Future Tech Panel at Craigslist Nonprofit Bootcamp

Future Tech (10:15am, Wheeler Hall)
Presenters: Peter Deitz, David Greenberg, Ramya Raghavan, and Marnie Webb
Moderator: John Scott

When it comes to technology, the future is now. The Future Tech panelists are experts in the development and implementation of new technologies that work for the social good. Learn about both community-driven and corporate tech initiatives that help you make a difference in your own communities, and hear about the opportunities and challenges of taking on cutting edge technology tools.

Ramya

• Connecting nonprofits to youtube users like blog brothers who have thousands of viewers
• YouTube audience is a lean forward audience says.  Youtube users and environment lends to active participation
• http://bit.ly/WKeiO shows a good example about a pop up call to action and links to url for donation #cfbc09 from charitywater that was successful.  It was very specific and linked to outcome
• be as succinct and transparent with YouTube is what wins
• YouTube video volunteers channel - a video version of All for Good - get video volunteers to create content for nonprofits.  It will be launching in a few days.
• On YouTube the attention span is very short 15 hrs of footage uploaded every minute. grab attention quickly. psa don't work
• To create the call to action overlay - join the nonprofit program on YouTube and directions
  

David Greenberg

• Gave a great simple definition of open source software: access to code, users modify, anyone can redistribute, public collaborative development
• Important because: pace of change, strained resources, and the power of many
• Content management systems are lego like systems for nonprofits to publish web content - lots a software in this area for nonprofits.  Make updating easy and keep it interactive
• Described civicrm
• Book sprint for "Understanding CivicCRM" sat together for five days and wrote a 300 page book - download for free.  Pay for the print version.

Peter Deitz

• There's a move to make it easier for people to find opportunities to take action.
• Two trends:  Technical side increasing openness in API, RSS, etc.   Cultural shift afoot - technology companies, media, and bloggers using their influence to meaningful action.  Endless possibilities.  Very exciting.
• He shared some recent examples, including those from Netsquared.  You can find them here.
• Nonprofits should focus on the call action, but the social actions builds the infrastructure

Marnie Webb

• The past, present, and future of nonprofits is community
• Exploiting our ability to find one another and connect and make change - its easy
• The future how to explode what happens online and do something more intentional.  How do we set the backends of our systems take advantage?  How do we access the YouTube the celebrities to make us better story tellers?  How do take platforms and bring it altogether?  How can activist all these nascent networks to make change?
• Facebook is better at organizing people than nonprofits.  Non profits can no longer ignore social media or they risk becoming irrelevant. .

My hot tip for live blogging and live tweeting:

(1)  Type your tweets first into your blog post as bullet points
(2)  Cut and paste them into your Twitter client

Comments

[Judy Nelson, JD, MSW, Certified Professional Coach]

Fabulous contribution. Thanks so much for summarizing this!