Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Dog Days of August: Slow Blogging, Dog Safety, and Other Reflections

Flickr Photo by Beth

 

We're in the middle of the dog days of summer when people go on vacations and it's hot outside. Life slows down.  It is always a sad time of year for me.  Five years ago today, I had to put down my black lab Sadie, at age 15, who was ailing due to cancer.   That's my favorite photo of her. (And, no the car was not on the road, we were parked and the window was open)

The American Red Cross is using the Dog Days of Summer to educate dog owners about pet safety during these days of summer.  There's information about heat safety, pet first aid, and disaster planning.  They are also running a contest:

The  Red Cross is also encouraging dog owners to cool off during these dog days by diving  into the American Red  Cross Pet Photo Pool.  Get your  camera ready and sniff out  these instructions to enter our Dog Days of Summer photo  contest.  Two pet owners will receive a  free copy of the Dog First Aid guide and DVD.

In his post, "Become August," Geoff Livingston talks about using this period to prepare for a busy fall marketing season: "Slow is a mindset, and while there may be vacations, there are also opportunities."    A slightly different take on the concept of slow.

At Blogher Unconference, Leslie Madsen Brooks (who works with university faculty to help them make their instruction more thoughtful and who is also a dog lover) put up a session called "Slow Blogging."   I was bumble beeing between that session and one on social change, but the idea was inspired by Nancy White's Slow Community. (For more on Slow Community, start here, then go here)

Slow blogging, like slow community, is inspired by the slow food movement. What we were really talking about is the need to take the opportunity to reflect and think more deeply which may require a slower writing. It isn't necessarily running with the flow or letting the flow of information run you.

I found this blog from 2006 called Slow Blogging Manifesto

Slow Blogging is a rejection of immediacy. It is an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly, and that many thoughts are best served after being fully baked and worded in an even temperament. 

Personally, I straddle between the two - the constant moving forward through the fire hydrant of information and slowing down - being in the moment with one idea or concept or pattern I've observed.  It takes pulling back, consolidating, and discipline not to bounce.   In order to do that, I have to load up Mozart or other thinking music, and get into the flow.   Sometimes I can dive in deeply, and other times I'm not quite that successful.

I don't think there necessarily has to be a Chinese Wall between the two - moving forward (action) and reflection in blogging.   Is there a way to straddle the two in terms of your blogging - a "reflection in action."   It may be a little of what Tony Karrer is talking about -- social productivity.

How do you straddle between the constant flow of information at a fast pace and making time to digest and reflect on it?

 

When should a nonprofit organizational blog moderate comments? What are the different approaches?

A few weeks ago, I presented a workshop at the Bay Area Video Coalition Nonprofit Institution.  One of the participants was an organization named GroundSpark which has a project called "Respect for All," that  facilitates the development of inclusive, bias-free schools and communities by providing media resources, support and training to youth, educators and service providers.

For example, they have a film called "That's A Family" takes a look at family diversity.  (I am no stranger to family diversity having adopted two children and being of different cultures and races.)   The film helps kids see and understand that families can different shapes today.  (They were kind enough to send me a copy)

The nonprofits in this workshop, for the most part, deliver programs and services that address sensitive topics.  So, when we talk about social media and being open and embracing the conversation, one of the most comment questions that comes up is:

To what extent do you need to moderate the discussion in a socnet space or blog so it isn't antithetical to your mission?

The are several answers to this question.   If your nonprofit is using a blog and the subject matter isn't sensitive or you don't feel you need to "control" your messaging, it depends on the type of community you want to create.   You moderate comments or leave it open.   Most blogging software can accommodate whatever you decide.  And, it will usually take a way to build up to a point where it more efficient to moderate than leave open and delete.

I'm  not referring to comment spam, either.  That's a different issue and you definitely need to use a spam filter.  Again, your blogging platform will have this feature.

What I'm talking about deliberately are hateful comments by trolls that might happen if sensitive subject matter being discussed.  This requires carefully thinking about comment moderation techniques and part of this includes articulating a clear policy about use of moderation.

This morning I left a comment on the Harvard Business School's Conversation Starter blog and noticed this response message about their comment moderation policy right after I commented.  While I initially liked  that they told me right at the time that I made the comment, I wondered if editing someone's comments and then posting could lead to any legal trouble.   

If your nonprofit organization has a blog, do you moderate the comments?  Why or why not?  What does your comment moderation policy look like?   What does your comment moderation work flow look like?

Related Articles selected by Beth

James Joyner, Outside the Beltway, Enforcing Civility in Blog Comments
Ross Douthat, Atlantic, Comment Moderation Policy Announcement
Guy Kawasaki, Why Blog: An Interview with Darren Rowse  (covers two questions on comment moderation)
Wired Journalists Ning Site,  What's Your Policy on Moderating and Editing Comments? by Ken Fischer

Related articles by Zemanta

• Doubting the Legitimacy of Blog Comments (about comment spam)
• TypePad AntiSpam: A Better Way to Handle Spam
• Great Darren Rowse Problogger Interview by Guy on Sun

Can A Blogging Work Flow Tool Help Me Be More Productive?

I recently discovered a blogging work flow tool called Zemanta, that according to its web site will save you time and increase traffic.  It works on a number of different blogging platforms, including the one I use, typepad.  It recommends links and photos while you write.  (Sarah Peretz, Read/Write Web has a more detailed description of how it works and the features.)

Bringing traffic and saving time were attractive enough lures to get me to install it.  I took it out for a test drive, initially writing about Zemanta.   

I found a few features annoying, most notably the lack of flexibility with the templates.  I also didn't like the photos it recommended (and in fact one it suggested was all rights reserved).   In some ways, I found using it counter-intuitive to my thinking and reflection process.  I was about to ditch the whole experiment when Zemanta recommended two excellent posts by Chris Brogan, "A Sample Blogging Work Flow" and David Peralty on Organizing a Blog Post.

Ah, ha ... maybe it is suggesting that I should write a post about my blogging workflow!   That way I can really understand if this tool would help me save time or bring traffic.    I also wondered "Can a blogging work flow tool really help you improve the quality of your blogging?" 

I created a mindmap of Peralty's step-by-step framework to help me reflect on my steps.   I follow something very similar, although I am very reiterative about the process until I publish and similar to Chris Brogan - very organic about the first three steps. 

For example, I might not start with a specific a topic in mind.  I might instead read through some blog feeds or find interesting links from people I follow on FriendFeed or Twitter and then bookmark posts on topics (within my "beat") that I have an opinion about, something to add, or that I just find interesting.   Sometimes I get an idea based on a pattern analysis or connecting several seemingly unconnected posts/ideas together. Many times ideas for topics come from reader comments. (thanks everyone!)

Sometimes I have a specific topic I want to write about and start there.  That usually isn't the case.  Maybe I should be more proactive in my topic selection and brainstorm a list of topics, pick one, and then go research it.   

I also select a visual early on because it helps me think.  I might spend a few minutes brainstorming on flickr by typing in combinations of keywords related to ideas to come up with a metaphor. (Usually while listening to Mozart)   I guess this could be called research, but it is also idea generation.

After I've written the post, I may leave it in draft for a few days to marinate if I'm not happy with it.  I have way too many posts in draft.

The call to action - asking a question at the end to generate discussion is a technique that is integrated into my writing process unless I am doing an interview - but that is a very good point to remember and a useful tip to share with new bloggers.

I think of the publishing and connecting step as what happens after I click the "publish button."   If it is a post where I am hoping to get a lot of conversation, I might compose a question for Twitter, my Facebook or LinkedIn status line,  add the link to flickr photo illustrating the post, and/or share in the appropriate room on FriendFeed.

How do you get your inspiration or ideas for blog?  Do you follow a framework like this?  Are you using Zemanta or similar tool? Why or why not?

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Take Aways from Blogher: Some Reflections and Personal Takeaways

Flowers in the neighborhood

This is my fourth BlogHer Conference.  I look forward to the event because it helps inspire me.   This year I selected sessions based on a personal goal - to improve my blog.   There are two focus areas -- design and writing.

I'm staying with a dear friend, Amy Lenzo and fellow girl geek of the world cafe, who writes a blog called "Beauty Dialogues" and is an amazing photographer.   She also happens to be a web designer who works with typepad!   We sat down together and had a talk about ways to clean up the clutter and simplify the mess on this blog.   With Amy's expert help, I was able to come up with a strategy for this. 

I've been blogging here since 2003 and have over 3,000 posts.  One of the biggest problems with clutter on my blog is that I have too many categories and was not very consistent in my organizational scheme.  As a result no one can find anything, including me.   I know that many people discover posts via google, not from the top of the blog - but I do get a lot of emails asking where posts are.   Also, if someone is new to my blog and wanted to explore, I imagine the overwhelming number of categories might send them away quickly.   My sidebar is also way to cluttered with images, links, and other stuff.

Amy helped me think through how to consolidate the side bar.   Most importantly, how to deal with the categories using a feature on typepad called typepad notes which allows you to be free from some of the templates.    I need to come up with a sketch of the new information design:

• Think about the sidebar in layers so there is less scrolling. 
• Conceptually group links -- think about the order importance
• Use the typepad "notes" feature so you can consolidate and include links to graphic items using less real estate
• Create a smaller group (maybe 10) of meta categories each linking to a page with sub-categories and description of what can found in each

Amy showed me how to create typepad notes and pages and the order for approaching this:

• Come up with map of meta categories and sub-categories
• Review my existing categories - and decide which ones need to be deleted, changed, or combined

Amy Gahran gave a writing workshop at BlogHer that was very inspiring.  I lent her my laptop so wasn't able to take notes at the time, but Amy Lenzo has a great summary on her blog.   All of the advice about "getting to the point" is what I hope to put into practice in the coming months.

• Set context. Tell them right away why what you’re going to say matters.
• Then make your points.
• At the end, after you’ve built momentum by making your points, send them off in a useful direction (call to action, suggestions for next steps, ask questions they might consider, etc.) This can even apply to personal expression or fiction.
• Average reading speed online: 200-300 words/min. Call it 250. Use that to calculate target word count, and try to stick to it. Great exercise. Check your own reading speed.
• Amy’s triage editing tips for improving readability quickly.

What's your advice about improving your blog design or writing?

Blogher Bulding Traffic to Your Blog Via Content and Community and Technology

Flickr Photo by Veesees

Elise Bauer, a food blogger who writes Simple Recipes.   She does this talk because she gets a lot of traffic.   She has 1,000,000 feed readers.   She has been experimenting over the past few years.

Content

• Why do you want traffic?   Has to support your goals and capacity.   
• She looks at traffic building in three elements: content, community, and technology that you use to support. 
• Content:  Three most important elements of content - useful, entertaining, or timely.   Do at least one or all well.
• Focus: If you want your audience to grow, you need to focus.  This is important in terms of community building.
• Post frequently but not at the expense of quality, use images and photographs, write well, compelling headlines, shorter posts, keep it real, and use different formats.  If you want to build an audience, use punctuation.
• Invest in a dslr camera - quality good images manner
• Blog about something you care about
• Keep at it

Community

• Difference between broadcasting your message and engaging
• It's not about you unless you are extraordinarily interesting
• It's not about putting your words out there and letting them go ...
• Leave thoughtful comments - don't being an annoying self-promoter
• Plan and participate in events
• Be generous
• Link to blogs at are at the same stage as you

Technology

• Make it easy to load
• Everything in your side bar should have a purpose - a car with a bunch of bumper stickers and can't see the car
• Font size important
• Know the basics of search engines optimization (see the page in her presentation, there are some great tips)

What are your tips for getting traffic to your blog?

The Secret to Writing a Successful and Outstanding Blog

I just scanned an article called Seven Blogs You Must Read by Mitch Joel (hat tip Chris Brogan) -- are the top social media strategy blogs (written mostly by men or group blogs founded by men).  There's an 8th blog (written by a woman) I'd add to the list: Liz Strauss

If don't have Liz in your reader, you are missing out on a rich conversation about social media, networking, and blogging.  I've been a fan of her blog for a long time, but if you're just discovering her work and want to catch up, I suggest getting a copy of her "The Secret to Writing a Successful and Outstanding Blog"

Organizational Versus Personal Voice on a Nonprofit Blog: What's Your Advice?

I got this great question from someone and I know that many of you may have struggled with this issue and have some wisdom to offer:

Hi Beth,
 
My question is: does the voice/tone of a blog need to match up with the voice/tone of the nonprofit?
 
For now, I am a one-person shop, and several advisers have pointed out that the "blogging" me is snarky will not be taken seriously as the "executive director" (professional) me.
 
My nonprofit  grew from my blog, and not the other way around. Perhaps that is why I am protective of my blogging voice.
 
Any thoughts or resources?

What is your best advice?  What resources?  What has been your experience?

Update:

I wanted to summarize the terrific learning and sharing in the comments.   Thanks you guys rock!

The question can be boiled down to  "Should your organization's blog have a personality or reflect the institutional voice?"  It reminded me that Rohit Bhargava's new book, "Personality Not Included" was just published.  The thesis of the book - (based on what I could gleam from the free download chapter) is:

Personality is the unique,authentic, and talkable soul of your brand that people can get passionate about.

Personality is not just about what you stand for, but how you choose to communicate it.  It is also the way to reconnect your customers, partners, employees, and influencers to the soul of your grand in the new social media era.

Some of you agree strongly with this idea,  that blogs from nonprofit organizations with strong individual voices will attract attention and build community in an era of social media.  Some of you believe that nonprofit constituents really want to hear authentic voices,  that audiences have grown tired of bland institutional communication or marketing copy.    If the blog is written by a staff member(s) that the tone should be more informal, almost like a hallway conversation or business lunch. 

But it isn't just about style.  Given that nonprofits are mission-based organizations, all of its communications efforts need to contribute to meeting that mission. A nonprofit blog needs to have a focus and purpose; it's not just a place for a staff person to write personal random rants.  It is very important to clearly identify a blog's purpose first and then ask how is your blog serving your constituents, and how does the tone of your writing fit into that?

It can be difficult with nonprofits that may need to address different stakeholders that have different opinions and perceptions.  That's why it is important to clearly define audience and style and substance that appeal to them

If a genuine, non-institutional voice is appropriate, it is very important to keep your blog's tone professional.  Here's quick litmus test:

• Realize you can be quoted…not just on another blog but in your professional life.
• Are you willing to “live” with what you said?
• If a prospective employer, potential donor to your organization, etc. saw what you wrote, how would it reflect on you and your abilities? (If you don’t care, that’s okay too…sometimes we all get passionate about issues).
• Be accurate.
• Be courteous.
• Have an opinion, then back it up.
• Before you hit the “publish” button, walk away and come back later. How do you come across to those who don’t know you?

As one reader noted, "A nonprofit blog can certainly be opinionated, use sassy (but not insulting) language, be provocative, speak from the heart of the writer and offer challenging ideas -- but it always needs to be related, somehow to what it is the organization is trying to achieve. And the words are "forever" -- there's no taking them back once they are out there."

 

Difference Between Pitching Mainstream Bloggers and Mainstream Press from Chris Brogan

Photo from Chris Brogan


Chris Brogan does it again.  He talks about what motivates bloggers and how we're different from mainstream press. My favorite:

Bloggers Like Free Prize Inside Experiences

If you want us to write about your software app or your new gizmo, give a few away. Nokia, Nikon, Flip, GM (Saturn), Garmin, and tons of other companies have given out gear on loaner programs (sometimes
handled well, and other times handled a bit weirdly). And if it’s not something directly tangible, it’s something like getting invited to a pre-screening of a movie, or to a closed beta of an application, or
something else that makes one feel exclusive. Still an ego play, and yet, very effective because once we play with your toys, we’ll be inclined to write about them.

Will we be fair and give opinions on the competitors like an official review site? Not always. Depends who it is, whether that’s part of their bailiwick, and whether they even know how to approach such a thing. I sure don’t. If I’m given something free to mess around with, I disclose it when talking about it, but then, my site isn’t ajournalistic effort to review things fairly.

Just go read it.

PS  If you're an NTEN member, you can ask Chris your questions on Monday.  Here's more information.

World Comment Day: What did I comment about? Twitter Conversation Metrics

Chris Brogan reminded us that he declared today as World Comment Day.

Ironically, I read a post from a month ago by Stowe Boyd called "Beyond Blogs: The Conversation Has Moved Into Flow" where he stats that conversation is moving from blog comments thread which is slow and static to a more fast form of conversation - the flow in Twitter, Friendfeed, and other places.

Boyd goes on to describe how Twitter and other similar apps are based on the web of flow - where information of interest comes to you, not the other way around.  He describes this as a move away from hunting and gathering and into "relationship agriculture" - information grows in our flow applications instead of us spending hours hunting it down.

Does this mean blogging or reading blogs is not longer relevant or useful?   I think people will continue to use blogs as Boyd mentions as a place to archive or organize their content so other people can still find it when they need to search. Having a format for longer thoughtful expression will not go away and I know personally, having a central archive (or personal learning space) for thinking around a particular subject matter topic works well for blogs.

I'm thinking, for example, of the roundup of Arts 2.0 examples.  Almost all this information came to me via Twitter (or Facebook).  I had to do very little hunting and gathering.   For me to analyze it and see any useful patterns, I had to summarize the fragmented information in one place.

There more and more posts (and comments) on blogs about the new form of fast conversation taking place on Twitter.   I love Boyd's Twitpitch -not an elevator, but escalator.  And a post from Commetrics about Developing Metrics for Conversation for Twitter

So, is conversation dead in blogs?  Has it and will move to Twitter and other places?  Conversations are fragmenting .. what gets lost with this fragmentation and faster form of conversation?   What are the gains?

Well, off to comment on some blogs ...

Reader Appreciation Day! Charity Giveaway - Enter Now!

Photo by Mozzercork

 

Wednesday, April 16th has been declared Blog Reader Appreciation Day — thanks to Michele Martin for passing the word.  As many of you who read this blog regularly, I've been doing lots of giveaways - book giveaways (my first in January)  and charity donation giveaways. 

This time I'm going to give a $20 donation to a charity or cause identified by one of you, my readers.   What better way to say how much I appreciate you than to contribute to a cause you really care about.   So, you have until midnight April 16th to leave a comment with one or two sentences on why you think this cause is important and a link to the charity of your choosing.  The winner will be chosen at random and I will write a nice blog post your cause.  My only requirement is that the charity has to be listed in Network For Good.

The Nonprofit Communications blog is also participating in Reader Appreciation Day with a giveaway too.

Is Your Blog Listed in All Top Nonprofits? Add A Badge To Your Site

I just discovered that my blog is listed in alltop nonprofit version.  There's quite a few of nonprofit tech bloggers in there too.  You can now add a badge to your site. Here's the official badge.  The one above is an alternative badge from a collection created by Jenny Lawson. Alltop is a one-page listing of RSS feeds of the "top" blogs in an industry or sector - created by Guy Kawaski.  More information about alltop.

The Urge To Edit Someone Else's Blogging or Social Networking Policy Is Irresistible

Photo by Nic's Events

I put out a query for examples of blogging and social network/media policies for nonprofits and got lots of good examples.    Donny Peterson couldn't resist the urge to edit someone else's blogging policy before sharing a copy his policy. That got me thinking about the process for developing the policy.   And, do all organizations with blog need a policy? 

• How do you determine when a nonprofit blogging policy is needed?
• How do organizations create policies?

Here's a story from behind the firewall of a large nonprofit organization - the names and particulars have been changed - but here's how the blogging process unfolded:

As the organization's blogger,  I facilitated creating the policy. There was/is a lot of fear about encouraging the use of social media in our ranks, so it seemed like a doable first step. Laying down rules makes everyone think they have more control and it helped everyone to feel better. My ulterior motive was to send the message that using social media is ok and even good for our institution. The more we tell our story, the more the public can understand our mission.

In truth, the policy (a term I'm discouraged from using since we can't really create a policy about what employees do or say on their own time - we use "guidelines") is quite vague. It goes on for a while but really just says, "Use common sense and please don't say stupid stuff. In fact, we'd love it if you told your personal institutional story in a constructive way."

To my knowledge, no one had ever told employees that they were allowed to talk about their job before. I think many were even scared to do it. Since we often operate in sensitive areas, most rules prohibit discussing specific client relations, etc. This opened the door for more transparency and handed more control of the message over to the employees and volunteers the organization belongs to.

I draft the policy and then it got handed around to pretty much all our many employees for edits and approval. It was about a 6 month process to getting it approved and distributed

So, is a blogging or social networking/media policy just a matter of cut and paste and edit similar web site policies,  accepted use policies, and other types of technology related internal policies?  Or is there a value in having the discussion?

Update: 4/12  More from Beth Dunn

Update 4/16  Blue Avocado (and some summaries here)

Transparency, Social Media, and Dealing with Criticism

Flickr Photo from Wokka

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Kenyon's New Blog!

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

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

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

From Kiev With Love: Teresa Crawford's New Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's Teresa's presentation.

Building Your Blog Audience: Answering Fern Thai's Question

I "met" or rather connected with Tony from Fern Thai through Facebook (I think).   (They are a volunteer matching organization working a village in Thailand and if you're looking to volunteer in Thailand, you should check them out!)    Tony was kind enough to help promote the America's Giving Challenge to his community on MySpace.

He recently sent me an email query and I thought I'd put it out here for others to give advice. The question is about building a community around your blog.

One quick question I’d like to ask is how long you’ve been blogging? With such a large subscription to your blog list would you simply put it down to the quality of your material, the length of time you’ve been doing it or is there more I still need to do to get our new RSS feeds out into the limelight?

To answer question about how long I've been blogging - I started in 2001 (doing it manually, but not consistently).  In 2002, I used blog set up on a colleagues moveable type installation, but not regularly.  In 2003, I heard that six apart was going to offer moveable type as a service called typepad so I signed up when they opened in 2003.  I started my blog then, but wasn't consistent.   It wasn't until 2005 that I decided to make it a regular habit.  So, I'd say that consistency is more important the length of time.

There's some really good advice from Skelliewag about growing your audience and I've followed this advice with good results.  I also came across this piece from Dosh Dosh about a content strategy for building a niche.

So, let me me put this out to the readers.  What are your best tips and advice for building an audience for your blog?  What should Tony focus his efforts on?

More on Social Media As Email Reduction Strategy

A few weeks ago, I saw a tweet by Ben Greenberg about a presentation he was preparing about blogging behind the firewall which lead to my post,  "Blogging Behind the Nonprofit Firewall: ROI Approach"  Patrick Lambe riffs on this:

“The more we can siphon off the non-time sensitive stuff into channels that are more suited to them, the more we’ll be able to calm the raging torrent of email that threatens to drown us.”

Library clips picks up the thread with a detailed analysis of enterprise email and blogging processes and talks about where blogs shine over email for particular types of communication.  Also described is different types of internal blogs:

• Office - announcements/news/releases
• Project/Business Unit - announcements/news/releases
• Smaller teams - announcements/news/releases
• Activity - share/correspond/updates
• Work (group/individual) - eg. support tips
• Interest (group/individual) - eg. topic blogs
• Personal (private/public) - a person’s log on their experience, thoughts, feedback, etc…

There is also a good list of other resources on this topic:

Email is great as it allows very simple unstructured free form correspondence, but it doesn’t do the discussion, and archiving part well at all. Blogs are just as simple and unstructured, its forte is publishing, subscription, longevity, etc…in fact here is 10 reasons why blogs are better than email.

Blogs are not the only social tools that can have more impact than just relying on email, check out: Instead of sending an email…

Here are three blogs posts about internal blogging:

Project Blogs, Email, and Dual Collaboration Channels (adoption)
Project Management Blogs - How to Run Your Project on the Web (types)
How to use Blogs in the Workplace (approach)

Here are some posts about why email is strong and how it can help web adoption:

Email is critical to Enterprise 2.0 and Office 2.0
Email: The Good Enough Collaboration Tool

Speaking of other tools, Stewart Mader, of Wiki Patterns, is running a series, "21 Days of Wiki Adoption."  Day 2 is a discussion of wiki versus email.  ZUP 4 Nonprofits suggests it might lead to better collaboration and a smaller in-box.

Google Beth, Kiss Beth: Tangible Benefits to Blogging (and Facebook(

I discovered that if you google the word "Beth" my blog comes up first in the search results - most of the time.  Occasionally, the "Beth" entry for wikipedia comes first or Beth Israel Hospital.   Today, a youtube video called "Kiss Beth" appeared third.

I had no idea why this happens, but in workshops when people ask for my url, it is easy to say "Google Beth" and it gives me a reason to mention the impacts of blogging on search engine results.   Today, Holly Ross at NTEN discovered the technical reason from this Wired Magazine illustration.   She found the link via Paul Hyland's Facebook profile.  That's a demonstration of some of the value of using a social network - that you get to see what information colleagues are posting - and some of it may have some relevance to your work.

Welcome to the Blogosphere Michael Elliott

In October,  I did a workshop for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Local Initiative Funding Partners Grantees on getting started with social media.  (I got to meet one of my heros - Andy Goodman who did an awesome keynote workshop on storytelling best practices)  The workshops were not easy.  I did meet with some resistance but it sparked some conversations about the real barriers to adoption.   

When I do these workshops, I ask folks to write down one small step they will implement following the workshop.  I usually joke and tell them to write on the back of a $20 dolllar bill.  Michael Elliott said he would start a blogl   He was really intent on starting a blog.  So, was happy to see his blog show up in my watchlists.

While I always to do surveys after the trainings, my measure for success is to actually read someone's blog who was in my workshop!

So, do stop by and say hello!

 

I'm Tie With D'Arcy Norman for Most Number of Comments on Cogdog Blog!

Kasha at Rest by Cogdog Blog

 

I've been a fan of Alan Levine's blog and work for years now.  And it's not because I love dogs, but because I've found some much value from reading his posts and enjoy his sense of humor.  I also like commenting there because, well, Alan has a great sense of humor.

So no wonder I tied for first place as one of the most frequent commenters on his blog.  Every year, Alan does a week of comment blogging and as preparation he reviews who has commented the most on his blog.   It's all about the reciprocity ...

I will take all my writing to blog via the comment space of other sites. This is the notion of “comment blogging” I found long ago, and something I hope helps to underscore the power and benefit of putting your energy into participating in the blogs of others, of making it an active social process.

I enjoy commenting on other blogs almost more than writing my own.   At one point, I thought it might be just procrastination, but it helps me "type out loud" and the comment usually sparks an idea for a post or deepens thinking.

This has gotten me wondering about the art of commenting:

• What are some of your bets tips for leaving comments on other blogs?
• If you are a blogger, how do you respond to your comments?  Via email.  On the blog thread in the comments? Both?
• How do you track the comments you left on other blogs?
• What are the best posts about commenting?

Blogging Behind the Nonprofit Firewall: The ROI Approach

Benjamin Greenberg works for Physicians for Human Rights but I "met" him on Facebook through a mutual friend, Marian.  I actually got a chance to meet Ben face-to-face at a recent Berkman Center Thursday Bloggers meetup.  Ben and I also follow each other on Twitter (he's @minorjive) and that's where I heard him mention this presentation. 

It's about why a blog behind the firewall makes sense -- part ROI business case, part introductory training.  He kindly gave me permission to share it with all of you.  We did a quick chat interview:

What was the purpose?

The idea was to orient folks to why do it and what practically it will be for and then some brief training in how to blog. I customized the blog to make it easier for people to start posts w/out going to the backend first.

What were some of their questions? Was there resistance?  Is this a prelude to blogging outside of the firewall?

I did not overstate my hopes that it will change internal culture.  There was was not a lot of stated resistance only a little bit of discomfort w/having to check it everyday.  Many people liked the trade off for less email. We had to sort out what communication is better for  blog and what doesn't belong there and when email will be required.  I tried for a balance between not being prescriptive and laying out some guidelines. We need to let people figure out how to make use of the tech for their real needs. The other resistance was about having to get notification emails when people comment on one's post but I had made a two column comparison that showed emailing one article resulting in 240 emails org wide vs one blog post resulting in 4 deletable notifications to the blogger.

This morning I was struck by a point that Jeremiah Owyang made about time management and email.

Responding to emails leads to more emails: The more you respond to emails, the more you will receive. Keep in mind what your core goals are (why is your employer paying you) and try to manage and budget this.

Certainly the time suck and drain of too much email can be a lever for change to adopt alternatives, such as an internal blog or intrablog.  So, I imagine the adoption issues are similar to moving to intranet, wikispace, or basecamp to manage team or internal communications.   How much do you have to guide the change?

More thoughts here.

Can You "Tivo" Your Muse?

Flickr photo by Lostajv

Michele Martin asks "What Inspires You?" and goes on to describe those all too familiar uninspired periods  you face as a blogger.  But, she ends with a couple of great questions to get our collective creative juices flowing:

Since I know I'm not alone in this, I'm wondering what you do when you're in those times when inspiration strikes everywhere but in your own mind? Where do you find your inspiration? How do you deal with those times when your creativity seems to have fled? Help me create a guide to dealing with the fallow times and re-discovering inspiration so that we can all benefit and feel less alone when they happen.

I've been through this myself.  It usually happens when I've been over doing it -- at the computer, eating, and no exercise.  So, the best thing is to walk away from the computer, or rather run away from the computer.   I always seem to find a lot of inspiration when I get good cardio exercise.   My best creative ideas c