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 October 25th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
Great reads from around the web on October 14th
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 October 14th). 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).
- Marketing to Media-Savvy Gen Y: Transparency, Authenticity – Advertising Age – News – "They entered the consumer market during the stormiest economic climate since the Great Depression. And like the generation that was forever altered by the harsh sacrifices of World War II, millennials are likely to be permanently affected by the Great Recession and its long-term ripples. But these characteristics won't change about the demographic: They are vocal, demanding and discerning."
- Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "Can I be honest? I’m worried about the lack of nonprofit leadership creating a culture of innovation. While multi-channel outreach such as action alerts, microsites, social media, fundraising appeals, direct mail and telemarketing are good strategies to have in your toolbox to fundraise and market your organization; it’s simply not enough anymore. To truly raise your nonprofit’s profile (aka increase brand awareness), grow your constituency, and raise even more money in 2011 and beyond, organizations need to also focus on innovating."
- Facebook And Skype Officially Announce New Integration – "Today Facebook and Skype officially announced a new partnership which includes the complete integration of the Facebook newsfeed into Skype as well as the phonebook which lists all of a Skype user’s Facebook friends. This is another major partnership for Facebook who has announced numerous partnerships in recent weeks, including yesterday’s announcement with Bing."
- National Theatre’s Twitter Screw-up – What We Can Learn From Other People’s Mistakes | The Nest – "Over the last month, The Nest has been conducting social media training in nine regional theatre venues across five states. Commissioned by national touring agency, Performing Lines, the training assisted venues in marketing the forthcoming tour of Red Stitch’s acclaimed production of ‘Red Sky Morning‘. We helped marketing and management staff get to grips with, and genuinely leverage, social media to help sell the show."
- URL Shorteners: Blind(ly) Heading Towards Disaster? – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "Social networking has forced nonprofits to be comfortable with two-way communications, transparency, and adapting to short social conversations using limited character counts. As part of this communications evolution, nonprofits have grown accustomed to relying on url shorteners such as bit.ly and ow.ly to quickly share links to blog posts, advocacy and fundraising campaign on social networks. Plus some of the tracking stats (number of clicks, referrer, locations) have been useful to nonprofits in helping to determine which links resonated with their constituents. However, just today a .ly shortener called vb.ly has been seized by the Libyan government for failure to comply with Islamic law. And now this has all .ly url shorteners on high alert. You may be wondering how this is possible and what kind of impact will this have on nonprofits?"
Great reads from around the web on September 16th
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 September 16th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying. …
Great reads from around the web on April 12th
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 April 12th). 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).
- NTEN's Remake of "Bohemian Rhapsody" | NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network – "Because of the generous matching funds from Convio, large donations from thePort and Firefly Partners, and the support of nearly 200 nptechies, we were able to surpass our scholarship campaign goal and bring nearly 70 staffers from small nonprofits to the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference. That was the meat, now here's the pudding: the NTEN community's remake of "Bohemian Rhapsody", Muppets style!" Be sure to watch close for cameos of myself and many others 🙂
- Nonprofits Take Note: Donors are what they tweet | Social Citizens Blog – "As with many new technologies and developments, social media is being used in surprising and unintended ways to analyze and reveal unexpected data and trends. Twitter, Facebook and Google tools have already been used for market research, sales predictions and targeted advertising. Twitter, for example, has shown remarkable accuracy at forecasting box office success, even more accuracy than the currently used (and comparably complex) Hollywood Stock Exchange method. Now credit card companies are reportedly using foursquare and other location sharing platforms to predict divorce, and therefore financial troubles, by analyzing the places people are checking in frequently – the logic being that Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond check-ins demonstrate stability in a way that frequent late night bar check-ins do not."
- 'Online fundraising will change everything' – Third Sector – "Azadi Sheridan, the chair of the Institute of Fundraising's Technology Special Interest Group, tells David Ainsworth why donor 'churn and burn' won't work in the future. The big changes to fundraising in the coming years will spring from the power of the web, according to Azadi Sheridan, chair of the Institute of Fundraising’s Technology Special Interest Group. He says charities have been relatively slow to start using the internet to communicate with their supporters, but he believes they will catch up quickly."
- Wild Apricot Blog : 5 Tech Tools for More Engaging Events – "Real-world events are the ultimate in social networking, and nothing beats face-to-face communication. But it can be challenging to connect with everyone you want to meet at a large event and even more difficult to follow up with the attendees afterwards. And what about those in your community who can’t travel to your meeting or conference, for financial or other practical reasons? How can you bring those people into the fold of your event, too?"
- What can Google Buzz do for you? A study for non-profits | Think Social – "Two weeks ago, Mashable posted a how-to for non-profit organizations trying to use Google Buzz. We wanted more than four ways to use the new tool. Think Social writer and resident digital anthropologist Krystal D’Costa interviewed folks on the Google side and non-profit side for a closer look. (You can also read what Krystal’s previously written about Google Buzz.)"
Great reads from around the web on December 15th
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."