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).

• Why Your Infographic Is Evil (And Three Ways To Fix It) – “Blogger’s confession: I can spend a couple of hours interviewing sources and crafting a post several hundred words long and get a couple of thousand hits. Or I can write a pithy introduction, repurpose an infographic that has already appeared on several other sites and most likely was created by a public relations firm or a company looking to push a product and service and end up doubling or tripling those traffic numbers. I’ve done both. But I’m not necessarily proud of succumbing to the infographic trend. I’m not bashing infographics. Some of my best friends are graphic artists who design infographics that are eye catching, smart and tell stories better than my words ever could. But this latest visual Internet fad of telling almost every story with a dense infographic is something that I’m hoping will soon be played out.”
• Red Cross Opens Social Media Center For Disaster Response – TheNonProfitTimes – “The American Red Cross (ARC) has launched a digital operations center and digital volunteer program to coordinate response efforts during disasters, particularly when storm victims are huddled in a basement away from other forms of communication. The Digital Operations Center demonstrates the increasing importance of social media in emergency situations. The launch of a Digital Volunteer program will help Red Cross respond to questions and information from the public during disasters.”
• Crowdraising | Heath Wickline – “Advertising can be a great vehicle to make a real, emotional connection with our audiences and to raise the visibility of a campaign or organization. But the expense of buying ad space can be a barrier to many nonprofits. Ads aren’t worth a thing if no one seems them, and ad prices are based on the number of eyeballs that will see them. That’s why Super Bowl spots are obscenely expensive while you see ads for local furniture stores in the middle of the night. It’s how the system works and it’s a conundrum. Social media may now provide an answer. A new online platform calledLoudSauce is looking to change that difficult advertising equation by introducing a simple way for individuals to amplify ideas they like.”
• What can local websites offer the BBC and other public service providers? | Networked Neighbourhoods – “Networked Neighbourhoods has been working with the BBC to test the potential contribution of an alliance of London neighbourhood sites, using the forthcoming digital switchover as a catalyst. With representatives from a number of London local networks and heritage media groups, gathered in the council chamber at Broadcasting House yesterday, we explored the ways in which neighbourhood websites could be used as part of a two-way public service information network.”
• Facebook Fan Gates Are Dead: How Do I Get Fans? | Brian Carter – “A stunning change with the new Facebook Timeline is that you can no longer have a landing/welcome tab for your business page. Everyone is going to land on your Timeline Page with the big cover photo. You’ll still have apps (tabs) but they’ll be even harder for people to find. Few people were going to Facebook pages already, fewer were clicking on the tabs, and now it will be nearly zero.”

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).

• Report Release: The 2010 Nonprofit IT Staffing and Spending … – "Nearly 1,200 nonprofit professionals filled out the latest annual survey, sponsored by NTEN and The NonProfit Times, providing us with another year of benchmarks and data concerning: salaries, outsourcing, recruiting, organizational structure, and other aspects of Information Technology practices in the nonprofit sector. One of the findings that stood out to us: Only 40% of respondents reported that their organization has some type of formal technology plan. And much less than that (22%) reported that their organization had ever evaluated Return on Investment (ROI) of technology projects or programs."
• World Bank’s Mapping for Results launched – Check out this deployment of the Ushahidi platform for digital storytelling and reporting: "This weekend at the World Bank annual meetings the World Bank launched their new Mapping for Results platform. The initiative visualizes the location of World Bank projects to better monitor project and impact on people; to enhance transparency and social accountability; and to enable citizens and other stakeholders to provide direct feedback. All 79 IDA countries, the lowest income nations, are included with the geographic locations of projects, financing, and sector identification such as water, transportation, governance, etc. There are also indicator data including maternal health, infant mortality, malnutrition, poverty, and population. The tool is meant to openly share and visualize the operations of World Bank financed activities down to as local a level as possible and compare these with actual need and monitor the effects over time."
• Conversation is the New Attention – "This article is adapted from their SXSW 2011 talk, Toss the Projector: Redefining the Speaker/Audience Dynamic. In the talk, Tim and Chris unveiled Donahue, a new experimental tool designed and built by Arc90 and Behavior Design which tears down the wall between audience and presenter, allowing the audience to interact directly with the presenter’s ideas to begin a conversation."
• 2011: The Year the Check-in Died – "Early last year, "checking in" was the cool new craze. No visit to your favorite tech news site could be had without getting buried in a tsunami of articles about Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, BriteKite or a myriad other startups. The big guys quickly followed suit: Yelp introduced "Check-Ins" while Facebook launched "Places" and most recently, Google Latitude updated to incorporate check-ins and check-outs. But here's the thing: the trends aren't actually that good."
• Hey, Let’s Fix The Internet – What do you think – can we change? Change the internet? Change the way we associated with others on and offline? This post has me thinking about many different perspectives on community organizing and community engagement and I'd love to hear what it triggers for you!

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I truly believe that in all communications, information sharing, marketing and even community building there is a natural balancing between more-and-more-global and more-and-more-local. Social media may connect people around the world but it can also connect them locally.  Just as our tools get more interesting and dynamic for global collaboration and impact, so do they for locally-focused work, campaigns, and communities.

According to the Pew Neighbors Online study recently released, 27% of American adult Internet users (or 20% of adults overall) use “digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues.

The power of social media in a global context is two-fold: There’s huge potential with these news tools for real movement building, bringing organizations, campaigns and people together behind a movement and not just one brand or one call to action.  Global use of social media is also a great way to amplify voices, ideas, and stories.

The power of using social media in a local context focuses most directly on just those things that make “local” different: being “here,” connecting online and offline, taking action collectively and delivering services.

The opportunities for organizations to leverage hyper local tools include:

• Catalyze your community – be the catalyst behind community growth and collaboration.
• Fuel efforts or campaigns – target energy and capacity to promote and drive local impact.
• Build buzz and spread news – be the hub and resource for news and information.
• Get connected – be part of the community yourself by connecting with other organizations, community leaders, and individuals.

FourSquare

Estrella Rosenburg shares her case study using FourSquared in the 100×100 campaign on the Community Organizers 2.0 blog.  The Brooklyn Museum has done a lot with FourSquare, like sharing promotions and building visible community; check out the write up on the FourSquare blog or on the Museum’s site.

Meetup Everywhere

Meetup Everywhere is “an open and free internet platform for sparking Meetups everywhere about something. It’s only been out for a couple months and I think it has a bit more to go to be as dynamic and interesting as it really could be, but it’s a great way to see how easy it can be to inspire local action and interaction with your community. Check out the Meetup Everywhere site to see examples of how organizations and causes, like the Gulf Coast Benefit for Fisherman and Wildlife, are taking off.

Search

There are various tools for hyperlocal searching, and one I’m looking at recently is called Sency for Cities.  I think there’s a lot of potential for hyper local search and the power that comes with geo-tags/data. Creating a map or other aggregate of local resources, conversations, news and so on (even if it was done in a dashboard) could help your community and help position your organization as the hub.

Don’t forget the global context!

As you leverage tools for local impact, don’t forget the power they hold for going global. Continue to offer ways people who can’t be in your local community can contribute or spread the word, and even work on your behalf wherever they are.

What do you think?

What examples do you have to share? Is your organization thinking about using social media in a local context – if so, what are you working on and what questions do you have? Does your organization or local area have a case study to share? I’d love to hear it!

Location: London, UK

Topic: Collaborating Locally

Description: This event is an opportunity for people within and outside Government, who are developing programmes supporting local online projects, to tell each about their plans – and get some input from those working on the ground or in research.  We hope it will also be a chance for everyone to share practical experience, and develop some ideas on how to blend new and older ways of communicating.  We have people attending at programme level from Communities and Local Government, Ministry of Justice, IDeA, Media Trust/Community Voices, Young Foundation, RSA, Talk About Local.

Related Links:

• Event details
• Social by Social website

Location: Fulham, London, UK

Topic: Creating a Local Community Website (training)

Description: David Wilcox and I facilitated an all-day training for local W14 (postcode) residents interested in creating a local community website.  The training included an overview of best practices and examples, strategy and roles, and hands-on training.

Related Links:

• W14 site