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?

 

Q: What can location-based networks learn from dogs? Answer below

Photo by Abbynormal

Stewart Mader left the answer in the comments, but I had to share the visual and write up from Jayne, who writes the Web Outside blog: Exploring Mobile Technology in Places and Space.   Her blog is about:

This blog focuses not only on the networks and applications themselves, but on the social and cultural ramifications of this growing “outernet.” Since The Web Outside– technically and conceptually– is still in its infancy, much exploration will also center around the current web and mobile solutions that are helping to shape it.

Jayne listened to the podcast and write this post (and found the above photo in flickr).

The “new” concept of checking in at a location and declaring one’s presence? Don’t be surprised if your golden retriever is rolling his eyes at your novice ways… He and his buddies have been pissing gleefully ahead of the social networking curve for centuries…

Eating Your Own (Social Media) DogFood

 

You've heard the phrase - eating your own dog food?   It means practicing what you preach.

Anyway, Chris Brogan has just launched Project DogFood.  It’s a project where you’re invited to come talk about which social media elements a business should consider adopting. 

And you know I would just love anything that has to do with dogs, social media, and adoption.

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

NpTech Summary: Social Networking Strategies and Nonprofits: Getting Beyond Shiny Object Syndrome and Getting More Precise Practices

Photo by PixelFarmer - Zen Mutt (a rescue dog) - Title "Precision"

The NpTech Tag Summary went on hiatus to give some space to rethink, reinvent -- again.   Conversations are getting more distributed and it is getting increasingly difficult to use tagging to discover, aggregate, and summarize them.  I'm moving beyond monitoring the NpTech tagged items and meta feeds to incorporate nuggets from micro media sources, nptech bloggers, friend feeds, and networks.

The summaries will be briefer, focused on a social media theme or a social media question related to practice.  I hope to go deeper on one theme rather than cover many resources superficially.   

We are in the very early stages of how nonprofits and social activists can leverage social networking applications for good causes and just learning what works and what doesn't.   I think there are a couple of things that need to be happen before we get to best practices and knowing precisely what works.

Nonprofits need to look at objectives and resources, target their audiences, and think about multi-channel efforts before  jumping on the Let's Use Facebook bandwagon.  (I think this applies to all social media - see the Cute Dog Theory for more)  Activists need to better understand the psychology of Facebook apps and perhaps revise their campaign strategies.   Facebook application developers who want to help change the world and work with nonprofits and activists need to better understand how Facebook culture and behavior meshes with activism and fundraising behaviors and workflow.

I raised a question about that last point in the FriendFeed NpTech Room. I may be way off.  But as more and more FB apps developers approach nonprofits and nonprofits hone best practices -- I think more dialog and understanding will lead to more effective tools (and multi-channel strategies).

Photo by AllSpice1 (Can you tell how it has been photoshopped?)

In a post titled "Why Social Network Marketing Misses Out:  Playing Solitaire at a Party" suggests a fourth reason -- not leveraging the networked effect.

Have you noticed that the card game solitaire doesn’t make for a good party game? It’s the same thing when it comes to social networks. Social networks are about self expression, communication, and networking and sharing with others –it’s more akin to social card games like poker, gin, or even mah jong. The core elements of these games encourage sharing, trading, communicating with other players of the party.

So, as you start to shop around for ideas to meet your objectives for your social marketing activities, remember that repurprosing the traditional microsites is missing out on the social behaviors that are native to social networks."

Geoff Livingston makes a good point about why some efforts using Facebook have not raised huge dollar amounts.  He warns us about getting seduced by Shiney Object Syndrome, a common problem where one does not have a target the audience precisely or use a multi-channel strategy - and just sets up a Facebook Cause or Fan Page.  Sort of a 2008 version of build it and they will come syndrome we saw in the 1990's ...

As Geoff points out:

What’s the secret sauce? Not buying into social media/Facebook hype ....  Precision targeting with intelligent integrated outreach across diverse media yields results.

I totally agree with the point about multi-channel campaigns - it has been my experience too with Facebook and other social media tools (as documented in these case studies).

He also describes some issues with the interaction design of Causes:

In addition, the Social Cause app does not let non-profits a) access the contact information of members b) update members on the cause or c) even send them a receipt for donations, and of course, market again. Instead a third party handles all touches. This is a disaster for cause marketers who simply can’t follow up or integrate with other initiatives.

These insights are not new for nonprofits.  Allan Benamer, of the Nonprofit Tech Blog points out that "It’s been suggested Causes has numerous problems in its business logic that seems to stem from a lack of understanding of the giving process. For one thing, it’s very difficult for nonprofits who are actually interested in engaging Causes users to engage that group. Causes doesn’t have a specific backend interface for would-be nonprofit administrators to deal with a Causes members list."   

Dan Schultz makes a similar observation in his recent publication "Guide To Facebook Activism" published by Digiactive, a five-month-old site devoted to digital activism.   He says, "Facebook may be free, but it has not been designed to suit your needs as an activist organizer.   This means you will find that the site's functionality does not always match what you need.  You will have to stretch what's there in order to be effective."

Let's also not forget that we have lots to learn about the next generation of donors and how we integrate strategies to reach them using social media.

What do you think gets in the way to "best practices"?  Is it only shiny object syndrome?  Could it be the interaction design and lack of precision of the tool?  Could be not having a multi-channel strategy?  Is missing out on how to leverage the networked effect?  What do you think?

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

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

Obama Family Dog Campaign: From Rescue Dog to First Dog

Photo Source: Obama Family Dog Campaign

All the dogs in my life have been adopted from animal shelters or dog rescue organizations.   Choosing to adopt a puppy or dog from a rescue group or shelter, you're not only saving a life, you're decreasing the demand for puppies from factory-farm like puppy mills.

The Best Friends Network, an interactive and global online community of  people and organizations who care about animals, has just launched a petition to urge Senator Obama's family to consider adopting a shelter or rescue group pet.

If Sen. Barack Obama becomes president, he'll instantly be faced with decisions that will affect millions of Americans. Obama will also soon be making a decision that could affect millions of American dogs. It has been reported that once the election is over, the Obamas will be looking for a  new four-legged family member (much to his daughters' delight).

 

The American Kennel Club (AKC) has suggested five types of purebred dogs that would fit the Obamas' lifestyle. While we don't disagree that it's important to choose a dog that matches well with the family, mixed breeds should certainly be considered along with pure breeds. Also, whether purebred or mutt, we believe the Obamas should make a winning choice and     adopt a family dog, not buy one.

Best Friends gives 11 reasons for the Obama family (and every family) to  adopt a dog:

 

1. An  adopted pet is a life saved
2. Rescued  pets love you just as much (if not more!)       
3. Mutts  are one-of a kind       
4. Purebreds  need rescuing too
5. You  can find any size, age, color temperament at a shelter or rescue group
6. Rescuing  a pet is the socially responsible choice
7. Rescued  pets are already spayed or neutered (what a bargain)
8. Adopting  decreases demand for dogs from puppy mills
9. Why  not?
10. You can be proud of your rescued dog
11. That warm fuzzy feeling

The petition has gotten over 19,000 signatures in 24 hours.  With animal activists blogging, on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr, let's see if the first dog in November will be a shelter or rescue dog.

It’s time to identify the appropriate person (s) within your nonprofit to participate on the Social Web!

Photo by Simple Dolphin

Let's say your organization has started to master the art of social listening - you're monitoring what people are saying about your organization or issue and you are using a variety of tools and strategies. And before you've gotten obsessed with what tool to use, you've figured out how to make your listening truly actionable. But, sooner or later you'll need to strike up a conversation or respond to some comments.  So, now what?

One thing to remember:  As Sean Maloney of Intel says, "It's not what you say about you, it's what they say about you."  (This quote really stood out in a brilliant piece by Brian Solis called the "Art of Conversation."

There's lots of excellent advice on the art of conversation and commenting on blogs.  Take these for example:

• How to Comment Like King or Queen by Coolcat Teacher Blog
• Strategic Blog Commenting A Screencast by Amy Gahran
• Strategic Blog Commenting: Blog Post by Amy Gahran
• Commenting by Alan Levine
• Power of Comments by Chris Brogan
• The Art of Listening and Engagement Through Social Media by Brian Solis

But how does it work within an organizational context?  People want to have conversations with representatives from your organization who are experts in the issue or program area and who are excited about their work.  But they have to feel empowered to speak.   And that's what I'm curious about.

Certainly, training for these staff members or volunteers on social media participation so they are comfortable.   But there is also speaking on behalf ... what are the talking points?  What conversations are most important to join?

In larger organizations, there is the benefit of splitting the workload, but will senior management feel comfortable having those interns down the hall represent the organization on Facebook or on commenting on blogs?

I'm curious to know if how those you are who are putting listening and participating into practice in a nonprofit organization - how you do this within your organization?  Do decide what to respond to?  Who is authorized to speak on behalf of the organization or is it a team effort? 

The Social Media Ready Nonprofit: What are your tips for being an effective social media evangelist to encourage adoption in your nonprofit? How do you get past the brick wall of resistance?

Photo by LawrenceOP

 

This week we'll be discussing and building Module 3: The Social Media Ready Nonprofit Organization: Dealing with Resistance as part of NTEN's We Are Media: Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits project.  Last week in Module 2, we covered how to think about social media strategically so it supports your organization's mission and reaches your target audience.  But as many nonprofits have discovered before they can use social media to change the world outside their organizations, they may need to implement a social change strategy behind the organization's firewall.

Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with a reader.  She told me that her board was very conservative and that she was the youngest person on staff.  Every time she brings social media or social networks in any discussion about marketing or communications, the idea gets labeled as "crack pot" idea.   I've heard even worse horror stories.

I've heard other colleagues comment, "Our legal department didn't know we had a MySpace profile until we could show the results."   Ah, stealth adoption.  I'm also remembering an interview I did with Liz Burr who works for a PBS station in LA and she emphasized patience.  Stephen Collins emphasizing the need for translation skills.

I know you all must have lots of tips and help advice on how to be an effective social media evangelist behind the firewall - so please do share it:

How do you get your whole organization to own the social media strategy? (From legal departments to senior managers who may not understand social media). How do you become an effective, but responsible social media evangelist in your nonprofit?

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."

June 20th Is National Take Your Dog To Work Day

Flickr Photo by Beth

You all know that I'm a dog lover, right?  That's Sadie who passed away 5 years ago this month.   She has her own dogbook profile on Facebook!  Anyway, if I still had a dog it would be at my feet tomorrow in my office.  Here's the scoop:

First celebrated in 1999, Take Your Dog To Work Day was created to celebrate the great companions dogs make and to encourage their adoption from humane societies, animal shelters and breed rescue clubs. This annual event encourages employers to experience the value of pets in their workplace for this one special day to promote pet adoptions.

On June 20, 2008, businesses, animal shelters and pet-care professionals from around the world will work together to better the lives of shelter dogs everywhere.  Thousands of businesses will open their doors to employees' pets on this day in celebration of the great companions dogs make. Pet Sitters International invites your business to Join us! as we celebrate a decade of working dogs!

If you aren't able to bring your pup to your place of employment, considering volunteering at your local animal shelter or even taking in a rescued pet of your own.

And, if you are a nonprofit techie with a cute dog, please do the NpTech Dog Group on Flickr.

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?

David Neff and Skip Offer Three Words of Advice About Social Media Adoption in Nonprofits

An Interview With Dr. Lynda Kelly, Australian Museum

Dr. Lynda Kelley

I'm here in Sydney, Australia and just finished an informal workshop  and discussion with Powerhouse Museum staff and other museums. (Will post reflections shortly)   I met Dr. Lynda Kelly, a blogger and the Head of Audience Research for the Australia Museum.  She also just set up a social networking site on Ning where museum professionals are discussing the future of museums in a Web 2.0 world.  The site is called Museum 3.0. 

Many nonprofits are grappling with questions about where to find reliable information about the merits of different tools for a given objective.  The key is understanding your audience and their online social activities.  The short answer: ask them, do research. During the meeting, she shared some insights from a recently published research study she conducted on the social activities and technographics of people in Australia.   

1.  Tell me about your research?

We took Forrester's technographics research model and adapted it for Australia, surveying over 2,000 people from Australia.   We asked simple questions about their online activities.  Other questions were about museum attendance.  We compared the findings between non-museum and museum goers.   Some key findings:  People who visit museums and galleries are engaging in social media and more so than people who don't.  The two things they do more than other activities are to post reviews and rate their experiences.  They are mostly looking for word of mouth recommendations.  (A paper based on the research findings can be found here)


Our research also focused on young adults and their web behavior.   We recruited people based on the Forrester online social activity categories and interviewed them about their online participation. 

I've done many studies on Web 2.0 activities of visitors, particularly with school students. We are trying to understand what young people are doing online and the implications for exhibit design and marketing.  We invited these young people into the museum back of house and asked them for input on how we should represent the museum on the social web.   The young people said they wanted a physical experience of interacting with the objects - no screens in the museum.  They told us, "We can all the computers and screens at home - we want something we can't get at home - the objects and interacting with people in the physical space."

We brought in a small group of young people and interviewed them about their experience.  The telling quote was: "We'll go home and google the answers.   We want to be here and look at the museum with our friends."  I'm sharing the research notes on the Museum 3.0 site.

2.   Can you tell me more about your Museum 3.0 site?

Facebook is interesting to have discussion with peers, but difficult.  Many of my peers don't want to "come out on Facebook."  (That is let people from work know who their friends are) When someone showed me Ning, I thought it was great to try for a community of practice because it is about the network and a good way to introduce people who are new to social media and give it go.  It's much better than sending me an email and having 6 people responding.  I've been inviting people at the beginning, but now more and more people are joining.


3.  What advice would you offer to other museums and nonprofits who want introduce web2.0 strategies into their programs or marketing?

They have to jump in and start experimenting.   There was a great quote.  Museums are great at touring exhibitions, but we're not good at touring the web.   Go to the people where they are and give it a go.    

You've got to have a champion in the organization who can help you get on with it.  Have a supportive director is important.   We've got to stop saying "no" and say "yes, if."   We're moving from No to Yes, If.   

We're trying to make that change in the organization now - we're using a private ning site to follow up with a strategic plan.     We've had Facebook Fridays - get people in the museum to sign up and we help them.   You have to reserve space to let people ask questions like "What is RSS?"

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.

An Interview David J. Neff about American Cancer Society's Sharing Hope Project

Skip, David's dog

I'm doing a series of blog about lessons learned from nonprofits in adopting social media projects as the Cute Dog Theory.  (If you want to do an interview and have a dog, feel free to add your dog to the NpTech Dog Group) David J. Neff is the Director of Web, Film and Interactive Strategy for the American Cancer Society.  He has been with the American Cancer Society for seven years since he graduated from college.   He agreed to do an interview with his organization's socal media project, SharingHope.tv.

1.   Tell me about the project - give me your elevator speech re: project. 

SharingHope.TV is the place for people to share their stories around cancer. Whether you
are a survivor, pre-vivors, a caregiver or just someone with a story to tell SharingHope.TV
is the place to share that story in Video, Audio, Artwork or Photos.

2.  What were the objectives?

We wanted to give people a good enviroment to share their stories of hope in anyway they wanted. From video to audio to photos.  YouTube has like 7 hours of video uploaded every 3 minutes. A firehose of information. We want to be the gardenhose of information. YouTube has tons of trolls and comment spam. We want a friendly enviroment where people can share and learn. I believe our community does just that.

3. How did the project unfold?

We said if we are going to do this let's make it happen. In the American Cancer Society we have a group called the Futuring and Innovations Center. Think of them as Venture Capatlists for non-profits. They liked the idea and funded it within two weeks of me submitting the idea. The within 6 monhts we have a fully functional "Beta" Web Site up adn running. We are doing Beta for 6 months then Gamma then BAM we take the labels off and start advertising.

4.  Define how you overcame challenges.

Our biggest challenge was explaining to decision-makers why didn't use an existing platform like YouTube or Flickr or Facebook.  We felt that there was not one single platform that caters to the millions of people who care about cancer and want to share their stories. Now hopefully they have that platform. Our main challenge right now? How do we tell people about it? How do I get people to test it and break it and make suggestions.  I'm reaching out to bloggers.

5.   Let's talk about numbers.  How much did it cost?  What were the results?  How are you measuring them? .

Well the costs are I have to do this all for under $25,000. That's the grant money I have. Right now with hosting and staff time it's costing me about 2,000 a month. The programming was around $4,000. The days of million dollar web sites are dead. Open source and local talent. It's all about that.

We are learning to not give a crap about page view and hits. What I want at the end of the day is number of registered users and number of conversations. What are people commenting on? What discussions are they
having?

6.  What advice would you give to other nonprofits?

Video is the future! Imagine a world where your customer tells you what they want ......and you actually listen. It's what we are doing right now. 

Here's a few inspiring videos on SharingHope.TV that David would like us to see:

http://www.sharinghope.tv/video/1706386
http://www.sharinghope.tv/video/1857977

Meet Priscilla Brice-Weller: NpTech Blogger from Australia

Meet Priscilla Brice-Weller who is the Online Campaign Coordinator for Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) which is using social media in many creative ways.  Her personal blog, Solidariti,  covers technology and nonprofit activism.  I've been reading her blog for sometime now and always learn something new.  One of my favorite blog posts that she wrote talks about the ladder of engagement and Myspace.

We had an opportunity to meet face-to-face today and take a nice stroll in the Brisbane city park, a botanical garden.  We talked about nonprofits, social media, the differences and similarities between Australia and US.   

I did an interview on QIK asking her for her advice about nonprofits and adoption of social media tools.

• Be patient - you may not see results for 6 months to a 12 month
• If the environment is not, better to do some small projects under the radar.  It's better to apologize than ask permission.
• Communicating the benefits in clear and simple terms helps decision-makers understand.

Although Priscilla has a cat, she is dog lover.  She has a cat because her landlord doesn't allow pets and a cat was easier to hide!

A change from top down to bottom up

Slide from David Wilcox

There were some fantastics reflections and comments in the post, "Social Change Behind the Firewall" and you all are so smart that I wanted to summarize the thread and share it with folks who many not have trolled through all the comments.

The visual is from a reflection by David Wilcox after a workshop he gave in March.   What struck me is that it was the same message I heard last week at NDN from Micah Sifry.  It's no longer about top-down campaigns.  As Joe Trippi said, "It's the Network, Stupid."  Just wanted to flag that pattern.

Now, to dig into David's post.  He summarizes the internal control issues elegantly:

New media tools can give housing associations better ways to provide information, and support communication and collaboration within and outside the organisation. However, if the tools are in the hands of the resident/customers, that changes power relationships. Things shift from "take it from us" to "we'll take it from each other".

That's where the difficulties arose. While many people in the workshop were excited by the possibilities, they foresaw difficulties which were summed up in two phrases. The first was "we can't do that" - which meant the IT department and senior staff won't let us look at certain sites, or use free tools. The second was "we can't let them do that" - which meant that within the culture of the organisation it would not be conceivable to help customers develop their own voice, except within quite tightly controlled circumstances.

David points to a guide that I'm printing off to read on the plane called "The Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organizations" by Colin McKay.

This post struck a nerve with some folks who mentioned how difficult it is to get "upper management" presumably analogue adults to understand the power of social media and the culture shift that is happening.  This needs to happen around all social media activities and each new tool seems to require a new stealth strategy.

Take for example video.  Beth Dunn mentioned she'd like to start making short videos to post on Youtube, but the communications staff would prefer to upload the organization's dinner video.   Jay Dedman and Michael Hoffman offered some excellent advice.)

Part of the reason it is difficult is because many have not experienced it first hand.  So, how do you get senior management to understand?

1.  Keep talking about it, keep bringing it up.  One method suggests Connie Benson is to introduce the concept well in advance and then continue to talk about it.  The metaphor of the dripping faucet.  You can't give up.   

2.  Don't present it as tools only.   It is also important not to present social media as "tools" but get upper management to understand the cultural shift that needs to happen to be successful.  If you explain as tools only - then they are more apt to dismiss it as a fad notes Maryann Devine.

3.  Show them the money.

Carie Lewis at HSUS offered this advice.  Experiment under the radar and show them the successful results:

Our strategy at HSUS was to dive into everything we could at first, under the radar, find what works, and present the results to upper management. When we found that MySpace was good for advocacy, Facebook for fundraising, Flickr for easy website photo slideshows, and YouTube for increasing video views, we decided to invest our time into those four.

After awhile, we presented the amount raised and number of new email names we acquired via social networking, and those hard numbers sold them. As a result, I was able to hire 2 full time employees this year to help with internet marketing!!

That, of course, means that you've carefully thought through what metrics and measurement you'll use to track your experiment.  Will Nourse points to some data collected by his organization.

4.  Find an ally who has influence.  Try to find an influencer who understands the space and bring them on board.

5.  Avoid the "they don't get it" syndrome or you're so lame.   Assume that they do, but it needs conversation.  Think about how you present advises Marnie Webb.

There must be more tips?

Secret Social Media Agent Man: A Guide To Going Under the Radar

Sorry I just couldn't resist that video.  The sad thing is that I remember that TV program!

Let's say you have carefully avoided walking around with the attitude "they don't get it" and you're not singing under your breath .. "you're so lame ..."   And, let's say all your thoughtful proposals have been rejected.  It's now time to go undercover, under the radar.    It's time to get your gadgets and your briefing file ..

1.  Go Read Colin McKay's "The Secret Underground Organizations Guide to Social Media".  It's packed with great suggestions on culture change in a large organization.  My favorite:

Pull a Kissinger

Want to move your organization out of the 90s? Work the  backchannels. Identify other employees who are open to new ideas and already experimenting with new technologies. Search online networks like LinkedIn and Facebook for the digital breadcrumbs of colleagues, senior managers and key gatekeepers in your organization.

With this information, you can try to build a personal relationship, built on a common interest in new technologies.  The organization has a lot invested in the status quo. Any challenge can be met with resistance, ridicule or outright sabotage.

Buy establishing a backchannel relationship with colleagues and managers, you’ll be preparing the ground for your eventual push in favour of implementing social media tactics.

2.  Come up with an under the radar experiment.  Make sure you set up benchmarks that can demonstrate results.   When you present your findings, be sure to read Marshall Kirkpatrick's Ten Common Objections to Social Media.

3.  You might have to implement off the grid.   Be prepared to do some work from home on this - if necessary.   Your organization's firewall may prevent you from using particular tools.   Or, read this handy how-to guide on how to get around the firewall.

If you've successfully done an under the radar social media project, I'd love to interview you.  Drop a comment.   What else do you need in your spy kit?  What else to consider?

 

PBS ShowCase Presentation: Social Media Adoption Challenges