Archive for the 'socialbysocial' Category

Chain Reaction 2009: the Social by Social game

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chain reaction conference logoChain Reaction is coming back to London, and the world, this November.  Last year, innovators and changemakers gathered for a two-day event in London to learn, share, and collaborate to make a better world.  The conversations, presentations and workshops were shared online in real-time thanks to a myriad technology set (including Twitter, blogs, video, etc.).  It’s time again to meet in London and invite the whole world in to the conversations.

Learn more and connect with Chain Reaction!

We succeed when we work together… Chain Reaction is a community of people, passionate about social change, who are saying ‘we can make a difference’.

Chain Reaction is a unique and challenging project based on a very simple idea – that we all have the power of our own actions, but that none of us on our own can change the world, not governments, not businesses, not charities. We succeed when we work together The Chain Reaction Networks helps individuals and organisations to connect together. We provide spaces – at ‘real life events’ and on line – in which people can collaborate with others across the boundaries that divide us and commit their energy to new ideas and new ways of working that will change the world.

Social by Social at Chain Reaction

David Wilcox and I will be leading a round of the Social by Social game!

Drawing on the learnings included in Social by Social: a practical guide to using new technology for social impact, the Social by Social Game walks participants through the strategic steps of creating a social media program for your community, whether you’re part of an organization, a geographic community, a campaign, or anything else.  The game is a fun way to collaborate with others and learn more about what’s needed to create a project that leverages social media.  We promise: it’s fun!

NFPTweetUp after Chain Reaction

The next NFPTweetUp will take place in the evening after the main Chain Reaction event.  This is a great way to pull in new people to the tweetup experience and a super opportunity to keep conversations going even longer from the event.

A meet up of social media users and those interested in the potential of social media for themselves or their organisations.  This event brings together organisations for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and networking – it will be part learning, part sharing, part social, collaborative, casual and very friendly. Note:  You need to reserve a ticket for this evening session as spaces are limited – tickets are free of charge. (Read more about NFP Tweetup here)

Connect. Collaborate. Commit.

Chain Reaction is taking place November 12th, 2009, at Canary Warf, London.  To find out more, use these links:

You can also follow Chain Reaction on Twitter: use the hashtag #cr09 (you can also follow activity @chainreaction or @cr_events).

Published on October 28, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments

Social by Social Book Giveaway: Winner

Published in socialbysocial. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last week, I announced that I was going to give away a free hard copy of the Social by Social book.  To be in the drawing, interested readers just needed to leave a comment.  I put all the names in a bowl and drew one out!

The winner is: Kim!

Even if you didn’t win, you can still read the book for free:

Kim – So excited to get a book in your hands.  Hope that you will come back and give us some feedback, share ideas, and pose questions here that we can all discuss!

Published on October 28, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Social by Social: Book Giveaway!

Published in socialbysocial. 36 Comments Tags: , , .

socialbysocial bookI just got my first copy of the Social by Social book I co-authored earlier this year with David Wilcox, Andy Gibson, and Nigel Courtney and Clive Holtham from Cass Business School.  That’s the book next to the SocialBySocial.com website where you can read the book for free or download the free PDF.  And I’m going to give it away!

About Social by Social:

“Social by Social is a practical guide to using new technologies to create social impact. It makes accessible the tools you need to engage a community, offer services, scale up activities and sustain projects. Whoever you are, it shows you how to take technology and turn it into real world benefits.

We want to help people in the public and third sectors do more good, by showing them the power of these technologies and how to access them. In the process, we hope we can also educate funders and policy workers about the huge shift of mindset and expectations needed to commission these projects successfully, to give the innovators more space to work.”

What people have already said about Social by Social:

“If you’re interested in using social media in your organization, and you should be, Social by Social is the real deal.”
- Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist

“Social by Social is a timely and invaluable contribution to the literature and contains some fundamentally important emergent lessons for anyone considering the use of social media to develop their ideas.”
- Tessy Britton, Social Spaces

“People who do the sort of stuff I do – supporting community activists in the use of social media – should get a copy and read around the subject a bit more.”
- Mark Walker, Sussex Community Internet Project

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

I’m going to give away this copy of the book and am pretty excited to do it! But, didn’t know how to choose from all the great readers and commenters here.  So, there’s got to be a catch. But I want the catch to be beneficial to all of us to further surface great examples, share knowledge, and surface organizations you may want to learn more about.

Details: The Social by Social handbook is all about great examples of how organizations and groups are leveraging social tools to wider their impact, better connect with their supporters, or more effectively provide services.  So, to be in the running for the giveaway, simply leave a comment here with your favorite example of an organization or social impact group using social technologies in their work. That’s it!  I’ll put all the names of commenters in a hat and just draw the lucky winner out.

Leave your comment by Monday the 26th (you have one week)!

(Full transparency: none of the co-authors get any money from book sales.  You can read the book for free online or download the PDF of the book for free as well at socialbysocial.com.)

Published on October 18, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 36 Comments

Social by Social: Handbook launched!

Published in resources and socialbysocial. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

socialbysociallogoI am relishing in the feeling of hard work completed and the excitement for all the work ahead.  What about? Social by Social: a practical guide to using new technologies to deliver social impact – the handbook I co-authored about using social media and communications technology to change the world!

NESTA commissioned the work and the Social by Social team was comprised of Andy Gibson, Nigel Courtney, David Wilcox and Professor Clive Holtham and myself.

Why Social by Social?

There have been so many developments in communication technologies over the past few years, affecting so many aspects of our lives and working patterns, that giving shape and meaning to the chaos has become nearly impossible.

‘Social by Social’ is a term we’ve invented to make sense of what we’re talking about.

The word ‘social’ is often used to imply all the various work that goes on in the public and third sector, and by individuals, to improve the world around us, care for each other, create value for communities and tackle the problems and inequalities of the world.

(Social enterprise. Social conscience. Social problems.)

And ‘social’ is also used by technologists and the media to refer to the new two-way communications technologies available via the internet and digital technologies. Communications which create society, strengthen relationships, support social interactions.

(Social media. Social networks. Social infrastructure.)

This book is a map of where these two words meet. It is not limited to the fashionable trends in social media and ‘web 2.0’; nor is it specifically aimed at people in the social sector. It is about how these new tools for social interaction are changing our society, and how those of us with a social conscience can use them to do more good.

‘Social by social’ change is about using new technologies to bring people together to make their world better. This handbook is a starting point for working out how to do it.

New technologies are changing the way we engage communities, run companies, deliver public services, participate in government and campaign for change.

These new technologies are available to all of us.
And they offer us an amazing opportunity to change our world.
You can read the handbook online for free or order your hard copy today!  The online version is completely commentable and we are eager to continue the conversation with you!  To dive in, visit:
http://SocialBySocial.com
Published on July 7, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Playing the Social by Social Game: London Net Tuesday

Published in net tuesday and socialbysocial. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

David Wilcox just posted a terrific wrap-up of our Social by Social game’s newest iteration, played at this week’s London Net Tuesday:

socialbysocial

Full size image here

The Social by Social Game really took off at Net Tuesday this week when some 20 participants invented a south London borough, created a set of project ideas for better health, happiness and the environment, and then went on to plan how social technology could yield these social benefits. All within 90 minutes.

We did have the benefit of a set of props – more on that later – and lessons from the session that we ran at the SHINE09 conference a couple of weeks ago.

The core team was the same: David Wilcox, Andy Gibson and Amy Sample Ward – all co-authors, with Cass Business School of the forthcoming Social by Social handbook. More on that here.

This time around Andy had added some improvements in both props and procedure. As you can see from the summary sheet above – click here for larger – the sequence was:

  • we all brainstormed the characteristics of a south London borough, with its share of unemployment, health and housing issues, transport problems plus some very positive community activity on the arts front.
  • groups formed around the issues, and developed ideas for project. We then handed out two sets of cards to each group: one about social technologies, the other about ways to engage individuals and groups  online, face to face and through traditional leafleting and other methods.
  • each card had a image, a brief description, and  budget of one, two or three points. The task was to choose cards totalling only 10 points from each pack.
  • the final task was to use a set of money and resource cards to balance the budget … and then report back to everyone on the proposals.

It was a lot of fun, and since Andy was doing an excellent job of facilitating, and Amy was mentoring the groups, I was able to capture proceedings on video. Here’s the first sessions:

And the the report back:

The game is a development of others Drew Mackie have created over the years – as you can see here – with the social media element added through work with Beth Kanter in 2007.

The greater value in the Social by Social Game as it has now developed is a clearer sequence for engagement, tech planning and funding, plus lots of new cards. Amy summarised it for me:

The grid sequence helps ensure that people consider first the problem they are tackling, then the way the audiences, community, or “people” will be engaged. After the problem and the people are addressed, then it’s time to consider the tech tools.  Lastly, we have added the budget cards to bring everything back to a realistic perspective, not to ruin the fun but show how these kinds of projects are still doable with the appropriate planning.

Our aim is to use the game as one of the ways to introduce people to the substance of the Social by Social Handbook. We’ll evolve versions for organisations and networks as well as localities, so it will be possible to play the game “for real” and then follow through with support from the handbook and our team.

As one option we are thinking about workshops that could run for a day, with game-playing to start things off, some hands-on exploration of different social media tools, followed by more detail on who might do what to put things into practice.

The clear separation of engagement and tech cards in the game was a big improvement … with several of the groups putting emphasis on the use of face-to-face as well as online methods. That produced one good talking point … which is the main purpose of the demonstration version. It’s a great way to start conversations in a neutral space where people feel free to ask each other for help on things they don’t understand.

Here’s the cards we used (with a couple of changes we made afterwards. Feel free to download from Scribd and try and game for yourselves … we would really like to know how it goes. Alternatively, you can of course  hire us to come and run a session! Either way, if you find this interesting, do drop a comment or question below.

Social by Social game cards

Published on June 4, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 1 Comment