This morning I had the great pleasure and honor to present at Amplified Leicester about Community-Driven Social Impact, and run a short strategy-building workshop.
Amplified Leicester is a city-wide experiment designed to grow the innovation capacity of Leicester by networking key connectors across the city’s disparate and diverse communities in an incentivised participatory project enabled by social media.
Project objectives:
• To develop a transferable model for amplifying a diverse city’s grassroots innovation capacity through connecting diverse communities through key individuals
• To provide practical examples of how collaborative technologies can be exploited in a city context
The group is in an interesting position, preparing to move from the incubated group that it has been thus far to a more open group meeting less often (moving from every other week to once a month) in collaboration with CreativeCoffee. They are also hoping to learn from and document their experiences to share as a model with the larger global community looking to do something similar. Be sure to watch their space for more!
There were two key elements that emerged in group discussion that I think are really important to note: A community-driven approach relies on two assumptions.
That you know your community. You can communicate with, build programs or content together, and operate in collaboration with a community that you don’t know. Who are they, what do they do, where do they do it, what do they like, what do they have in common with you, and what would they be interested in doing together?
That you and your community trust each other. Even if you know who your community is, chances are that you won’t get very far trying to work/build/collaborate together if the community doesn’t trust you. And (don’t forget this bit) if you don’t trust the community. This point underlies all of the best practices and organizational culture required for successful community-driven social impact work.
Workshop
I facilitated a modified version of the Social by Social game, created to focus on the 4 strategic points highlighted int he presentation: Who’s the community, where’s the sweet spot, what tools could help, which roles are needed. Ideally, you’d run this workshop with your team, organization, community group, etc. But, in this case, as participants represented all different groups, I asked them to think about each question from their own perspective and then share with the table some of their ideas to spark conversation.
Are you working on a community-driven project or looking to start one? What questions do you have? What lessons can you share? Or, if you’re underway, tell us about your project!
The 2010 National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS) is June 28-30 in New York City. The NCVS conference is an opportunity for volunteer and service leaders to get together for in-person networking and learning. If you’re going to be there, we’d love for you to get in touch!
Find us!
Here’s a listing of sessions and spaces hosted by NetSquared and TechSoup:
Community-Driven Social Impact Session
Amy Sample Ward from NetSquared Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010; 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM Room: 1471
This session focuses on strategies and case studies for creating successful community-driven media, events and campaigns. Participants will learn about best practices and work in small groups to put learning into practice.
Technology Planning for Nonprofits Session
Catherine Hurd and Elliot Harmon from TechSoup Global Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM Room: 1374
This session will help participants to assess their organization’s technology needs and capacity; work with technical volunteers; and understand the role of technology planning as the foundation for an effective operating environment.
Mixed Reality Learning Lab
Susan Tenby from TechSoup Global along with Interactive Producers Evonne Heyning from and Josephine Dorado Dates: All conference long! Location: In the lounge near the ballroom entrance corridor between the conference host exhibit spaces
The team at TechSoup has brewed up a select menu of tools and strategies to provide a social media curriculum to conference attendees on how to explore Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and applications for engaging volunteers and supporters around the world. Attendees can join a tour of the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life or learn how to use digital storytelling and Facebook for quick and easy updates to keep connected to supporters. Quick tips and tools will be provided on how to get started as well as support for more advanced users. Also, engage in a mixed reality event as avatars and representatives from nonprofits around the world discuss their work both virtually and in their communities.
Get in Touch Via Twitter
Will you be at the NCVS? We’d love to hear from you: @NetSquared or @TechSoup. Or connect with us directly:
Ben Matthews has just announced the launch of CharityComms 2020, an initiative that Bright One has been spearheading in partnership with CharityComms, the professional body for charity communicators.
In Ben’s words:
CharityComms 2020 is a presentation where key figures in charity communications have teamed up to produce a snapshot of the most significant communications trends of the coming decade.
Contributors come from a wide range of well known charities, including Amnesty International, Macmillan Cancer Support, UNICEF, Friends of the Earth, The Scout Association, and many more. There’s also a group of well known influential thinkers who have contributed, including Jonathan Waddingham at JustGiving, Rachel Beer at beautiful world, Steve Bridger and Amy Sample Ward.
I’m flattered to see the quality of contributors that we’ve brought together for this initiative and hope you see this reflected in the quality of the ideas, insights and inspiration contained in the presentation.
Ben asked me to participate in this very fun and insightful project to highlight and share our views of the top 5 trends for the next decade for technology and social media that will impact charity communications. What were my ideas?
co-creation – of services, programs, campaigns
flatter processes – less hierarchy in organizations, fewer steps in finding information and services
portability – moving to the cloud; conversations and content moves seamlessly across platforms
privacy and ownership – creative commons and other licensing can’t support all the rules and options we’ll need for the content we’re creating and wanting to won
personalization – the more we create and the more we share, the more we expect to shape how we receive and browse
Check out the ideas from everyone that participated – each contributor has a slide in the below show:
You’re invited to add your own five trends and an accompanying image to the presentation by sending Ben an email and he’ll update as further submissions are received.
What are your five trends you see affecting charity communications in the next 10 years?
Join the conversation by using #cc2020 on Twitter!
I’m here at #KMUK10, also known as the Knowledge Management UK conference. David Wilcox will be spending the day helping show folks understand and get started with various social media tools. I wanted to share a few notes that struck me from Lee Bryant of headshift out of his opening talk.
From Lee Bryant:
KM = sense making. We are currently suffering from filter failure; which means the need to help people navigate and work within this world is really huge; we need skilled sense makers!
KM is about helping people make better decisions
KM has a purpose, skills/values/practices related to it have a real purpose today – but why are we not succeeding? why is there not a bigger impact on organizations today?
km has dysfunctional relationship with IT
km people are not the IT people and the IT people are not part of the KM development process
km people need to have more confidence and either find budets or other people with budgets so that they aren’t dependent on IT dept
Where does km sit within in the org? how much influence does it have?
Value of knowledge is contextual and relative – trying to give it value is a mistake; instead focus on the value of having it and sharing it. We need to free up knowledge in order to have healthier networks to work with.
Structure emerges with content – not the other way around. There’s a great deal of misunderstanding about psychology, human nature, and incentives.
Let’s take a critical view of process: “Process is a response to prior stupidity.”
Follow #KMUK10 on Twitter throughout today and tomorrow for more highlights that emerge from the conference!
This morning I had the great opportunity to present to the Next Generation Philanthropy course, a part of Institute for Philanthropy, here in London. It was a diverse set of participants and we probably could have talked all day had they not had a full day’s program to get through!
The talk:
My talk may not be as easily captured in the slides as some of my other talks are since this was a smaller group and I had the time to dive into each example and discuss it with the participants, instead of a more traditional presentation. The focus included both a look at what social media tools are being used to do in organizations now, how funders are using technology, and what opportunities exist for funders to support or lead on.
(Hint: click through to view the slides on SlideShare.net to see speaking notes.)
Participants asked for a few resources during the discussion so I’ve included some links and pointers for them, and for you, below:
How-to Set up an RSS Dashboard: this is a great way to position your organization as a resource and go-to for the sector or issue; but it is also one of the best ways to ensure you’re on top of information and conversations across the web (you can create a dashboard that’s private or public).
Social by Social: a handbook for using new technologies for social impact that I co-authored last year. You can read it for free online (or download the PDF) and it includes case studies, how-to tutorials, and lots of information about various tools that may be appropriate for your organization (after you’ve identified your goals, audience, and so on).
We Are Media: this wiki is another excellent source of information and examples of social media for social impact compiled by the nonprofit technology community.
Earlier this month, the Connected Generation conference brought lots of folks from organizations and direct services groups, as well as practitioners, educators, and researchers together in Bristol, UK, to talk about the use of social media in youth work. It was an excellent program, organized by Tim Davies and Katie Bacon, and featured excellent speakers with stories and experience to share from their diverse backgrounds. I was so pleased to get to be there, and even more honored to get to open the day with a keynote. My presentation attempted to frame the day for participants, asking more questions than providing answers about how to start thinking about and creating strategies for social media and their work with young people.
Here are the slides (Hint: visit the slideshare site by clicking on the link below to see the speaking notes as well!)
You can find notes from a couple participants here and here; and use #cgen10 to find tweets and other content tagged from the event.
One thing that struck me from doing an introduction to social media webinar the night before, and the next morning presenting the keynote here, was the difference in content strategy between the two communities and the way that our goals around content and conversations effect so much of how we operate. There’s a real difference between creating content that you then urge people to share in any online spaces they prefer vs creating safe online spaces for conversations (often in private). Perhaps it is the nuance between social change movements that manifest in outward or crowd-driven change vs those that focus on social work or individual-based change.
I also wrote down a few great conversation starters from other presenters, including:
Digital inclusion is all about relevancy – what are you doing to make digital media relevant for your community?
Digital storytelling means everyone has the power to capture and share stories – how are you empowering your community to write their own history?
Our “soundbite society” may mean that we don’t provide enough time for real storytelling or real listening – how are you helping your community share and listen in meaningful ways?
Join In!
If you’re interested in connecting with, or following up on this topic and with those who attended, check out the Youth Work Online network.
Earlier this month, I had the great pleasure and honor to lead a webinar with Lori Jacobwith‘s community. It was an introduction to social media, especially focused on what organizations (regardless of size) can start doing today. I had a bit of fun with it, especially with the pictures on the slides, by using a party metaphor: Social Media for Organizations: Enjoy Your Own Party!
Here are the slides (Hint: visit the slideshare site by clicking on the link below to see the speaking notes as well!)
One question that arose was about communication planning. Aspiration has a great resource that they call the Publishing Matrix. You can check it out, download it, and use for free! I’ve also blogged before about how to map your community and content.
Participants were also curious to dive in more deeply to the listening dashboard. You can see the public dashboard on nonprofit technology that I have set up at http://netvibes.com/amysampleward. I also have a step-by-step guide to creating one yourself.
Getting started with social media can be a hurdle for many simply because of the new words, terms, and jargon. As part of the Social by Social handbook, we created a jargon buster and A-Z of terms – could be helpful to participants on this webinar, and to anyone looking to share easy to understand definitions of these new concepts.
If you were a participant on the webinar – what questions do you still have? If you weren’t, but you have questions or ideas to share, please do!
Thanks again to Lori for inviting me to participate and engage with your community – I had a blast at the party
Here’s the dashboard the The Extraordinaries for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference session I’m doing with Manny Hernandez, Peggy Duvette and Christine Egger:
If you want to build a strong online community, getting the right platform in place is only half the battle, and it’s the easy half. In this peer-led discussion, we’ll share our experiences of online community building and build lists of best practices around recruiting new members and retaining them, increasing participation and moderating your community.
If you want to build a strong online community, getting the right platform in place is only half the battle, and it’s the easy half. In this peer-led discussion, we’ll share our experiences of online community building and build lists of best practices around recruiting new members and retaining them, increasing participation and moderating your community.
Takeaways:
1. Examples on how to grow your online community.
2. Tips for encouraging interaction in your online community.
3. Examples of successful online community engagement.
We need you!
Here’s the catch: we may be presenting and leading the discussion, but we know you all have some terrific experiences, examples, and stories to share. So, we have a few ways you can join in (even if you aren’t in Atlanta) and make this session even more valuable for everyone!
Include the Hashtag: We know that you’ll have lots of things to share and say on this topic (we’re hoping you do!) but want to be sure all those following the session from outside Atlanta can catch it all (and so you can find what everyone else is sharing, too!). Please use the hashtag #strongbunch for this session!
We are all really looking forward to this discussion and hope that be creating the google doc ahead of time we can let the community build a resource far better than we could have alone. Please do share your ideas, links, or examples! Here are our slides if you want a sneak peak at the presentation:
The SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX, was a blast this year, due in no small part to the huge honor of speaking on a panel with Beth Kanter, Dave Neff, Holly Ross and Kari Saratovsky. Beth facilitated a conversation, among the panelists as well as the standing-room-only room of participants, that focused on the power of crowdsourcing and the application of social media in nonprofit program delivery. If you missed the session, you can revisit it via twitter, or video below!
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