Monthly Archive for December, 2009

Great reads from around the web on December 25th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of December 25th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • Social Media: What I Learned This Year | Millennial Marketing – Carol Phillips has a great post recapping what she learned about social media in 2009, including: "Effective use of Social Media requires enthusiasm and diligence." Read all of the lessons Carol learned – and I'd love to hear what you learned!
  • NonProfit 2.0 UnConference and holiday discount | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – NonProfit 2.0 Unconference is coming to Washington, D.C., February 12, 2010, and promises to be "more than just a conference on the next generation web." Plus, if you register soon you can get a 20% discount! Simply use "HolidayDiscount" when you register for the Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference here: http://nonprofit20.eventbrite.com/?discount=
  • Yahoo! Will Kill MyBlogLog Next Month – "Five years to the month after it was founded, cross-blog social networking widget MyBlogLog will be closed down by Yahoo! in January, we're hearing from sources close to the project. MyBlogLog is a service that shows blog writers and readers the faces and profile information of other MyBlogLog users that visit their sites." I've used MyBlogLog on this blog as a chance for readers visiting the website to be welcomed by the faces of fellow readers, and not just me; I think, as is explained in this article from ReadWriteWeb, that the MyBlogLog service opened the door to some very interesting uses of community data and will be watching the developments on its future closely.
  • Fundraising Sources for Social Entrepreneurs – December 2009 Edition – "Each month Ashoka compiles a list of fundraising and other resources for Ashoka Fellows. These opportunities are typically open to all sorts of social entrepreneurs as well. Download the December 2009 version of this list here. (Also available in French and Spanish)."
  • Wikispaces Blog " Blog Archive " How Non-Profits Are Using Wikis – The Wikispaces Blog has some great examples of organizations using wikis in their work. "This month, we bring you some great examples of how non-profits are using wikis. Read on to see how wikis help these organizations reach out to their communities, manage volunteers, create resources, and more."
Published on December 25, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

NonProfit 2.0 UnConference and holiday discount

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nonprofit 2.0 unconferenceNonProfit 2.0 Unconference is coming to Washington, D.C., February 12, 2010, and promises to be “more than just a conference on the next generation web.”  Plus, if you register soon you can get a 20% discount! Simply use “HolidayDiscount” when you register for the Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference here.

About Nonprofit 2.0

It’s a next generation conference in format. Ever attend a conference, for a keynote, and find the rest of the content to be wanting? NonProfit 2.0 delivers the best of both worlds, offering great keynote sessions led by Amanda Rose, Founder of Twestival,  but in an unconference way with no PowerPoint, 15 minute leads, and open questions and dialogue for fantastic conversations. Then from midmorning forward, NonProfit 2.0 shifts into a full-on Unconference.

Who is invited?
Are you working in the nonprofit community? Are you a an online advocacy guru, a fundraiser, or grassroots organizer? Perhaps you manage a communications team and want to dive into social media but you’re a little old school. This event is for you! We invite nonprofit staff and do-gooder consultants from a diverse array of fields to come join us at NonProfit 2.0. This includes people who work in:

  • Online Advocacy and Outreach
  • Grassroots Organizing
  • Social Media
  • Fundraising
  • Communications
  • Nonprofit Technology
  • Nonprofit Consulting
  • Public Affairs
  • Programming
  • and more.

What is an Unconference?

Following the keynote sessions – at 10:30 AM we start with a blank wall and, in less than an hour, with a facilitator guiding the process attendees create a full day, multi-track conference agenda that is relevant and inspiring to everyone in the room. All are welcome to put forward presentations or propose conversations that you would like to have with others and:

  • questions you want answered
  • information you want to share/present
  • a project you would like help on

As people register we will be posting proposed topics on our wiki.

What happens During Sessions?*
As sessions happen people volunteer to document the outcomes on a wiki (The notes of what was said is even better). Photos of any whiteboards are also important along with any slides that were presented.

End of the Day
At the end of the day everyone gathers in one place to share highlights of the day.

Register for Nonprofit 2.0 today!

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

Great reads from around the web on December 15th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of December 15th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • FT.com / Weekend columnists / Tim Harford – Perhaps microfinance isn’t such a big deal after all – "Last December, I showed some unwitting prescience by worrying about a backlash against microfinance, the practice of providing small loans – or perhaps savings products or insurance – to poor people. I fretted that there was little compelling evidence that it worked. A year later, the evidence is arriving and the backlash has begun. The Boston Globe published an article in September, subtitled, “Billions of dollars and a Nobel Prize later, it looks like ‘microlending’ doesn’t actually do much to fight poverty.” " – I'm interested to hear what you all think about this issue, especially now during the 'giving season.'
  • Open Source Is Dead! Long Live Open Source! | NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network – "That's right, I said it. Promise to read the rest of this before you send me hate mail, though. What I mean is that open source, as we knew it, is dead. For the last decade, what we've been talking about when we say "open source" is "open code" — a set of zeroes and ones that we can configure to our heart's desire."
  • Net2 Think Tank Round-Up: Best of 2009 | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – Check out the diverse submissions to the December Net2 Think Tank that simply asked for the best blog posts of 2009! I'm sure there are some resources, conversations and pointers in here that are new to everyone.
  • What Matters Now eBook – Get the ebook now for free! "We want to shake things up. More than seventy extraordinary authors and thinkers contributed to this ebook. It's designed to make you sit up and think, to change your new year's resolutions, to foster some difficult conversations with your team."
  • Orchestras and Social Media Survey: Key Findings and Full Report | Dutch Perspective by Marc van Bree – "In short, the survey found that social media activities, familiarity and usage seem to be widespread among orchestras. Managers find social media important and organizations are generally enthusiastic. However, the efforts are far from organized and strategic. It seems many orchestras are dipping their feet in the social media pool, but do not have the policies, budgets, and metrics in place to effectively use the tools at their disposal, even if they do recognize the need for checks and balances."
Published on December 15, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 15 Comments

NetSquared White Paper: Building Community To Foster Social Innovation

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At NetSquared (where I am happy to serve as the Global Community Development Manager) we are proud, honored, and in awe every day of the very special global community made up of local groups and their networks, the ties between local groups around the world, and the project teams from all over the globe focused on innovations that help us make the world a better place. Reflecting on the Community and the work being done in every corner of the world, we’ve tried to articulate some of the aspects that make the NetSquared Community so unique and also so powerful.

This new white paper captures just a few of the stories and the qualities that make up the special place where we all come together. Whether it’s small communities coming together offline to train and share knowledge about using technology or it’s innovation projects competing in the same contest working together instead – we hope you’ll find this short paper compelling and share it with your networks. We hope you’ll add your story to the mix, too!

You can download the paper directly here.

Net Squared White Paper Nov 2009

View more documents from Marnie Webb.
Published on December 11, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Share your best post in the Net2 Think Tank

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It’s already December and we are fast approaching 2010.  As a way to hold on a bit longer to 2009, this Net2 Think Tank asks for your best blog post from the year.  We know you wrote about some really interesting things, shared great ideas and even captured conversations and presentations on your blog or website this year.  And we don’t want it to get tucked away under what’s to come in 2010, at least not yet!

Share your best blog post from 2009 one more time!

Topic:

What was your favorite, most read, most tweeted, or most commented on blog post from this year?  This is your chance to bring it back into the spotlight!

It doesn’t matter what the topic was or how long or short it is, we just want to wrangled together the best of the best for the last Net2 Think Tank of the year.

Deadline: Saturday, December 12th

How to contribute:

Be sure to get your submission in by emailing Amy the link to your post by Saturday, December 12th.

The roundup of contributions will be posted on the NetSquared blog on Monday, December 14th.

About Net2 Think Tank:

Net2 Think Tank is a monthly blogging event open to anyone and is a great way to participate in an exchange of ideas.  We post a question or topic to the NetSquared community and participants submit responses either on their own blogs or on the NetSquared Community Blog.  Tag your post with “net2thinktank” and email a link to us to be included. At the end of the month, the entries get pulled together in the Net2 Think Tank Round-Up.

Published on December 10, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Great reads from around the web on December 10th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of December 10th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • URGENT: Facebook Pages are changing | facebook | social-advice- Advice for charities – More information about changes coming to Facebook – this time it's more changes in the way Fan Pages function. A great read if you have a fan page for your organization as these changes are said to go into effect in early 2010.
  • Debating the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference – "Over 1,000 young people from 100 different countries will gather online to debate climate change. This is the largest single ongoing panel of discussions outside of the conference itself and the range of young people involved gives it an unmatched reach. This unique project will allow young people from vastly different countries to get involved in probably the single greatest challenge the world faces. Israelis will get together with Iranians, Americans with Afghanis, Sudanese with Singaporeans and they'll discuss what to do about climate change."
  • Click For a Cause | Conduit – Conduit's Gives 2010 project offers $3.6 Million for 100 Nonprofit Organizations! "Since 2005, hundreds of thousands of web publishers have used the free Conduit Platform to increase engagement, grow web traffic, and drive revenue. We are now putting that experience to work with Click for a Cause to help struggling non-profits to engage and energize their communities in order to increase participation and ignite fundraising efforts during this difficult economic time."
  • Social Media Today | If the Army Can Put Its Doctrine Up On a Wiki, You've Got No Excuse – "A few weeks ago I had the privilege of watching an astounding event – a room full of Soldiers typing Army doctrine onto a wiki so that Soldiers in the field could make changes as they were discovering new and better tactics in the midst of fighting a war." This is a great case study for anyone looking for support in those hard buy-in conversations…
  • George Weiner: Will You Marry Me? What Not-For-Profits get Wrong on the Web – "The "Will you marry me?" (WYMM) syndrome turns every online messaging opportunity into a nail begging to be hit with the donation hammer. I can point to dozens of orgs that create sites that are essentially fundraising brochures with donation buttons and paragraphs about the history of the organization. There are also not-for-profits that take the WYMM mistake beyond web sites and into their social media strategies, advertising opportunities, newsletters and partnerships."
  • Women, Social Media and Influence (cont’d) « A. Fine Blog – If you haven't seen the two recent posts from Allison Fine about women and social media, you should join in the conversation! She's posed some very interesting questions and shared some of her ideas – but most importantly there are lots of comments that are just as critical, thought-provoking and interesting! Do join in!
Published on December 10, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

December #4Change Chat: Education

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This Thursday is the December #4Change Chat!

Education and it’s discontents are being changed by new ways of learning – much of it by new ways of creating, sharing and validating information and knowledge online. Tools and methods are being customized, adapted and remixed for various educational contexts. Classrooms are no longer bound by geography. But there are still barriers, still challenges – some of which we may not be able to predict. How can we attend to these?

This chat will cover the changing role(s) of teachers, institutions and learners – and how they are affected and transformed by new/social media.

Details

  • Date: December, 10th 2009
  • When: 2 – 4 pm US Pacific Time, 5 – 7 pm US Eastern Time, 10pm – 12am London, UK (Late!)
  • Where: Twitter (search for #4Change)
  • Topic: Education: How is social/new media affecting the future of education?

Check out some of the questions we’ll be discussing and resources about the topic here.

Join the Conversation!
If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a twitter account (it’s free).

  • To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use http://search.twitter.com or another application to search on Twitter for #4Change
  • Jump in to the conversation by adding #4Change to your Twitter message
  • Feeling brave? Check out TweetChat – it’s a great application that integrates with your Twitter account and makes chats more fun! You can turn it off after the chat.
Published on December 9, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities

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Today, I’m presenting at the NCVO Foresight seminar: Changing ICT – what does it mean for your charity? My session focuses on the pretty obtuse topic of ‘the future of online revenue generation for charities.’  I’m really looking forward to the conversations and examples that emerge after the main presentation and think there will be enough diversity in the participants (at least looking at the delegate list…) to get some debate and forecasting flowing.

Here are my slides:

The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities

If you want to dive into the speaker notes, simply click through to the Slideshare presentation here and use the “Notes on Slide” tab beneath the slides.

Some of the research data and other information can be found in detail here:

Last week I participated in NCVO’s ‘Ask the Expert’ leading up to the seminar and you can check out the Q/A here.

Published on December 8, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Great reads from around the web on December 8th

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I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of December 8th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

  • 2009 Year-End Fundraising Guide – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – “Is your nonprofit sending out 8-10 online fundraising appeals this holiday season? According to Mark Rovner and Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies who led the recent webinar Procrastinator’s Guide to Year-End Fundraising with Kathryn Powers of Conservation International and moderated by Eric Rardin of Care2 and Rebecca Higman of Network of Good, this tactic has been helping organizations raise a lot of money. Nonprofits can expect 60% of their donations to come in between Christmas and New Year’s.”
  • Public ‘want to know how money is spent’ – Third Sector – “More than half of the general public would donate more money to charity if they knew exactly how it was spent, a new survey of 2,000 people indicates. The research was carried out for donation website See the Difference, which will be launched next year. The data shows that 51 per cent of people would give more if they knew how their money was spent and 40 per cent would do so if they could actually see the difference their money was making.”
  • Facebook Will Be Google-able (If Your Profile is Set to Public) – “At Google’s event today announcing a number of fantastic new features, including real-time search, a new partnership was announced: real-time search of public Facebook status updates. A Google/Twitter partnership was announced months ago but we assumed that Facebook wouldn’t be allowing Google to index many details of its site because the two are fast becoming big rivals. Thus today’s announcement is a very big surprise.”
  • Does Directgov Deliver? – “Directgov (www.direct.gov.uk) is the Government’s official website for the general public. This discussion paper analyses how well Directgov delivers on its promise to consumers to ‘provide information and online services for the public all in one place’. The analysis is approached from a user’s perspective, and highlights the types of problems consumers frequently encounter with the service. It is intended to promote a debate, and at the end of each chapter, suggestions are made for rethinking key areas so that they can deliver more effective online public services. We want to hear your thoughts and ideas on this discussion paper so please add your comments in the ‘Your feedback’ section that appears on each page. The paper will be open to comment til the end of January 2010.”
  • 20 Questions To Start a Social Media Discussion | Brand Elevation Through Social Media and Social Business | Altitude Branding – “Let’s make something clear: you can be the person that starts asking the questions and initiating the conversations that move social media forward. You. Sitting right there. Yes, you. I don’t care if you’re the marketing assistant, the PR coordinator, the customer service manager, the HR director, or the mailroom clerk. What it takes is the intent to be part of the progress, the bravery to start an open conversation, the maturity and patience to not make it personal, and the investment in the outcomes to take it a step further.”
Published on December 8, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

NCVO Ask the Expert: They asked me!

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I’m looking forward to being a speaker this Tuesday (8 December) at the Seminar: Changing ICT – What does it mean for your organisation? put on by the NCVO.  In preparation for my involvement at the seminar I’m participating in the NCVO’s “Ask the Expert” – an opportunity for NCVO members to pose questions and get answers prior to the main event.  I don’t consider myself to be an expert and don’t necessarily think there could be “experts” in a field that changes every day!  But I do love to share my ideas and experience with others and hope this is an opportunity to start many new conversations both with readers here and participants at the seminar.  Here goes!

Some people are beginning to use twitter for adverts…and doing ‘paid tweets’ Is this going against the whole ethos of SM and especially Twitter, when authenticity is the key?” -Claire

I’ll be posting my slides and speaking notes on Tuesday for my session on the topic of “the future of online revenue generation for charities.”  More to come on this question then!  For more:

“I work in a small organisation and have heard a lot about web 2.0 and social media but have not thought it through in relation to my organisation. What are the key things we should think about if we are going to use social media?” -Jenny

To start with, remember that social media isn’t one of your projects or mission areas.  Social media is a tool for you to use to help you achieve your mission.  Including various social media tools in the way you do your work (whether it’s communications, fundraising, outreach, volunteer recruitment or service delivery) comes from strategically identifying the right tools for the right things.  Key questions to ask include: who is your audience? where are they online already and how do they want to interact with you online (is it in the same spaces or different ones, is it conversations or promotion, etc.)?  One you know who you are interacting with, why you want to interact with them, and why they would want to interact with you, choosing the appropriate platforms or tools to do it is much easier.  For more:

“How do you convince technophobes and people who are resistant (or a bit afraid) of the value of social media tools?” -Ellie

I have looked resistance in the face, many times.  When it happens, I always take a deep breath and remember that the resistance isn’t particular to me or to social media.  The resistance for your organization, staff, leadership or board is probably the same that would come if you presented opportunity for any kind of change.  Change is, far too often, scary.  The best thing to do, then, is to show why it isn’t scary but necessary!  If you’ve set up any social media experiments of your own, either representing yourself or the organization, measure your work and the success to share back (how has using those tools increased volunteers, grown your email list, saved you time on promotion, etc.).  If you don’t have any examples to use of your own, look at what others are doing in social media that are in your same sector, geographic location or interest area and use their examples (many organization are public about the work they do in social media, check their blog and see if they share their own case studies).  For more:

“Can you give an example of how a voluntary organization has used Social media effectively to engage with their supporters to generate income for their campaign/cause?” -Claire

There are many different examples out there, ranging from small organization fundraising locally to organizations leveraging the global community for change.  Twestival and Tweetsgiving are relevant and recent with many different people coming together to make them happen.  The difference with using social media for fundraising is that your organization may not even be involved anymore, the way it was offline.  I could create a fundraising page or campaign for your organization, maybe tie it into my running a marathon or my birthday, and would never need to ask your permission, get your information, or even handle the funds!  Social media enables individuals to become your fundraising department, as well as your communications department, etc.  The best tip I can give in this regard is to make sure you put enough information out that people can support you the way they want (don’t get mad that people have the wrong mission statement about your organization, just send them the correct one and say “thanks!” for supporting us; and make sure your real one is prominent to begin with, like on your profiles in social media platforms and so on).  For more:

—–

    About ‘Ask the Expert’

    “Ask the expert” is a new benefit for NCVO Members. They can ask questions to experts in the voluntary sector and to NCVO advisors.

    About NCVO

    NCVO is a highly effective lobbying organisation and represents the views of its members, and the wider voluntary sector to government, the European Union and other bodies. We are also at the leading edge of research into, and analysis of, the voluntary sector.  We campaign on generic issues affecting the voluntary sector, such as the role of the voluntary organisations in public service delivery and the future of local government. Learn more about the NCVO here.

    Published on December 6, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments