Why Blog?

It might not be new, and it might not be sexy. But blogs can help your organization in a few key ways:

Central Communication Hub

It’s important to have a place that you can link to for more information and for follow-up, instead of sharing news or updates only in a tweet or facebook message, and especially if it is just in an email newsletter. A blog can provide the space for sharing news, announcements, stories, and other information and let you reshare and distribute it all over the web. A blog can also help people find out more about you or find other ways to stay connected to you. If someone sees an interesting post from you on Twitter, clicks through to the blog, and then can sign up for the newsletter, click to “like” you on facebook, and learn about your organization – well, that’s a whole lot more engagement and communication (that you didn’t have to work for) than simply posting to Twitter and leaving it at that.

Create Community Dialogue

Another great opportunity you have with a blog is opening up your organization by allowing comments and dialogue. Whether you are asking for feedback, sharing stories, or urging people to take action, providing a place for your community to share back with you shows your openness to feedback and interest in the community. And no, the possibility of getting a “bad” comment is not enough to disable the option for people to share their ideas, support and encouragement. Most of the time, if someone has something bad to say, other community members will step up to right the remark before you even have a chance!

Multimedia Storytelling

Think blogs are boring? Well, maybe the kind you have seen are. Or, maybe you weren’t interested in the stories being told. Your blog is a chance for your organization to show just how NOT boring it is! Do you have videos, pictures, or slides? Do you have lots of different voices? Your blog doesn’t have to be plain text on a big white page. You can use videos or images, you can hold competitions for ideas, you can post your favorite links or have guest contributors. Your blog is for you to share the storytelling you want to, with the kinds of media you want to!

How To Start a Blog

So, you’re ready to get started – woohoo! Starting a blog can be similar to planning your first road trip. Here are a few basics:

Plan Your Route

Before you jump in the car and hit the open road, you want to take the time to plan where you’ll go, and what you need. Planning for your blog means thinking about who on staff, and who not on staff (board members, volunteers, organizers, community leaders) may contribute. What kind of content do you already have that you could reuse (videos or interviews from events, data or research, etc.) or stories you know you will have important information about (issues you are watching closely, political or social issues you are involved in). Getting an idea about the kinds of things you could post and the people who will post it will help you select the most appropriate platform to use and create an editorial/content calendar.

Test Drive It

There are two aspects to a proper test drive:

First, give it a go without having a blog. That’s right, I really said that. If you know who and you know what will be involved, have your “blogging team” operate as if there’s a blog, without one, for a month. If over the course of four whole weeks, you are still writing posts (even if they are just text files or emails to each other) then you know you have the stamina to get started. If you go a week and can’t get anyone or even yourself to keep going, then you may never get the blog off the ground.

Secondly, pick a platform based on the content you want to use and give it a try before you start promoting it, linking to it, and sharing it with the world. (There are lots of great posts out there about getting started and selecting a platform, including this one from ProBlogger.) Some of the leading platforms you may want to consider include (in alphabetical order):

• Blogger
• MoveableType
• Posterous
• Squarespace
• Typepad
• WordPress

Prepare to Change Directions

Just like any good road trip, sometimes the winds pushes you in a different direction, and you just have to go with it! If you get started with your blog and find that the content your community responds to (or doesn’t) is not what you had expected, that’s a great sign telling you where to go. Don’t let the what or the how determine your success, but instead whether you are meeting your goals (sharing information, getting feedback, building community, growing trust, etc.). It isn’t a sign that you have failed if your blog changes direction from talking about news items to sharing the stories of volunteers – it isn’t the “what” that matters but instead that your community is engaging and you have content to support your work and communications.

Resources:

• Global Voices has created a Guide to Blog For A Cause
• Here’s a how-to guide for Community Planning & Measurement
• Get data and information about the blogosphere from Technorati
• Start reading other blogs to get an idea of how to do it – here’s a whole dashboard full of blogs to get you started! (Have suggestions for blogs that should be added? Just let me know!)

(Photo credit: Flickr futureshape)

Here are a few ways you can use technology today to learn more and act for water conservation!

Learn

The first step in making change in your life, local community or world is to learn.  I believe that one of the best things we can do every day to improve our own lives and the lives of those around is to learn as much as we can – listen, ask questions, absorb.  Here is a great way to start learning and understanding our own water usage!

The H₂O Conserve Water Footprint Calculator is an interactive tool designed to help you quantify how much water you use, find out how you use it and what you can do to conserve.

Try the water calculator – the questions are insightful and make you think, and the usage answer at the end may surprise you!

Think

This past Sunday was October 10th, 2010 – also know as 101010, the Global Work Day for climate action supported by 350.org and others. You may have been part of the day of action by participating in an event in your local area. Whether you were, or weren’t, I’m hoping you’ll join with me for a few minutes to think, and reflect.  Part of working in the social impact space means thinking about the big picture, the long-term goals, and the multi-year strategy.  But it also means thinking about today.  Here is a very small collection of some of my favorite pictures from Sunday’s event – all that include water. I hope you’ll pause at each one and think about the way water is changing the lives of those in the pictures and community around the world:

Find more pictures and stories from #101010 and 350.org – share with others to get them thinking, too – at: http://350.org

Act

To actually improve our world, both fix the things that are broken as well as create new systems that aren’t, we need behavior change. Everyone working in the social impact sector thinks about change every day, but often we find opportunities that are too limited – either in objective or scope, or in scale and impact – to turn into behavior change.  TapIt is a great example, though, of a successful approach: take a small action, the benefits are real and tangible, and soon your behavior has changed (and you have hopefully also encouraged others around you to do the same)!

About TapIt

Some people say its easy to go bottle-less: grab a glass from the kitchen cabinet and fill it from the tap. But what about when you’re away from your home or office? We’ve taken hundreds of local cafes and bound them together into a network that lets those who want water find those willing to provide it.

TapIt water bottle refilling network was founded in 2008 to give New Yorkers free access to clean sustainable water on the go. Café owners sign up as ‘partners’ to provide tap water to those who carry a reusable bottle. Partner locations are easy to find using our search and mapping features (PC or Smartphone) or by downloading ‘TapIt Water’ from the iPhone App store. For those with limited access to technology, printable city maps can be downloaded and stickers can be found on café windows.

But the TapIt network is not just about going bottle-less; less bottles, less recycling, less water privatization and extraction, it’s about understanding why those things are a problem and finding new and sustainable 21st century solutions.

Our small team is committed to making the TapIt network a reality across the U.S. But we need you, people who believe in our mission and are willing to use the TapIt network; people who believe in new types of businesses and that business and doing right go together; local business owners willing to make 21st century business decisions that increase foot traffic and sales while supporting their community’s sustainability goals.

Learn more about TapIt, get the app for your phone, and start today with a disposable-bottle-free lifestyle at: http://www.tapitwater.com/

What is Blog Action Day?

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year’s topic is water.

Learn more and participate in Blog Action Day today!

Thank You

First off, a huge thank you to Matt Cheuvront, the designer who made all of this happen! I am so happy to have had the chance to collaborate with Matt; he was efficient, pleasant, and super smart, but most importantly to me, he was willing to operate in a more public way engaging with all of you who left comments and feedback. Matt was flexible and strategic and helped make decisions that would ultimately put me in a position to not need him any more – just what I was after!  Thanks, Matt!  You can check him out at Proof, his new full-service branding company (here’s a list of services, too).

A major thank you to all of you is in order as well! There would be no need for a redesign, or a site at all, if it wasn’t for all of you reading, commenting, sharing, linking, and generally driving this space. I am honored to feel like a curator and instigator here, not the one with the sole responsibility of creating value. It’s very inspiring to be part of a community dedicated to sharing and discussing and am thankful for all of you joining me!

About the Redesign

What’s new? My goal with the redesign was to create a website that provided entry points to valuable content and conversations in multiple directions; instead of a normal or default blog that just presented the reader with a list of posts, I knew from your feedback that some people are after presentations while others are looking for thought-provoking posts, some want round-ups and others want a chance to start conversations. So, here are some changes that I want to highlight that I hope deliver on that goal:

• Featured Resources: This rotating box at the top of the home page showcases resources that may have previously been buried in the site. I can also add and modify this section as I write more books (that’s motivation for you!) or come across more valuable items to share. For those that want the techie side, this was done using the vSlider plugin.
• Shortened blurbs: The recent blog posts that appear on the home page have been shortened to no longer include the full post, but just an introduction. This is done to allow visitors who don’t click through to a specific post to be able to browse more easily.
• Footer menu: This is the fun stuff! These three columns let visitors dive straight into content they are most interested in, like presentations (notes, information, links and slides), roundups (compilations of interesting content and conversations), and event popular blog posts (this is decided based on blog posts with the most clicks and visits).
• Streamlined sidebar: Now that content is highlighted in multiple ways—via the top navigation, footer columns, and so on—the sidebar is freed up to serve as an entry way to other spaces for continued conversation like facebook and twitter, and even an option to jump to the latest comments on the site.
• Presentations archive: I’m really excited about this part! I’ve transferred content that was previously on static pages into posts. Clicking on 2010 Presentations, for example, now let’s you browse through individual posts for every presentation and speaking engagement from 2010 (so far). The advantage of doing it this way means that you can easily find the conference or presentation you’re interested in, and also means you can leave comments, ask questions and follow up on specific events. NOTE: I’ve only been able to archive 2010 and 20009 so far, but all presentations will be in this format very soon.

There is one last major change still to come, and that is changing the way comments are managed. I’m hoping to move over to Disqus, but Matt and I have run into some issues and are still working with the Disqus team to fix them. This switch will provide you with many more options for following conversations and will also save me a bit of time! As any one who has commented on this site before knows, I reply to every comment via email as well as on the site. Using Disqus will mean you get my reply in one step instead of two!  We are hoping to have this enabled very soon.

About the Process

As part of practicing what I preach, I wanted to recap the process Matt and I used for this redesign to offer to you as just one of the many options for engaging with a designer and a community.

Phase 1: Finding a Designer

For me, I wanted to find a designer that was already part of the community or larger network that I am. This was important to me because I needed someone that was familiar with the kinds of content, types of readers, and so on. I took a very casual approach: called out that I was looking for a designer on Twitter and Facebook. Friends and colleagues pushed my call out to their networks, some responded with personal referrals, and some responded with interest in taking on the work. I checked out the interested designers online, looked at websites they had recently worked on, and looked for someone that seemed to hold the same aesthetic values that I did: clean, honest, content-driven.  That’s how I found Matt!

Phase 2: Identifying Goals, Needs, Direction

After Matt and I emailed to get on the same page about timeline, costs, and expectations, we set up a skype call.  Why skype? This let us use video (as we were on different continents) and feel a bit like we were getting to know a real person and made the relationship more than just transactional.  We discussed my goals, content, community, and approach to the design process. I wanted to have an open process so it was important to me to find a designer that was willing to participate and not just design. I was very happy that Matt was so enthusiastic about the approach.

Phase 3: Community Input

As part of the open, collaborative approach to this redesign, I wanted to engage the readers and contributors in an active way, not just collaborate with the designer. Matt and I discussed the most valuable way to do this, identifying a few themes that would help generate conversation about what works and what doesn’t, but also be helpful in directing to he and I the kinds of changes that may be more important or even necessary.  You can check out the blog post series, as well as all the comments, from this process using the links below:

• Introduction: A collaborative approach
• Input #1: The content you want
• Input #2: Focused on conversation
• Input #3: Adding the extras
• Input #4: Recap and reflections

Phase 4: Building, Testing, Tinkering

After gathering all the input from you, Matt and I put our heads together to be sure we had a list of the most important, and then the “would love to if possible” items.  That’s when he really got to work coming up with the design. His initial draft was very close to what we ultimately have in place now and that was due to his critical listening, lots of conversations and questions, and both of us engaging in the public input phase to really understand the users’ side of the experience.  Once the test site was up, we could play, poke and tinker to get things just right.

Phase 5: Pulling it Together

Once the test site was ready to go, Matt moved everything to the live space. Some things, like Disqus, the rotating banner, and social media links weren’t put in until this stage. The content changes, like the presentations section, weren’t made until this phase either. We did much of this simultaneously, both plugging away at the WordPress admin panel while on skype together. Matt took time to walk me through changes that effected the way posts were created or how I could administer new options, and I worked on content changes.  It was a great way to spend a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon!

Invitation

And here we are – ready to launch! I hope you’ll take this as an invitation to poke around the site, explore, and comment. Please let me know what you think, what you wish was better, and even what you like! I’m really excited to have an updated space to share with you

Redesign wrap-up: What you said, Where we’re going

Last week’s posts had three topics: Content, Comments and Extras.  The comments and feedback really helped clarify thinking, confirm ideas I had, and make clear the opportunities for improvement. Here are some of the high-level key points. If I’ve missed something, I hope you’ll let me know!

• Categories and Tags: Using content categories like (presentation, case study, opinion and so on) can help people find the type of content they are after, as well as categories and tags that indicate topics, conferences and tools. We’ll be using these to a much higher degree to help surface and sort content much more effectively.
• Diverse Content: Most people noted that they come to the site for case studies and presentations as well as more opinion-style pieces. But I also took note that there’s a great opportunity to diversify content further by sharing short updates, news or reviews to jump start conversation. Look for that!
• Where’s the Action: There’s lots of opportunity to improve the real-time-ness of the site. Many folks recommended/requested ways to see what posts were most popular/read/commented on. I have a worry there about the cycle of because a post is listed as popular, it then gets more visits, which then makes it to the list of popular posts – but I trust we can work on that.  And focusing on where the action is also means highlighting posts that are getting a lot of comments so folks can find conversations that are taking place. Definitely something we’ll be sure to tackle!
• The RSS Connection: A comment from Emily got me thinking about the different experience readers have when they follow the blog via RSS opposed to visiting the site itself. There are a lot of RSS subscribers and I want to make sure that the redesign tackles not just the design of the site, but the way content can be more valuable to all readers. This means brainstorming ways to integrate changes to the content so readers anywhere find it even more valuable.
• More than Posts: Many comments touched on the fact that this site is about more than the blog posts so there’s great opportunity to bring other spaces and resources into the spotlight, whether it is the public NPTech RSS dashboard, books, or other resources – or content and conversations on Facebook and Twitter.
• Ability to Navigate: Right now, the site really operates with stock WordPress options, but from the feedback last week I know there are a lot of readers interested in being able to navigate the site/through content in a much more elegant way. For example, being able to connect to similar content types or topics from post to post, using suggestion widgets to generate the “you may also like” recommendations, and so on. I’m excited to try some of these options out!

This list gives an overview of some of the issues and ideas Matt and I will use as a point of departure for redesigning this site. I’ll keep you posted as things develop and let you know in advance before the new site appears. But, you can always leave feedback either in the comments or in email – any time.

Thanks again to everyone who provided feedback last week! I’m really excited for making this a more valuable space

• winner joins a P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program expedition
• possibility to win $15,000 for your favorite charity that’s working in the front lines of the global water crisis
• every vote for your entry means P&G will donate a day’s worth of clean drinking water (2L) to a person in need in a developing country

The contest runs most of this month, so register your blog today and start rallying supporters to help get donated water to those in need, and join the Children’s Safe Drinking Water expedition!

Learn more about Clean Water Blogivation!

Have you signed up? If so, leave your blog URL below so we can be sure to check out your post and support you!

Thanks to everyone that’s shared comments so far in this process – it’s been a great experience and I am so thrilled to have such thoughtful, honest, sharing folks like YOU contributing here!

Redesign topic #3: Adding the Extras

When I say extras, I mean the widgets, plugins, apps and other random bits that can really add a bit of flavor, not to mention functionality, to a website. I know that I have some that I really like and imagine you have lots of great suggestions.  So let’s hear them! I’ve broken the two areas down into some of the things I’m already using (so you can weigh in and say “keep that!” or “lose it!”) and then for everything else.  Looking forward to your ideas!

Focus: What Exists

Any of these things worth keeping? I know you’ll be honest!

• Postalicious – this fuels the “round up” posts
• MyBlogLog – this lives in the side bar
• Twitoaster – this fuels the “tweet this” button on posts and replies via twitter in the comments
• Site search
• WordPress built-ins like recent posts, comments, etc.

Focus: Everything Else

There are so many tools out there designed to plug right into a site – what have you used or seen that you recommend adding here? And why?

Please share your responses in the comments – that way others can respond/reply to your feedback as well as leave their own. Matt and I will be both be responding, asking questions, and participating as well! Please share your ideas and feedback!

Redesign topic #2: Focused on Conversations

I’m happy to take on the role of conversation starter, sharing news or case studies or ideas that are interesting and letting all of you run with it.  And that’s just what happens here most of the time: there are around 500 posts and over 3,700 comments!  Clearly there’s a lot more going on than just blog posts and I want to be sure that the redesign creates valuable ways to elevate and highlight the conversations and contributions from everyone visiting this space.

There are two focus areas below and some options for answers – please note there’s an “other” listed for both as I’m sure there are things I haven’t thought to include and hope you’ll feel open to listing them!

Focus: Content that’s conversation worthy

What helps or inspires you to dive into a conversation or share your own knowledge/experience after you read a post?

• Questions included at the end
• Seeing comments from others
• Direct/personal invitations
• Options to comment via other methods (Twitter, etc.)
• Other

Focus: Finding and following conversations

How would you like to be able to find conversations or follow them either on the blog or using other platforms tools?

• Recent comments highlighted in sidebar
• Popular conversations highlighted in sidebar
• Subscribe to comments
• Options for sharing comment/post via social media
• Other

Please share your responses in the comments – that way others can respond/reply to your feedback as well as leave their own. Matt and I will be both be responding, asking questions, and participating as well! Please share your ideas and feedback!

How this works:

This week, there will be 3 (yes, 3!) blog posts asking for your feedback, each with a specific topic and options. Hopefully that means it’s really easy to weigh in and you’ll give lots of feedback After all, this process is designed to make it easy for you to get even more of what you want from me!

Redesign topic #1: The Content You Want

For today’s topic, I want to talk about the kind of content that is interesting to you and keeps you coming back for more. Figuring that piece out means that Matt and I will be able to highlight content for you, design the site to feature what you’re after, and even help me write more of the interesting stuff! There are two focus areas below and some options for answers – please note there’s an “other” listed for both as I’m sure there are things I haven’t thought to include and hope you’ll feel open to listing them!

Focus: What is the content you come here for most?

• blog posts and conversations
• presentations or speaker slides/notes
• case studies or examples
• other resources (please describe)

Focus: What elements would make content easiest to find?

• search for tags or categories
• search for titles or conferences
• search for organization names or case study topics
• other (please describe)

Please share your responses in the comments – that way others can respond/reply to your feedback as well as leave their own. Matt and I will be both be responding, asking questions, and participating as well! Please share your ideas and feedback!

There are my three most-used WordPress plugins:

Postalicious (Get this plugin)

Postalicious is a WordPress plugin that automatically posts your delicious, ma.gnolia, Google Reader, Reddit or Yahoo Pipes bookmarks to your blog. The exact details of how your bookmarks are posted are very customizable and are designed to meet your specific needs.

I use this plugin to create my Great Reads posts – it lets me find blog posts, stories, news and anything else online that I think is interesting to the readers of this blog and tag it with Delicious, adding my notes about the link in the field in the Delicious bookmark.  It checks for my saved items, and once I have five things it posts it for me!  I really love it

Twitoaster (Get this plugin)

Automatically retrieve Twitter Replies and/or Twitter Retweets to your Blog’s Posts. These Twitter mentions are handled like Posts Comments, using WP built-in comment system.

I like this tool because it brings in conversation from Twitter to the comment stream for the relating posts.  What I wish was improved was the tracking to pull in the full conversation, and not just retweets, etc.

Tweetmeme (Get this plugin)

The TweetMeme retweet button easily allows your blog to be retweeted. The button also provides a current count of how many times your story has been retweeted throughout twitter.

I like this plugin because it puts an easy-to use button at the top of posts for people to tweet out a link to the post if they want to share – it even pre-writes the tweet for you with the link!

What are your favorite add-ons, extensions, or plugins for blogs?