Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

What Can Location-Based Social Networks Learn from Dogs?

Photo by YIvas

You’ll have to listen to the podcast that Matt Moore (Innotecture, Engineers Without Fears), Doug Cornelius (KM Space, Goodwin Procter) and Stewart Mader (wikipatterns) recorded last week to find out!   I haven't yet listened to it so really interested in the answer. (Maybe Stewart will leave a comment with a summary of the answers ...)

A couple of teasers in the play by play that will make me definitely go and listen to the entire podcast with ear towards reflecting on any insights about working wikily:

• Training as a barrier to adoption - wikis are simple
• Wikis as a natural solution for unstructured information
• Giving and taking
• The steady curve rather than the tidal wave

And definitely as a great addition to my Cute Dog Theory personal learning space.  (Hat tip to Reed Stockman who shared with NpTech Room on FriendFeed for the link.)

Anyone listen to the podcast and know the answer?  Anyone who hasn't listened to the podcast and want to take a guess at the answer? 

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• Wikis Are Now Serious Business

Walking the Line Between Web2.0 and Old Skool in Nonprofits

Photo by Kalabird (Michaela Hackner)

Johanna Bates, an extraordinary nonprofit technologist, has launched her blog with a very thoughtful post called "Walking the Line Between Web 2.0 and Old Skool in Nonprofits"  This adds beautifully to the conversation over at  NTEN Wiki (name coming soon).  A number of insightful comments have led to the creation of How Can Your Organization Avoid Drinking the Web 2.0 Kool Aid?, a checklist helping orgs understand when they should not devote resources to Web 2.0.

Johanna's post talks about the importance of knowing your audience.  While you (staff person in the nonprofit) may be ready or getting fluent in Web 2.0, what do you do if your audience or constituents are not?  What do you do?

We survey our constituents periodically. They are not early adopters. After many years, they are now solid email users and are fairly confident using Google. But RSS? Instant messaging? YouTube? As much as we want them to be there, they are just not there yet. Some are showing signs. They are just on the slower side of the adoption curve. So does that mean that our org should not be investing time and energy in social media tools?

Is the answer  dancing in the spaces in between?  I like the way Johanna describes it - a scaffolding.

What we’re doing is taking a Web 2.0 approach, but we’ve dialed down the tools a bit. We are slowly marching out more ways for our constituents to engage online.

Do you ever need to walk the line between cutting edge social media and Old Skool in your org? If so, how do you do it?

As Gail Peterson notes in the comments of Johanna's post, "I think the answer is to try to be kind and helpful to those who fear technology and provide several ways to communicate."

What's the sweet spot between personal productivity and social productivity?

Photo by Natala007

While stuck in O'Hare on Saturday, I wrote a post about personal productivity as related to "email overload" and rounded up some tips. (Written while being stranded at O'Hare airport due to flight cancellations does not always allow neurons to connect ....)   After posting it,  I remembered the phrase - "Social Productivity" that I read in one of the final chapters of "Connect: A Guide To the New Way of Working on the Web" by Anne Zelenka.   I didn't have the book with me and couldn't quite remember exactly the details, but googled a bit and found this post from her personal blog about productive multi-tasking. 

Then I got a track back from the email dashboard blog that rounded up all posts that responded to the New York Times article about information overload.   It pointed to a post from Stowe Boyd called "Information Overload, Schmoverload" that suggested the article was another attack on connectedness and whole brain attention.

"The old school thinking is about individual productivity: but the social revolution has moved past that into network productivity, which entails connectedness and social meaning. The personal hit on productivity is real, but it's not a cost: it's an investment; and the juice is worth the squeeze."

Stowe goes on to clarify that personal productivity is not the way to measure the benefits of social tools and coins a phrase "network productivity" - perhaps better described as "network effectiveness" which in my mind consists of the Three "R's" of network weaving (relationship building, rewards, and reciprocity) -- all of which involve tasks that take time.   Stowe Boyd says much better:

As we have moved from hierarchical, top-down, centralized work -- think Henry Ford's assembly lines or the pre-Internet global corporation -- to networked, bottom-up, edgewise work personal productivity has been trumped by network productivity. Network productivity is the effectiveness of a person's entire network: contacts, contacts of contacts, and so on.

Connected people will naturally gravitate toward an ethic where they will trade personal productivity for connectedness: they will interrupt their own work to help a contact make progress. Ultimately, in a bottom-up fashion, this leads to the network as a whole making more progress than if each individual tries to optimize personal productivity. (Trust me, its provable. I studied queuing theory in graduate school.) I call this Boyd's Law, by the way.

Perhaps more importantly, the willingness to assist others leads to closer social connections, and increases the likelihood of reciprocal behavior, where an obsession with personal productivity does not.

He also talks about the value of "disconnecting" - to focus on the other tasks - but suggests that our bias should be towards being connected. 

My argument is not really about the downside of missing something flowing by the torrent of information everyday, nor is it about being a busy little bee working like mad on some sort of modern information assembly line. It is about the psychological, spiritual, and work benefits of connection. Note that for these to hold, people will have to learn to be much more judicious in the determination of who -- and how many -- they will connect with. The willingness to swap personal productivity for connection is just that: it is an ethical choice that asserts that the bonds of connection, today and over time, are more important -- not just abstractly, but in the most concrete way -- than making headway on this piece of work, right now.

He also builds an argument for multi-tasking or rather the overhead of multi-tasking. 

Yes, it is true that moving from one full brain task to a different full brain task has a high cost of participation, especially for some one who doesn't transition from task to task on a regular basis. However, learning to operate in a flow mind state, where partial attention is being paid to "partial tasks", can lead to the transitions costing less at each interruption.

 

I'm reading John Medina's Brain Rules.  There is a whole chapter on attention and it covers multi-tasking and Medina observes that multi-tasking is myth because the human brain is not capable of focusing on more than one thing.  He outlines the process that we go through when "multi-tasking" - it is more like rapid attention shifting between tasks.  (Shift Alert, Activate Task 1, Disengagement, Activate Task 2).  He says the brain does these four steps in sequence each time we shift from one task to another.  That's why people loose track in the middle - now where was I? when switching tasks.

He suggests that those who appear to be good a multi-tasking actually have good working memories, capable of paying attention to several inputs at one time.    According to the research that Medina points to - it takes longer to complete a task  -- so there in lies the meaning of what Stoww Boyd was saying about participation in his piece.

So, I'm wondering where the sweet spot between personal productivity and networked productivity comes into play?   More on this in the comments to this post.  I also twittered this question and got some thoughtful responses:

Dave Wallace said in a tweet

While I know what you are getting at, I feel connectedness and productivity needn't necessarily be at either end of a gtd continuum

PF Anderson said in a tweet

I think of it as appropriate balance between input and output.

I am wondering how nonprofits may (or may not) appreciate the value of networked productivity.  In a recent article over at NpTech News called "Twitter: Networking on the Run"

But the best "value proposition" of Twitter, one that seems to be shared by many of Twitter's early adopters, was summed up by Cloward. "I'm better at my job because of Twitter, because I have access to a wide network that I didn't before. I can ask questions, get them answered, share information, and get feedback. The reason why organizations send staff to conferences is to 1) gain knowledge, and 2) network. Twitter lets me do that every day."

All this leads me to ask:

• Does your organization value or understand the concept "networked productivity"? Why or why not?
• How do you balance networked productivity with personal productivity?
• What is the value of "disconnecting" and do you think your organization has a bias towards connectedness or disconnectedness?

Meet Nicola M. Wells: Social Media As An Online Door Knocking Campaign for Immigrant Rights

Nicola M. Wells, Blogger and Community Organizer

"We need to treat many of our social tools like door knocking, if someone comments on our site, we should take that as a hello, and use it to open a door to a potential relationship with a new leader, member, or supporter."

Nicola M. Wells is an activist for immigrant rights.  She blogs at Standing Firm for Fair Immigration Reform Movement.  She has been passionate about the issue of immigrant rights since 2002, when she worked at Casa del Migrantes in Tijuana, Mexico, a shelter for immigrants and deportees. While there she lived and worked with immigrants from throughout the US and Central America, and they shared their experiences.  That experience awakened her desire to make immigration rights her life's work. After she left Mexico she worked with refugee communities in Philadelphia and did research on migrant youth at a research center in Chicago.  She has also worked with SOS Racisme, the national immigrant rights organization in Paris, France.

1.  Tell me about FIRM.

FIRM, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement is a national coalition of grassroots immigrant rights groups working together for immigrant justice.  FIRM is a project of the Center for Community Change, and is staffed by the Center, but it is led and all decisions are made by the Immigrant Organizing Committee, a table of grassroots groups that are the head of FIRM. A listing of these groups is also available on our website. FIRM is currently running the Building America Together Campaign, a national campaign to build the strength of immigrant rights in the US, and to work for just and humane immigration reform.

2.  What is your job at Firm?

My first job in the United States after working in France was as an intern with the Center for Community Change on their immigration team helping to create a toolkit on fighting anti-immigrant local ordinances. The immigration team supports a national coalition of grassroots immigrant rights groups, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement. I quickly became integrated into the team as an Organizer for state and local rights.

3.  How do you use technology as part of your organizing work?

Though I always had a personal interest in technology and social media, I didn't know how to integrate it into my more traditional organizing portfolio. That all changed after the massive and devastating raids in New Bedford, MA in early 2007. An organizer on our team, George Goehl, went to help the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition in anyway he could.

He immediately saw the need to tell the stories of the families that had been ripped apart by the raids, of children who had lost parents, of mother who weren't sure if they could pay rent or feed their children next week. He started a blog, and asked me to continue the project. I transformed that blog into what is today  Standing FIRM  and my interest in social media as a tool for organizing skyrocketed from there.

I have spent the last year meeting folks, reading, and testing out social media tools  with other organizers. I'm currently  co- authoring a guide to these tools for organizers like myself available at the end of this month. In addition to my continued work as State and Local Organizer at FIRM, I am working with non-profits connected to the Center to help them learn about these tools and implement them in their work in effective and productive ways.

4.  What are you goals for using social media to support your organizing work?

FIRM has built a social media infrastructure that links together our blog, social network presence, listserv and static website into a coherent network of tools. This infrastructure serves three goals:

1) To generate and promote pro-migrant content, not only created by FIRM, but by our partner organizations and allies across the country; more boradly to be a productive part of the pro-migrant blogosphere that is growing stronger each day

2) To create learning tools for our partner organizations. Our partners may not be able to jumpstart using these tools on their own, and by engaging in FIRM's tools they can learn about social media, take test runs, and figure our what will eventually work best for them

3) To connect with individuals/organizations outside of our current network that are in the fight for immigrant rights- support their work, or create collaborations with them

Those are our goals for FIRM's infrastructure, but we also look to support the programs and projects of others within the immigrant rights movement. Like the new pro-migrant community blog, the Sanctuary.


5.  Some staff members who work for nonprofits say that they have difficulty
convincing people in their organizations about the value of social media.  How did you organization successfully deploy and adopt these
tools?

It's show and show. Telling people about these tools doesn't really do a lot for us. You have to build something of quality and bring results. That's the importance of goal number 2 for FIRM's social media tools. We've got to help not only our organization, but other organizations to learn about these tools, and the best way to do that is build it. Unfortunately, many people build things, and then forget to tell people how they did it. They show an organization the cool campaign or website, but don't give the organization the tools or insights needed to build their own. That's the importance of the guide I'm helping pull together. Now that FIRM has built stuff, learned stuff, we have to share that knowledge in a comprehensive and useful way.

One of the major obstacles non-profits face is convincing people these tools work. Sure that's important, but honestly in much of my work with organizers on the ground, that is not the main problem. The bigger problem is a lack of staff time. It's not that many of them don't believe, it's that they don't have the time or resources to learn enough to make an educated choice about what tools to use and how. If we really want social media tools to be integrated into our work, we need to figure out new ways to fund staffing for them. When non profits are running five programs, two actions, and leadership development trainings there often aren't resources left for this work. It's up to funders, consultants, and non-profit staff to find creative ways to get resources for social media, and to integrate the tools into our everyday work.


6. Tell me a story about how using a blog, social network, or other social networking tool was of great value to your mission or organization's program.

Social media tools allow FIRM to strengthen a network for immigrant justice, and to further our organizing goals. The key to our success is integrating offline and online  organizing  relationships. One without the other is never as effective. This lesson hit home for us last year around the vote for the DREAM Act (a bill that would allow undocumented students, brought here as children, to have access to higher education). We had about two weeks before the vote and we were being asked to do "something" using online tools. We got together with our partners at the National Immigration Law Center, and the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and approached (offline) Campus Progress, The United States Student Association, the United We Dream Coalition, and the Campus Democrats asking them to help us reach out to students around the country and get them to organize call-in days to their congressmen in support of the DREAM Act. We wanted to have campuses around the country calling-in on the same days to congress.

Now, if we had about three months of outreach we could have pulled this off, but with only two weeks, we knew we needed to use social media to make things happen big and fast. We set up a facebook group, and started the outreach with our partner organizations. The list of local and state groups that came on board to help push out this effort online is just too long to list here, but believe me there was a massive push to sign up campuses to organize call-in days that was fueled by a unique mixtures of national, state and local groups along with passionate individuals. By the end of about 8 days we had touched something like 17,000 people with our invites and we had signed up over 50 campuses in 22 states to hold call-in days. We offered trainings and materials to each of the campuses in preparation and the organizers did their best to make these days a success. We now have a list of campus organizers across the country that supported DREAM and this action.

It was the connection of our offline and online relationships that allowed this action to take off, and social media tools that greased the wheels for its growth.

7. What's your advice about getting conversation going on your organization's blog?  I noticed that you have lots of comments.

It's provocative content that hits the pulse of your audience, as well as filling a necessary niche.

I learned a lot from Think progress as a model for organizational blogging. Think Progress editorializes through interesting content, not necessarily controversial editorials. And it is independent enough from the Center for American Progress that it can cover whichever topics it needs to.

We try to do that with our blog. There are already a ton of great immigrant rights bloggers out there producing amazing content. We needed to find a way for us to fill a gap within the immigrant rights movement that was useful, not redundant. That gap was reporting from the state and local bases as well as the federal fight, and providing informative content. We focus our content on updates and news stories from our partner organizations, and we link to and support the content of other blogs that provide more opinions and editorializing around this subject. Think Progress also stays within the news cycle, by providing time-relevant content our blog remains relevant day to day.

I'm also a big believer in engaging your readers. Bloggers get this, but organizations often forget to reach out with personal emails to individuals that encourage them to post comments on their blog. We need to treat many of our social tools like door knocking, if someone comments on our site, we should take that as a hello, and use it to open a door to a potential relationship with a new leader, member, or supporter.

People that see provocative video and news stories on our blog often feel compelled to write on our blog. However, I know that they also take background information that they've learned on our site and use it in their comments and posts on other sites. For us, the most important thing is not the strength of our own blog, but rather the health and vibrancy of the pro-migrant blogosphere and the production of pro-migrant content within a larger network of allies and partners.

The Opportunity Agenda released a report last year saying that progressives dominated every progressive political issue online, except immigration. There is an aggressive anti-immigrant presence online, and we need to build partnerships with others online to fight back. Readers feel that fight, they understand the urgency of this issue, and that motivates them to join the conversation.

8. What blogs do you read by women who write about migrant rights?

Some write pro-migrant blogs, or simply cover immigration as a part of their larger scope. Two women that I've particularly been able to learn a lot from have been Liza Sabater and Marisa Trevino. I owe so much to these women and others.

At the end of the day I'm still learning about this technology right alongside my sisters, and the exciting thing is that more and more women are coming to write about migrant rights and use social media tools for justice each day. The fight continues and our strength grows and that's the reason why I love this work.

Cross-posted at BlogHer

Where do you get the time to blog? Clay Shirky Answers

One of the benefits of a long flight is that you can catch up on reading. I took my copy of Here Comes Everyone Along. Here's a video of a recent talk he did and the transcription.

Link via Dean Collins
The talk is transcribed here.

Be Your Own Filter In the Global Brain

Photo by VaxZine

Almost ten years ago, I used to teach a workshop called "Digital Information Coping Skills" for  artists and arts organizations as part of a series of workshop on the theme of how to integrate the Internet into your (arts) organization's mission.  Think Web 1.0 strategies and tools from both an individual and organizational viewpoint.  I developed the information coping skills workshop after observing the "information overload" or "techno stress" reaction to the glut of electronic information coming into email boxes.  It was the first inkling of what David Shenk wrote in his book "Data Smog: Surviving the Information Age."

That book uses the metaphor of pollution to explain the cultural impact of too much information (from the Internet) on society.  He talks about the impact of too much information on the human brain and considers how the human brain may evolve over time as the Internet matures and the amount of digital information increases. The last chapter offers some practical advice, including the "Be Your Own Filter" and "Give A Hoot Don't Data Pollute."   The book was written in 1997, so the practical nitty gritty was talking mostly about dealing with waves of email and human systems/skills - NOT automated software programs.

Some neurons in my brain made me connect back to Shenk's book I attended NDN's New Audiences, New Tools Forum.   I think about the increasing connectedness that Peter Leyden described in his overview of networked politics (he used an incredible visually rich set  of powerpoint slides that kept us engaged and this visual.)  The panel "The Evolving Model Using New Tools" where Micah Sifry, Tracy Russo, and Jerry Michalski spoke also made me think back to that book again. (BTW, Dave Witzel did an awesome job of tweeting the key points)

Jerry Michalski use the metaphor of the global brain and mentioned that we were halfway through a transition process where we are renegotiating social contracts and connecting with people in a way that we haven't before.  Jerry talked one benefit of this connectedness and openness is innovation or Cantabridgian Creativity.  The idea that you can in a couple clicks go onto a site like Slideshare and see ideas on a topic from some of the best thinkers on that topic and recreate your own meaning of it.   I had joked with Jerry that one downside is the inability to remember our calendar - and that with this socialness will our friends eventually collaborately remind us of our appointments.  (It was funny at the time)

But the point is that knowledge is now externalized in our global brain of connections with our friends.

Maybe that's why Robert Scoble responded to a Twitter user asking if ever experienced information overload. He said no.  I asked him, on Twitter, if he thought his brain had evolved.  He said, "no my brain has not evolved, but my network has."

And, as our networks evolve and the tools to aggregate our friends activity streams - so does the amount of noise increase.    Are we know evolving to Web2.0 version of information overload?  Perhaps called "Networked Overload?"  In this recent post from Read/Write Web called Too Many Choices, Too Much Content describes approaches to filtering your content and reducing the noise.   The bottom line:

It's hard to say. Early adopters are not going to stop playing with every new service, but it's clear that we're getting to a point where tools that centralize, aggregate, but most importantly filter our content are going to be the ones that win out. There are only so many hours in the day, and, as it stands right now, every single one of them could be filled just consuming and interacting with content, social media, and web services. There's also this little thing called "going outside" that we would like to take part in, too. Hopefully we'll see the killer web app to filter the noise someday soon to help us do so, but it's definitely not here yet.

Given there isn't yet a killer app (or maybe there is) How are your filtering your networked content?  What human skills or existing tools are you using to help you avoid networked overload?  What are your best information coping tips and techniques in an age of social media and networked digital lifestyle feeds?

 

 

 

The Digital Generational Divide: BabyBoomers Are Not Old!

That's a screen capture I grabbed from the Morgan Stanley March presentation and analysis flagged by Tech Crunch the other day.   The idea that "email is for old people" is nothing new - I've written about this several times here.   What is most relevant for nonprofits is how this will manifest itself in the workplace - this was the whole topic of discussion at the Minnesota Nonprofits Conference.

I am a proud member of the baby boomers generation (2nd cohort).  I was introducing a colleague who is of my generation to social networking and showed him LinkedIn - and it was really appealing.  Sailed over any objections.  But I tweeted a comment like "Linked In is a great way to introduce older baby boomers to social networking."   A follower politely told me that calling baby boomers old was offensive.   I don't think that's what I mean - because I'm one too!

I guess I refuse to think of myself as "old"

Anyway, I happened to come across this awesome list of Learning Games to Change the World and clicked through to the Karma Tycoon described as

Karma Tycoon rocks the gaming world by offering you a thrilling ride through the world of social entrepreneurship as you earn Karma in virtual communities across the US.

I strongly resisted the urge to set up an account because I have to finish planning out my trip to Austrailia, so I clicked over to the curriculum page. The tag line is:

this is the site for old people who want to help young people do something

Hmm .. there's that word again.

All this to remind you that I'm giving away a copy of the book Mobilizing Generation 2.0 and you have less than 24 hours to leave a comment in that post if you want chance to win.

Social Media Time Investment = You put in is what you get out? The Time Scale

From Museum2.0 Blog, Nina Simon

Nina Simon has an excellent post looking at time investment and types of projects.  There are three approaches:

• Participant:  1-5 Hours per week (See 10 Web2.0 things you can do in ten minutes to be a better nonprofit - suggested by nptechers)
• Content Creator:  5-10 Hours per week
• Community Organizer: 10-20 hours per week

But as Alison K notes in an article she wrote about social media and nonprofits, you get out what you put in.

How Do You Carve Out The Time for Social Media?

During the workshop I did in Minnesota using the Social Media Game, the question - "We're busy implementing programs, how do we carve out the time to incorporate a blog?"  The sticky note above is from 15 years ago when I was teaching art teachers about how to incorporate the Internet.   The issue of time - how to carve out the time so you can reflect and than integrate new technology into practice - came up. 

Some thoughts from other nonprofit professionals via Twitter

Roger Carr - Change priorities - Write posts related to work - write more than post at a sitting and schedule the publishing.

WatfordGap Don't think of it as carving out time, make blogging an integral part of the organization's outreach and marketing.
 

Digital Natives Speak from Minnesota Conference, I Twitter, Twitterverse Responds

Digital Natives Panel

Elana Wolowitz, Communications Director/Senior Trainer, Wellstone Action gave me a brief interview.

I had the honor of delivering the keynote this morning at the Message + Medium + Mission Conference in Minnesota.  I talked about the Cute Dog Theory of Social Media Adoption, A Few Tools, and A Story about social media and fundraising.  A few minutes before speaking I remembered a Minnesota story about my early years as a executive director for a small organization and using social networking to get Garrison Keillor as our celebrity for a fundraiser.  This speech also had a big first for me and the reaction was shock, then laughter.

I went to a morning session called "Digital Youth and Analogue Adults" facilitated by Garham Heartley which includes a panel of digital natives talking about what young employees should expect of their nonprofit employer as it relates to technology.  It also covered the differences in technology styles of digital natives  compared to analogue adults or can old dog learn new tricks? It was a fantastic bi-generational question. 

Some  Key Takeaways:

• Learning styles are really important and it isn't just about age/generations, although in general younger people may more fearless. (Twitter Comment)
• Passion is important!  People will forgive. 
• The social media strategy implementation shouldn't just be delegated to the young people or interns in the office. (Twitter Comment)
• Look beyond the technology of a younger age
• Don't dump the role of tech support on the younger more fearless people - especially if it is not in their job description.
• When digital natives are giving tech support, understand how much of the why versus how the person needs and have patience. (Twitter Comment)
• Having job descriptions that have skills like "the ability learn" versus specific technical skills. (Twitter Comment)
• Have a conversation with people about what channels they prefer for communications  (Twitter Comment)
• Digital natives have the capacity to take in more information at a faster pace and "older folks in the workplace" don't understand that (Twitter Comment)

I twittered the whole session and the conversation back from Twitter was pretty amazing.   I asked for Best Practices for working with analogue adults.  RoseVines responded:

Blog post "Embracing My Digital Youth"
Reflections from Aaron Landry and Corporate Babysitter and Blandin Broadband

Lost in Translation: Twitter Experience, Culture and Community for Nonprofits

"I feel like a stranger in a foreign country and I don't understand the language and I'm not wearing the right hat."

Over ten years ago someone in an Internet Skills Workshops for Nonprofits I was teaching, said that.  It was during a discussion about moving from fax machines to email.   It has stuck with me.  I thought about this today again and how hard it is to translate or explain ideas/concepts when someone has not experienced it.  That is the case for Twitter, words alone, no matter how good of a translator you are, won't do the experience justice.

There has been an amazing conversation about twitter on the social web over the past couple of days.  It prompted me to ask my readers, "What are the six signs that Twitter isn't for your Nonprofit?"  I wasn't asking to be a naysayer or cranky, but because I've submerged too much into Twitter culture and needed the view from the nonprofit office eye level.  I got some terrific ideas in the comments, especially these pithy points from Pistachio.

DO NOT engage with Twitter if you don't want to invest time, attention and resources in making real connections there.

DO NOT encourage your staff to Twitter if you don't want them to share information quickly, connect to one another more deeply, and discuss your nonprofits work with the broader public.

DO NOT even try it unless you are open to serendipitous returns. If you establish rigid goals and "pursue" them with Twitter, you may as well just flush the toilet. Be open to spontaneity. Go with the flow.

DO NOT approach Twitter with the aim of accumulating and controlling an audience.

DO NOT mistake Twitter for software.

DO NOT Twitter without love.

Sue Waters and I batted around some ideas in the comments and pointed me over to her "How To Get My Twitter Magic Back" where she asked for help from readers.  She got incredibly useful feedback about Twitter use processes and how to make efficient and effective depending on your goals.  These two posts are brilliant.

Twitter, What's Twitter?

When I teach workshops, I start with a pop quiz to get a sense of who is in the room and what they know.  A year ago, when I asked "Twitter?"  no one would raise their hand.  Last March, after SWSX, maybe 1/5 of the room would raise their hands.  Now, depending on the location, I often see as many as half the room.

Twitter Life Cycle by CogdogBlog (Essay here)

So, if you need some good primers on Twitter, here's a reflection I wrote back in March that includes some pointers to basic introductions. Or maybe you would like a collection of stories about how Twitter has been used for network collaboration.  Nancy White has collected them here.  Or check out Twitterstories.

Delving to the World of Twitter

 

Karl Hedstrom

For those lucky people who live in San Francisco, the next Net Tuesday is about Twitter and Nonprofits. The speakers are  Nate Ritter, talking about how he used Twitter as a help center during the San Diego fires, and Jeremy Pepper, the Director of Communications of the Point.

Beth Dunn, who also commented, when back wrote a post about the human face of Twitter.  Chris Brogan mentioned in the comments

I quite agree. Twitter has put quite a human face on the web, and I’m grateful for that. Hard to explain to people still struggling with using it or not, but I’m happy as hell to have found it, and glad that you’re part of the story. : )

Beth reminded me of a quote from Jeremiah Owyang, "The Tools Come and Go, but Strategy Sustains."  We brainstormed an adoption progression - in the abstract.   

If you were working with a nonprofit as an internal or external consultant, and they asked, "Should we be on Twitter?"   What questions would you ask?  What counsel would you give them?

Nonprofit Adoption of Social Media: Results of New Research Study

A big hat tip to Nedra Weinreich for a link to this study about nonprofit social media adoption:

Nora Barnes and Eric Mattson at U Mass Dartmouth surveyed the 200 largest nonprofits and found that they are adopting social media at a much faster pace than the business world, with 75 percent using some form of social media like blogs, social networking sites, podcasts, wikis or other formats. Makes a lot of sense, given that these tools are mostly free or low-cost, and yet so effective.

There is an executive summary available at the site with a couple of charts showing familiarity, usage of tools, monitoring and management.   Since this is only a sneak peak at the executive summary and charts, it will be interesting to read the forthcoming papers to be published in 2008.

This study paints a different picture than a study released earlier this year by the Overbrook Foundation that found nonprofits in a perpetual state of anxiety about which web2.0 tools to pay attention to.

And if you’re lurking and reading, join MY network by subscribing for free to receive this information rapidly in an easy-to-consume and share format

Tech Stew Stands for Technology Steward

 

Here's a moment of Kismet.  I "met" Caren Levine on a CP Squared call today and then I just read this post on Nancy White's blog about Caren.  I love these intersections.

Enterprise Adoption of Social Software: LOL

The notes

Social Media Community Management

I've written about the "Geek Marketer" concept put forth by Steve Rubel - that corporations need a person who not only knows about marketing, but is also a geek.   Another set of skills that go into that job description -- well at least for nonprofits who don't have the resources to have fully funded positions in on area  - are community management skills.   There was a post on Seth Godin's blog talking about this.

More recently, I found a terrific article about (ignore the fact that the audience is the banking industry - anyone else think that's ironic?). Anyway, here's his key points about the skills:

Whether or not hard dollars are spent launching a social media project, someone needs to manage the initiative and ensure that it achieves its goals. This is a very specific skill-set with the following requirements:

• Someone who can inspire visitors to come back, readers to register, and registered users to add good content.
• Someone who knows when to get involved in discussions and threads that are degenerating, going off topic, or just going nowhere.
• Someone who can elevate good material to the homepage so it will hook like-minded people, as well as delete remarks you don't want on the site.
• Someone with good taste.
• Someone who understands the business goals of the site and can act appropriately and decisively.

Hat tip to Rob Cottingham or rather his Facebook profile.

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How To Blog Without A Time Sink

 

My good colleague Amy Gahran has written a terrific post called "How To Blog Without A Time Sink."  It written for journalists, but the advice is very relevant to nonprofit staffers.    Amy suggests that it is mostly a matter of a mind shift, from producing a final polished to sharing a work in progress.   I love the phrase "back up brain."

The clincher to all this is to use your blog as your backup brain — or at least as a public notebook. Why not get more mileage out of work you would have done anyway by changing your habits toward managing information and communication publicly? Instead of keeping your thoughts, notes, and conversations to yourself, post them.

Fear 2.0

That's my all time favorite slide from a powerpoint deck called "Sowing the seeds of enterprise2.0 in a global organization" by Corporate punk.

I was reminded of that slide today when I read Read/WriteWeb's piece Fear of Web 2.0 about Web 2.0 adoption at the corporate enterprise level which brings together two interesting threads:  lagging adoption of desktop applications and fear. 



While organizational adoption of social media tools for external communications strategies is becoming more common, not to mention lots of practical advice such as this recent white paper: The Revolution will be Socialized and the many how-to primers for nonprofits like this one.  It appears that corporations believe that desktop applications and office documents should not have a social life.    MacManus refers to the Google Apps vs Microsoft Office debate as evidence of this. 

With the "I'm sticking with DOS" button analogy, I'm probably showing my age, but new technology emerges that has the potential to replace or improve upon an existing technology, people resist.  There are people or even organizational cultures comfortable with using the existing tools and are slow to change, while early adopters and agile cultures keep learning and  moving.   In many cases, the slow to change eventually adopt or they no longer remain relevant to their constituents, donors, or loose their edge.

So, does anyone remember when Word Perfect (circa 1994ish) was making the move from its DOS interface to its Windows GUI?   A very large number of their longtime users stayed with DOS.  As an early adopter, I remember switching, despite how strange it felt.   Anyone still using it?  Yet, at the time, people were questioning "How could serious work ever be done using a pull down menus?

The second thread has to do with fear that web2.0 tools would be misused by their staff.  Last week, I wrote about the tension between individual and organizational use as it relates to individual staff members representing their nonprofit organization on Social Networking sites.   Eric Eckle left a   
comment about what lies beneath that fear -- how digital social networking can be more threatening

"With online social networking, the individuals assume a higher profile vis a vis their employer than in the past. Individuals most likely to take advantage of these opportunities tend to be younger -- and perhaps more prone to indiscreet or inappropriate activity under the "banner" of their employer. I understand why this keeps senior management at high profile organizations up at night."

In a post trying to understand social networking behind the firewall adoption issues, I wondered whether this was a generational divide that will play out in workplaces over the next 15-20 years?   The Shed 2.0 blog, creator of Charlotte, suggests in a comment that age isn't as much as a factor we all think.  He says these attitude groups cut across ages:

1) people who just don't get it,
2) people who have fun with Web2.0 stuff
but can't make the connection to E2
3) people who can't see the
point of Web2.0 but can see how E2 will bring added value to an
organization.
4) people who understand social networking both inside and outside of the firewall, but these folks are rare

MacManus goes on to dissect a report from Forrester called "Web2.0 Social Computing Dresses Up for Business" which answers the question, "Why should our company or organization care?" 

"It’s the ability to more efficiently generate, self-publish, and find information, plus share expertise in a way that’s so much easier and cheaper than earlier knowledge management attempts."

I've covered some aspects of this in my screencast and workshop on "Tagging for Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing For Nonprofits."  Certainly tagging as a cure to information load and an easy way to share information for resource strapped nonprofits that afford fancy enterprise KM systems.   My colleague, Michael Stein (East Coast) has written about how wikis can be used by nonprofits for documentation.

MacManus goes onto to describe the stealth adoption practice that I've seen in nonprofits as well. (I'm thinking of the KM4Dev Journal where I was a guest editor and the article "A stealth transformation: introducing wikis to the UN."

"Web 2.0 tools have almost certainly already entered your organization under the radar through unsanctioned employee usage. This raises the stakes and criticality of taking action sooner rather than later."

Forrester suggests The solution is to embrace web2.0 - but "on your terms" and recommend that companies create "Web 2.0 policies and usage guidelines."   I've seen slide shows and excellent blog posts from educators about policy 2.0 and the higher education perspective form Brian Kelly's Web2.0: Opportunity or Threat for IT Support Staff?  I bet within 6-12 months you'll see a title on Amazon along the lines of "How To Develop and Write An Effective Web 2.0 Policy," or maybe a new chapter will added this one.  Maybe it already exists?

MacManus also summarizes another report called "Passionate Employees: The Gateway to Enterprise Web2.0 Sales -"  Corporate employees are beginning to use Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, podcasts, wikis, RSS, and social networking in their daily lives. The adoption, however, is uneven, with some employees willing to go to great lengths to use these tools, while others steadfastly refuse to adopt.  According to MacManus, Forrester puts the current figure of people using Web 2.0 tools in the enterprise at 15% - and usage is higher at smaller companies.  I suspect the usage at nonprofits is lower than the 15%.

MacManus' conclusion will sound very familiar to those who have worked with nonprofits around adoption of any technology:

Yet web 2.0 is all about open-ness and collaboration. The latter is particularly important in enterprises. The real reason why IT fears web 2.0, as John Martellaro pointed out recently, is that it upsets the historical need for control and power in IT departments. The reason web 2.0 is finding it difficult to penetrate the enterprise is not that IT can't see the value in it, but that they fear it may erode their control and power.

Tools Thoughts and Things One Can Do With Little Time

I was reading the reactions to the Overbrook Foundation Report on Nonprofit Adoption of Web2.0 over at the NetSquared ThinkTank and discovered an excellent blog called "Tools, Thoughts, and Things One Can Do With Little Time and Hardly Any Resources."   I love the concept and was delighted to see the Social Media Game referenced and David Wilcox's post.  (Which reminds me I have to add the Khmer 2.0 version and card deck).  Michael's suggestion for Web2.0 Nonprofit adoption is a stealth adoption approach:

What has worked well is to start off with some PC 101 skills that simply speed up the inevitably slow laggard-laptops/desktops … and then gently moving over into Web 2.0 without making the transition too obvious …  you'd be surprised how this improves retention.

He also points to an excellent guide he created on this topic.

As Technology Develops, So Does Role of Geek Marketers

Steve Rubel has an article called "As Technology Develops, So Does Role of Geek Marketers"

His thesis:

It's very difficult for anyone in marketing to keep up with all the twists the digital space because technology changes so darn fast. It's like chasing a cheetah. Most marketers - be they clients or agency side - are heads-down running their business. Therefore, companies are creating a new role. They're hiring people who act as translators between the ultra geeks and the marketers, if you will, and shepherd the development of pilot programs.

This sounds like what we in the nonprofit sector have called "circuit riders" and "accidental techies," although those roles are more generalists.  They are experts in the organization's mission/programs and the technology and good translators.   

The Geek Marketer, as the title implies, is not just a mere nerd, but also a marketing specialist. Rubel elaborates in his article:

These cross-trained specialists are fluent in both worlds and bridge them. They are marketers by trade, yet they also have a hard-core interest in technology and social anthropology. As curious individuals, they are constantly studying how digital advances are changing our culture and media. Armed with these insights, they regularly apply them in a marketing context by working closely with brand teams to codify new best practices.

Geek Marketers create competitive advantage through rapid-fire testing and learning. The people I know in this role are shepherding the development, testing and measurement of all kinds of groundbreaking marketing programs. Their pilots span from the simple, such as building RSS feeds, to the complex, creating multifaceted community programs. Often they are paired with people like me, who are in a similar role on the agency side.

In addition to Micropersuasion, there are other blog devoted to the interaction between technology and marketing in the for-profit sector, including Techno/Marketer.   I am reminded of Steve Bridger's post "You Are Promoted To Buzz Director"   Who are the bloggers that are writing about intersection between nonprofit technology and marketing?    Leave your favorites in the comments. 

 

More thoughts about Web 2.0 Adoption by Nonprofits

Earlier this week, the Overbrook Foundation released a report on Web 2.0 and nonprofit adoption. Allison Fine, author of the report titled, "Web 2.0 Assessment of The Overbrook Foundation's Human Rights Grantees," is asking for reactions.   The full report and survey instruments can be downloaded here.

I haven't yet digested the report, but I was pleased to see that the report wasn't just a series of data findings, but also include some in-depth reporting on attitudes about using the tools.   Some of the
key themes from focus group interviews:

• Participants felt a “common struggle” in understanding which tools are critically important to their work. “I’m in a perpetual state of anxiety about which tools I’m supposed to be paying attention to.”
• Most of the attendees were at a loss as to where and how to get help for selecting and using new social media tools. “We don’t know who can translate these things for our needs.”
• Participants felt a “common struggle” in understanding which tools are critically important to their work. “I’m in a perpetual state of anxiety about which tools I’m supposed to be paying attention to.”
• Most of the attendees were at a loss as to where and how to get help for selecting and using new social media tools. “We don’t know who can translate these things for our needs.”
• There was almost universal frustration voiced about using outside technology consultants. The organizations felt that it was difficult to identify an appropriate one and felt that they were often left
  maintaining systems or tools for which they didn’t feel qualified. Smaller organizations said that they could not afford help of any kind, particularly their own staff dedicated to technology.
• Many organizations expressed the real difficulties of using technologies with constituents or in countries where the digital divide is very real and their constituents may be at risk of punishment by
  local governments for their activism.
• There were a few instances of constituents self-organizing to support the grantee organizations, as reported by the participants, but not many.
• Participants felt a generation gap with the new technology. “I’m always trying to catch up to my younger staff members.”
• All of the groups are using the web for donations; some to much greater success than others. As one participant said, “Money is the ultimate user generated content.”

I'm thinking about the interview that I had with Jon Udell where we talked a lot about the job of educating people about the possibilities of new technologies like Web 2.0 tools.  We also talked about the challenges of making leap from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 in terms of personal learning.  There is a chicken and the egg problem. To learn about web2.0 and feel comfortable, you need to experience it. 

The recommendations in the report call for more institutionalized capacity building programs around Web2.0. My thoughts are still half-way around the world in Cambodia and, in the US, we don't have the added challenge of a slow Internet connection.  In Cambodia,  NGO staffers were eager to learn about Web 2.0 and find creative challenge ways to get beyond the key barrier of a slow Internet connection.   

Jeremiah Owyang lay out a set of social media adoption questions that corporations ask:

2005: What is Social Media?
2006: Why does it matter?
2007: What does it mean to my business?
2008: How do I do it right?
2009: How do I integrate across the Enterprise

If we look at the these questions in terms of the nonprofit sector, I think nonprofits are lagging at least one or two years behind.   Nonprofits are still struggling to answer to the "What it is and why it matters" questions. Early reactions to the report are in from a few who work in the nonprofit technology field.  Jon Stahl speculates about how nonprofit technology providers cause the anxiety versus alleviate it. .  David Geilhufe says productize! 

The Technovist raises some questions about why the fear of change holds back adoption and suggests that the resistance isn't necessarily tied to specific tools, but more about giving control of direction setting and activities to individual constituents.

In decades past these organizations served as the direction setter, deciding on the agenda and dispatching activists to carry out a predetermined program.  For many years this was the way to go but now because of increased and easily accessible social connectivity a top down method feels stale and is increasingly inefficient in creating social change.

Human rights organizations need to adopt the new model developed by nonprofits like Kiva, which connects individuals to entrepreneurs in the developing world and offers infrastructure and due diligence but also gives its supporters freedom to make their own choices and to set their own directions for support.  With Web 2.0 activist organizations need to increasingly adopt the role of convener and connector supporting rather than dictating the work of activists.  Holding onto a position of top down authority will only end with a dissatisfied constituency moving to another more empowering organization.   

What do you think?  Have some thoughts you want to share?  Participate in the Net2ThinkTank that will be happening next week.

Social Networking Inside and Out

I found this slideshow Via Stephen Downes.  First off, if you are a slideshow fan, you will no doubt recongize this style of storying telling.   The technique is to illustrate the issue through the experience of an individual.   I've seen this style be copied by several users on SlideShare to explain enterprise2.0 issues.   Here's another one called "Meet Charlie."  I used the technique two years ago for a presentation at the first netsquared conference called "I Tag the Hand that Feeds Me" or what I should retitle "Meet Sally."

Is this the generational divide that play out in workplaces over the next 15-20 years?  That's tongue in check coming from a babyboomer who has gen y media habits.

There was a great question about social networking and representing one's organization posted on the Social Networking Affinity Group at NTEN by K.E:

I was just reading an interview with The Nature Conservancy's Jonathon Coleman on Treehugger . When asked about social news sites like Digg, Jonathon says:

"The type of things we post regularly on Digg and Netscape and Newsvine are real-world events, announcements, and discoveries – so our online efforts dovetail with what we’re doing offline.  We’re becoming popular on Digg and a number of the other big social news networks regularly because of the strength of our content.  We’ve brought huge amounts of new visitors to our site through these tools and have worked hard to develop engaging communities on them at the same time."

My question is, are the organizations doing this, like TNC, using personal usernames or organization usernames?  So far, I've been getting involved with online communities like Facebook by creating a personal profile about myself, and then creating a group for my organization. Am I going about this the wrong way? Should I be creating a personal profile for the organization?

Andy Carvin responded with this advice:

That's the only way to do it. If you look at Facebook's terms of service, it says quite clearly
that you can't create a user profile based on an entity. It has to be a real human being. Groups, on
the other hand, are designed for people to come together around areas of common interest, so you could set up a group about your org.

The PBS group is a good example. The group's officers
are PBS staff.

UPDATE from Katrin Verclas at NTEN:  (I'm elevating this comment into the post)

Facebook is deleting organizational profiles now. Amnesty's was disabled just recently and other organizations have reported the same, enforcing facebook's rule that only individuals can create profiles. Nonprofits can create groups and causes (we have both for NTEN) but of course, as was pointed out, neither can take advantage of the applications and added functionality at this point. Something to lobby Facebook for, and we at NTEN are in touch with them about this already.

Heather from Diosa who works on MySpace shared this:

On MySpace you can use an individual profile as a nonprofit profile... pretty much anything goes on MySpace

KM4DEV Journal: Stewarding technologies for collaboration, community building and knowledge sharing in development

The KM4D Journal is produced by the KM4Dev-community and I was honored to participate on the editorial team for the the recently published issued on "Stewarding technologies for collaboration, community building and knowledge sharing in development."  Nancy White and Lucie Lamoureux lead a team editors which include myself,  Partha Sarker, Oreoluwa Somolu, Beverly Trayner, and Brenda Zulu.   The issues contains articles, case studies, interviews, and community notes. 

While the focus is on organizations and contexts in development work, anyone who works for a nonprofit, and needs to learn about how to integrate web2.0 in terms of adoption issues, knowlege management, and online community building should read this.   The articles are all good, so I can't pick out a favorite.

I enjoyed, along with Nancy White, interviewing  ethnographer and blogger Dina Mehta, about the role of technology steward in the context of voluntary online disaster relief work.  We covered the choice and deployment of software, volunteer organization, mutual support and distributed leadership.

Dancing in the Space Between Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

Lynetter Flickr

This flickr photo made me hit the pause button because of the date, not the content.  That quote comes from a speech that Murdoch gave over two years ago.   And, the terms "digital native" and "digital immigrants" comes from an essay by Marc Prensky dated 2001, over six years ago!

The quote helped me weave together some cross-disciplinary themes that have been bubbling up through my networks in the last couple of weeks -- a synthesis of my recent Facebook explorations, some quotes overhead during the Games for Change Conference by Clive Thompson who writes about video games for the NY Times and Wired Magazine, something that Barry Joseph of Global Kids said in a plenary discussion during that same conference that has been haunting me for weeks, and noticing more slide shows being tagged as  "Enterprise 2.0" and analyzing the evolving thinking about technology adoption issues.   

These patterns point to some larger trends about generational shifts, digital divides, and dancing in the space in between.  (Imagine Bob Dylan song in the background, "the times they are a changin ..."

I'm thinking about Clive Thompson's session at the Games for Change Conference.  It was a late afternoon session and I was brain dead.  But a few points he made really stuck me.  I didn't capture his quote on the video, but he was talking about writing a book about games.  He said he didn't want to do that for another 15 years.  He talked about the difference between his Wired readers and NY Times (wildly paraphrasing here).  He went into a bunch of game jargon and explained in an excited tone of  -

"I don't have to explain those terms to my wired readers.  On the other hand, for an article in the NY Times I have to and (he did a brilliant step-by-step of context setting) ending with "I'd have to explain electricity."  And he ended with, "It's better to wait 15 years until they are dead."

Someone said in a slide show that "Email was for old people."  (And perhaps I should "like me," after all I'm on the dividing line between baby boomer first and second cohort).   Anyway, I stumbled upon a group on Facebook called "Email Bankrupcy"

Most of my emails now are notifications that someone has posted, either something to do with facebook, or a comment on my blog, or a reply to a forum message I'd left, or something along those lines. Given how bad email is as a tool for actually tracking histories of communication, and how much better other services are, why not declare email bankrupcy today?   Tell people you are no longer reading emails, and that the best way to get hold of you is to post a message somewhere you WILL read.

I thought to myself, wow I'd love to do that, but I can't because so much of my work is dependent on people use still use email.   And think about it, email has been around for a really long time but the web, Internet, the amount of information, and how people use it has changed dramatically!   Is that quote the future?

I'm thinking back to what Barry Joseph of Global Kids had to say in a large group discussion at the Games for Change Conference. While I don't think he used the term digital natives and I'm wild paraphrasing:

"We've been working on a job description for a new staff person and have been talking about what software skills we should identify in the job description.  I think this is less important than having the skill to learn new software.  My father is very comfortable using a particular email client and that if he had learn a new one, he probably couldn't.  Playing games as a kid gave me an important skill set: the ability to figure out software.  And that today's youth have those skills."

 

Someone else in the conference mentioned the Berkman's Digital Native wiki that is looking at the difference between people who grew up with the Internet and those who didn't - and what that all means.

One of my favorite Web2.0 addictions these days is slide share.   I recently noticed a number of new slide shows about "Enterprise 2.0" which talk about integrating web2.0 technology tools, strategies, and practices into the workplace.  While most of these shows are focused on the for-profit sectors, there are certainly lessons and food for thought for nonprofits.   I've been interested in the issues around ngo organizational adoption of web2.0 stuff, inspired by my colleagues Nancy White, John Smith, and Etienne Wenger and their exploration of technology stewardship for communities of practice.

A point that Jeremiah Owyang made about enterprise 2.0, although talking about in the context of for-profit sector really resonated:

6) Embracing the Cultural shifts
It’s difficult for traditional folks to understand that the next generation of workers is has already networking online in college, and will bring those networks to the workplace. These new workers will already be connected to employees, prospects, and competitors, and there’s nothing a corporation can do about it. Communication in general is shifting, as my kid sister told me she only uses email to talk to old people like me.  The biggest challenge?  understanding that these communication tools shift power to the lower ranks and file of the company.

So, as someone who is eligible for ARP, with aging parents, and with digital natives for children,  I sense that generational shift really strongly. I'm also one of the odd ball baby boomers who experienced the Internet in the 1980s and have a perspective.  So, I feel like I'm dancing in the spaces in between and doing a lot of translation.   

There's actually a word for people dance in the spaces it called "network weavers."   Nancy White has written about Network Weavers and Evonne Heyning.   And in a post over at TechPresident, Patrick Ruffini, gives us some examples of it in practice and refers to the tools as "Technology Hybrids."

So, I end with more questions than answers, only because I really should be working on finishing my presentation for next week's Bridge Conference about fundraising2.0.  But some questions linger:

• As we enter this 15 year period of generational shifts in the workplace, how do organizations manage it?  How do we provide a bridge for "elder generations" to understand the new tools?" 
• Do old people (like me) have to change or retire?  Is there a role or need for a new breed of translators?
• What does this mean for nonprofits -- both from a workplace perspective but how they do fundraising, communication, and programs?

Low Risk Blog Experiments

Source: Flickr In my workshop, I cover Web2.0 adoption strategies and often use this slide and talk abut low-risk experimentation.  But, what the heck does that mean? Brian Kelly, whose blog feed I've added to my "Circle of the Wise" feed folder,  has a section on his blog called 'Experiments.

Title

‘Claim your Blog’ in Technorati.

Reasons For Experiment

To explore ways in which a new blog can be found.

Discussion

This experiment was first announced on 6^th November 2006.  Follow-up reports were published on 11^th and 26^th November 2006 and 12 January 2007.

Conclusions

Technorati appears to be successful in helping a new blog to be found.  Its use is recommended to others.

I do experiments like this, but I don't necessarily put them in a structure that allows for easy evaluation.  For example, my most recent experiment was not to blog as frequently this week as I usually do.  What happened?  My subscriber stats went down and I got several emails from folks asking me if I was okay.

I'm am inspired to do something like this and incorporate the use of google analytics to get some qualitative data.  What experiments would you do to inform adoption or make improvements?

Web 2.0: Opportunity or Threat - IT Director 2.0

This is slide 31 of an interesting presentation about Web2.0 from the perspective of an IT department director,  Brian Kelly at the University of Bath in the UK.   I found it in one of my more recently required addictions - SlideShare.  In the middle, the slides cover the tools.  But as bookends at the start and finish, there is some great thinking about Web2.0 adoption, risks and benefits, and how an IT director or department might think about a deployment strategy.  It also describes how Web2.0 is changing the nature of IT support.  It's all done with a great sense of humor too!

There's so much to ponder in this excellent presentation.  A few good points about backlash:

When significant new things appear:

• Enthusiasts / early adopters predict a transformation of society
• Skeptics outline the limitations & deficiencies

There’s a need to:

• Promote the benefits to the wider community (esp. those willing to try if convinced of benefits)
• Be realistic and recognise limitations
• Address inappropriate criticisms

Beware The IT Fundamentalists

We need to avoid simplistic solutions to the complexities:

• Open Standards Fundamentalist: we just need XML
• Open Source Fundamentalist: we just need Linux
• Vendor Fundamentalist: we must use next version of our enterprise system (and you must fit in with this)
• Accessibility Fundamentalist: we must do WAI WCAG
• User Fundamentalist: must do whatever users want
• Legal Fundamentalist: it breaches copyright, …
• Ownership Fundamentalist: must own everything we use
• Perfectionist: It doesn't do everything, so we'll do nothing
• Simplistic Developer: I've developed a perfect solution – I don't care if it doesn't run in the real world
• Web 2.0: It’s new; its cool!

I followed a number of links to Brian's other presentations and a gold mine of resources.