Monthly Archive for March, 2009

Last week for N2Y4 Mobile Challenge submissions!

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n2y4 mobile tech challengeThat’s right: this is your last week to submit ideas to the N2Y4 Mobile Challenge! Submissions can be for any mobile platform, at any stage of development (whether it is an idea, a prototype or a working application).  Plus, there’s $50,000 on the table for the winners!

There are some excellent submissions coming in already, be sure to add your idea to the mix!

Why should you participate in the N2Y4 Mobile Challenge?

Now in its fourth year, NetSquared continues to encourage dialogue among people working at the intersection of technology and progressive change initiatives.  Challenges are an excellent way of spurring discussion, highlighting innovative ideas, and catalysing collaboration around new tools.

This year, N2Y4 focuses solely on the use of mobile technology in social change.  Here are a couple of facts to consider:

  1. Mobile phones are in the hands of 2.2 billion people around the world. That’s a lot of people.
  2. Mobile technology provides every day people with unprecedented computing power and an ability to share information in real-time.

The creative possibilities for communities everywhere are tremendous!

Whether you’ve participated in a NetSquared Challenge in the past or you’re new to the process, there are multiple ways you can get involved in the N2Y4 Mobile Challenge.

How to participate:

How do you submit your idea?

Four Easy Steps to Participate:

  1. Register and/or Login
  2. Click on Username
  3. Click on “Submit a Project to the Project Gallery” under My Project Idea
  4. Select “N2Y4″ from the Prize Tag menu located below Additional Cause Area Tags on the Submission Form

If you already have a Project in NetSquared’s Global Project Gallery that you would like to submit to this year’s Challenge, here are the easy steps:

  1. Visit your Project Page by clicking on your username and following the link to My Project Idea
  2. Click the “Edit” tab on your Project and select the corresponding “Prize Tag”
  3. Edit your Project information for relevancy and save
Published on March 31, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Join me at the “140 Character Mission” event

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iE Boston Marketing and TiE Boston Social Entrepreneurs present:

The 140-Character Mission: How Social Media Revolutionizes Social Entrepreneurship

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Location: MIT room 3-270 (click for map)
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
Time: Networking and dinner begins at 6:00pm
Register: to save your spot

The question is: Are the two disciplines of “Social Media” and “Social Entrepreneurship” friends on Facebook?

Absolutely, we say. The common adjective is no accident. Already Twitter, Facebook, and the rest are revolutionizing the business and marketing of social impact.  Every day, it seems, another grassroots effort testifies to these platforms and their ability to spread a message to thousands, even millions.  Followers become funders, messages become movements, and social networks beget social change.  (They can even help elect a new president.)

On Wednesday, April 8th, we are convening a panel of experts and high-impact entrepreneurs at MIT to ask, How does the speed and reach of social media alter the formulas for successful social impact?  What happens when marketing evolves from broadcast to conversation, fundraising changes from large donors to e-microdonations, or collaboration moves from sweaty basements to vast social networks?

Please register and join us as we learn and engage about the use and misuse of Twitter, Facebook, and the rest.

Panelists include  (bio’s also available):

Register now.

P.S. If you’re already on Twitter, follow the conversation and share your thoughts on social entrepreneurship with the hash tag #tiese.  Or go right now to twitter.com and tweet this:
“Check out this great panel on social media and social entrepreneurship: http://bit.ly/April8 — It’s 4/8 at MIT in Cambridge, MA. #tiese”

Published on March 23, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Social Actions’ Change The Web Challenge in Oxford

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social actions oxfordSocial Actions has created an open database of 60,000+ actions from 40+ sites — including GlobalGiving, Change.org, DonorsChoose.org, Kiva.org, NABUUR, TakingITGlobal, Idealist.org, and VolunteerMatch. Through a search engine, Open Actions XML micro-format, an open API, and third-party tools and widgets, you can find and share ways to get involved in the causes you care about.

Social Actions’ Change the Web Challenge is about building innovative tools to help people find and share opportunities to take action on the websites, blogs, and social networks that we all visit everyday. Next time inspiration strikes you to make a difference, the opportunities to take action will be but one click away.

Agenda:

  • Peter Deitz, founder of Social Actions, will present his vision for an open philanthropic web
  • Romina Oliverio will explain how you can help the Change The Web Challenge
  • Learn about the Open Actions XML micro format, and how you can use it
  • Test-drive submitted applications to the Change The Web Challenge
  • Hack away on existing or new widgets, tools, and mashups
  • Brainstorm opportunities for online campaigners

This afternoon’s event is free to attend!Please RSVP at either SocialActions or Facebook.
See you in Oxford, Peter Deitz, Romina Oliverio, Rolf Kleef, Amy Sample Ward

PS: Perfect for early arrivals to the Ecampaigning Forum, or those in Oxford, or around London after BarCampLondon

Published on March 23, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Digital For Good Campaign: Help Eddie get to NTEN Conference in San Fran

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Edward Harran is a blogger and nonprofit technologist I have connected with through NetSquared, this blog, and of course Twitter.  He and I have had terrific idea swaps and brainstorms and I can only imagine the conversations he will spark in person at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference.  Below is the blog post from him, calling for help.  He is based in Australia, a far way from San Francisco.  He received a NTEN scholarship to cover his registration cost but that’s it—he still needs to get there.  Every little bit helps…well, you can read that in his words, not mine.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. So here I am. I need your help.

I was recently awarded a scholarship to attend the NTEN (Non Profit Technology Network) Conference in San Franciscio, which is going to be held from April 26th-28th, 2009. Thanks to Convio and NTEN, the scholarship fund has generously covered the fees for 57 delegates to attend. Unfortunately, the scholarship did not include any air miles. Thus, I was left with two options: one, to let the award go; or two, put my creative brain to use and launch a campaign to raise the funds. As you can see, I chose the latter.

Who am I?

My name is Edward Harran. I am a digital and social media strategist from Brisbane, Australia. I am passionate in how digital technology and social media can be used as a force for good. Having attended ConnectingUp08 and MakingLinks08 ( two of Australia’s largest non-profit technology conferences), I want to build on what I learnt and share those ideas with others. I honestly want to make a difference in this world – this is the way I believe I can do it.

When is the NTEN Conference?

The 2009 Nonprofit Technology conference is taking place from April 26th to April 28th at the San Franciscio, Hilton. As NTEN states on their site,

The NTC is THE place to engage around the technology issues that face the nonprofit sector. Nearly 1200 people will come together from across the country and around the world to connect with our peers, learn from our heroes, and change the world.While it’s unclear what the future holds, one thing is certain: the need for our services will be greater than we’ve ever known.  Now, more than ever, nonprofits need to invest in technology to create efficiencies that increase our effectiveness.

How I need your help?

With the assistance of the scholarship, I got a place booked at NTEN09 Conference. Unfortunately, I need a flight to get there. With the help of @lexiphanic and others, I have been investigating flights and luckily for me, Qantas and VAustralia have flights from under $1000AUS. Other flights range up to $1400AUS.

I am looking for small donations – between $5 or $10 if you can – from my network of family, friends and supporters. Any excess funds I will donating to Edurelief - a Mongolian non-profit that I have been in long support of.

————————————————————————————-

This is happy me. I will be even happier with your support.

————————————————————————————-

Why?

- I will be representing Volunteering Queensland at NTEN09. Volunteering Queensland (VQ) is one of largest volunteer bodies in Queensland, Australia. I plan to use knowledge and networks from NTEN09 to help VQ with their online and technology strategy.

-I am passionate about using the digital space to make a difference in the world. Full stop.

-I am natural maven – I want to share the knowledge and ideas from NTEN09 with other people and organisations in Australian and overseas. I have a large network that could benefit from my knowledge. I am also a big supporter of Edurelief, NetSquared, SocialActions, ConnectingUp- organisations tthat are are showing how social action and technology converge.

When?

Essentially as soon as I can get it. Holly Ross (@ntenross), Director of NTEN, graciously offered to hold the place for me.The sooner I can raise the funds, the sooner I can book the flight and secure my place.

How?

1. You can donate online here through Chipin, an online donation web application linked with Paypal. (Recommended by @kanter). Please click on the widget below if you can donate.

2. Forward this link onto your friends any way you can.

3. If you are on twitter, a RT would be greatly appericated.

(Thanks to KateFoy (@dramagirl) for sparking the idea of a ‘long-tail’ fundraising campaign in my head.)

Published on March 20, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 3 Comments

AllTop: My new blogroll

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alltopAlltop, the “online magazine rack” of popular topics, has just released the option for users to create their own Alltops!  As readers of this blog, you’ve probably come across Alltop before, either from the link in the side bar or by visiting nonprofit.alltop.com.  I’m really excited about the personal pages on Alltop – so much so that I created mine and want to share it with you!

Visit my Alltop page here!

I’ve combined some of my favorite RSS feeds from the NPTech community, Social Entrepreneurship sector, and Philanthropy news.  Obviously there are many more blogs and news sources that could be included, but I didn’t want to overwhelm anyone right away.

I’d love to hear the blogs you recommend get added to the Alltop page, so it can function as the ultimate blogroll for this community.  Just leave a comment with your recommendations and I’ll add it!

Why am I using Alltop?  I think it’s a great way to poll together the most recent posts from blogs and new sources around the web in a customizeable and shareable way.  It’s an experiment and I hope you’ll join me!

Visit the Alltop page and let me know your recommendations!

Published on March 19, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Vote for the Female Social Media Guru UK Awards 2009

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Jamie Burke is hosting the Female Social Media Guru UK Awards as an opportunity to “challenge the current under-representation of females on event panels by offering a high profile platform for women.” I’m very honored to be among some rock stars on the ballot – you can check it out and vote here!

I just returned from the South By South West Interactive conference in Austin, TX, where I attended a panel that asked if Women on the Web had more opportunities than in a more traditional work environment.  My notes, unfortnately, were eaten by that same Web (in publishing them they were erased by a bad wifi connection), but the major take-aways for me were additional questions, like:

  • What are the differences (or are there any, etc.) between women and other non-privileged groups on the Web?
  • How do those differences impact opportunities and voices online?
  • How do opportunities, successes, connections and authority online translate into offline opportunities and successes?
  • What cultural shifts need to take place offline in order to provide non-privileged groups earlier access, interest, and opportunity in technology-related fields?

I’d love to hear some of your thoughts about those questions or others!

You can vote for the Female Social Media Guru UK Awards here!

Published on March 19, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Great reads from around the web on March 18th

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These are some links I wanted to share from March 18th. Find me on Delicious for more!

Published on March 18, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

SXSW: Using Social Media to Accelerate Sustainability

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Here are some live blogging notes from the SXSW session.  Obviously it needs some more context but that’ll come in later posts :)

Description:

Sustainability requires doing more with less, constantly learning how to get more out of every pound of material and watt of energy. The creation and communication of this knowledge occurs in social networks of relationships, empowered by social media. Join us for a discussion and exploration of how social media are being used to accelerate our transition to a global sustainable culture.

Presenters:

  • Emily Gertz – Change.org
  • Jon Lebkowsky – Social Web Strategies
  • John McElhenney – Clear Green Technologies
  • Rob Reed – Max Gladwell

What is sustainability? – Jon Lebkowsky

The ability to maintain a certain process or state.  We’re really talking about using no more resources than we can replenish.

What is social media? – Jon Lebkowsky

Blogs, wikis, social network platforms, forums, chats: aka user generated content, conversations, communities.  Publishing plust interactivity, participatory.  Low barrier to entry.  Emergent, peer to peer conversations and sharing of knowledge.  Many channels, both personal and professional.

How are the two related? – Jon Lebkowsky

Tech has radically altered production and transmission of knowlege and information.  Sustainability depends on knowledge; social media facilitate knowledge production, processing and distribution.  Human sustainability is a social construction and social media the havey equipment that supports that  consturction.  Examples:

  • WorldChanging: knowledge prodution and sharing
  • 350: robust advocacy
  • BrightGreenLiving wiki: crowdsourced knowledge
  • MyHerefordshire.com: communities of efficiency
  • World Data Center for Climate: shared computational cycles
  • Sustainable South Bronx: guerrilla R & D

You can mount challenges that are effective in spreading the word and making our message accessible to more people who can make their own decisions.

Who is Max Gladwell? – Rob Reed

A heroic ideal: our social and environmental problems are solvable; social entrepreneurship; information technology.  Started with mega trends of social media and green living.  The nexus of social media and green living: brands that combine the two, like good2gether, knowmore, givingpal, justmeans, causecast, kiba, ecoflip, blog action day, donorschoose, changents, wikigreen, greenhome.  Both are trying to decentralize information and resources so that they can be distributed across the world.

Green or Sustainability? – John McElhenney

Reduced operating costs, increased productivity, use less energy and water; improved health due to improved air quality; reduced environmental impact.  “Social media is just PR with new tools. One of the tools are social networks.  Within a social network, you socially network :) ”

The Social Media Formula – John McElhenney

P x P / (I – M) = T

People multiplied by platform divided by an indivudal’s ability to express themselves minus misses or clash of style that degrade the community equlas trust.

How do we connect? - John McElhenney

Communities; twitter, rss, threads; in person; by affinities; passions.

Social Media Influencers: as an individual you can join forces, share ideas, communicate.
Social Media Communities: as a community of thousands we can demand accountability, ask questions, etc.

Sometimes we forget to think small enough – Emily Gertz

Not everyone has the means, opportunity, etc. to change the energy system.  They want to know what to do at home.  There are only a number of ways we could be directing people’s efforts into local efforts and promoting clean energy at home.  Big groups think too big and small groups think too small.

Examples:

  • National Phrenology Network: asking people to report blooming data in their area
  • The Great Sunflower Project: sign up, they send you seeds and you send in data about those feeding off the flowers
  • Tweetawatt: will send out information via twitter about energy usage, on Makezine.com
  • ClimatePrediction.net: allow your computer, when not in use, to be used to help scientists run predictive tests for climate change

—–

Follow #smfs on search.twitter.com for the real conversation from this session!

Published on March 16, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

SXSW: Nonprofit ROI Poetry Slam

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Beth Kanter is moderating the Nonprofit Social Media ROI Poetry Slam.  Check out the SXSW session info here.

PRESENTERS

  • Beth Kanter – Beth’s Blog [Moderator]
  • Danielle Brigida – National Wildlife Federation
  • Wendy Harman – American Red Cross – National Headquarters
  • Carie Lewis – The Humane Society of the United States
  • David Neff – American Cancer Society [Judge]
  • Katie Paine – KDPaine & Partners [Judge]
  • Holly Ross – NTEN [Judge]

Find the conversation, links, questions and quotes on http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23roi

Published on March 14, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments

SXSW: Future of Social Networks

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Presentation by Charlene Li at SXSW.  You can see the session information here.

“Social networks will be like air.”
Yes, we’ve heard this before, but we can’t conceptualize “air.”

The people who “own” those relationships need to start working together to integrate the platforms.  ASW would argue that the platforms don’t own the relationships; the platforms do own the topic of conversation, or the point of interest—a point that should really be made explicit and especially viewed as actionable.

After all: your friends are your friends – you shouldn’t have to re-find them everywhere you go online.

3 things need to make social networks like air:

  1. Identity – who are you?
  2. Contacts – who you know?
  3. Activities – what do you do?

2 sets of rules/standards

  1. facebook/ facebook connect
  2. open stack

CL says there is not going to be a war between them. The standards are still being developed and it is still early.

Identity

  • professional v personal = two profiles
  • w/ openid you pick where to put your context and info

Contacts

  • friend management
  • pick your friends once – social networking fatigue
  • relationships are always changing
  • calendar, call, sms, facebook, twitter, address book = level of closeness of social data
  • treasure trove of data in your phone (emails, cal, etc.)
  • we have to put our trust in someone – is it google? facebook? isp? have to trust someone with your content, contacts and stream in order to get the kind of data back that you want/need
  • social algorithm will make privacy and permissions easier to manage – context makes content privacy easier, commnity based privacy
  • how do you get everyone to open up? money.

Activities

  • most social ads require explicit action
  • “fan” doesn’t mean “endorsement’
  • “network neighbor”
  • create maps of communication streams
  • personal cpm

How to Prepare for “like air”:

1. Evaluate where social makes sense

  • identify where social network data and content can/should be integrated in the experience
  • leverage existing identify and social graphs where your audience already is
  • get your privacy and permission policies and proceses aligned with an open strategy
  • find your tust agents

2. Get your backend data in order
3. Prepare to integrate social networks into your organization

  • where are customers or users “in” the organization chart (at the top?)

If social media is SO compelling, how it is SO hard for organizations to adopt it? Open networks will be the new norm, so consider how you will open your business or organization.

Published on March 14, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments