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 18th). 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 23rd
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 23rd). 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 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 September 13th
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 13th). 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).
- The Desert of Community Building | Geoff Livingston's Blog – "One of the most crystallizing moments of my online career was when Ike Pigott said social media was an organic process. This analogy struck me as inherently true, in large part because of the significant amount of time and care one has to invest in building an active community. Like a farmer who invests love and labor day after day watching her/his fields slowly yield beautiful fruits and vegetables, community developers must tend to their community and build relationships through thoughtful interactions, valuable content, and empowerment methods. Most marketers and communicators fail to realize the imperative of engaging the Fifth Estate as a group of people just like them."
- Breaking Down Silos Does Not Just Apply to Communications | Common Sense – "How often do you hear that communication silos don’t work? Quite often, right? We’ve probably read at least 10 posts on that over the last couple of years. They are right, of course, that for communications to truly be successful all parts of the engine need to be working together. Marketing needs to be talking to PR needs to be talking to customer service and so on… Without true integration, you’re a ship that’s dead in the water. Funny thing about this silo concept… it can also be applied to research."
- How charities are using virtual gifts on Facebook to raise money | Social media agency London | FreshNetworks blog – "Virtual gifts are big business. Even in its earlier days, many people on Facebook were paying money to give their friends virtual flowers, and Farmville makes a great success out of selling trees and sheep to people to gift to others as part of the game. What we have learned is that people are willing to pay money for virtual objects, and even more so when they are gifts to other people. Seeing this trend, many people are tying to explore ways to integrate virtual gifts into their social media strategy as a way to make money. Few are doing this successfully but as with many examples of successful social media there is much we can learn by looking at how it is being used in the not-for-profit sector."
- How to Piss off an Online Community – 4 Recent Examples | Search Engine Journal – "People are resistant to change. We find solace in our daily routines. And because social media sites have become a part of that routine (for better or worse) even small changes to those services can effect us. So while not every change is bad, and most (if not all) will have their naysayers, some changes are just harder to swallow than others. Here are 4 recent (and very public) examples of changes that caused the respective communities to lash out."
- Luther Lowe: The Positive Side of Negative Reviews – For everyone who is trying to convince their boss, coworkers, or colleagues that "someone saying something bad" isn't as scary or bad as it may seem, here's a great case study for you!
Great reads from around the web on August 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 August 16th). 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).
- Openness or How Do You Design for the Loss of Control? | Blog | design mind – "Openness is the mega-trend for innovation in the 21st century, and it remains the topic du jour for businesses of all kinds. Granted, it has been on the agenda of every executive ever since Henry Chesbrough’s seminal Open Innovation came out in 2003. However, as several new books elaborate upon the concept from different perspectives, and a growing number of organizations have recently launched ambitious initiatives to expand the paradigm to other areas of business, I thought it might be a good time to reframe “Open” from a design point of view."
- The internet: is it changing the way we think? | Technology | The Observer – "American writer Nicholas Carr's claim that the internet is not only shaping our lives but physically altering our brains has sparked a lively and ongoing debate, says John Naughton. Below, a selection of writers and experts offer their opinion."
- Emergency Social Data Survey Results – americanredcross's posterous – Check out the slides and data from the American Red Cross's survey on Emergency Social Data!
- In Case of Emergency, Update Your Facebook Status | Beth’s Blog – "In January, after the Haiti Earthquake struck, if you were participating on social networks, you couldn’t help but notice the many, many Tweets and Facebook status messages about the Haiti Earthquake. The messages included pleas for support or retweeting the news, but beyond that the stream included pleas from people on the ground in Haiti asking for emergency assistance or letting loved ones and friends know they’re okay. A new American Red Cross survey shows many web users would turn to social media to seek help for themselves or others during emergencies—and they expect first responders to be listening."
- Monitoring and Evaluation NEWS » Most Significant Change (MSC) – "The most significant change (MSC) technique is a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. It is participatory because many project stakeholders are involved both in deciding the sorts of change to be recorded and in analysing the data. It is a form of monitoring because it occurs throughout the program cycle and provides information to help people manage the program. It contributes to evaluation because it provides data on impact and outcomes that can be used to help assess the performance of the program as a whole."
- Transparency: Where the Stuff on the Internet Comes From – Transparency – GOOD – "Every day, thousands of stories are passed around the internet on blogs and via Twitter. A new study by Journalism.org has examined the source of those stories. It turns out, most of them come from old-school media. We may like to share information via Twitter, but the information we share comes from the morning's newspaper. This is a look at where blogs and Twitter users are getting their stories, and what kind of stories their users are most likely to link to."
- Marshall Ganz: Why Stories Matter « Friends of Justice – "Learning skills and practices is not like learning a formula; it’s more like learning how to ride a bicycle. You can read 10 books about it or listen to someone lecture about it all day, but how do you really start learning to ride a bicycle? You get on. And you fall. That’s how you learn practices. That’s how you learn organizing." Thanks to Joe Solomon (@engagejoe) for the link!
Great reads from around the web on August 11th
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 August 11th). 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).
- Social Versus Entrepreneur – "Grammatically, the word social modifies entrepreneur, indicating a social entrepreneur is one whose entrepreneurial activity is social in nature. I think about the word social as referring to social welfare, be it poverty alleviation, environmental protection, or any type of intervention that benefits humanity in what has traditionally been thought of as a charitable way. With so many new ventures founded every day, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for me to decipher what the social purposes of some initiatives are. This is a significant problem for the social enterprise movement."
- Submit your Case Study to the Global Digital Activism Data Set! – "The goal of the Global Digital Activism Data Set (GDADS) project is to turn qualitative case studies of digital activism around the world into a non-proprietary quantitative machine-readable data set in spreadsheet form that will facilitate the work of scholars in this new field." Learn more and submit your case study today!
- http://manage-volunteers.org/ – "As far as we know, it is the first such comprehensive listing of options for causes, nonprofits, and NGOs who need tools to manage volunteers. Organizations that rely on volunteering can compare and contrast the wide variety of volunteer management software available, and more quickly identify the software that is right for them. Software developers may also gain better recognition and hopefully more customers by having their software listed on the database. <br />
<br />
Our goal with this site is to help nonprofits and other volunteer organizations grow and thrive by giving them easy access to the<br />
resources they need to better manage their time and volunteers. <br />
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Our goal with this site is to help nonprofits and other volunteer organizations grow and thrive by giving them easy access to the<br />
resources they need to better manage their time and volunteers."<br />
<br />
Check it out and provide your feedback! - The 2010 Social Networking Map / Flowtown (@flowtown) – I love maps and I work in social media; so I always love the maps of social media! Here is an updated version of XKCD's Map of Online Communities; with updated numbers and networks.
- Four social media lessons from the New York Times | Creativity_Unbound – "If you look at the Times from another perspective – that of partnerships, social media behavior, and content – the company’s actually a shining example of how to hold onto core values and evolve at the same time. Here are four things it’s done that serve as examples for any traditional company, including advertising agencies."
Great reads from around the web on July 29th
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 July 29th). 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).
- How Women Use the Web [REPORT] – "In the “Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet (Internet)” report, comScore concludes that women are the digital mainstream, a group of savvy Internet explorers who are more engaged than their male counterparts, and are the primary drivers of online and group buying."
- Why Do You Participate in Twitter Chats? | Community Organizer 2.0 – "Why do people participate in Twitter chats? I’ve been thinking about that question a lot. I posed the question “what Twitter chats do you participate in and why?” on Twitter and Facebook. What came back was pretty consistent: people participate to get information, ideas, contribute to a community, and meet new people."
- Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire A Community Manager – David Armano – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review – "Okay, maybe that's going too far. I don't really recommend firing your marketing manager. I do however believe that most companies will eventually need to hire or contract with a community manager, if they haven't already. A recent BusinessWeek article called "Twitter Twitter Little Star," describes social media as a booming industry which has caught the attention of corporations everywhere, and suggests the role of a "social media director" and what that person should do. I'd like to dig a bit deeper into what this core function, necessary to create to what's becoming known as social engagement. I'll call the role the community manager."
- Q&A: A West Point for Community Organizing – Walking Distance – GOOD – "Since its first boot camp in 2006 the New Organizing Institute has trained more than 700 organizers across the country in leveraging online tools to generate offline action. It’s the nation’s leading progressive advocacy and campaign training program and it’s quietly and forcefully redefining the way campaigns are run and social change happens. Judith Freeman, one of the organization’s founders, worked on the new media strategy for the Obama campaign and is using those same tactics to train leaders from organizations like the NAACP and the Red Cross. We spoke to Ms. Freeman about what community organizing looks like in the 21st century."
- Where does Social Media belong on the Org Chart? — Global Neighbourhoods – When everyone wants a bit of the social media juice, having a strategy and usage policy become even more important. Interested to hear how organizations are dealing with this issue!
- The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide | Idealware – "Social media can be useful to your organization… but how useful? For what? What tangible results are people seeing from it? Created in partnership with the New Organizing Institute, the Decision Guide walks you through a step-by-step process to decide what social media channels make sense for your organization via a workbook, guide, and the results of more than six months of research. And through the included Consultant Directory, you can find a professional to help define and implement your strategy."
Great reads from around the web on July 19th
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 July 19th). 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).
- Blood and Milk » Blog Archive » Ushahidi, Twitter, and the future of foreign aid – Alanna's post is a great example of the power of networks, social media, and open systems. As she notes, her example has luck but it is an example of a growing model of a changing world. What do you think?
- Net2 Think Tank Round-up: Age Segmentation in Social Networking | NetSquared – "For this month's Net2 Think Tank, we asked you to share your thoughts and best practices for using social media with or for a particular age group. We are hoping to understand what tools or practices appeal to different age groups online and how organizations can best target their efforts to those audiences. This round-up is a summary of the responses we received from the community and it will hopefully serve to help you re-think the ways that you're targeting your limited audience." Add your thoughts or blog posts in the comments!
- Marketing for Nonprofits: Want to Build Community Online? Become a Bridge Builder. – "Marketing online, in particular, is much more than putting up a static website to announce your gala or ask people to volunteer. It's about having a CONVERSATION with people who care about your work and can help you reach your goals. OK, you've heard this before. But the real question is, HOW do you become a community manager and/or how do you find the right person for the job? What is the skill set you should be looking for?"
- Social Spaces – I'm really excited to see Social Spaces, a project fueled by a friend a colleague, take off! Social Spaces is project which studies positive community projects and aims to test if these types of projects can be stimulated elsewhere through spreading ideas and practices. It is currently focused on 5 main areas: Hand Made – Portraits of Emergent New Culture, Traveling Pantry, Community of Practice, Organizational Workshops, and Research. Check it out!
- Don't focus on technology, focus on behavior — SocialFish – This presentation by Paul Adams, Senior User Experience Researcher at Google, reposted on the SocialFish blog, nails home a point I feel like I talk about it every day: it's not about the technology, it's about the people! Great slides.