John Kenyon was also at the LASA Circuit Riders Conference in Birmingham with me earlier this month. We went to a pub with some David Wilcox and Nick Booth, ordered up a few rounds of drinks, and had a fantastic conversation about social media and nonprofits. The type of conversation you have with your peers about your work that you can only have face-to-face. I pulled out my video camera to do some moment capture.
(John didn't know he was making a promo for one of my NTC sessions! I also got some great video shooting tips from Nick Booth and observations from David Wilcox which will be coming soon.)
The NTC Conference is a little more than two months away and I'm really looking forward to conversations with colleagues and meeting others face-to-face for the first time. While one might be tempted to discount the value of face-to-face gatherings when we have the Internet, some of my most valuable connections and learning experiences have taken place "in real life" at the NTC. There is just no replacement for face-to-face connections.
I've volunteered to be a session designer for two (yikes!) sessions and I'm in the process of organizing a third, an affinity group meeting! I'll be collaborating with colleagues online to further plan our sessions and online materials. So, in the spirit of thinking outloud, I'm sharing these works in progress here and welcome any comments or reactions.
#1. Screencasting Panel
Those of us that provide technology support for nonprofits get asked a few questions over and over (and over and over) again. Screencasts are a great new way to answer simple how-to's and record the answers to those frequently asked questions for posterity. A recording of your , the image on your screen, and some additional elements, screencasts are perfect for explaining how-to's for your applications and other specific, tactical uses. In this session we'll explore some uses for screencasting, the tools you'll need to create one, and tips and tricks for making them work.
- A definition of screencasting, with real examples
- Overview of the tools needed
- Tips and tricks to make your screencasts successful
I'm lucky enough to be leading the session with Ian Miller Post-Production supervisor for See3
Communications who is both a MAC Geek and has extensive video production/editing experience. I generally don't like to do traditional panels and we're tweaking the format a bit. We're going to use an Interactive Presentation where we will walk folks through what, what, how, tools, and tricks. We will then create a screencast, with audience participation, in the style of a cooking show. (No, I probably won't do my Julia Child imitation ...)
I've created a wikitation site (presentation as wiki) to house the presentation materials and for some basic primers/factsheets I hope to write. (All the research is done, you'll find links to my bookmarks on delicious)
#2 Video Blogging for Nonprofits
Seems like video is obsession this year - so the other session is going to be a geekout, hands-on session on video blogging for nonprofits. Jay Dedman and Ryanne Hodson (well known video bloggers and authors of books on the topic) have will be leading the session, along with Andy Carvin and Jonny Goldstein, also accomplished video bloggers. The session will be very hands-on, participants will be encouraged to their cameras, laptops, and clips. I'm hoping that video blogging can be spread to the nonprofit sectors - as a way for organizations to tell their stories and document their work. The latter is something dubbed "Rich Media" or "Social Reporting"
This is a great opportunity to learn from some key learners in the video blogging field. The planning wiki (very much a work in progress right now) is here.
#3 Flickr for Nonprofits Affinity Group Meeting
I'm the moderater for the NTEN online affinity group that focuses on Flickr for Nonprofits. (It's free and anyone can join, so if you are curious about nonprofit applications in flickr, come subscribe to the listserv and if you're going to the NTC, come join our meeting). I read in the NTEN newsletter where there was call for Affinity Group Meetings. So I sent out a trial balloon on the list and in our flickr group discussion area.
Here's the initial description and feedback so far:
The Flickr for Nonprofits Affinity group will meet in Washington, DC to share experiences, tips, and ideas about how Flickr can be used to support nonprofits and their programs. We will discuss flickr, tagging, digital photography, flickr contests, participatory media campaigns, and much more. We will also design a "Flickr Walk" to take place sometime during the conference. We will also organize a flickr collaboration during conference, for example we might take digital photos of the event around particular themes and stream and project our photo stream so everyone at NTC can view it.
Key takeaways include:
- an opportunity for us to meet face-to-face and talk about experiences/learnings using flickr
- share tips/best practices in a more indepth and meaningful way than we could online
- do or organize a flickr walk and other collaborative photo sharing project that documents the NTC conference in some creative way
Mental note to self: I've never actually organized a flickr walk - has anyone? Where do I find more information?
(Disclosure: For the past five years, I've been the (paid) organizer for the NTC Day of Service -- volunteer event for nonprofit techies to give back to local nonprofits the day before the conference. I've been involved with nonprofit techie community and early days of NTEN since about 1998-99 as volunteer. They don't pay me to say nice things, I truly believe in the nonprofit technology community!)
I would also like to mention that in addition to your sessions See3 will be having a full blown panel about video use for nonprofits. We are lucky enough to have people from Amnesty International, Oxfam and the American Jewish World Service joining us to talk about how they are using video -- and some show and tell.
Posted by: Michael Hoffman | February 09, 2007 at 01:01 PM