Beth's Blog: Nonprofits and Social Media

Join A Discussion About Social Innovation in Texas Without Leaving Your Computer!

This is the first time I've been pitched to host a live stream of a conference on my blog and ask a question of the panel remotely.   Using a live streaming application called "Live Stream,"  conference organizers of the Governor's Nonprofit Leadership Conference in Texas are hoping to draw in an online audience into the discussion about social innovation.

It will take place Wednesday December 9 at 10:30 CST as part of Business Boomer's Live Webcast and broadcast a conference session with Andrew Wolk, CEO of Rootcause, Elizabeth Darling, CEO of One Star Foundation, and Stacey Caldwell, Executive Director of Dallas Social Venture Partners.   Here's the description.

Organizations focusing on today's social innovations range from a handful experienced players (Root Cause, Ashoka, Standford Social Innovation Review) to a growing presences of regional nonprofits and/or social enterprises addressing fundamental community problems.  With a newly established federal agenda to stimulate and nurture social innovation in this country, how will Sonal Shah, head of the White House Office of Social Innovation create a national agenda sparked by efforts on the ground that can spread across the country and line up with other successful global initiatives such as the United Kingdom’s Office of the Third Sector and Canada’s growing Centers for Social Innovation?

LiveStream is one of a number of platforms that allows anyone to create their own talk show over the Internet.  All you need to do is open up an account, turn on your webcam and start live streaming.   You can also livestream with your mobile phone.  

LiveStream and other platforms like it can be used creatively at conferences to involve an online audience.  For me the interesting design challenge is how to make it an interactive and meaningful experience for those who are watching at their desktops.  I think it requires a moderator or perhaps two moderators who work together to weave together the online discussion into the real-time event.  

More and more social media is changing how people present at conferences.   As a presenter, you have more to think about beyond creating beautiful slides and practicing your verbal delivery.   Now you need to learn how to incorporate Tweeting or Livestreaming.   That's the subject of Cliff Atkinson's new book, The Backchannel, and can't wait to read.

Social Learning Isn't Just for Kids: Learning in Public at Conferences and Workshops

Photo by Justin Benttinen

This past week was a busy one for leading workshops.   I was in Washington, DC where I did a session on social media strategy for a convening of Packard Grantees.

My participation included:

• An interactive presentation on best practices for using social media for external communications
• Peer discussion on use of online tools for collaboration for bounded networks, exploring some of the concepts in Digital Habits (each participant got a copy)
• Half-Day Session: Social Media Strategy Game which included small group work for participants to come up with a strategy for both external communications and an internal learning network to share best practices.

I also lead a workshop on social media strategy for communications professionals who work with networks, nonprofits, and foundations. My reflections are here.

My reflections have mostly that has been around the subject matter of how nonprofits and foundations are thinking about and using social media.  But, I'm also interested in improving my skills as a trainer - especially facilitating social learning or learning in public.

I've heard that phrase "learning in public" a few times this week and I'm also seeing how social media accelerates this - especially at conferences and other places where we have typically gone for our professional development and opportunities for adult learning.  

What is Social Learning or Learning in Public?

Learning in private is what most of us did in school.  You wrote your essay, studied your spelling words, took tests (without looking at anyone else's answers). Learning was an individual, often solitary activity.    for many of us, that learning style carried over to our work culture where we are rewarded for our expertise and to keep private what we don't know.

Many people call me an expert in social media - and when you've been given that label there is a certain pressure about having to know everything.  It may also happen when you have the word "scholar" in your title too.   But, I think that social media is unleashing a new opportunity for social learning or learning in public for adults.  (Thanks to Jeris to sending me the link)

And that can be fun too! Certainly less exhausting than having to know everything. 

Creating an environment for learning in public means that it is okay to say “I don’t know” about an issue or problem and to ask others what they think.  When professionals acknowledge not knowing and reach out to a colleague, it not only opens us to learning, but it signals to others that they can acknowledge that there are things they don’t know - it begins to change the culture - whether that be the training room or within an organization or at a conference.   I find myself doing this on Twitter more and more.  Retweeting is boring.  I want to know what you think.

We are also learning in public when we engage in in-depth conversation whether it is offline or online, for example in the comments of a blog post or asking questions on Twitter.  Conversation is a “learning in public” tool – maybe one of the best.  Social media is a conversation engine.

Using social media and social networks successfully requires a culture shift away from learning in private to learning public or what Nancy White has called "Over the Shoulder Learning."  How do you do this?  How do create an environment where it is okay to learn in public?  This environment can be a training workshop or it can be in an organization.  The answer comes from Eugene Eric Kim in a recent presentation he did about networks, "Be the Change You Want To See" - it's about modeling.

Putting It Into Practice As a Facilitator

As social media becomes more and more present at conferences as way to capture, document and share what is happening at conferences, presenters will need to become more comfortable with public learning and integrate a social strategy.  Jeremiah Owyang has a terrific post with some advice on how to do this.  He suggests:

• Prepare More Than Ever
• Know Your Audience’s Social Technology Adoption.
• Monitor the Backchannel While Speaking
• Develop Backup Resources to Monitor
• Interact with the Audience
• Practice Two-Fisted Speaking

I've thought about this pretty deeply for the past few years - how can you make your presentation as responsive and interactive with the audience.   During the panel I organized at SXSW last year, I incorporated audience interaction without having to do the two-fisted speaking which is distracting for me.  Here's what I did:

• Created a unique #hashtag for the session and encouraged the audience to use it
• Designated back channel moderators in the room to answer questions, throw links in the discussion while it was happening.  Also, I introduced the back channel moderators to the audience at the beginning and at appropriate times ask them to verbalize what they were reading in the Twitter stream and we addressed.

For the preparation piece,  I spend more time researching the audience than anything else.  If follow their social media ant trails and screen capture examples that show up in my presentations.  I even ask them to twitter their answers or provide more insights for the audience via the back channel.  I tell the audience up front that they might be part of the presentation.

Illustration by Carl Haggerty via David Wilcox, Social Reporter

See larger illustration here

Offline/Online Interaction

Many conferences have an intentional, overall social strategy to raise the profile of the conference or document the learning.   Next week the Communications Network Conference will unleash a Gorilla Capture Team who live twitter, use FLIP cameras, digital cameras, and blogs to cover the conference.   They've set up some fabulous training materials and guidelines for the capture team.

• Overview of Launch Meeting
• Deployment Packet
• Twitter Training Notes and Audio File
• Flip Cam Training Training Video, and Audio File
• Agenda with Twitter IDs

I love the way they've made fun for the capture team to document the conference and their evaluation questionnaire.  What I wonder about is the next step of engaging people or sharing the learning with people who are not in the room?

I know as part of my social strategy for presenting,  I'm live tweeting to people who aren't in the room but could add to the conversation. 

David Wilcox shared the above diagram from Carl Haggerty that illustrates this point.

• Are you learning public?
• Is your organization engaging in social learning?
• Why or why not?

Some Thoughts on Livestreamed Interviews, Engagement, Book Winners, and Finger Puppets

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?

The Art of the Backchannel at Conferences: Tips, Reflections, and Resources

Photo by Marcopolos

I'm a few weeks away from SXSW where I'll be leading a session called "Nonprofit Social Media ROI Poetry Slam" which will incorporate a lot of audience interaction.   I've been thinking about how to best incorporate the back channel or in this case Twitter.    Two recent blogs, "How To Present While People Are Twittering" and "Trends in Leadership Conferences" are the most recent blog posts packed with advice.

For those of us who have been attending blogging and tech conferences, the backchannel is not new. What's different is that the backchannel is being used in non-technology conferences. It is being used less for remote participation and more for people in the room.  The tool of choice has changed from IRC or Meebo to Twitter and the use of hashtags.  What's also different is that more and more people are viewing the back channel as integrated with the conference networking and participant learning.

Can the backchannel evolve past "snarkiness on parade" or "complaint festival" to improve learning and networking in conference sessions?  How can the backchannel enhance our attentiveness and learning?

In 2005, at the Les Blogs conference in Paris, there was a flap about the backchannel because the conversation crossed a line. 

Raymond M. Kristiansen captured the drama on this video clip of Mena Trott's Keynote calling for more civility in blog commenting.  At this conference in 2005, the backchannel was projected on the screen behind the speaker.  Mena  got angry at the comments because they were not so civil - particularly those from Ben MetCalfe who Mena called out publically.  (Warning she says the F-word on the clip.)  See Dave Winer's comments here, or as someone on the vlog list "Fighting for civilty using rudeness."

Raymond raised some good reflective questions about backchannels that are still very relevant four years later as back channels goe more mainstream and search for best practices on how to incorporate them into our conferencing experience.

• How do they affect the relationship between those on the stage and the audience?
• What does this intermediation of dialogues mean?
• How can we use back-channels as a progressive force at conferences?
  
• How can we use them as a test of how things are going at the conference?
  
• How can we play further with the distance between those up there - on the podium and those in the audience?

I remember in 2005 the Global Voices Summit used IRC as a backchannel -- no so much for people in the room, but for remote participation.   They appointed a person in the room as the "Backchannel Advocate" and the speaker would ask them verbalize questions from the backchannel.  To make this model work, there was another IRC backchannel that streamed audio from the conference and someone did the equivalent of live tweeting.

One of the reflections to come out of 2008's SXSW Conference was for moderators of panels to use Twitter (or back channel tool) to poll the audience upfront and monitor it in real time.  Nancy White made an insightful observation, "The new tools give us new ways to transmit the cues and sense where others are, even if we do not coordinate our actions. It’s like a new set of antennae."  So, if you're moderating a panel, think of yourself as a giant insect!

As someone who has been a trainer for all these years, one of the things we're trained to do is "read the room."   You watch for body language to indicate the level of engagement and whether or not people agree or disagree and encourage them to participate.  I also watch for when the energy drops, etc.  

It also means that I can't stubbornly soldier on with a lesson plan if it is bombing.   One thing I learned many years ago, is that as an instructor you have to be in the moment, focus on your learners more than yourself, and don't be afraid to flush your lesson plan down the toilet if it isn't working.

What Twitter or other back channel does is that it leaves the guess work out it.

Olivia Mitchell 's guest post on Pistachio Consulting offers some good tips:

1. Ask a friend or colleague, or a volunteer from the audience to monitor the back channel and interrupt you if there are any questions or comments that need to be addressed. Jeffrey Veen calls this person an ombudsman for the audience.

2. If you can’t find someone to take on this role take breaks - say every 10 mins - to check Twitter. Robert Scoble calls this taking a twitter break. You can combine this with asking the audience for “out-loud” questions as well. It’s good practice to stop for questions throughout your presentation - rather than leaving questions till the end.

3. If you’re courageous and know your content backwards, display the back channel on a screen that everyone (including you) can see. This is potentially distracting for you and has the downside in that the visibility it provides can provoke silly tweets from some (eg: “Hi Mom”). But it does mean that you can react immediately to any issues. Spend some time at the beginning of your presentation explaining to your audience how you will respond to the twitter stream and audience members are more likely to use it responsibly.

While this advice is more appropriate for the classroom, Vicky Davis shares how she manages the back channel. 

I like to find two people to help: one to serve as Google Jockey (a/k/a Link dropper) and another to serve as a moderator -- posing questions to me when I take a breath and ask.

How do you incorporate the backchannel in your conference or panel presentations?

Update:  Olivia wrote a follow up post here and a post with engagement techniques.

Resource List

Early Use of Backchannels
Tara Hunt, Backchannel=Blogosphere
Marc Cantor, Spell My Name Correctly
Liz Lawley, Backchannel Modes
Liz Lawley, Confessions of a Backchannel Queen
Clay Shirky, Snarkiness on Parade
NY Times, In the Lecture Hall, A Geek Chorus
Dannah Boyd, Bridging Diverse Groups

Backchannel in Learning and Education

Vicky Davis, Backchannel in My Classroom
Vicky Davis, Backchannels and Micro Blogging Streams
Brian Kelly, Using Networked Technologies To Support Conferences
Participatory Media Literacy,  BackChannel
Nancy White, Hopping Between Notetaking and Backchannel Conversations
Nancy White, Online Facilitation Tips

Backchannel and Twitter
Olivia Mitchell, How To Present While People Are Twittering
Howard Greenstein, Project Management Helped By Microblogging
Marketing Vox, Trends in Leadership Conferences
Sacha Chua, Feel Free To Use Your Laptop or Phone - I love the backchannel

My NTC Schedule in New Orleans Next Week and My Giant Insect Goal

Photo by Markpolous

I am one week before the NTC, Day of Service, and Penguin Day and it's pretty crazy to say the least.  I wanted to get my schedule in one easy to reference place (for myself) and think about how to incorporate some new panel moderation/panel techniques into my practice.

One of the reflections to come out of this week SXSW Conference was for moderators of panels to use Twitter (or back channel tool) to poll the audience upfront and monitor it real time.  Nancy White made a great observation in the comments, "The new tools give us new ways to transmit the cues and sense where others are, even if we do not coordinate our actions. It’s like a new set of antennae."  So, if you're moderating a panel, think of yourself as a giant insect!

In some email back and forth with Nancy, she brought up the issue of agreements and expectations from the audience, moderator, and the panelists - that includes listening and sending signals.   How do we negotiate what we have the capacity to do?  I know for myself, it will be a challenge to add this new level of multi-tasking (watching a twitter stream in real time) while in the room - in addition reading the body language, traffic coping the conversation, listening to the panelists, keeping an eye on the watch, etc.

So where is the line and how do we declare what it is for each of us and negotiate (if and when) it means something to us as a group?  What are the expectations or acceptable behavior for sending signals from the audience?   When you are moderating a face-to-face discussion, part of the job is to keep in on track - on topic and on time - while allowing for interesting conversation to flow.  However, this means reining in off topic directions or disruptive group behavior.   Adding Twitter as a listening tool will really demand a new level of moderation skills.

I'm going to challenge myself to do this in a couple of sessions where we might have a lot of Twitter users and going to make some quick notes on practice.

Tuesday, March 18
Night Before Day of Service Dinner
Cheryl Hanback and I Co-Leaders
Sign up here

Wednesday, March 19
Day of Service

Breakfast at 8:00 am at the hotel
Wireless Network Installation team at Community Center of St. Bernard leaves 8:45
Strategy consults at hotel - 9-11
Wireless Network Installation team returns to hotel - noon
Training Team for Center of St. Bernard leaves hotel 12:30
Training Team works on site from 12-2
Jay Dedman Video Blogging Workshop -2-5

Netsquared Meet up 5:00 PM

Thursday, March 20
10:30-Noon
So you want to be a consultant?
-Use Twitter in beginning as part of poll of audience questions
-Use Twitter during small groups to cross pollinate
-Use Twitter at the full group report out

Social Media ROI Case Study Slam
1:30-3:00
Detailed Plan

I'm moderating the panel
-Use Twitter for audience poll
-Monitor Twitter during the 5 minute ignite style presentations and incorporate questions

3:30 PM
Need to figure out which session to tweet or micro blog

Friday, March 21

Building, Growing, Sustaining Vibrant Online Community
10:30-Noon
I'm a panelist

The Next Latest Thing
1:30-3:00 PM
I'm a panelist

3:30 PM
I'm leaning towards Jay Dedman's video blogging to get my video blogging mojo back

Saturday, March 22
Penguin Day

Marc Canter: Spell My Name Correctly!

How Marc Canter deals with the backchannel:  Just spell my name correctly!

I can relate.  My name is constantly mispelled. And here is a little context about why the Canter/Cantor/Kanter/Kantor name.

Technorati Tags: lesblogs, backchannel, net2, nptech

Intermediated Conferences and Backchannels

I'm thinking a lot about "backchannels" in a very micro way ... (e.g. chat going on while a phone discussion).  This is part of my  preparation for a 90-minute webinar I'm doing for N-TEN on making face-to-face workshop/panel sessions more interactive.   

I'm using web/phone conference software called "Ready/Talk" which (thank god) offers some interactive features, like chat and handing control of presentation to someone else's desktop.   Since the workshop is essentiallly about designing more interactive face-to-face learning environments, I don't want to model a 85 minute lecture with 100 slide powerpoint, leaving 5 minutes for q&A at end.   

I'm thinking of ways to integrate the chat with the phone discussion -- similar to what I experienced and learned about during Nancy White's Online Facilitation Workshop last fall.

But the word backchannel also refers to the chat in a conference where there are people in the room chatting as well as remote participation.  I wonder if there are learnings or ideas one can take from here?
So, this has brought me to the question of the learning design of the backchannel - if there is such a thing.

One of my favorite vloggers and screencasters is Raymond M. Kristiansen who is a self-proclaimed Norwegian media juggler.  He recently participated in the backchannel for Les Blogs.  He shows a video clip of Mena Trott's Keynote calling for more civility in blog commenting.  Apparently, the comments in the backchannel got her angry, they weren't so civil - particularly those from Ben MetCalfe who Mena called to the mike.  (Warning she says the F-word on the clip.)  See Dave Winer's comments here, or as someone on the vlog list "Fighting for civilty using rudeness."

Raymond goes on to raise some really good reflective questions about backchannel:

How do they affect the relationship between those on the stage and the audience?
What does this intermediation of dialogues mean?
How can we use back-channels as a progressive force at conferences?
How can we use them as a test of how things are going at the conference?
How can we play further with the distance between those up there - on the podium and those in the audience?

Some more things to read on backchannel
Backchannel = Blogosphere
Liz Lawley on Backchannels and here

Update: September, 2007

Coolcat Teacher wrote an excellent post reflecting on the use of backchannels in the classroom

Technorati Tags: nptech, net2, backchannel, learning Technorati Tags: lesblogs