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News for August 2008
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 27 August 2008 |
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26 August 2008 |
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25 August 2008 |
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| Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption and How You Can Respond |
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Marshall Kirkpatrick has written Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption and How You Can Respond. Although I find them a little defensive, I suspect that's the nature of such dynamics some times. I tend to believe that it's best to get underneath and behind the objections and approach technology completely from their point of view.
Nevertheless, his tips are really excellent. The objections he tackles are: 1. I suffer from information overload already. 2. So much of what's discussed online is meaningless. We have real work to do! 3. I don't have the time to contribute and moderate. 4. Our customers don't use this stuff. 5. We don't want hostile comments left about us on any forum we've legitimized. 6. Traditional media and audiences are still bigger. 7. Upper management won't support it. 8. These startups can't offer meaningful security. They may not even be around in a year. 9. There are so many tools that are similar. I can't tell where to invest my time so I don't use any of it at all. 10. That stuff's fine for sexy brands.
Posted: 8/25/08; 5:00:20 PM # |
| AdWords-Style Widget Recommends Related Ways to Take Action |
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Peter Dietz and the people he's brought together around Social Actions have released a widget that recommends related ways to take action. In other words, it scans keywords on a page and offers related actions based on those words, in the same general fashion as Google Adwords. Aggregation and re-syndication flows are one of the key patterns of successful network strategy. Social Actions got the loop going by aggregating peer based action opportunities and this widget begins the process of recontextualizing that back out on the net. Fantastic work.
Posted: 8/25/08; 4:50:07 PM # |
| The Global Justice Game: Seven Political Role Playing Scenarios |
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I don't remember coming across the Global Justice Game before, but I'm really quite intrigued. This is essentially a political role-playing framework and I've seen that sort of thing work very well. They have developed seven scenarios, with complete material for both coordinators and participants available online. These are the titles: Factory Fire in Fabrikistan, Biopiracy in Plantanoguay, Cancer Alley, Race to the Bottom, Strip-mining Banglabush, Selling Green in Fabrikistan, and Making a Better World.
Posted: 8/25/08; 4:38:18 PM # |
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20 August 2008 |
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| Nonprofit Blogging Strategies Seminar Now Available On-Demand |
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We're really starting to put together an impressive catalog of on-demand seminars. As the name suggests, these are available on your schedule, using a combination of the best and latest recordings. They are packaged with a personal consultation and so are a remarkably good deal. The latest addition to the catalog is Nonprofit Blogging Strategies, a two session workshop with the outcome being strategies and tactics that are based on the strengths and opportunities of both the medium and your organizational circumstances.
Posted: 8/20/08; 5:33:02 PM # |
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18 August 2008 |
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| Aid Agency Blogging: Seizing Opportunities, Minimising Risks |
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On July 24, 2008 Reuters AlertNet hosted a workshop in London, on the topic of blogging by nonprofit aid agencies. They wrote up the session notes in the form of a short report entitled Aid Agency Blogging: Seizing Opportunities, Minimising Risks (6 page PDF). Aside from the fact that we don't know the source of opinions and experiences (and that the publishers printer driver puts a logo on every page of this PDF), this report has a lot to offer.
The main theme can be captured by the observation that aid agency blogs don't much resemble the aspirations that gave rise to the decision to blog in the first place. In other words, there is not much of these qualities: transparency, immediacy, freedom of speech, interaction, accessibility, and giving a voice to beneficiaries. The report is filled with more solid recommendations than I should list here, but which also come down to this: Don't be boring. Do it right.
Posted: 8/18/08; 4:57:53 PM # |
| Community Power and Grassroots Democracy: The Transformation of Social Life |
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I read Community Power and Grassroots Democracy: The Transformation of Social Life (edited by Kaufman and Alfonso) several years ago, but it was just recently that I discovered it was made available for free online by the International Development Research Centre. Originally published in 1997, the book is an examination of popular participation, local democracy, and grassroots organization. In particular, its case studies look at the role of community organizations as guarantors of meaningful participation in decision-making; in economic development; in challenging traditional discrimination and oppression; in the development of a new social consciousness; in the provision of social services; in reducing sectarian political tensions; and, in some cases, in the provision of community self-defense.
Posted: 8/18/08; 4:37:52 PM # |
| 100 Advertising, Marketing, Media & PR Blogs |
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Spotlight Ideas has published a list of 100 Advertising, Marketing, Media & PR Blogs. I haven't vetted all of them, but so far I can say that most of them are relevant to civil society work and, based on past experience, many are excellent. Note that the title actually uses the phrase "top 100", but since they provide absolutely no methodology for their selection, I can assume that the title represents either habit or linkbait. Still, the list is worth a few minutes of exploration. Open a few tabs and see what you can find.
Posted: 8/18/08; 4:28:51 PM # |
| The Legal Issues with Comments |
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If you're a blogger or you have some kind of site with comments on it, you might find this useful. The Blog Herald has one of the calmest, most even-handed descriptions of the Legal Issues with Comments that I've found in some time. They cover libel/defamation and intellectual property issues from a largely U.S. perspective. Unlike most such guides, it can be read in one brief sitting and it has links to deeper resources, should you need them.
Posted: 8/18/08; 4:14:50 PM # |
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15 August 2008 |
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| Do Your Stakeholders Think You're a Spammer? |
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Because I've been thinking about a workshop I'm teaching soon on Building Your Online List, I was inspired to write an article on the topic of the email permission policy that fails, compared to the one that works. It's called Do Your Stakeholders Think You're a Spammer? I have seen many nonprofits settle on a "what we can get away with" standard for handling email permission and, especially given the trust issues facing many organizations, I think we have to do better than that.
Posted: 8/15/08; 5:00:10 PM # |
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13 August 2008 |
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| The Modern Nonprofit Web Site: Strategies, Patterns, and Tools |
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On September 24th, I'll be teaching a three part online seminar on The Modern Nonprofit Web Site: Strategies, Patterns, and Tools. I do a lively, well-integrated presentation, with Q&A sessions, handouts, and optional coaching on these three topics: (1) How to design your website around measurable communication goals, (2) The managerial and strategic issues of content management systems, and (3) A powerful model for the deployment of nonprofit weblogs and blog networks.
Posted: 8/13/08; 3:19:06 PM # |
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11 August 2008 |
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| Nonprofit America: A Force for Democracy? |
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Because a commitment to the interdependence of democracy and civil society motivates a great deal of my work, it's to be expected that I would be interested in this new report by Lester M. Salamon and Stephanie Lessans Geller: Nonprofit America: A Force for Democracy? (27 page PDF). The researchers based their findings on a survey of 872 organizations in four fields (children and family services, elderly housing and services, community and economic development, and the arts). I won't over-summarize their findings. Suffice it to say they are not dramatic, but are still hopeful.
Of all the other disasters of the last eight years (social, environmental, economic), the biggest disaster (and the one that underlies all the rest) has been the brutal upward redistribution of power. Although I have grave misgivings about the use of surveys to identify causal relationships in people's decision making, I still think this report is a critical step in mobilizing support for the democratic power of the sector, in the hopes that together we might begin to return the rule of this country to the people.
Posted: 8/11/08; 4:46:06 PM # |
| Knight News Challenge Garage |
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It's been very interesting to watch the Knight News Challenge evolve. It's a $5 million a year grantmaking program focused on supporting innovative neighborhood and community based news and information projects. They are in their second year now and in an effort to improve the quality of applications and encourage the sharing of ideas, they have opened the Knight News Challenge Garage, a web site staffed by mentors, past Challenge winners and others. I think the idea here is to work out your ideas in this environment.
I conducted a study a few years back in which I found dozens of foundation extranets that failed to elicit this sort of participation from people who are, in effect, competing with each other for money. So, I'm skeptical that this will reach the potential the Knight Foundation envisions, but I hope I'm wrong.
Posted: 8/11/08; 4:21:56 PM # |
| Real-World Social Networks vs. Facebook 'Friends' |
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Although I believe they should never be conducted without the clear consent of the participants, I am an advocate for and practitioner of what some people call "reality mining", but which as far as I'm concerned is just good behavioral research. What those who use this term are referring to, in particular, is the application of network centric data mining techniques to offline interactions. One of the many interesting results of this type of research is described in Real-World Social Networks vs. Facebook 'Friends'. From gathering data using a proximity and logging tool built into ID badges, the two results reported here are (1) that managers are rarely information hubs (but are often fairly peripheral to most information flow in organizations) and (2) that internal networks rely on strong relationships rather than the weak ones that are predominate outside of organizations and in most online social network sites.
Posted: 8/11/08; 4:08:45 PM # |
| How Social Networking Saved New Orleans |
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Although the title is a bit overstated and the scope of the article narrower than you might think, I believe there's a lot to be learned from John Fontana's exploration of How Social Networking Saved New Orleans. The intimate social connections of the city were clearly among its greatest assets. Although the character of New Orleans has been changed forever (among the results being the conversion of Louisiana into a Republican stronghold), its civil society organizations can be justifiably proud of how they leveraged relationships into assets and influence.
Posted: 8/11/08; 3:56:47 PM # |
| Nominations Open for 2008 Excellence in New Communications Awards |
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Nominations are open for the 2008 Excellence in New Communications Awards. In addition to their big awards - for visionary, innovator, and brand of the year - there are separate divisions each for nonprofits, education, government, business, media, and vendors. Their categories this year are Online Reputation, Internal Communications, Blogger Relations, External Communications & Communities, Media Creation, Collaboration, and Mobile Media. Although this is an award that is plagued by the Tyranny of the Tangible (pretty media, sexy topics, etc), the Society for New Communications Research really makes a valiant effort to encourage nominations to be based on effectiveness.
Posted: 8/11/08; 3:13:38 PM # |
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8 August 2008 |
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5 August 2008 |
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| Money on the Table Quick Guide: Now Available in Hard Copy |
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On Sept. 17, I'll be teaching a model of online seminar that's new for me, in the form of a thirty minute, ultra-focused workshop entitled Money on the Table: The Financial Opportunity of Converting your Stakeholders to Email. It's based on the unfortunate fact that even now, with online fundraising a decade old, there are still billions of dollars being spent on communicating with people who want us to talk to them online and with whom we would see greater success online.
In conjunction with that seminar, we're moving ahead with bringing our publication catalog into hard copy form, with the release of the Money on the Table Quick Guide.
Posted: 8/5/08; 3:52:47 PM # |
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4 August 2008 |
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| Help Me Compile a Reading List on Authentic Work? |
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Over at The Authentic Organization, after a long period of consideration about the focus of the book, I'm finally picking up a little momentum. I would like to ask you for some assistance in that regard. Readers of Nonprofit Online News have often been great sources of suggested reading and I'm hoping you can do the same here. Will you Help Me Compile a Reading List on Authentic Work? Just reply in the comments at that link.
Posted: 8/4/08; 3:01:17 PM # |
| A New Model for News: Studying the Deep Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption |
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For many years, I have argued in favor of communication planning methodologies that focus on people as producers, not just consumers of information. (This approach has had profound implications for every aspect of communication in civil society, whether it's fundraising or knowledge management.) Last month, the Associated Press released an ethnographic study that makes this case strongly. Entitled, A New Model for News: Studying the Deep Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption (71 page PDF), the report asks a number of questions of deep relevance to nonprofit communication: Can your stakeholders put the information you send them to their own use? What is the social currency value of the information you put out? Are you treating your communication as traditional container or as an entry point? Is your content deeply interlinked and relevant, from the reader's perspective?
Posted: 8/4/08; 1:17:54 PM # |
| Collection of 144 Online Marketing Statistics |
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Bazaar Voice has collected 144 recent Online Marketing Statistics. Of course, they are mostly commercial in nature, but most of the categories used are of great use to civil society organizations: Power of Word Of Mouth, Ratings and Reviews, Ask & Answer, Conversion Results, Average Order Value Results, Email Campaign Results, Search, and Syndication.
Posted: 8/4/08; 1:09:28 PM # |
| Cooperative Communication Skills Online Library |
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I recently rediscovered the Cooperative Communication Skills Online Library and I want to recommend the entire compendium to you, as well as a few particular titles from it. It doesn't have a terribly usable organizational scheme, but you can find direct links to most of the best resources on the main page. A few that I would recommend: Radical Questions For Critical Times, by the wonderful Sam Keen; Making Social Worlds Better: Towards a grammar of ways of working that improve situations, by W. Barnett Pearce; and Human Becoming, by David Richo.
Posted: 8/4/08; 12:52:14 PM # |
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