Yesterday, I had an opportunity to be interviewed as part of a series of online interviews with nonprofit social media gurus about how to use social media. The month long event was hosted by the Case Foundation and called "Gear Up for Giving." The other gurus included respected colleagues and friends Holly Ross, Marnie Webb, Allison Fine, Katya Andresen, and Geoff Livingston. (Sarah Koch from Causes will be the last session on Thursday)
I'd like to dissect the format and share a bit of the content. I think this format could be easily be used by many nonprofits, even those who share policy research. There were some terrific questions asked, and while I took a stab at the answers, hoping sharing the questions might inspire a few guest blog posts.
Format
The sessions used an hour long talk show format with Case Foundation's Kari Dunn Saratovsky as the host. The tool was a live streaming platform called Ustream.tv that lets anyone with an inexpensive web camera and internet connection to broadcast to the world. Ustream provides a live streaming video window, an archive of the video, the ability for the audience to log into the chat room and ask questions and a social stream.
Live streamed talk shows have been used quite artfully by social media experts over the years. Chris Pirillo comes to mind. I remember my colleague, Jonny Goldstein, launched his show in the fall of 2007 and gave a terrific talk about live streaming technology and web talk shows at Podcamp Boston in 2007.
Engaging the audience is a very important to the success of this genre. This requires giving your audience plenty of opportunities to ask questions prior to and during the event. For this series, there was a guest post on the blog and a request for people to ask questions via Twitter, Facebook, or email.
Kari came to my house a half hour before the interview went live. She booted up her laptop, plugged into my Internet connection, and set up her Webcam. She has a list of questions that had already come in via email and started with those questions. During the hour, she asked questions, I answered. A simple conversation, except that we a couple of hundred of other people were following along in the chat room, Twitter, and Facebook. As new questions came in through the Ustream chatroom, Kari would select them as follow up questions.
While Kari was sitting next to me in my home office, her colleagues Kristin Ivie and Sokunthea Sa Chhabra were in the chat room engaging with the audience, watching the "social stream" (comments from Twitter and the chat) and forwarding questions to Kari to ask live via AIM. After the interview an archived copy of the video was uploaded into Youtube and an after the interview blog post.
Ustream also has a feature that lets you put a marker in the video and tweet that section of the interview. (You'll see those below and the Case Foundation Twitter account is tweeting these tidbits today)
I was a little nervous that an hour-long talking head interview might be boring. I brought a couple of props to make it fun and more interactive, including my finger puppets. I used them to answer some of the questions and to make a few points.
And the Winners Are
The Case Foundation was also raffling off a Flip Camera and $250 donation to a nonprofit. I decided to give away copies of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's Trust Agents, Shel Israel's Twitterville, and Nancy Smith, John Smith, and Etienne Wenger's Digital Habitats. We asked folks to leave a comment on the blog post sharing why they wanted the book. (I'm going to ask for follow up case studies ....)
The winners:
Ashley Messick from the Blood Centers
Vikki Baptiste from Mid Central Communication Action
Barbara Christensen from Conservation Northwest
Jessica Fillinger from Bridge New York
Some Highlights from the Interview
The first question that Kari was terrific. What 3-5 questions should organization's be asking as they venture into social media? I actually got a chance to respond in the comments of the blog right before the interview:
- Is your organization ready to be a learning organization? That is value "mistakes" as opportunities to learn and improve what you're doing?
- Does your leadership understand the potential value and is willing to invest in low risk experimentation?
- Can you articulate a clear set of "starter goals" that might incorporate learning?
- Can you shape and identify a beginner starter project (s) that doesn't take too much time?
- Are you ready to engage and build relationships with your stakeholders?
Here's a list of the questions that were asked and link to the spot in the video where I answer it. If you have follow up questions or want to share your answers to these questions. Leave me a comment! Better yet, if you'd like to write a guest post answering the question, leave a comment too.
- How do you balance cross generational voices within your organization, and who should own the soc media?
- What should orgs ask themselves before diving into soc media?
- We dove into social media without listening, how do we regroup?
- Does reverse mentoring actually work?
- Should we invite our entire mailing list to follow us on Twitter?
- How do we tie all our varying soc media outlets together?
- If people aren’t participating in the discussion on your org, are you not reaching your audience?
- Should nonprofits ask facebook users to join causes, join fan pages or both?
- Where can I find demographic data on different soc media venues?
- Why are nonprofits always playing catch up with soc media?
- Should we track our Twitter followers and Facebook friends to gather info for fundraising?
- Should soc media always drive people back to your website?
- What applications should you use for tracking links?
- How do we measure the effectiveness of our soc media efforts?
- How important is it for nonprofits to monitor their brand?
- How important is it to have policies and guidelines within your org for soc media?
- How should I manage the expectations of my company execs when it comes to soc media
- What are some suggestions for online fundraising strategies?
- How do you balance the time needed for approval with the need to answer your community in real time
- What is the future for social media in the nonprofit world?
Hi Beth
I read all your posts and this one has got to be one of the most informative in covering general concerns of organisations about social media.
I've worked for over 25 years with non profits to develop learning and performance cultures.
At the core I believe that service users deserve the best quality services ...and that requires a confident and competent workforce.
The small to medium non profits I know have very limited budgets for L&P [ and even less now in Ireland as they struggle to have funds for wage].
They also [in the main] have a kind of avoidance approach to anything to do with online learning and social media - their time tends to be focused on providing services.
I also realised that they can't afford to buy learning management systems and find them quite complex and to be blunt ...ugly.
So, last year I decided to see if I could design and build an online learning space that was ... beautiful+ practical+affordable.
I wanted to build it on an open source lms or cms platform and embed it with a range of social media tools that would help the workforce to store and share and exchange knowledge and information ...that usually gets lost or is only shared informally.
I have zero experience as a developer but I do have a strong understanding of nonprofit and community development process ... combined with a love of design and the power of social media to connect + challenge + communicate.
I approached a long term client of mine who work with the most marginalised homeless people in Ireland [Depaul Ireland - http://depaultrust.ie]] and asked their CEO if they would be my test organisation for a yet to be built idea!
Kerry [who is a self admitted IT avoider] said Yes.They are at the cutting edge of service delivery so they are very open to interesting blue sky ideas that would help their workers and service users.
They are truly amazing ... and I also had a deep and positive relationship with them.
I called the idea SKIL2 [Spaces for Knowledge + Innovation + Learning + Leadership] and developed a process that has 3 core elements -
P2 - Profitable Partnerships with non profits, profits and third level institutions
CCI - Creative Inward Investment that involves Building Up the internal staff as learning facilitators;Buying In required hardware & expertise;and Get it Free through donations of time and equipment
PC - Project Management that was informed by a value driven development process and principles of adult learning.
After a number of presentations to senior staff and managers I formed the SKIL2 Depaul Team who meet with me every 6 weeks for 3 hours.
They are a small team of 6 with senior management on it.They are a critical part in the design and buy in process within Depaul.
I have them [all for the first time] working with me within the SKIL2 Ning site [http://skil222.ning.com] so they can 'live and learn' how all this social media stuff works.
During our meetings [in a wified room]I take them online and show them wikis and open courseware sites and how other organisations are using Facebook.
I took them to your social media toolkit site ...they loved it.I also gave their fundraising team the article you wrote showing the Airforce social media policy diagram.
As we explore my SKIL2 site design [which is totally intuitive and they love it] they ask and explore questions of policy and practice and how SKIL2 can be used and embedded.
They are learning and in the process becoming SKIL 2 champions.
I'm documenting this whole process and it will form part of the SKIl2 learning package.
After a year ...and the excellent input of the SKIL2 Depaul Team ...I feel I can now go to a third level institution and get some masters students to build a prototype. I'm doing this for free at the moment and have no funding.
I'm in conversation with a third level institution now and hope to begin actual work on the prototype before the end of the year.
I also have some great leads on funding through the National Digital Research Centre here in Ireland.
SKIL2 is being developed to meet key learning and performance needs that I have seen in all the non profits i work with ...it's really about the user and learner.
SKIL2 is just a tool to meet those deep and urgent needs.
I wrote this long note because I want to let you know Beth that your blog is helping me and the team develop many aspects of SKIl2 ... you've been a SKIL2 mentor without your knowing!
I also wrote it for your readers because I want them to see that it's possible to meet deep learning needs using new media ... with persistence and belief and the support of great people.
I tell people that SKIL2 will be the Citroen 2cv of learning management systems tools and not a porsche.
My learning curve has been vertical.
I'm still excited by the potential of SKIL2 to create spaces for workers to have conversations about good practice ... and support each other in the challenging work they do every day.
I'll let you know how it all progresses Beth.
Liz
Posted by: Liz Lennon | October 02, 2009 at 02:35 AM
It's funny how you say "I was a little nervous that an hour-long talking head interview might be boring" You are NEVER boring Beth Kanter! I always walk away learning something new from you.
Thanks again for the copy of the book. You can count on me to follow up with you!!!
Posted by: Jessica F | October 02, 2009 at 06:21 AM
This is very helpful. I think that the tools/technique described have tremendous potential application in education, too--think how we could connect across institutions, bring in guest experts, engage the community in higher ed...I'm bookmarking this for my ongoing 'break down walls in higher ed' work. As far as the topics, I'd like to see more on that "we started without listening, how do we regroup?" I see, even with my students, the challenges in incorporating social media b/c of the bar that is set in terms of engagement. I feel guilty, for example, when I can't monitor conversations in response to my tweets as well as I would like b/c things with my kids get crazy or something in my 'real' job (the stuff the university requires) interferes--it makes me feel like I'm inadvertently broadcasting, just because I can't be as conscientious about the listening as I'd like. And I often wonder how to 'make up' with my contacts at those points!
Posted by: Melinda Lewis | October 06, 2009 at 11:10 AM