total dollar amount)
• 35% friend of friends
• 15% friend of friends of Beth
• 35% are names of people that I didn't meet at gnomedex, people I know or read my blog - strangers

The numbers don't tell the whole story.

The 30% of repeat donors came from my blog posts and repeat donors who saw it on the Twitter stream.  Right before I went on the state,  I sent an IM to two really connected people who I had just helped with their campaigns - and asked them to retweet it.

At the conference, I had spent the 25 minutes telling the story of my cause with passion and personality - as Charlene Li points out:

Call it the "geek ATM", but personal fundraising doesn't work without that personal appeal. Just watch Beth's presentation, see how much of herself she puts into it. You can't help but be moved to act.  On that note, what can companies and brands learn from social cause fundraising? Viral and word of mouth campaigns often rely on buzz and flash to spread. What if they could instead put more passion and personality into the "call to action"? Can a company excite the passion and conviction, that personal connection that Beth can? I don't think a company could -- but *people* at a company could.

So the motivations to donate from people in the room were clear.  The repeat donors and those who read my blog, the motivations are clear.   What about those donors who didn't know me or were friends of friends? 

One donor told me that they follow Robert Scoble on Twitter and he mentioned the talk and pointed to the live stream and was in the stream chat room.- so they donated.

Dave Delaney, who was in the room at Gnomedex, attributes it to the trust economy.

"Beth's presentation was a real eye-opener on how we can use this stuff for the greater good. Her presentation also taught many people, perhaps without even realizing, what the Trust Economy is all about.

I have my own history with Beth, last year she was trying to canvas money using Twitter to put a Cambodian girl through school. I didn’t know Beth and ignored the request, because I thought it sounded like a scam (I can be pig-headed sometimes). It wasn’t until Chris Brogan tweeted a request to help that I actually did. I trust Chris, when he put the word out I knew it was legitimate. We all have that power to help spread the word on important causes, rather than using Social Media simply as a brand-building machine."

The ask itself - a simple and easy ask of $10 played a factor as Katya Andresen notes, "The simpler and easier the ask, the bigger the conversion.  Asking people to make a $10 with a few clicks is not a big request, and so it’s hard to say no to it."  And, this checked out with some of the responses I got via email right from the donor's mouths or err fingers which lead to the "Why Not? Theory"

"I'd say the cause more than anything else, although there was a lot of "why not" in my reasoning as well."I'll spend more than that on drinks tonight, so why not drop a few bucks for a good cause".

But, I probed a few folks a little bit further: "I would love it you might consider expanding on your thoughts. I am trying to understand motivations to give a small amount to someone you don't even know..."

Here's one very insightful answer:

1)  I noticed your tweet and that it was a young woman from Cambodia.  My finance is half-Cambodian so the personal connection to the beneficiary made the cause more memorable for me.

2) I thought it would be good will to promote the cause myself, since others were doing so. This would fulfill my need "to belong" and be recognized.

3) Then, I started asking myself: "How many people are tweeting and donating?" and "How many people are just tweeting?" As a marketing person, I would be annoyed if every promotion was successful and extremely hyped but did not somehow lead to a sale. Suddenly, my needs changed and I needed my profession to be validated.

4) PayPal was an enabler. I had some money in my account.

5) The specific dollar amount was an enabler of convenience.  As someone with limited time and attention, I don't want to think about how much money to donate. Just tell me how much you need and I will give it to you.  People will offer more than the recommended amount if they feel so inclined.

But What About Traffic?

Opps forgot to look at that!  So, ran a google analytics reports on visitors and there was definitely a rise on the day I gave the presentation.  Several days later, Jonathan Colman set up a digg and announced it in the NpTech Friend Feed Room.  It got 189 diggs.   Here's the report.

I'm grateful to my colleagues Katya Andresen, Dan Morrill, and Chad Norman for providing astute observations about what worked and what didn't works.  Blogs can be a great source of 360 evaluation. 

What's Next?

John left this comment/question:  If many people and nonprofits adopted this method of fundraising would it flood the market and become less effective? Is the success due to the novelty? I don't mean to be cynical, but merely ask the question about its sustainability.

I wonder how nonprofits are working with with wired fundraisers and the hyper connected and adopting these strategies for fundraising.   Once we get past the early adopted, will this cause major donor fatique and get in the way of fundraising success or will it become as accepted as direct mail, email fundraising, and on-air pledge drives? 

John Powers, left a response

It's a good question and don't have an answer. What stands out to me is stories. When you told us about Leng Sopharath's surgery, I gasped. From your stories she was no stranger to me. Tools and techniques may get worn from overuse, but new stories can always be told. The fund raising is an impressive story, really just floors me! Still I think it's important not to focus too much on the "how" of it and retain attention to how important telling stories is for all of us.

What do you think?

Happy Belated Birthday Millie Garfield!

Photo by Steve Garfield

While I was on vacation last week, Millie Garfield celebrated a birthday and I wanted to make sure to tell her happy birthday.   At 83 years young, Millie Garfield is one of the Internet's oldest bloggers, according to The Ageless Project. She is a terrific story teller and blogs almost more often than I do. Millie's blog, My Mom's Blog, really demonstrates the power of telling stories.

Steve Garfield, her son, created a book out of her blog as a gift.   The cover includes photos of Millie with different bloggers and friends, including me!

I've had the pleasure of working with Steve Garfield, a well known video blogger, on a couple of projects - and he rocks.  I was delighted to see him working with some nonprofits, including Third Sector  to introduce them to Sesmic.  Steve organizes the Boston Media Makers which meets on the first Sunday of each month.

Let The Change Blogging Meme Hit The Road ...

Alex Steed is  a self-described millennial activist and he has just announced his Millennials Changing America: The Next Generation of Organizing where he will visit over 30 cities across the United States to meet, interview and report how young people are using the Internet to leverage their social and political power.   He describes what hopes to do:

I intend to examine the methodology of various politically and socially energized young people, contacted through various activist networks, and to listen to, record, and share their stories with present and future doers. I will use a blog rich in video and audio to share my discoveries and analysis. Working with cutting-edge websites like epolitics, Future Majority, Change.org, and many others, I plan to share this content with and contribute to as many relevant outlets and individuals as possible.

I just donated a small amount to his effort!

Alex is a great example of a change blogger.  What's that?  Britt Bravo wrote a post several months back defining the term:  people who are using their blog, podcast or vlog to raise awareness, build community, and/or facilitate readers/listeners/viewers' taking action to make the world a better place. I guess I'm a change blogger too.  So is Dr. Mani who will be using social media to raise money for heart surgeries for poor children in India.  The meme isn't necessarily limited to individuals as David Neff at Fispace mentions - corporate bloggers like Tyson Foods will donate 100 pounds of food for every comment made here.

Britt included links to change bloggers and started a Changeblogger Facebook.  Another change blogger, SocialButterfly has created a Changeblogger wiki where other change bloggers can add their information. 

Change bloggers have some excellent tools at their disposal, like Social Actions widget which makes it possible for any wired passionate soul to highlight causes on the social web.  Take for example the breast cancer version I created last week when I wrote about Leah Jones and Her Walk for Breast Cancer.

Qui Diaz at LivingstonBuzz has kicked off a Change Blogging Meme which includes an offline/online integrated event to support Alex Steed as well as a blogging meme.

This fall, DC will be one of 35 cities visited by NetSquared’s Alex Steed. He’s touring the U.S., meeting with millennial activists about “the future of organizing.” We won’t be letting him out of here that easily, however. Alexandra Rampy (a.k.a. SocialButterfly) is rallying local changebloggers to meet with Steed. Our goal is to unite interested parties around something good (TBD). From there, we can do just about anything.

That’s setting the bar pretty high for Valley and NY folk.

She ends her post with change blogging meme -- asking and answering three questions and tagging other bloggers.

SXSW: Last Chance to Vote for Nonprofit Panels! Some more thoughts about the Nonprofit, Social Media, and ROI Case Study Slam

Magnetic Poetry by Surreal Muse

The SXSW Interactive Festival panel picker process closes on August 29th at 11:59 PM which means you have only a couple of days left to vote for as many panels as you think are worthy of being on the program or not.  I did a roundup of all the fantastic nonprofit panel submissions if you want help nonprofits get on the agenda there.

I've been in brainstorm mode for a panel called Social and Nonprofits ROI: Case Study Slam that I submitted.

Here's the description:
Using a poetry slam format, each panelist will present a five-minute poem or story about how their organization has successfully implemented a social media strategy experiment and how they considered the ROI. The audience will have ample opportunity to ask questions and respond.

This is a new and improved version of the Social Media Case Study Slam I organized at the NTC last year. I've gathered up some of best of the best folks in the nonprofit tech field to share their stories, metrics, and lessons learned in verse or story format.    I will do an overview connecting the idea of metrics to poetry ... How do I measure thee, let me count the ways, etc) or social media metrics haiku or limerick, or maybe create fridge magnets.   I hope it will be informative AND entertaining.

So, what's a poetry slam?  It is a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judged on a numeric scale by judges.  I happen to notice that was a there's a rock star panel (Charlene Li, formerly with Forrester and co-author of Groundswell; Katie Paine, of KD Paine & Partners and author of Measuring Public Relationships; and Avinash Kaushik, Google evangelist and author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day) with measurement gurus called "Measure This!"  organized by Kami Huyse. 

I thought it might be possible to get a few judges from this esteemed group -- if this panel gets accepted.

However, I'm going to suggest a tweak in the judging concept because I think holding up a number score alone won't help with learning or insights about nonprofits and social media ROI.  I think the judges should offer a brief reflection in response.   What do you think?

(I've also submitted another panel titled THIS is Iron Chef … Battle Non Profit  and will participate as a panelist on Social Change Behind the FireWall submitted by Holly Ross

Chicago Symphony Social Media Strategy: What happens when people outside your organization set up a presence on Facebook?

The prelude to this interview is a tale of networking weaving.   

A few months ago, I created a workshop called "Arts 2.0" which was a strategic social media for arts organizations workshop. (I'll be leading this workshop in Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance in about two weeks) As part of my research process (using social media, of course), I looked at what arts organizations were doing on social networking sites like Facebook.  I wanted to find an example of an official social networking presence, one clearly set up by the organization and one that was set up by the users.  Bingo .. I found the Chicago Symphony's Fan Page and the Charlie Vernon Fan Club group.

I was trying to make two points during the workshop

• The first step is to listen - and by listening I mean find out who is having a conversation about your organization or issue.  If you haven't done the listening, don't bother with a social networking strategy.
• The "loosing control" aspect of social media will happen no matter and you need to have the conversation internally to figure out how you will address it.

Not too long ago, I got an email from Marc van Bree, the PR coordinator from the CSO, who telling me about his new blog.  He also mentions that he saw my powerpoint and thanked me for using the CSO screenshot.  One thing lead to another and I directed him to the WeAreMedia project because the idea is that the conversation  can become more than a brainstorming session or list of resources.  Marc contributed some knowledge to the ROI section and also contributed some reflections about why he participated. (I really value that he took the time to engage in the conversation and the learning process ...)

And, I really wanted to do an interview with him to find out more about the CSO and Facebook.  Not just because of my own curiosity, but because I knew there might others there that could benefit from Marc's knowledge. 

Does this story illustrate the art of network weaving?   

1.)  Tell me about you and your job

I started my job at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra nearly three years ago, after an internship at a non-profit and a temporary stint at a PR agency dedicated to the arts. I didn’t have an extensive classical music background, but learned quickly and learned to love it even quicker. 

A day in the PR office of an orchestra is never the same; it goes beyond cranking out press releases and pitches. That’s what makes it fun. For example, when the orchestra returned to the airwaves, it was announced that there would be a large Web component to it. I got pulled in to help create weekly Web content for the broadcast, because of my interest in and knowledge of HTML programming and the Web.

That interest of programming started at an early age. When I was very young, I started programming BAT files and then moved on to “programming for kids” by Addo Stuur and when the World Wide Web entered the household I jumped to HTML. It never became more than an interest and I went on to study communications.

Now, I’m happy to combine the two: the Web and communication. Online communication is growing at an incredible rate and organizations cannot stay behind to shape their online image and story. I’m especially intrigued by the possibilities of combining old public relations principles, such as storytelling, and new media, including social networks such as Facebook.

2.)  You have a "personal professional" blog.  Why did you start your blog? 

I find it a good way to formulate my thoughts. Even though I sometimes look back and don’t necessarily agree with what I wrote anymore. I started in 2005 with installing PHP Nuke on my Web site, which combines several elements, such as forums, photos and articles. I was looking for jobs at that time, having just graduated, and I wanted to create some kind of portfolio. But I soon realized WordPress was the better option for what I wanted to create.

George Orwell wrote a piece once called “Why I write.” He lists four reasons: 1) sheer egoism 2) aesthetic enthusiasm 3) historical impulse 4) political purpose. After I hundred posts on my blog, I took these four reasons and turned them into a “Why I blog” article.

The sheer egoism could be translated into ambition and wanting to create a portfolio; the aesthetic enthusiasm is, as Orwell writes, a “desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed”; the historical impulse a “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity;” and the political purpose a “desire to push the world in a certain direction,” a springboard to formulate my ideas.

I think the first and last reasons are key in my reasoning; I wanted to create a portfolio of my thoughts, but I also wanted it to be a training ground for putting together my thoughts.

3.)   I understand your organization has a Facebook Fan Page - can you tell me a little about the strategy, and why you set it up?  You mentioned that you've been sharing information with fans, but you hope to be a little bit more interactive.  What are you plans for doing that?

We started the CSO Facebook page a couple of months ago. We launched the page with an incentive: a chance to win a free CD of one of our recent recordings. Otherwise, there was no active campaign besides me telling my friends to join and those friends telling their friends to join and so on. Within a week, we had over 1,000 fans. After this early explosive growth by word of mouth, the increase in fans flattened and now there is an average of about 20 fans joining per day. We get nearly 100 page views a day, but this visibly spikes if we send out an update through Facebook or post videos or photos.

As of now, we’ve mainly been sharing information; pushing out information. We posted our new music director announcement with an update, links and information. In addition, we’ve tried creating an event for a radio broadcast and one for a specific concert to see if people would RSVP. One example of a little more interactivity was a ticket giveaway where fans had to answer a trivia question about a certain piece of music and the answer could be found on our Web site (in this case beyondthescore.org).

In the future, rather than simply pushing out information, we would like to see the users take more action and ownership of the page. We’re looking at ways to accomplish this and ways to make it easy for fans to participate by lowering the entry barrier. One such example is fan photos. This does, however, get a little tricky for performing arts organizations. We don’t allow photography during concerts, so it would work against our own policy to feature fan photos taken during concerts (which, as you can imagine, would be the majority of fan entries).

4.)  What has been the key value to the CSO for setting up a Facebook page?

Over half our fans on the page are younger than 24 and over 85% of the fans are younger than 34. Compare that to the average age of classical music patrons, which usually runs toward the mid-fifties or even sixties. I suspect that this means we have a whole new group to communicate with, which is enormously exciting.

As we’ve had the CSO page for a fairly short time and we are figuring out how best to communicate and reach out, I believe up to this point the key value has been simply listening and participating. This should always be the first step in any new media endeavors: survey the environment and see what you can learn.

5.)  What have been some of the results so far? What have you learned?

As I mentioned earlier, there’s a tremendous amount of young people joining as fans, much younger than our typical audience. I’ve noticed many of these youngsters are music students and proudly so (there are many that have profile photos with their instruments). I’d like to see it as a small sign that classical music is still important in many households and a whole new generation of patrons is growing up.

The results so far have been learning what works and what doesn’t work in communicating. In the future, we need to formulate more concrete objectives. These may include raising awareness (of a season theme or a composer festival) or perhaps community activation and participation (does the community respond to a message or a call to action?)

6.)  I understand that there are several groups on Facebook that support the CSO - but are not the official site from your organization.  How do build relationships and work with these other sites?

The people who started those groups are obviously passionate about supporting the CSO. Reaching out to these people works very similar to reaching out to bloggers; know who is writing and what they are writing; participate; build relationships; and adapt materials. Right now, we’re just at the “read and participate” stage, but we’ll have to come up with ways to engage them and provide them with useful materials that could easily be integrated into their group (RSS feeds, videos etc.).

7.)  You mentioned that you've become the 'go to" person on CSO for social media/networking strategy.  Is it a formal part of your job? Have you encountered any resistance or do they feel it is important?
What convinced them?

It’s currently not explicitly a part of my job, although you could argue that it does fall under public relations. And I’m by no means an expert on the topic, but I am passionate about the possibilities. 

Fortunately, I have not encountered resistance. On the contrary, I have noticed much curiosity. But it goes hand in hand with a lack of understanding on what to do with the possibilities, because there are very little go-to resources. I’d like to think that’s where I can be helpful. I do find it difficult to explain the “whys” and “hows” because there is a lot of unqualified information out there, but blogs like yours and the We Are Media modules are extremely helpful for formulating the answers you need.

Once I delved into the ROI of new media (which doesn’t mean just ticket sales), I found it much easier to explain and justify the possible endeavors into new media. In the end, it’s all about results and return of investments. With orchestra budgets as tight as they are, you’d be foolish not to make that a priority. Keeping up with the Joneses is just not a valid justification.

8.)  Any advice you want to give other arts people wishing to explore social media? 

Just explore! Set up a Bloglines account, set up a Google Blog Alert, set up a del.icio.us account, set up a LinkedIn account, listen to Pandora and so on. It doesn’t take much to get a basic grasp of what social media entails. You don’t have to jump on every latest fad, but find out what’s useful for you and learn what works best with your needs and what fits into your lifestyle. Then, when you’re comfortable enough, try to participate and engage.

The same counts for an organization: survey the environment, determine what you are trying to accomplish and then find the right tools that work for you.

The value of attending Gnomedex: Priceless

 

Find more videos like this on Internet Time
Video from Jay Cross and more about Matt from Jamie Nelson

• There were approximately 250 social media power users
• There were two full-days packed with excellent content and fabulous speakers
• There were 15 sponsorship partners and tasteful sponsorship giveaways and promotion
• Thousands of photos in flickr (and really good ones)
• Two delicious breakfast and lunches, plus 5 different kinds of candy in the afternoon
• Two awesome parties
• Unlimited opportunities to get to know other attendees before, during, and after conference
• $3,700 dollars were raised for Cambodian kids ...

But what's the value of all these love, dancing, and learning?   PRICELESS

There are so many social media conferences and expos out there today, that’s it’s very difficult to decide which to attend. I first heard about Gnomedex in 2005 when I read Julie Leung's post about her experience.  Later that summer, I had the honor of being interviewed by Ponzi at BlogHer.  This year, I finally got an opportunity to attend.  The conference as Chris Brogan says over delivered.

How could I have waited so long to go.  You really need to go to Gnomedex next year.  I learned a lot, I met fabulous people, and it felt great to be part of an awesome community. I even got a chance to dance with Matt!

I can't begin to express my gratitude to Chris and Ponzi and the whole gnomedex family for making this conference experience incredible for me - it ranks on my best ever list of tech conferences.  I've spoken at a lot of them, and the care and attention I got was above and beyond.  I especially appreciate Maryam's speaker wrangling skills.   I also have to say that having Chris's mom do such a fabulous job of time tracking helped me end on time (I wish we could clone her for every conference on the planet.)  Also, having super fantastic geek ways of running a conference was inspiring - I especially like the twitter speaker feedback channel. (and woot .. got a 5 point rating)

A couple of personal highlights of the sessions:

• Photography Tips Kris Krug who is an awesome photographer who gave us great tips on improving our photos.  At the bar, I got to talk to him about the rule of thirds and practice some shots with his coaching. (See this one of Marshall's feet)  He even put up with me doing a public speaking exercise, shaking hands and singing twinkle, twinkle little star.
• Ma.gnolia 2.0 by Tara Hunt and Larry Halff.  I always enjoy hearing Tara speak.  I also got a chance to talk to social capital shop during the party.
• icanhascheezburger Ben Huh presented a fantastic visual, story-oriented, and funny presentation about his company.  I got some great ideas for future presentations.
• Danny Sullivan's "Search Meets Real Life" was absolutely brilliant -- particularly how demonstrated what information is out there and how he called people in the audience on his cell phone while asking them personal questions and displaying some of the information about them freely available on the Internet.
• In Meet Generation Y  Francine Hardaway interviewed the great (and young) Mark Bao presented right before me, and I was preoccupied - but Francine's presenting style was so engaging and the conversational approach to this session got me so engaged that I forgot I was speaking next.
• Salaam Garage by Amanda Koster presented her work.  They key takeaway for me is that photos without a story in them are less powerful.   
• I loved, loved, loved hearing the Seattle Ignite and Portland Ignite.  It was like an intellectual candy story so many topics of interest such as  Beth Kolko - Emerging Markets, Troy Malone - The GTD Timebomb, and Monica Guzman - How to be a Great News Commenter.  Can't wait to find those slide decks online.    Just want to put in a plug for Sarah Davis's presentation about Geeks Inheriting the Earth and Creative Commons - she will be presenting the case study at sxsw, but only if you vote for her panel!
• What Happens When You Get What You Want: The Growing Blogosphere Angst with Sarah Lacy was the morning keynote.  I love conversational keynotes and have ever since I first experienced them during the Global Voices London Summit 2005 and Blogher plenary session in 2005.  Sarah walked around the room, Oprah style and had a conversation with the audience.   The topics covered: citizen journalist debate (bloggers versus journalist),  the echo chamber,  ROI of blogging, trolls, a-list, and civility. Geoff Livingston summarizes the debates in the session.
  
• Vendor relationship management from Eve Maler was in the afternoon - it was a mind blowing presentation.   I need to go back to it and really think about those topics in more depth. Here's her reflection and pointer to the talk.

The informal learning that takes place in the hallways and around the lunch table and bar was amazing!

Having the opportunity to chat at the bar with Brian Solis about Conversation Prism, Liz Strauss about e-book publishing, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Betsy Webber, and Lee LeFever about screening casting, Tris Hussey who introduced me to Tanya Davis,  getting a demo from Clarence Wooten about CollectiveX, talking to Andrew Hyde about techstars, Jay Cross who gave me additional influence psychological theorists to read, catching up with Gregory Heller, Eric Rice who gave tons of resources for kids and gaming, Kathy Gill who took great photos, Chris Brogan who helped make a diagram of the networked flow of donations and even lent the 7 pennies, Shashi Bellamkona who took this awesome photo of a conversation in the lobby that we were having with Geoff Livingston and Charlene Li about social media metrics, the fun conversation with Robert Scoble about his upcoming trip to China, Micah and Mark sharing their Jewish geography stories, meeting  Jeff and Carmen Barr and learning about what she is doing at the orphanage in Peru and so many amazing experiences.

All in all .. gnomedex is a must-attend conference.

Social Media and Diabetes

NetChick: This Chick's Life

1. Tell me about you I'm Tanya Davis, aka "NetChick" online, based in beautiful Vancouver, BC.  I'm 38, and I've been blogging my personal life for 11 years.  I'm passionate about writing, technology, and building communities both online and "in real life".  My blog is "This Chick's Life.  I recently announced there that I'll be running a half marathon in Orlando FL for Team Diabetes.  (My first run of any significant length)

2.  Why is diabetes your cause? Diabetes has touched my life in several very personal ways.  Not only does type 1 diabetes run in my family, with 3 family members suffering from this very debilitating disease, but I also have four close friends who suffer from both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.  A local radio announcer in Vancouver (Buzz Bishop of 95Crave) approached me to join his 95CRAVE Team Diabetes crew, a group of passionate runners raising money to support the Canadian Diabetes Association.  It was a no-brainer for me, despite the daunting $4500 minimum pledge goal that I'm now working towards, as I knew that this disease not only touches my family, but millions of others in North America, as well.

3.  What is your progress on your fundraising goal? As I've only recently taken on this challenge, I'm currently at $700 in funds raised to date.  My next goal date is September 1st, when I need to have raised $1500.  By October 1st, my next goal arrives, and I need to have raised $3400, and finally, December 1st, my final goal date arrives, where the remainder is due, totalling the $4500 in pledges.  I have two ways that I'm doing the majority of my fundraising... A $500 cash giveaway on my blog as an exciting incentive to give to my campaign, and an event that I'm organizing in October, to also fundraise and raise awareness.

4.  What have you learned about personal fundraising that might be helpful to other bloghers? Personal fundraising is challenging, and what I've learned about raising funds for any campaign is to ensure that I have enough time to commit to the cause, pick a cause that personally touches me, and find unique ways to inspire others to give, as everyone is bombarded regularly to support causes of all kinds.  Telling a personal story ensures your message gives others a personal reason to give, as well.

There are some interesting ways people are connecting and using social media to raise money for Diabetes.  One of my favorites was Alan Levine (Cog Dog Blog), who ran a marathon last year.  He used a blog campaign, but he also tweeted during his breaks while the race was on!

The Diabetes Hands Foundation, a non profit that operates two niche social networks for people touched by diabetes: TuDiabetes (in English, with close to 4,000 members) and EsTuDiabetes (with close to 1,000 members, which is turning it into the main community destination for Spanish-speaking diabetics). Both are growing very rapidly, as you can read here.

I asked Manny Hernandez, the founder of TuDaibetes, what advice he would offer Tanya.  His advice was about online community building, helping set expectations, and also gave some specific tips:

1.  If you haven't done it yet, you should join TuDiabetes.com.   You could blog about your fundraising effort in the community and include a link to your page for it on your profile page: we just passed 4,000 members yesterday, so that will definitely give you some targeted visibility.

2. Do some networking with other people. We have a few hundred members from Canada, many of whom "hang out" in the Canada Diabetes group.

3.  Use Twitter.  I noticed the team you are a member of is Buzz Bishop's. I have been following him on Twitter for a while, and he's gotten quite a bit of attention through Twitter for the fundraiser. You would need first to work on getting more people (friends, other people you know) to follow you and then, periodically, post updates about your initiative.

If you are looking for a good blog about diabetes, be sure to check out the Diabetes Mine written by Amy Tenderich.

How Long Does It Take for 250 Super Connected Gnomedex Geeks to raise $2,500 for Cambodian kids?

Screencapture of photo by Brian Westbrook

90 minutes! Today I presented at Gnomedex 8.0.  (My slides are here).  I started with a story about how Ponzi and Chris helped me demonstrate the networked effect with flickr and twitter for a nonprofit training, then told my story about the Case Foundation and Parade Magazine's America's Giving Challenge, and then I set up a real time fundraising challenge.   

My first fundraising effort was to send Leng Sopharath to college her first year in November 2006 took 3 weeks to raise $800.    In 2007, Chris Brogan and 81 other people helped raise enough money in 24 hours for her college tuition and in a few days were able to raise enough to help support another student.   So, my challenge was: Can this room of highly connected gnomedexers get 250 people to donate $10 by the end of the conference?

 

I sent them to my tweet and asked them to donate and ask a friend or retweet.  Chris and Ponzi kicked it off by giving $100 on the stage.(THANK YOU!)

Photo by motogrrl

Buzz Bruggeman (above) said pass the hat. Then I answered questions.  What I didn't see going on was the back channel (captured by Marshall K in Iterasi in a cool slide show).  Geoff Livingston kicked it off by tweeting his donation. Later Jeremy Wright kept tweeting out matching challenges.

At 90 minutes, we raised $2,657  from 112 donors - plus whoever gave cash (probably another 125 people giving a total of $902).  Thank you.  The ball kept rolling - the combined total as of $3,774.

THANK YOU GNOMEDEXers and everyone who contributed. YOU ALL ROCK. We're solving real problems!

Donors via PayPal (as of 8.23.08)

Beth Kanter
Rikke Sorensen
Suzanne Cline
Yesenia Sotelo
Donna Callejon
Peggy Baker
John Powers
Emily Williamson
Wiebke Herding
Ayelet Baron
Nicholas Booth
David Krumlauf
Jeff Barr
Geoff Livingston
jeremy wright
Brittney Raybould
Eric Rice
Jay Cross
Duncan Rawlinson
Cassandra Wallender
Josiah Taylor V
Josh Bancroft
Duncan Riley
Steven Bao
Marshall Kirkpatrick
Tanya Bray
Krishnan Subramanian
Diedra Wylie
G Watson
Shawn Rogers
Danny Sullivan
Timothy Wood
William Corrigan
Londa Quisling
joseph solomon
Francine Hardaway
Seth Strumph
Scott Maentz
Andru Edwards
Joseph Thornley
Kristin Redlinger
Marina Martin
Tara Hunt
dietrich ayala
Eve Maler
Alexander Weishaupl
Uwe Sommer
Troy Malone
G Jason Hart
Rick Turoczy
Scott Maxwell
Damon Cortesi
Ranvir Gujral
Brian Dorsey
Scott Ruthfield
Jennifer McCabe
John Rogers
Connie Reece
Randy Stewart
Jim Murphy
Alberto Lopez
Stuart Maxwell
Brian Eisenberg
Steven Edinger
Dana Lookadoo
Dana Oshiro
David Risley
Lee LeFever
Matthew Morgan-May
Shashi Bellamkonda
eric levine
Kathy Gill
Marcus Whitney
Chad Henderson
marianne richmond
Todd Martini
James Nelson
Andrew Olanoff
Andrew Hyde
Kevin Sandridge
Christopher Sloop
Derek Miller
Tristram Hussey
laura fitton
Brooks Duncan
Andrew Kaufman
Rebecca Bucich
Brian Westbrook
Clara Kuo
Tetsuto Yabuki
Kenny Lauer
Steve Dembo
Carla Lynne Hall
Joshua Gunn
Elizabeth Grigg
Dr. Sharon Laubach
Todd O'Reilly
Adam Mercado
Karen Swim
Henry Thiele
Matthew Miller
Robert Uva
Walter Schwabe
Joseph Thornley
Sandra Niehaus
Veronique S Christensen
Elisa Butler
R Josh Quarles
Jason Ruby
Raworahi Foundation
Arthur Germain
LaDonna Coy
Chad Norman
Dave Evans
Kevin Marks
Elithea Whittaker
Rami Reddy Vatrapu
Julie Gomoll
Ann Kingman
Thomas Tague
Shirley Williams
Quitrina Diaz

Related blog posts

Using Social Media for Social Good by Andru Edwards
Live Blog post by Bill's Blog
An Uncomplicated Kindness at Gnomedex by Lipsticks and Laptops
Gnomedex Goes Bollywood by Dave Delaney
Gnomedex Day 1 by Dave Brezeal
It Takes 90 Minutes to Change a Life by Nick/Podnosh
Gnomedex by Jay Cross
Photography and Social Good Are Themes At Gnomedex by Jason Preston
Aftermath of Gnomedex by Stewtopia
Roundup of Afternoon Sessions by Network Solutions
RoundUp by CenterNetworks
What you missed at Gnomedex by Kevin Merritt
Using Social Media to Effect Social Change by Dan Risely
Seven Notes about Gnomedex by Kris Krug
Gnomedex, Sarah Lacy and More by Silicon Florist Podcast
From 0 to $2,500 in 90 minutes by Shiney Red Toy
Seven Notes About Gnomedex by Dave Delaney
Three Rules of Gnomedex by Micah Baldwin
Gnomedex Highlights by Steve Fisher
Beginning of Human Circuitry by Chris Pirillo
More Than Echos Talk Along the Walls, by Duncan Riley

Gnomedex Presentation

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Help Me Send Leng Sopharath Back To College in Good Health!

Two years ago, my family and I made a commitment to sponsor Leng Sopharath, a young woman from Cambodia, for her college education through the Sharing Foundation's education program.   She is an orphan who grew up in the same orphanage as my daughter.  Without the Sharing Foundation's college education program, she would not be able to make a better life for herself.     My exploration of using social media tools and personal fundraising strategies has been devoted to raising money to help support young people like Leng Sopharath through the Sharing Foundation's program. She is now entering her third year of college, majoring in Business as you will hear from the video I took when I met her over a year ago.

 

The most recent letter I received from her let me know that she will have to miss the fall semester because she recovering from stomach surgery.  (The text of the letter is here).  The Sharing Foundation (and some friends) covered her medical expenses and she is recuperating in the student house that we rent for our college students.   So, this year I'm raising money to cover her junior year tuition, living expenses, and medical expenses.    This comes to approximately $2,500.  I am hoping that you can contribute $10 to continue her education in good health.

For her freshman year, I launched a campaign on ChipIn and with the help of many generous people, was able to raise money for her first of college.   For her sophmore year, with the help of folks like Chris Brogan, we were able to raise enough money to cover Leng Sopharath and another college student! 

I'm headed off to Seattle to speak at Gnomedex and hope to test the power of integrated offline/online strategies.  (Any advice?) and hope to continue with this campaign and raise the money quickly! So, please consider donating $10!

IF you reading this in an RSS reader, here's the direct link.  Thanks.

Care 2 Lauchnes Video Blog at Democractic Convention

Leah Jones Is Taking A 3-Day Journey To Fight Breast Cancer and Social Actions Can Help You Find Other Related Campaigns

Photo by Leah Jones

Last December,  Susan Reynolds, an artist and social media maven, was diagnosed with Breast cancer.   She announced on her blog, "I use Twitter to fight Cancer" and without any formal blogger relations campaign, well-known and influential bloggers blogged about her situation and changed their avatars to include peas.  Through Connie Reece's visionary leadership, the community rallied and the "Frozen Pea Fund" was started.  Susan continues to share her experience at her blog and through twitter.

The pioneering efforts of the Frozen Pea Fund continue to inspire other women to fight against breast cancer.  While breast cancer doesn’t run in her family, Leah Jones has just launched her training for her 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk.  She wanted to participate in the challenge to honor her friends, that she is close to. 

Every October, all of the blogs in my blogosphere go pink and my friends sign up for different types of Breast Cancer fundraiser. I go from blog to blog to blog, making $18 donations to support each of them in the greater fight to find a cure and raise awareness. Even at 31, I have waited outside of hospital doors for peers who were getting the news (so far, all clear).

As she writes on her blog, in a post titled "If you need me, I'll be walking .." she's now taking her activism offline.

I was selected to be one of the Edelman team members for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day in Atlanta. I have a pretty intense training schedule over the next ten weeks, so if you need me, I'll be walking.

Her other motivation is an opportunity to experiment with Twitter and blogging to see just how much her community can raise for this cause.  I hope she will blog some of her lessons learned too.  Just today, I got a Twitter question from DeafMom asking for advice.  (I pointed her to my personal fundraising case study)

The next thing now is to add the new AdWords-Style Widget from the Social Actions folks. The widget automatically identifies the keywords on any page and lists social change campaigns related to the stuff you're writing about.  Here's a widget I created for Breast Cancer social change campaigns.

Jocelyn Harmon on Nonprofits and Blogging

Jocelyn Harmon started the Marketing for Nonprofits blog a year ago as a place to share her thoughts on nonprofits, social media, marketing, and training. 

1.   Tell me about you

I’m a reader, writer, thinker and storyteller.  I’m rich with many, many blessings - an amazing new husband, a beautiful daughter, dear friends, work I love.  Most days I’m full of gratitude for the gifts of this crazy, wonderful, frustrating world and life.

2.   Why did you enter the nonprofit sector?

Like most development folks I know, I “landed” in the nonprofit sector; it was totally unplanned.  I didn’t even know what development was before I took my first job!  I had applied to be a Training Manger at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits – an organization that provides services, training and consulting to other charities - and didn’t get the job.  But they called me back about 6 months later and asked me if I wanted to be their first development manager.  I was working at the Ritz Carlton at the time and lucky for me it turned out that good stewardship and cultivation of donors was much like providing great customer service to hotel guests.  I learned quickly that development is all about building relationship and it was a natural fit.  Also (in the beginning) I enjoyed preparing proposals and grants for our foundation partners – it got me writing again.  I also loved the fact that I was now “selling” services to strengthen the work of nonprofits vs. selling hotel rooms to the very rich.

3.   Tell me about your blog.  Why did you start your blog?

I started my blog last August.  Qui Diaz and I had done a workshop called 2Blog or not 2Blog at the Center for Nonprofit Advancement (one of our local nonprofit capacity building organizations.)  For some reason we weren’t able to access the PowerPoint during the presentation and had to do the presentation old school style via flip charts.  We were both frustrated because we liked the deck and wanted to share it.  When I got back to the office, after the workshop, I “pinged” Katya and asked if she would share it with her readers (I didn’t have a platform of my own yet).  We posted the deck to Slide Share and she linked to it.  In about a week, over 200 people had viewed the presentation!   I knew then, that both Qui and I had something valuable to share with others.  It was also an “aha moment” for me because I realized that here was a medium (the Internet) that allowed anyone (including me) to connect across time and space to FAR MORE people than I’d ever be able to connect with in person.  That’s powerful! FYI, to date, 2Blog or not 2Blog has been downloaded by 99 folks and viewed by 1,600!

4.   What are your biggest challenges to blogging regularly?

Time is the biggest challenge for me as it is for most folks.  Time to write AND the inconvenience of waking up in the middle of the night (almost EVERY night) with fully formed posts in my brain.  It’s hard to get up that early and write when you’ve got to start your day at 7:00.  At the same time, I’m loath to quell inspiration.

5.   What value does having a blog give you?

Blogging has had a profound effect on me both professionally and personally.  Professionally, it’s been a major boon.  I have a body of work now and am part of a community of nonprofit and social media thought leaders and this has “credentialed me” in parts of the tech and marketing world. Blogging has translated directly for me into training and consulting “gigs” and my newest opportunity at Triplex.  (They found me through Google Search!) Usually when you leave a job you go back to total obscurity but this was not true when I left NPower.  Now, in addition to the institutional titles I hold, my talent is defined by my work

There have also been great rewards – personally.  Blogging is my personal writing practice and platform.  It’s made me more self-confidence as a writer, thinker, teacher, and human being.  Writing every day and being vulnerable to an “audience” (perceived or real) makes you get better!  For me this has been a positive pressure and incredible gift.

6.   What are some of your best tips for being efficient in writing a blog?

Gosh, I’m not sure that I am an efficient blogger.  For me, writing is much more inspired.  I try to trust that the ideas and words and metaphors will come and luckily they usually do.  However, I am also practical about keeping abreast of what is going on in the blogosphere and in my areas of interest, which include “new media” and marketing strategies and tools for nonprofits.  For example, I read the folks listed on my blogroll almost every day.  I get Google Alerts on key topics and I consume lots of marketing and new media books!

7.   You're a busy professional, but you also are a mom.  How do you balance your busy professional life with parenting?  Any tips for work/life balance?

I was at a potluck the other day for a group of women in town (DC) who are consultants.  We were sharing food and tips for marketing our businesses.  What one woman said struck me.  “There is no balance in life if you mean 50/50 balance.  It’s more like 80/20 most weeks.” This resonates with me.  Nothing is perfect.  There is stuff that has to get done every day/week – cooking dinner, grocery shopping, work, taking my peanut to school, SLEEP – these are the non-negotiable.  But most days it feels like everything else is up for grabs.  The frustration and challenge for me is “getting out in front” of my life.  I hate reacting all the time to external forces.  But you know sometimes that’s just life.  So I take what I can get and try to do more of what’s important to me every day – read, write, think, pray, love on my peeps!

 

Open Thread: How does my nonprofit organization get started with social media? What should we do first? What's your advice?

Photo by Billerr

 

Every now and then I get emails asking for advice.  I don't have the bandwidth to answer each one or even blog them, but occasionally I like to post them here because it is great to hear what the very smart people who read this blog have to say.

I received this email recently:

Dear Beth:

I've been receiving your blog for a couple of weeks & find it fascinating reading.  I also read Seth Godin’s, Chris Brogan, etc. etc.  And therein lies my question. I work for a conservation organization and we’re arriving very late to the Social Media party. There is just so much great information out there; I don’t know how to begin. Can you share some advice? What is “square one?” How do we get started?

The first step for any nonprofit is to hit the pause button and ask whether it is appropriate for your organization to pursue a social media strategy.  Is it the right priority?  Next, it is important to think through all the questions related to outcomes, audience, and how your social media strategy relates to your existing overall marketing strategy.   

But after the strategic part, when the rubber hits the road - the most important next step is to start listening.  Chris Brogan has done a terrific job writing about the tools for listening and Liz Strauss has an entire e-book on the topic of listening

Listening is a core piece of your social media strategy. Listening must become a priority in order to use the social media successfully. Listening is a critical marketing practice and it just so happens that social media tools help facilitate listening.   And, it can give you some ideas that inform your strategy too, better understand what people are saying about your issue, and get a sense of what other organizations are doing as well.

The Zoomerang Study of Marketers and Web2.0 talks about the importance of listening as a first step:

"Smart marketers understand how important it is to engage their customers in a dialog…The advice for marketers looking to embark on a Web 2.0 strategy is to “shut up and listen…Your customers have a lot to say. Stop broadcasting messages they TiVo out anyway and hear what they have to say. Once you’ve done that, you can think about a thoughtful engagement strategy.”

In article about ego searching, Robin Good adds

If you can track what the rest of the world is saying about you or your products and services, you have a great deal of valuable information at your disposal. Knowing what others say and think about you is the best and most effective way to improve your profile, positioning, price without needing to hire any expensive marketing consultant.

Here's an easy first project - set up an a google alert with your organization's name and/or url.

Let's say you were leading a workshop or did a presentation, and someone the audience asked you, "What should we do first?"  What would be your response?  Or maybe you're a blogger and you've written a first steps for nonprofits in social media post.  Please share it.

Using AideRSS as a blog improvement tool

Last week, I did my annual Blog ROI benchmarking and I started to noodle around with the question - How can I use AideRSS as a tool to help me evaluate engagement and improve my blog?

Aide RSS wrote about measuring social engagement on a blog which that looks at a number of different metrics.  You can do an analysis of your blog feed here.  Here's a recent analysis of the "best" posts on my blog and I need to go figure out what the numbers mean.

I didn't get much further on figuring it out, but ProBlogger did in this post "Using AideRSS to Help Identify Hot Topics on Your Blog."

You won’t simply want to repeat past topics that have done well but will probably do better to extend upon them.

AideRSS can be used in lots of ways to track other blogs and help find great content on other blogs but for me this analysis of my own posts has become a valuable tool.

How are you using AideRss?

Seeking A Real Life Example: Under what circumstances should your organization not pursue a social media strategy?

I'm on the hunt for stories about nonprofits and social media for the WeAreMedia project.   The story I'm looking for is about how a nonprofit organization considered a social media strategy and decided it wasn't the right fit.   Do you know an organization that has that story to tell?  Is it your organization? 

Please leave a comment and let me know how I can contact you.  I'd like to do an interview ....

What social networking strategy advice would you offer Michael Wesolowski at MHAUS?

Michelle Murrain who writes the Zen of the Art of Technology Blog is known for her astute observations about nonprofit technology strategic and technical issues.   She recently blogged about her take on social networking has changed in the past year and now recommends to clients that they should consider what value they can gain from a social networking presence.   

What has happened is basically a sea change in the landscape. Not only are Gen Y and Millenials engaged in these social networks, but a wider and broader range of people are. It’s fairly clear to me that going forward, increasingly, social networks are a major way people are interacting on the web - and nonprofits need to understand how to engage their constituents given those changing realities.

Michelle is one of many great minds sharing their knowledge in the WeAreMedia project.   But there are other participants, like Michael Wesolowski who joined the wiki and messaged me in Facebook telling me he had joined the project with the hope that some of the community's expertise would rub off on him.   I asked him if had a specific learning goal?  He responded:

My learning goals are to become more aware of the social networks that are out there and how they work together and how to explain Facebook to a Board who may not be familiar with it.  I also want to improve our strategy on Facebook.   This is part of my job and my organization has allocated 10 hours per week for me to work on strategy.

(As an aside, one of the best resources to explain Social Networks to people who are new to them is Lee LeFever's videos.  The one on social networks is great for beginners.)

I asked him share some background about what his organization, MHAUS (Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the US) was already doing on Facebook .  His organization has a Cause and Group.  They set up the Cause with the goal of fundraising, but quickly discovered that it was better for spreading awareness of his organization.  The Cause has 133 members and raised $135.

"After our initial experiment, it became VERY clear that FB is an important way to connect with malignant hyperthermia susceptible people (MHS), and their family, friends, doctors and care providers; in a way UNLIKE any other. Dialogue with FB Friends is of course priceless."

Conversations on Facebook have been an important channel of information.  Michael has been focusing on doing outreach on Facebook:

I have been building relationships with the other group administrators, and regularly participate in some 47 medical groups. I have been sending personal message to each new member and regularly send follow up messages and additional information. In fact doctors abroad have been asking regular questions. We are averaging a new member every day.

To facilitate the conversations, they need to keep the content on the Cause and Group pages fresh.   The other objective is to convert FB friends over time into being individual donors and get them into the organization's main CRM.

Like many nonprofits, The Malignant Hyperthermia Group Page was created by an MHAUS supporter who later made Michael, a staff person,  an administrator.   The group has 44 members and there are active wall postings.    The group page was started before there was a Fan Page option.   Michael's questions are:

• Given that we want to maintain conversations with patients, doctors, and supporters via Facebook and that need to keep our content on Facebook updated, what are the advantages of a Fan Page versus a Group?   Has anyone closed up their group and moved to a Fan Page?  Tips?

• What are the pros/cons of groups versus Fan Pages?

• What is the best way to leverage the relationships we're building for fundraising?

What's your advice?

Working Wikily: WeAreMedia Next Steps, Challenges, and Your Observations

 

Earlier this week, the WeAreMedia project we had an amazing phone call with some of the really smart people who are contributing the wiki (Michelle Murrain, Jocelyn Harmon, John Kenyon, Ben Sheldon, Ruby Sinreich, Amy Sample Ward, Sheetal Singh, and Katya Andersen).   We discussed what was working so far, and what could improved as well as some ideas for the next steps.  Most of them write blogs, so I hope they offer some thoughts on their blogs) and if you were not able to join the call, perhaps add your observations in the comments. 

We have covered how to know if social media is a good fit for your organization, strategy mapping, meeting resistance, storytelling, engagement skills, and ROI on the wiki.  What you will see on the wiki is a first draft -- we're in the process of learning while having the conversation and contributing to the wiki learning and collaborating in a networked way. That's messy, unedited, and can be hard to follow for those who just enter the process or are new to social media.   There will be also be a community-driven editing process and a final "product."

The product is to edit and shape this community-created content in an edited, polished package f materials and a trainer's guide for a two-day face-to-face workshop.   The product will also live on the wiki as more static content, it won't replace the community as curriculum process where learning can extended.   For example, might be a place where participants in the workshop can ponder follow questions.

We are only 1/4 way into the project, so the next steps are:

• We've finished the "first draft" of the strategic modules and are looking for volunteers to help take them to the next level. During out meeting, we talked about the idea of doing the editing process in a more networked way.  More information is here.   Amy Sample Ward has already volunteered for one of the modules.

• We'll be continuing to roll out week by week tactical modules and in September will have a wiki event to create resources focused on the tools.(Prizes will offered too!)  During the meeting, Jocelyn Harmon suggested a grid for this section.  Read Holly's blog post "Let's Get Tactical, Tactical, Tactical"

• The notes from the August 11th Meeting are here

Some reflection questions:

• How to make it clear that anyone add or edit the wiki?   Some people feel like they it is already "done" or don't have an easy way to jump in.   Amy Sample Ward suggested reorganizing the how to participate section with time estimates for specific tasks.  Ben Sheldon suggested adding tags to pages based on editing task or completion - so people could find "clean slates."

• How to balance community-driven with curation?  How to allow for community input, but also keep in mind the product and quality issues.

• How to balance the needs of different learners (those that need the step-by-step simple linear approach and those who learn through conversation?)   Sort of the balance between be expert driven instruction and constructvism or the line between training and learning.

• How to identify and do more case studies?  We have had some examples and stories mentioned on the wiki, but still have some missing holes.  For example, would love a case study about an organization that decided not to incorporate social media for a good reason.   My blog probably isn't the place to ask for this :-)

What do you think?

The distinction between enabling conversations and an online community. How do engagement strategies and skills differ or are similar?

Source:  Mzinga: How To Determine Operational Readiness for Building a A Community vs. Just Enabling conversation.  Via post from Rachel Happe on the Social Organization

I'm in the process of reviewing the content of the six modules for the strategy track that we've created so far for the WeAreMedia.  I'm want to keep an eye out for content that isn't clear, logical flow, and gaping holes.  Just hitting the pause button to catch breath and think about any mid-point corrects before we jump into the next set of modules which focus on the tactical.   I'm also doing some weeding and reorganizing as well as putting my newbie glasses on.   

I'm returning to Module 5: Engagement Strategy and Skills which is described as:

A traditional online community is a group of people who interact together and have a relationship over time on a site where people can interact around a common interest.  A loosely coupled online community is a group of people who are joined together by a common interest and have conversations is different - this might include groups on social networking sites or a network of blogs.  It's important to determine if your organization needs a traditional online community or something else. A critical factor for success in both is having an engagement strategy. An engagement strategy can help your organization attract more traffic, loyal supporters, more content, more links, and other values. But it requires investing the time to build relationships with people (yes, even one-on-one interaction) or "network weaving skills." This module covers the key touch points for developing an online engagement strategy and a look at network weaving skills.

One of the learning objectives is:

• To understand the difference between traditional online community and loosely coupled community and how that impacts your approach and engagement strategy
• To understand the basics steps for developing an engagement strategy to guide online community building efforts
• To understand the techniques for encouraging online community participation
• To understand the best practices of network weaving skills and how to apply them for a loosely coupled community

This a revision based on an insightful comment by Nancy White in the original description:

I think it is important to distinguish between a community - where there is relationship and interaction over time, and a site where people can interact around a common interest. If relationship and a sense of group is desired, that will impact your strategies. There is a difference between an online community and a larger social network strategy. Sometimes you don't actually need or want a community - you want something else.    

This module mashes together a couple of ideas and it may be confusing.  Just after we wrapped up Module 5, I came across the post from Rachel Happe at the Social Organization blog called "Social Media Is Not Community" which gets at the heart of the confusion.  Rachel observes that the concept of social media and the concept of community are often used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. She says that social media can help foster communities but it is limited to a conversation around content.   Social media are the tools that the community can use for its networking and conversation and relationship-building. Or put more succinctly, Content Ninja says, "you can't build a community around content."

Rachel goes on to identify specific characteristics of an online community in her post much as how Nancy White has defined a traditional online community.  She ends with two possible approaches:

1 - to use social media to enable conversations and get a better idea of how constituents respond to specific content, initiatives, goals. This is much easier both to understand and implement.

2 - to create communities that extend their capabilities and engage their constituents in richer ways that results in higher retention, lower risk, increased ROI, and faster operational capacity.  Communities have enormous strategic benefits to companies but require considerable investment (in resources, time, and tools) and are difficult to implement because they have a significant impact on business processes.

I left a comment on Rachel's post and we had a bit of email back and forth where she further clarified the difference:

I equate option 1  with having a bunch of people watching a movie together and then chatting about it afterward.   Option 2, or a community is more like your local pub or church where, when you go, you don't necessarily run into all the people in the community and there may be new people, but in general you see the same faces and develop relationships with the regular visitors.  Those two different things require a very different level of commitment, spending, resources, etc. Both are valuable but they have different purposes and pay off.

I asked her if she had grid which outlined the differences.  She sent me the graphic above and also spelled out the assessment process in this post.

So, the first step for nonprofit is to answer the question, "Do you really need an online community or something else"?   The module should have a checklist of questions to help a nonprofit determine whether you go with option 1 or option 2.  And, if you do choose a community, what questions do you need to think through to help you plan for a successful online community and getting people to participate.  And, if you choose to use social media to enable conversations, what are the engagement skills?

Engagement skills are the techniques that you can use to encourage participation - the one-on-one interactions.  I've called it "network weaving" in the module.  I think engagement skills are important to the success of both options.  Do you?

Is there more clarity to this module?  More confusion? What do you think?

Heart Kids Tweet-a-thon: September 12th

From Dr. Mani

In August-September every year, heart surgeon and infopreneur Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian holds a 24-hour day-and-night blogging marathon called the Heart Kids Blogathon.

The event is widely supported by thousands of people. Many make donations (over $120,000 has been raised over the last 6 years). The money was used to fund life-saving heart surgery in 26 children, with many more to come. See this site for details.

By participating in the Heart Kids Tweet-a-thon , and helping spread the word about it or making a donation, you will be helping spread the message of Congenital Heart Defects Awareness far and wide... and maybe another child (or many more) will live because of your help and support.

 

Gen Y Blogger Profile: Qui Diaz - Evangelist for Social Change

Qui Diaz

Last month I attended the "Twenty-Something Meet Up" at the BlogHer Conference, facilitated by the fabulous Zandria. The question  ... "Where are the twenty something/millennial bloggers writing about social change, activism, and nonprofits?" was raised.  I left room inspired to compile a living list.  The next logical step, of course, is to start to get to know some of these bloggers by doing interviews.

Meet Qui Diaz.  Her personal blog, EvangeList, focuses on social media, social change, and nonprofits.  By day, she's the director of strategy at Livingston Communications.

1.  Tell me about you

The first thing people ask me is the story behind my name. It's short for Quitrina (pronounced kee-tree-nuh & roll the 'r'). My parents (one Spanish/Cuban)  made it up, tapping  the spelling for Quixote. One day I'd like to say that was a providential move -  "quixotic" describes someone who "takes on an idealistic quest against great odds." I want  to take more risks in life.

In the safety of my day-to-day in DC, there is a lot of laughter, love and champagne.  Things aren't so bad when  you take time to celebrate the small blessings in life! Still, I feel strongly that we are here on this earth to see each other through. There's a quote that I very much identify with, by E.B. White: "I arise each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor it. That makes it hard to plan the day." So, paralysis is my Achilles heel.

2.  Tell me about your blog

Evange.List kicked off as a personal 'social media experiment' to see if anyone gave a flip about my voice. A few people did! So after 50 days of writing about 50 things I love, it was time to "Madonna" the blog and keep it going. For about a year now it's been dedicated to 'social media for social causes,' and I usually write about nonprofits and people I adore. I also get a lot of pleasure from incorporating religious lingo, too. Evangelism is a critical aspect of word of mouth and cause-related marketing, I am personally an evangelist for many causes, and we are all in the Church of the Internet.

I also blog on The Buzz Bin, the company blog, which is well known in the marketing, PR and social media space. My 'beat' is social good.

3. I understand you work with nonprofits and social media strategy -- Can share a story about one of your clients and how you worked with them to incorporate a social media strategy?

My agency, Livingston Communications, is currently helping Network Solutions with reputation management across blogs, Twitter, and forums to significantly decrease the  company's 58 percent negative commentary ratio (as of June 30) by more than 20 points. It's  not a nonprofit example, but it serves as an interesting case study for nonprofits.

Any organization is susceptible to critique, and overtime that can be detrimental to end goals. What nonprofit wasn't impacted by post 9/11 scrutiny? Plus, let's face it, the more controversial or provocative the issue, the more potential there is for outlash. Listening and responding are vital, but so is resolution. And those efforts have to be sustained over time. What we're seeing with Network Solutions is that, even if we can't always provide the desired answer, engaging in the right way at the right time is having an immediate impact.

4. What is your advice to nonprofits about integrating social media? What should they do first to ensure success?

After (and only after) defining a clear objective, honing in on a specific targeted
audience (i.e., not "the general public" or "women"), and setting measurable goals for meeting your objective - do your homework. Don't rush your research either - give yourself a few weeks to initiate what is basically a SWOT analysis of social media related to your mission. Find out what is (or isn't) already being said, by who, and where. Get a handle of the space, then develop your strategy. More than likely, you'll need to engage your audience in said strategy, and social media will play a role in that. All engagements should be meaningful and contribute to the measurable outcomes you set upfront.  Otherwise, as is often said on Twitter, "fail."

5.  What do you think is the biggest challenge to nonprofits in embracing social media?   Are there certain types of nonprofits or situations where you'd advise a nonprofit to use social media?

Challenges: Justifying the means through ROI. Integration with other name lists. Also a general lack of comfort with navigating the rapidly-evolving digital ecosystem. (Weren't we all just breaking through into email marketing 4 years ago?)  Nobody is doing any of this perfectly though, no one is an expert. There is a lot of commiseration. I really like the foundational and exploratory spirit of WeAreMedia, too.

Certain causes warrant full-on exploitation of social media if resources allow. For me, the deal breaker is death. Genocide, poverty, slavery, clean water, AIDS. I just saw the screening of Call+Response, which is the newest in a series of initiatives to end today's rampant slave trades, from child soldiering to sex trafficking. It's been set up as an "open source activism" movement - anything goes.

6.  As a Gen Y, who uses social media and social networks, what advice would you give to nonprofits about interacting successfully with people of your generation on socnets?

Don't expect much for another couple years. We're Gen Y, remember? Joking aside, our generation at large (in the U.S.) was not groomed with an empowered activist mindset the way kids today are. However, the youth-driven, social media-supported campaigns we see right now are paving the way for more action in coming years. By setting up camp in social media and testing word of mouth campaigns, your organization can prepare for the fight for mind-share in our increasingly fragmented media culture. Keep an open mind, love your evangelists, and expect great things.

WeAreMedia Module 6: What are the best blogs, books, and other resources to guide our thinking about Social Media Metrics, ROI, and Nonprofits?

Photo by Oolong

This week in WeAreMedia, we're focused on  Return on Investment.  Earlier this week, I asked folks to have fun with Social Media ROI Mad Libs.  Holly Ross at NTEN put this one together for their blogging strategy:

NTEN is implementing a social media strategy that includes BLOGGING.  The key benefits are:

• INCREASED website traffic overall
• BETTER search engine rankings
• MORE conversation with and between NTEN Members
• It's an easy CHANNEL for saying things we think are important
• ESTABLISHES and MAINTAINS the voice/personality of our organization 
• EVALUATES community opinions/interest by how often certain posts are read or commented on

As Holly notes in her post, identifying the benefits is easier than actually measuring the return -- even using a very simple financial calculation:

(Time & Money Saved + Money Earned) - (Time & Money In) = ROI

I think it  would be unfair and misguided to evaluate the success or failure of a technology project based on a single financial measure.   It leads people to thinking that there is one way to measure and one measurement.  ROI should collect measures related to efficiency which are tangible benefits, but also effectiveness which end up being intangible benefits.  Intangible benefits do not easily translate into an objective, quantifiable number.   

Ah, those intangible benefits that we can identify related to social media, that are difficult to justify to an executive director, and impossible to quantify.  It can lead us to wonder whether it is all waste of time because there is no ROI. 

Let's remember  - Gilbs Law

"Anything can be measured in a way that is superior to not measuring it at all"   

Tom Gibb is an engineer and measurement geek.   He asks, should do we just ignore intangibles in all of this thinking?  Do we attempt quantify them?  Or we just describe them and don't bother to quantify?

He talks about quantifying love which, of course, you can't do.   But the process of discussing the measures does lead to insights and understanding of the value.  So, if one looks at the social media investment, identifies the intangible and tangible benefits, and through discussion identified the attributes, this might lead to some quantification of the value and understanding of intangible values. 

• Determining a technology investment's value means quantifying costs and benefits
• Some benefits are intangible and may or may not be quantified. When attempting to quantify intangibles, important to obtain consensus among decision-makers about what constitutes a meaningful measurement.
• Sometimes hard to claim that investments in social media alone resulted in the improved client service or whatever. One solution is to identify the cause and effect chain between the capabilities identified by the technology. This requires conversation with others or staff - not only to gather the data necessary  to establish the chain, but obtain their agreement on the technology's contribution to the mission  or program   improvement.
• To quantify intangibles look and listen.  See if there are published tangible payoffs from others and collect  these "data nuggets" because they add credibility to your analysis.
• Consider setting up a "benefits discovery" brainstorming session of 10-15 people who are knowledgeable about the areas that will experience the largest impacts.

To round out the module, we want to put together an awesome list of Social Media ROI blogs, books, and other resources.  What are the best resources to guide our thinking?

Vote and Comment for ALL these Awesome Nonprofit Panels at SXSW

The SXSW Interactive Festival (scheduled March 13-17, 2009 in Austin, Texas) is a mega huge social media industry event.  The final program is done through a combination of an open submission and community voting process with staff and advisory board feedback.   The panel picker process just opened - so you have until August 29th to vote for as many panels as you think are worthy of being on the program or not.

Last year, I was on a panel organized by Ed Schipul and we were hoping that there would be a larger nonprofit presence on the agenda for this year   I just scanned the list of over 1200 panel submissions to SXSW in search of nonprofit oriented panels (in addition the two I submitted) and found a number of them for your consideration.  Please try to vote for as many nonprofit panels.

(And, if you submitted a nonprofit panel - and I managed to miss it while scanning 1200 in ten minutes - please add the link and description in a comment.  I'll do another Get Out The Nonprofit Vote at SXSW Post each week)

To vote:

1.  Create an account

2.  Vote for the choices below

3.  If you want to search for others, scan the list

Social and Nonprofits ROI: Case Study Slam submitted by Beth Kanter
Using a poetry slam format, each panelist will present a five-minute poem or story about how their organization has successfully implemented a social media strategy experiment and how they considered the ROI. The audience will have ample opportunity to ask questions and respond.  (I've gathered up some of best of the best folks in the nonprofit tech field to share their stories, metrics, and lessons learned - this will be informative AND entertaining.  I will do an overview connecting the idea of metrics to poetry ... How do I measure thee, let me count the ways, etc)

THIS is Iron Chef … Battle Non Profit submitted by Beth Kanter
Using just one special ingredient (a small in-need non profit), three web teams will meet  in the heat of Austin to craft an exceptional meal, featuring a tasty new homepage design, a well-seasoned fundraising email and a perfectly balanced social networking plan. Who will prevail? It’s up to YOU, sxsw!

Social Change Behind the FireWall submitted by Holly Ross
Successful nonprofits using social media are masters of social change behind the firewall.   This panel shares best practices through stories from nonprofit institutions and examines  how to get past resistance,uncooperative IT departments, and skepticism from management to  reap the power of social media for social change beyond the firewall.  (PS - Jonathan Coleman, David Neff and I will be on this panel and we'll be wearing special costumes ..)

Social Media for NonProfit Rockstars submitted by Ed Schipul
Nonprofits wanting to enter into the Social Media arena are faced with endless new networks and tools to try, but a few have kicked some major butt. We’re here to share real NPO Social Media stories and solutions that rock it and rock it good.

Real Time Representation - How Social Media is Changing the Face of Government  submitted by Erica O'Grady
2008 marked the year of the first Twitter from inside the Oval Office. As more and more politicians dive into the world of Social Media, the way we communicate and interact with our local and national representatives is changing. This panel will explore and discuss the impact of tools like Twitter, Qik, Utterz, Ustream, and more on current and future elections.

Understanding Social Networks, Beyond the Graph submitted by Ruby Sinreich
We all know it's the network, stupid, but what what do we really know about networks? This 
session will get beyond the trendy obsession with social networks and help participants better understand the dynamics and metrics of successful networks. We'll touch on academic research, business implementation, and grassroots organizing strategy.

Lessons in Local Tech: Sustainable Food 2.0 submitted by Rachel Weidinger, Common Knowledge
Are you eating well? Accessing sustainable food is easier with for mobile access to databases (Seafood Watch), delivery of hyper local foods (Spud.com), online links for farmers and buyers (Roots of Change), and maps of food grown in your neighborhood (Forage Oakland). Learn how shortcodes, custom social networks, and mashups are delicious. With snacks!

Open Source Disability Gadgets: DIY for PWD submitted by Liz Henry, Blogher
Gear and software for people with disabilities is usually provided through charity or from medical supply companies. It's hard or impossible to repair it, or get anyone to repair it. We need to hack the model for accessibility tools! With a culture of open source designs, Instructables, wikis, and blogs, we can start an international movement.

Convergence of Social Health Media With Youth Culture submitted by Matthew Zachary Social media healthcare means a revolution in consumer-driven and patient-focused content delivery. The convergence of click-and-mortar youth culture trends, coupled with Search2.0 is yielding a new generation of advocate, fostering social enterprise to drive change in a broken public healthcare system.

Non-Profit Technology Work: How You Can Do Good submitted by Fred Benenson, Creative Commons
Do startup phrases like "exit strategy" and "vested options" turn you off from working in the tech world? Ever wonder if there's a higher good you could be serving with your tech skills? Come for some quick presentations from some of the hottest tech non-profits and a discussion about the perks, achievements and challenges you can look forward to.

How to Save the World with Firefox Extensions! submitted by Joe Solomon (@engagejoe)
Get ready to explore the world of Firefox extensions that are helping to save the world – from replacing ads with art to alerts when you visit the websites of companies that threaten the environment. We will talk about the challenges, best methods, & incentives for creating your own superhero extension!

Nonprofit RockStars: Using Video to Share Your Message by David King
Video is a great way to share your organization's message, start conversations, and move  people to action. How do online videos fit into your non-profit's digital space? This panel discusses ways to incorporate online, interactive video into your organization's digital space.

Social Networking Lessons from Nonprofits Jeff Patrick, Common Knowledge
We believe that social networking is the most important trend on the Internet for  nonprofits. We are creating dramatically more engaging websites for clients like the Sierra Club, Community Gatepath, IFAW and the Arthritis Foundation. How should nonprofits plan for staffing and growth? How can you leverage your existing online supporters? Should you build from scratch or use a commercial solution?

The Mobile Web for Good submitted by Katrin Verclas
80% of the world will access the web first through a mobile -- what does that mean for social good? Panelists will include app developers of mobile web solutions for health, environment, economic empowerment, and social justice. Do they make a difference? Explore cases and key issues in a fast-paced and interactive session.

My Life With NF in Web 2.0 submitted by Reggie Bibbs
Reggie Bibbs is on a one-man mission to raise awareness of his disorder, neurofibromatosis.  His "JUST ASK!" campaign has utilized all facets of Web 2.0. Reggie was also be the first non-profit to take part in Reggie Camp. Come learn how to take your non profit to the next level.

Using Microformats to Save the World, or at Least Try submitted by Ruby Sinreich
Shared data standards, open source, Creative Commons, and portability seem like lofty ideals, but how practical are they - especially for the typical nonprofit with little or no technology budget? We will hear nonprofit and geek perspectives on how these tools can help (or hinder) the good work of nonprofit organizations.

Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling Allyson Kapin, Women Who Tech and Rad Campaign
Are you a woman (or a man) who loves to tech out but is tired of sexism, ageism, and the lack of diversity? Women in tech and social media experts identify strategies for breaking through the digital ceiling. The panel will discuss topics such as getting heard by upper management, how to effectively advocate for your work and expertise, what men can do to help promote women in technology as well as how to break through the barriers of being too young or too old in the tech sector.

Non-Profit Communications in the 2.0 World  by Ted Fickes, The Wilderness Society
The death of traditional media is old news to some but has left non-profits and advocacy groups without familiar platforms for distributing information. How do organizations successfully distribute facts and data in the media-rich but journalism poor world? Can (and should)non-profits become news sources themselves?

ACLU-WA's Drupal redesign! submitted by Sarah Davies
This presentation will go through the technical details of a start to finish Drupal redesign, including theming, plugins, coding, testing, and cost. A basic knowledge of php and css is highly recommended for this panel to make sense to you.

Plus Ed Schipul has a list of panels from folks in Houston.

Doing a panel about nonprofits at SXSW?  Not on this list?  Probably missed it from scanning the 1200 panel names and titles - so add it in a comment.  I'll plug the list again next week or closer to the deadline.

And, thank you for voting for panels as well as those submitted by my colleagues.

 

Introducing the Knight News Challenge Garage

Via colleague Susan Mernit

            I've been working with the wonderful Knight News Challenge team--Kristen Taylor, Jose Zamora, Heidi Miller, Robertson Adams, Marc Fest and others (under the apt leadership of the innovative Gary Kebbel) to help improve the range, quality and diversity of this year's applicants for the 2008-09 News Challenge (which will give away roughly $5MM to support open source projects that move forward local discourse and sharing/discussion around news, community, social media, visualization.)

Inspired by TechStars and YCombinator, the Garage creates a (drupal platform) community where current and potential applications for funding can enter their ideas, share comments and peer review, and request mentor support to improve their application before they submit it.

The Garage is open as of today; the KNC08 will start taking applications as of September 2nd; close is November 1st

If you are a newsie, a social media person, a social justice person using online tools to improve the world, a hyperlocal fan, or any sort of interested party (or a previous applicant) come and check it out and look around.

Kristen Taylor video on Garage here; blog post here.