Tag Archive for 'socialbysocial'

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

    Social by Social Game at Chain Reaction 09

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    Today, David Wilcox and I will be running a version of the Social by Social game at the Chain Reaction event in London … which promises to be a terrific 400-strong gathering of community activists, policy people, business leaders, with a few Cabinet Ministers too.

    The game will be similar in form to those you’ll find here: we’ll invent a place, break into groups around some social challenges or themes, then use sets of cards to plan how to engage people, choose social media tools, and work out how to fund the package. However, although the format is pretty standard, I’m sure the ideas will be highly creative. The cards and other props are there to stimulate conversation – and that always works.

    We’ve tweaked the cards from the last play, as you can see below. Each card has an image (so they don’t all look the same), a description, and budget points from 1-3. The green budget points are for engagement cards, yellow for tools, red for funding. We’ll set a budget for green and yellow, that has to be matched by red.

    I wanted to get this preview up so we can do a little promotion of the workshop, and also have an immediate link for anyone who asks where they can get the cards on the day. We’ll shoot some video and report back later.

    The official Twitter stream is cr_event, and you should be able to follow tweets tagged #cr09 through a search here. Follow us, too! @socialbysocial

    Social by Social game cards for Chain Reaction

    Published on November 12, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

    Social Media Resource Library: Just Launched from Idealware

    Published in resources. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

    We all know that there are hundreds, thousands, even an infinite (at least seemingly) number of social media resources for nonprofits or social impact groups. When you Google search for a tool or a topic, you have so many results you don’t even know where to begin!  Well, that’s certainly part of the information overload and wasted time that other bloggers like myself try to help with – come here and we’ll try to make things easy for you!

    Well, Idealware has just taken it a step further by launching a Social Media Resource Library!

    As they explain:

    As a first step in our year-long social media research initiative, Idealware has compiled a library of nearly 200 – and growing – resources on social media. And, we’ve incorporated an easy-to-use tagging scheme so that you can find the resources most helpful to you.

    The Social Media Resource Library , compiled in Delicious, will help your nonprofit gain valuable insights into how to best use social media for your organization. There are a lot of experts out there (while a majority of the resources tagged are from Beth Kanter and Mashable, there are tagged items from over 50 sources), and we are making it easier for you to find what you are looking for.

    You can start searching the Library or learn how to add more resources by visiting the Idealware site here.

    Go dive in! And be sure to share your ideas about the Library so the Idealware team and the rest of us working to provide resources can be sure there’s everything you need to meet your needs.

    Published on November 4, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments

    Community Voices at Digital Engagement Event: Reflections on the Conversation

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

    At the Digital Engagement Event, back on 6th October, David Wilcox and I helped the Community Voices team facilitate two sessions that focused on the three things more important to digital engagement than the technology. You can check out the Community Voices group on the Social by Social community for videos, notes and other reflections from the event.

    We split participants up by topic areas for discussions and Community Voices team members lead the small group conversations, while others used various tools to capture what was said (audio, video, tweets and blogging). After the small group discussions, we had volunteers from each group provide a short report back to the full room of some of the highlights or lingering questions that came out of the conversation. During these report backs I captured a word cloud on a flip chart of key words. Here’s what came out of each session:

    Session #1 Word Cloud:

    COMMUNITY
    What’s of interest?
    PEOPLE
    Existing Communities
    Stereotypes
    Individual Level
    Lead
    Participate
    FUN
    Creative Approach
    Visible Benefits
    Relevance
    TRUST

    Session #2 Word Cloud:

    Relevant Content
    Community of Interest
    Individuals
    No Jargon
    Partnerships
    TRUST
    What’s Success?
    User Generated
    Access to People
    COMMUNITIES
    Offline vs Online
    HUMAN

    The words in all caps represent the words that were repeated in each report out. If you look at the two sessions, you’ll see very similar key words and phrases. Even more important to the topic of the sessions and, I think, in Community Voices’ work in general, the words that every group used that appear in all caps are pretty much the same in both. The biggest focus: trust and communities.

    Digital inclusion is not about cool social media tools, or even fancy hardware. It starts with people and stays with people.

    What do you think?

    Were you there, and have ideas to add to this reflection? If you weren’t there, what ideas do you have about the things most important to digital inclusion other than technology? Would love to hear your thoughts!

    Remember to visit the Community Voices group to connect with the rest of the conversations going on there.

    Published on October 30, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

    Chain Reaction 2009: the Social by Social game

    Published in events and socialbysocial. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

    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

    Case Study in Local: Oakland Local

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

    oakland_local_logo250x125Oakland Local is launching today! Oakland Local is a news & community site for Oakland, CA, USA, focusing on social justice issues including climate change, air quality, food access, arts as activists, and identity, race & ethnicity.

    About Oakland Local

    Oakland Local is launching in partnership with 35 local nonprofit, neighborhood & community organizations: it combines postings of partner organizations’ news and information with blogging and with reported stories from a top quality news team.  The news team includes: Susan Mernit, Amy Gahran, Kamika Dunlap, Kwan Booth, Ryan Van Lenning and others.Oakland Local is also media partners and collaborators with Spot.us, Newsdesk.org, The Center for Investigative Reporting, New America Media, Endless Canvas, Youth Rising, Youth Radio and Youth Outlook as well. The site offers forums, a directory of 320 local nonprofits and a blog directory of 180 active local bloggers!

    You can also connect with Oakland Local on twitter and facebook.

    Getting Local

    There’s a lot of very cool activity happening lately around local websites.  The social web has opened a lot of doors for communities and collaborations and changed the way many people view the definition of community—on the web, communities can form easily and quickly around ideas, interests, and anything else—as physical geography isn’t important.  Now that social media tools have reached a certain level of ubiquity for those online (we can’t forget that many people are still not even online at all), we see people and groups turning the tools back around to help connect those who ARE geographically close.

    The latest work we’ve been doing with the Social by Social concept (using social tech for social good) is to help apply the ideas and lessons we originally wrote about for nonprofit organizations to also be applicable to the work of local governments and communities (moving from connecting communities of interest to communities of locality).  It is fun and interesting work and I’ll probably be blogging more and more about it soon.

    I’ll be watching Oakland Local to see how it evolves and grows and how the community reacts and uses it.

    What do you think?

    Have you used a local website before or started a local community network online?  What would you want to see included on a community website for your area?


    Published on October 19, 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

    Gov 2.0, Shirky & Local Communities

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

    David Wilcox and I are getting ready for iterations on Social by Social – the first two being applications of the lessons learned and strategies for using social media shared in Social by Social (read online or download the PDF for free, or buy your hardcopy) in local communities and the same for local government.  We have a couple events coming up at the end of the week where we’ll get to work with local government representatives, organizations and community members to discuss how to use social media to create community online as well as enable democratic participation.

    In the video below fron Gov 2.0, Clay Shirky discusses some of the attributes that lead to success for Apps for America and un-success (can’t say “failure” as they certainly learned a lot from the experiment!) of other projects.  It’s a great video, and only around 10 minutes long – watch it :)

    According to Shirky, the three elements for success for a open, participatory projects online are:

    1. “The contract with the users has to be complete enough to get them interested, but not so complete that it depresses them.”

    2. “Understand that the users who are coming in are motivated to do things that you did not predict; and the more you try to predict, the more those motivations will go toward the destructive, so you have to give them space to participate.”

    3. “In the domain of collaborative production, it is Heisenberg’s press release: the more completely in advance you take credit for future success, the less likely that success becomes.”

    I think these three points are incredibly important in light of the events David and I are facilitating for members of “Innovation Departments” and recipients of “Innovation Funds.”  When creating “innovative” (I use the term loosely) online opportunities for collaboration or community, whether it’s a government project, an organization/cause-drive project, local or community issue, or anything else, it’s important to remember that one of the main reasons you are using such an open process is probably because you are hoping to be surprised by smart people contributing their creativity and knowledge and passion.

    It’s something I say all the tine: my brain can only hold so much, but when I rely on my community, on the web, I can be SO much smarter! The same goes for projects like these.  You are looking for the people who are smarter than you, or more creative than you, or at least not bound by the context and previous thinking of your group/organization/department.  Just like to accept criticism we have to be prepared to say that what we did could be improved, in launching projects like these we need to be prepared to say the best bits are those we haven’t thought of yet!

    What do you think?

    Have you been part of a community or government project that tapped the innovations and contributions of a larger community – what tips or lessons do you have from that experience? Have you contributed to an open call for ideas or contributions – what inspired or invited you to participate?

    Published on September 14, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 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