Archive for the 'blogging' Category

Share your best post in the Net2 Think Tank

Published in blogging and events. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

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

Net2 Think Tank: January’s Predictions for 2009

Published in blogging and community. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Happy New Year, everyone!  We all know what this time of year means for blogs around the world: resolutions and predictions.  Why not share those predictions with the NetSquared community?

Topic:

This month, your Net2 Think Tank topic asks, “What do you think will be the big changes, new technologies, hot applications, or successful campaigns of 2009?” If you want to read some thoughts before you get going, check out these posts as starting points:

Deadline:
Saturday, January 24th
The contributions will be posted on the NetSquared site on Monday, January 26th.

How to contribute:

  • Blog your answer to the question either on your blog or the NetSquared blog. (For directions on contributing to the NetSquared blog, click here.)
  • Tag your blog with “net2thinktank”
  • Email Amy Sample Ward the link to your post!

We are really looking forward to your answers this month!  Be sure to email Amy the link to your post so that it is included in the roundup on Monday, January 26th.

Photo by Môsieur J.

Published on January 7, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Thank you, Beth!

Published in blogging. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

I hope all of you know Beth Kanter, and if you don’t, you can follow her blog at http://beth.typepad.com

Beth is a maven for nonprofit tech and a great resource for organizations and individuals looking to ramp up social media use for their social change work.  She had the opportunity to create a top ten list for Blogs.com and included this blog.  So, a big Thank You to her!

Check out who else is on Beth’s Top Ten NPTech blog list! Beth’s blog, obviously, would be #1 so this list is the following top ten. :)

It’s a great honor and I’m excited to be listed with other friends and bloggers.

What would your top ten list be?  What are your ten most-read blogs, the ones you just can’t work without?

Published on December 2, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 1 Comment

Nonprofit Blog Exchange: Reflections on Blog Action Day

Published in blogging and community. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

As part of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, I visited the Social Butterfly blog recently – the Nonprofit Blog Exchange connects bloggers in an effort to expand the sphere of readership and exposure (to learn more, check it out).

I was already familiar with the blog, and Social Butterfly’s twitter, too.  But, I realized the blog wasn’t in my RSS reader and thus I was missing many wonderful posts!  I suggest that if you are interested in social media, marketing, and the intersection of the two, you subscribe as well.

Social Butterfly’s post about Blog Action Day, really caught my eye.  Here’s how it begins:

What is poverty?

In researching the answer to this question, I couldn’t escape the purpose behind a campaign by the Association of Public Health Schools and the Pfizer Foundation recently created called “What is public health?” This campaign works to better brand ‘public health’ to the public, while also raising awareness, education and encouraging participation in the public health conversation. Participants are asked to put red “This is public health stickers” on items that they feel represent public health. My challenge: What would this look like if the question: “What is poverty?” was asked?

I read on, and encourage you to as well, but that question stuck in my head.  If we were going to try to put a sticker on everything that labeled it as, “This is Poverty,” how would we even begin? The definition of poverty, or at least as we think of it in public service work and public policy, is so vast and multifaceted.  The number of stickers we would need is unbelievable!

Then, as if she was reading my thoughts, I saw this tweet from my friend Audrey:

spinnerin:  Frustrated by people’s tendency to talk for everyone outside developed countries as though we know exactly what they need.

It’s such a fitting point.  When I first started thinking about sticking those “This is Poverty” stickers on things, I started thinking with my home town first, then my home state, and home country.  After that, I started thinking about London, and the UK as I’m now based here and learning a great deal about the world as it is here.  But to start thinking about puting those stickers on things in developing countries was almost unfair.  I can think of many things to put those stickers on, but I don’t live there every day nor do I face or even really understand the real issues, and definitions of poverty as they exist in developing countries.  By putting a sticker on those things, the issues as we see them from elsewhere, are we even setting the stage for help and change?

How do we first get the people IN poverty, to label things with these metaphoric and real stickers of “This is Poverty” so that help can be defined and created most effectively?

Thanks, Social Butterfly for giving me a moment to relfect on my own post from Blog Action Day, and rediscover your wonderful blog!  And, thanks to the Nonprofit Blog Exchange for connecting us!

Published on October 24, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments

Net2 ThinkTank time again!

Published in blogging and community. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

It’s time again for the Net2 ThinkTank!  Here’s a question for everyone to think about, blog about, and discuss.  Thanks to Marie Deatherage for helping with it, too!

Topic:
What are the key questions nonprofit orgs should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning?

Deadline:
Saturday, October 18th

How to contribute:

  1. Blog your answer to the question either on your blog or the NetSquared blog. (For directions on contributing to the NetSquared blog, click here)
  2. Tag your blog with net2thinktank
  3. Send me the link to your post! (You can leave a comment here, on the NetSquared site, email me, etc.)

Thank so much ahead of time!  I’m really looking forward to your answers and insights.  Be sure to send me the link to your post by next Saturday so that I can be sure it is included in the roundup on Monday, October 20th.

The Net2 ThinkTank roundup will be posted on the NetSquared site on Monday, October 20th

Published on October 7, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Organizations putting blogs to good use

Published in blogging and case studies. 8 Comments Tags: , , .

Posted first on the Net Squared blog

The number of people blogging is still growing (just check Technorati for numbers), but the number of organizations starting blogs is rising, too. After enough staff members and volunteers touted the usefulness of blogs for conversation, news, and general transparency, it seems organizations are looking to give blogs a chance. Organizations of all sizes and sectors are utilizing this community building tool. Here are some examples of how far and wide blogs are being used to reach out to the community.

ARK Adventure

The ARK Adventure is a small organization working to facilitate random acts of kindness and passion in the communities of members/participants.The ARK Adventure Blog provides a space for the organization’s directors/staff to share ideas and ignite conversation about social change and community involvement.

African American Environmentalist Association

AAEA is dedicated to protecting the environment, enhancing human, animal and plant ecologies, promoting the efficient use of natural resources and increasing African American participation in the environmental movement. The AAEnironmental Blog is a great example of a successful organizational blog. It doesn’t get a high number of comments, but it does get some and is providing thoughtful, timely, and important pieces of news, information and commentary to the community. It also makes terrific use of the side bar panel to provide more information, relevant links (like to the organization’s main website), and actions for readers.

Dining for Women

Dining for Women empowers women living in extreme poverty by funding programs fostering good health, education, and economic self-sufficiency and cultivates educational dinner circles inspiring individuals to make a difference through the power of collective giving. The DFW Blog covers big questions like sustainable program funding, as well as personal and fun stories like trips and meetups. Members have a valuable contribution to make to this volunteer-driven organization by participating in the blog; you can see this by reading comments to questions posed regarding the organization itself.

PolicyLink

The EquityBlog is a project of PolicyLink to help nurture and inspire the nation’s equity movement. It does a good job of providing relevant and fresh content in an engaging way, as well as provide additional resource links for visitors. Keeping the recent comments list at the top of the page encourages visitors to participate right away.

Meyer Memorial Trust

Meyer Memorial Trust is a private foundation serving Oregon and southwest Washington providing general purpose and strategic funding for over 25 years. MMT uses a few different blogs to engage different constiuents and provide tailored pockets of information. Most notably, the MMT Main Blog, which covers organizational updates and sector-wide news, engages nonprofits and other foundations alike in an open and conversational way—just check out the responses to the blog entry discussing what the name ‘non-profit’ means to the sector.

Does your organization have a blog? Who maintains/contributes to it? How does it fit in with other communications, fundraising, or campaign work?

Published on August 25, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 8 Comments

Now Blogging for Net Squared

Published in blogging and otherblogs. 6 Comments Tags: , .

I wanted to take a quick moment to let everyone know that I’ll be contributing some posts regularly on the Net Squared community blog. I think the nptech community has something special Net Squared and am excited to say that I’m now going to be a solid part of it! I’ll be posting there twice a week, with insights, case studies, and how-tos that I come across to help you all as you continue to adopt and evaluate technology for nonprofits.

Since I will be moving to London, UK, in just a few weeks, I’m really looking forward to sharing all that I learn about the similarities and differences between the US and UK as far as technology use and innovation by nonprofit organizations goes and hope that you all will be part of those conversations!

You can look for posts from me starting this week! I hope to hear from you all as we examine together what works and what is happening in this ever-changing environment we work in.

Thanks!

Are there organizations using technology, case studies, or tools in particular that you want me to cover? Just let me know and I’ll do my best to cover it!

Published on August 18, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 6 Comments

Social Actions launches plug-in for bloggers!

Published in blogging and socialchange. 8 Comments Tags: , , , .

Social Actions helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that grassroots solutions to local and global problems can flourish.  I have blogged about them before (and am involved as a project mentor), most recently here.

Today, Social Actions launched a plug-in for Wordpress bloggers that will place ‘possibly related classroom projects’ from DonorsChoose.org at the bottom of posts, so that readers can find opportunities to take action to help classrooms around the world.  DonorsChoose.org “is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack. At this not-for-profit web site, teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals, whom we call Citizen Philanthropists, choose projects to fund.”

Social Action Labs, Lead Programmer, Eric Cooper, really did a lot to make this happen and deserves lots of props.  So does Joe Solomon and Peter Deitz from Social Actions, as well as the rest of the crew.

If you have Wordpress, why not check it out!  I will be installing it tonight and you can watch the blog here to see it live in action!  I’d love to hear your feedback about the new plug-in and ideas for other ways Social Actions Labs can be working to build actionable content you and your organization can use!  Learn more on the Social Actions website.

Published on July 31, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 8 Comments

Posterous is blogging with emails!

Published in blogging and webtools. 9 Comments Tags: , , , .

I have talked about blogging and micro-blogging before, but what about blogging without a blog?

Posterous is a new tool that let’s you do just that! All you need is email, and I’d put money on the fact that you all have email already! All you need to do is send an email to post@posterous.com and you’ve just posted to your blog!

The subject line of your email is the post title. The message body is the post content. You can even send pictures, audio or video attachments to be posted as well! “If you can use email, you can have your own website to share thoughts and media with friends, family and the world.”

If you send in multiple photos, they’ll automatically make a photo gallery for you. If you send in a link, they will make it an active link; unless it’s a link to a video or photo or some other media, when they embed the video for you so readers don’t have to click to see it. And much more!

I just did it myself. It REALLY is just as easy as it sounds. All I did was send an email. But, it was fun so I did it twice. :) You can see it here!

If you want to try it out, just send an email to post@posterous.com! You can check Posterous out on the web, too; here are the FAQs.

With tools like this that narrow the adoption requirements for blogging and social media use, do you see the culture change or organizational use changing?

Published on July 1, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 9 Comments

31-Day Comment Challenge: Wrap-up

Published in Uncategorized, blogging and community. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

Here are my thoughts from the last three days of the comment challenge.

Day 29: Write a Commenting Guide for Students
Many of the challenge participants work in the education world (‘edubloggers’ if you will) so a student-related topic is very appropriate.  The challenge focuses on the creation of an age-appropriate guide for commenters.  I don’t think I’m the target audience of this challenge, but I’d still like to get something out of it!

When I think about my blog and the comments/commenters here, a guide, per se, doesn’t seem as appropriate.  Perhaps a statement: “Be nice—everyone has a mother, and they may be one, too.”  At the end of the day, as much as I want to build community, trust, and openness on this blog through comments and conversations, I do want people to have respect for one another and remember that you may not really know who you are addressing (or offending) with a statement.

Day 30: How Can You Use What You’ve Learned about Commenting to Change Your Teaching Practices?
Again, this one doesn’t speak to me as directly as many others, but I’d like to twist it a bit to do so.  What have I learned about commenting that has changed my blogging?

I have continued to ask questions at the end of my posts, and I very much enjoy it when you all share your answers.  I think the biggest thing, though, is the questioning of my own practice of replying to comments personally in email instead of publicly on the blog.  That has changed how I reply here on this blog, and has also changed how I comment elsewhere – whether I expect a direct reply or not, etc.

Day 31: What Were Your Top 5 Lessons from the Comment Challenge?
Oh, gosh!  I don’t know that I have 5!  I’ll try:

  1. Ask questions, all the time.  Whether it is a blog or a comment, leave with another question.
  2. Answer questions.  I don’t think the point is to have THE answer, but to share your experiences.  The sharing of our ‘user stories’ with each other is where we find the most value in discussing successes and failures with nonprofit technology.
  3. Don’t be scared to leave the ‘community.’  I have really enjoyed and have done a lot more of reading outside of the normal community I find myself in.  Philanthropy, nonprofits, technology, etc. are all pretty standard but I have enjoyed reading ideas and stories from those writing blogs on education, marketing, and especially the ngo sector in the UK.
  4. Evaluate yourself.  This goes back to the comment response discussion.
  5. Brakes are okay!  Not just on bikes :) But that it is okay to tend to other callings, than blogging and commenting!

I guess that’s it!  Thanks for following along with me – I hope you got something out of it as well.

Did you participate in any of the challenges?  If you were going to evaluate your commenting strategy, how would you classify it?  What would you change about it?

Published on June 4, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 3 Comments