—–

Who are you friends with on Facebook? Do you care who sees where you check in on FourSquare? Last month, Farra Trompeter of Big Duck and Danielle Bridgida of National Wildlife Federation presented at the Bridge Conference last week about personal and professional branding. In preparation for their presentation, they circulated a survey to over 200 nonprofit professionals, asking how they use various social platforms. The responses lean towards a reality in which our online presence is just as diverse as our offline personalities – people are connecting with a mix of others on difference platforms.

Are you mixing your personal and professional self online? Here are some helpful tips to keep you on your own message:

Use privacy options to your advantage! “72% of the 209 respondents describe their approaches to personal/professional use of social media as either ‘blended’ or ‘segmented by channel’.” Facebook friends aren’t created equal; or, rather, Facebook gives you the options to treat your friends differently. Use the functionality in the system to ensure you can share as much as you like, with the people you want to see it. Create lists so that you can easily add people as you connect with them, and set your privacy settings to some secure options like none of your photos or photos that you are tagged in are visible to people in your “work only” list. Similarly, Google+ allows you to filter general actions or content as well as post-by-post content to certain groups.

Set your own tone! According to Farra and Danielle’s survey respondents, Twitter is the top three platforms for both personal and professional use. Twitter doesn’t provide much room for a bio, but be sure to squeeze in a statement that “the views expressed here are my own” (or however you’d like to phrase it in your own way!). You can include a disclaimer in all of your profiles, actually! Additionally, on Facebook or any other social platform, you may want to include an explicit statement about who you want to connect with and how. For example, you could include a statement that says your personal friends are encouraged to make a friend request but that all professional contacts should subscribe to public posts – or whatever your preferred options are.

Be a social recommender! “Almost everyone uses LinkedIn, but hardly anyone asks for recommendations with any regularity (despite the fact that your LinkedIn profile is one of the top results for your name in Google).” The social Web is social because we are all humans, connecting and talking with each other. And it is the Web because we are connected and networked across and around the world. Don’t be shy: Ask for a recommendation, and give one to someone else! Think of it as the social media version of a good deed or social capital investments.

Choose your own path! “Most people tend to favor using blogs and LinkedIn ‘professionally’ and Foursquare, Google+, and Instagram ‘personally’.” Do you love taking photos of your kid (also known as the worlds cutest kid, I know!)? Not sure you want to overwhelm your professional network every evening with more photos of her cute face? You don’t have to mix your channels! You can keep that flickr account or Instagram profile private and shared with just your family and closest (photo-tolerant) friends. Even if you are a social media manager or a social tech lover, you can still claim profiles and platforms as purely personal or professional, especially if it means you enjoy the connections and content that much more. After all, some of this is supposed to be for fun, right?

I’d love to hear what you think about the results of Farra and Danielle’s survey: do you mix your profiles or use some for only personal or professional purposes? What are your tips for keeping them straight and managing your personal presence online?

[Photo credit: Flickr hassmanm]

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).

• Have you accepted online technology as your organizational savior? – Small Act – “When your leadership has Shiny Object Syndrome, you’ll often come to work to find newspaper clippings on your desk or links in your email all about the Next Big Thing. There will be a note attached that says, “Let’s do this!” You’ll sigh inwardly, instantly thinking of a dozen reasons why it probably won’t work or why you lack the time and energy to give it the best shot possible (mainly because you’re probably still wrestling with the previous Shiny Object du jour), but you’ve fought and lost enough battles of this type to know that you might as well suck it up and do what they’re asking. The problem with Shiny Object Syndrome is that it operates on the assumption that because something is “popular” (like, say, Foursquare), then simply using it will guarantee success for your organization. This isn’t always the case. In fact, it rarely is.”
• 10 Non-Profits Leveraging Pinterest for Social Good – “There’s no question that Pinterest is the hottest social network right now. From your friends and family to celebrities, athletes and designers, everyone’s pinning visually interesting content. But did you know that non-profit organizations are pinning, too?” Have you tried Pinterest? Do you think it would be valuable for your organization or a waste of time?
• Forget Generation Y: 18- to 34-Year-Olds Are Now ‘Generation C’ – Interesting inforgraphic about the “Connected Generation” – what do you think? “It’s hardly news that young adults are the most digitally connected, but now Nielsen has come up with a new name for this group based on their common behaviors: “Generation C.” The C stands for “connected,” and the group comprises Americans between 18 and 34 — who are defined by their digital connectivity, Nielsen and NM Incite’s U.S. Digital Consumer Report says. They consume media, socialize and share experiences through devices more than other age groups.”
• Infographic: Do people still trust the news during election season? – Very interesting new infographic helping dissect data from a national poll examining whether or not Americans trust the media during political peaks. “The survey revealed the dramatic lack of trust Americans hold for sources of election news of all mediums. Of the six media types explored in the survey (cable news stations, network news, newspapers, talk radio, internet news sites, and blogs and social media), ‘traditional’ news outlets scored highest in terms of perceived credibility compared to newer and less traditional mediums…”
• Business competitiveness is defined by social innovation | Guardian Sustainable Business | guardian.co.uk – “There are few companies that can afford to not label themselves as green and something similar is happening to the word social. From corporate social responsibility to social business to social investment, previously limited to charitable activities and workers’ rights, social is on the march to becoming the new green. As with any label, ubiquity is as much a measure of success as a sign of abuse. And as with green we have to smarten up and learn to ask the right questions. For social impact some judge by good intention, while others measure by human development indicators or complicated calculations on social rates of return.”
• Spring of Code – “The OccupyLondon tech team is pleased to invite Occupiers and friends from the Open Source software community all around the world to participate in the biggest series of global Occupy code sprints yet, the Spring of Code.”

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 Citizens Blog | Immerse. Converse. Disperse. – "This interview is part of our "Social Citizen Sightings" series, in which we highlight how people are using their creativity, idealism, and digital fluency to support their causes every day. Milena Arciszewski is 26. She enjoys camping, reading, adventure travel, and clean socks… and I should mention is starting a nonprofit called Pando Projects. Pando Projects is a nonprofit that empowers people—in particular Millennials—to step up as leaders and develop new, local solutions to the problems in their communities. The initiative seeks to support ordinary people in accomplishing extraordinary things by helping them to tackle national and global challenges. By providing tools and support for people with ideas, the group hopes to empower Americans to change the world, one project at a time. The pilot phase launches this month and will support 15 New Yorkers with ideas for grassroots projects."
• What’s in a word: Abundance, capacity, resource, network and community » ext337 – I really like this post from Marnie Webb, sharing her internal conflict working on the difference between words, like network and community. It's something that I try to tackle by having a clear personal definition, for my own word choice. But that doesn't mean everyone else sees the world, and words, the way I do. What do you think? How do you define the words Marnie highlights (networks, community, abundance, resources)?
• Internet Fame and the True Impact of Influence — SocialFish – "You may be aware that there is a big debate going on in the social media blogosphere about “influence”. We’re all familiar with the mantra that we should be out there leveraging influencers in our communities in order to get the word out about our causes, brands or services… and that makes total sense from a generating-word-of-mouth point of view. But hold on. If you’re trying to do this, and you don’t actually know who your industry influencers are (perhaps because you’re not really immersed in your own open community, or because your community is too large or public-facing to be able to list your champions in an organic way), and you’re looking at some tools out there that purport to measure influence…. maybe you’re starting to think “this is not as easy as it sounds.” Maybe you’re starting to think that influence is not about how many followers someone has on Twitter. Maybe you’re starting to think that “influencer scores” are totally meaningless for your goals and objectives."
• How to connect with your community in 8 words or less | Case Foundation – "What’s the relationship between an organization’s tagline and its strategy? When we announced the winners of this year’s GettingAttention.org’s Nonprofit Tagline Awards (The Taggies), a bit of a debate unfolded about the connection between tagline and strategy. Fundraiser and blogger Chuck English asserted that a tagline is nothing but a tool, and that approaching it otherwise diverts organizations from the critical work of strategy. In response, Katya Andresen, COO at Network for Good, commented, “Taglines are a great test of your strategy. You can't have a clear tagline if you don't have a clear sense of 1) your mission; 2) what is special about your organization; and 3) what your audience cares about.” I couldn’t agree more with Katya. And I was glad to see Chuck raise the issue."
• PayPal and Oxfam offer 100% giving for February | UK Fundraising – "Throughout February PayPal will cover Oxfam's running costs for all donations to Oxfam via PayPal. The organisations describe the "100% giving" campaign as "a completely new form of charity giving in the UK". They claim that "it is the first time a charity has offered a donation scheme in which it is guaranteed that 100% of your donation will go directly to the cause because a corporate partner is paying the running costs"."
• Philanthro-teens delving into nonprofit world – Crain’s New York Business – "In the past year, 79% of girls in the United States have contributed food or clothing, 53% have given their own money, and 66% have asked family or friends to give or volunteer, according to research commissioned by the United Nations Foundation. Today's teens also plan to be generous when they get older. More than 75% say they will regularly give to charity, versus 63% in 1989, according to a nationwide survey by the Girl Scout Research Institute of 3,263 students in grades three through 12."

Bonnie’s reflections are up on her blog, too.

Writing this blog post also made me realize that I think even Bonnie and I have different views of the “Global Scale” project – and that’s just fine! I think people looking to ramp up/scale their work to different communities even if the geographic boundaries aren’t part of it, are people who should be engaged. Similarly, people working on projects/programs that are just in one part of the world but are trying to communicate them (especially if they are trying to elicit support from elsewhere) to people outside that region should be joining in and sharing their experiences. Etc. I really think there is a wide range of opportunities for finding value to contribute regardless of the work or organization someone is from.

With a name like that!

Naming anything can be a difficult task: you can over state or under sell, you can rely on jargon or be too vague. In this case, “global scale” meant something to us because we had context and our own definition. But it isn’t something, so we’re hearing from the current community members, that makes sense to them or connects as something relevant to their work. The name doesn’t match the purpose. We need a name we can all orient around, that captures the idea: it isn’t about working on global initiatives per se, but is instead about ramping up efforts and scaling impact to effect, at least eventually, a greater world.

Where do I fit?

We also want to ensure that the name and the language used on the wiki help answer the question of “where do I fit in all this” immediately to the community. We know many, many people that have ideas, experiences, and information to share on this topic, but when directed to the wiki they didn’t see how their work was relevant. Again, just because we have an understanding of the space, doesn’t mean it’s clear to others. We want to ensure that the entire community understands both what they can share and what they can learn from the wiki.

And we hope you’ll help us!

1. What names would you suggest? Maybe “Scaled Efforts” or “Scaling Impact” “International Outreach” or something else – we need your ideas!
2. What gets you thinking? What kinds of prompts or questions would help you start to think about this topic and help you identify how you can contribute?

(Photo credit: Flickr: ToastyKen)

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).

• More Startups. More Jobs. – Here's a great conversation starting piece by Eric Ries: "Advanced countries are competing to attract the world’s best entrepreneurs — the US should too. Entrepreneurship is one of the most significant contributors to a nation’s prosperity. In an increasingly globalized economy, many of the advanced nations in the world are racing to attract the brightest entrepreneurial minds, regardless of their country of origin. The startups created by these highly skilled immigrants will generate most of the jobs and wealth in these countries in the future. This is a race we cannot afford to ignore."
• 2009 In Social Media: A Cartoon Review – Rob Cottingham, from Social Signal, created a very fun video that recaps all the major contributions of social media to the world in 2009 – think you were on top of it all? Well, check out Rob's video and see what you missed!
• Highlights from My Conversation with Tori Tuncan, Founder of Lend4Health – Zane Safrit – "Tori Tuncan, founder of Lend4Health, joined the show recently. Lend4Health is a non-profit organization that facilitates community-funded, interest-free micro-loans as a creative funding option for individuals and groups seeking optimal health. Currently, Lend4Health is facilitating loans for the "biomedical" treatment of children and adults with autism spectrum and related disorders. Tori shared the story of her journey to date with Lend4Health, helping children and their families who experience autism spectrum and related disorders." You can listen to the audio recording of the interview or read the transcript.
• How Digitized Content Democratizes Knowledge – PC World – "If you follow the trend lines for book and magazine availability, pricing and the costs of distribution and digital storage, we'll soon find ourselves living in a world where literally millions of titles are available to just about everyone, just about all the time. How will that change human culture?" This very interesting post from PC World explores implications of the changing digital landscape – it's a great read!
• Chief Reputation Officer: Whose Job Is It, Anyway? – Forbes.com – "n the 20th century, PR and marketing were separate but unequal career paths, and CMO was the highest-ranking and most-respected title to which one in those jobs could aspire. The standard career paths in these areas were relatively linear: As a lead communicator, you went to j-school, did a turn in journalism or an agency and then apprenticed under a "gray hair" boss until he retired. This is compared with the typical path of a chief marketing officer, who got his or her M.B.A. in marketing, hired agencies that made him or her look good, learned how to manage big budgets and award-winning creative and then got in the running for the corner office. Today that is changing because of the increasing importance of reputation management."

Voting will:

• Sharpen your understanding of what works and what doesn’t communications-wise.
• Inform and inspire your foundation’s messaging.
• Give you the chance to register for the free 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Report, with 2,500 tagline examples.

The 60 tagline finalists have been culled from over 1,700 entries in 13 categories, including grantmaking. Now it’s *your* turn to select the best.

Please share this invitation with your grantees! They’ll benefit in the same ways you do.

VOTE Now! Polls close midnight, Wednesday, September 30th.

About the Nonprofit Tagline Awards

The annual Tagline Awards are back from Nancy Schwartz and the Getting Attention blog.  Your nonprofit or foundation could be one of this year’s Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award winners!

A strong tagline does double-duty — working to extend your organization’s name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base. It’s one of your most effective marketing tools, but the 2008 GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations don’t have a tagline or rate theirs as performing poorly.

I’m trying to change that with this annual award program, highlighting the best in nonprofit taglines.

For more information, visit this FAQ.

About the Tagline Awards

A strong tagline does double-duty — working to extend your organization’s name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base. It’s one of your most effective marketing tools, but the 2008 GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations don’t have a tagline or rate theirs as performing poorly.

I’m trying to change that with this annual award program, highlighting the best in nonprofit taglines.

For more information, visit this FAQ.

How to Enter

To enter, simply submit this entry form – it will only take a few minutes.

All entrants will receive a free copy of the fully-updated 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Report in late 2009. It’s the only complete guide to building your organizations’s brand in 8 words or less — filled with how-tos, don’t-dos and models.

Deadline to enter your organization in the contest is July 31st!

2008 Winners

View the list of winners of the 2008 Nonprofit Tagline Awards (selected by nearly 4,000 voters in the field).

Matthew Taylor has a post up

According to the RSA website:

For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress.  Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action.

And, as he explains,

Back to the RSA. Yesterday, we had an all staff session on branding. Over the last year we have been trying increasingly to align the RSA’s activities around a core mission. We have not yet found the pithiest way to express this mission but in essence it is ‘developing citizens for tomorrow’, in other words the RSA is about understanding and advancing human capability so that people can thrive in the future.

Matthew then shares additional branding ideas and opens the floor for discussion.  Quite a few comments concentrate on the process of creating the new branding, stressing the involvement of the RSA Fellows.

I am not a member of the RSA.  I tried to add to the conversation on Matthew’s blog but the post never appeared, whether it didn’t get through the submission queue or moderation or what have you.  So, I’m writing this post instead!

I was invited to become an RSA Fellow and was very honored at the invitation, especially after such a short time here and hopefully only the very start of the impact I’d like to make and change I’d like to support.  I have also been incredibly pleased and honored at the invitation and subsequent participation at a few RSA events.  I am not, however, at least for the time being, planning to accept the RSA Fellowship invitation, and this is why:

Branding.

The RSA, like many other organizations, suffers because of a lack of the most powerful aspect of its branding.  I do not plan to accept the Fellowship invitation because I have not, whether online or in person, from the invtation materials or conversations I’ve had with others, gained a clear understanding of what being a Fellow even means.  Furthermore, and most importantly to me, I have not been shown how a Fellowship will help me in my work at changing my community and the world.

Yes, slogans and colors, font and everything else are all important parts of the branding.  It’s true. But the RSA is missing the most important part, at least in bringing me on board: proving to me that being a Fellow will help ME and not just that my membership will help THEM.

As folks mention in the comments on Matthew’s piece, I don’t need to build my resume (for better or worse, I’m fine with it as it is).  But I am completely open to any and all, whether organization or individual, ready to help me make our local communities and the global community as great as possible.

So, RSA, “do you get it?”

(Just for clarification, I am hoping to get those answers and hoping the branding advances to answer them not just to me but to everyone, so that we can all start really collaborating for change!  I mean it, RSA, I’m with you when you’re ready.)