Here’s a Qriously case study, from Katy Gilbert – enjoy!

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I have been using our free Qriously account for the last month.  (Thanks Amy for getting us hooked up!) I wasn’t sure what to expect, but loved it straight from the start.  It is easy to use and understand.  The data is clearly laid out.  And it was so much fun to watch people answering the questions and getting real time data to things that would help our project.

Background on the project:

Stories of Our City is a worldwide project sharing true stories from around the world.  We believe that if people will listen to each other they will understand each other better – and hopefully take steps as world citizens to build a more peaceful world.

With this in mind, we asked questions in 3 primary areas:

1. content- “what kind of stories do people like?”
2. ideas about peace “what do people think about world peace?”
3. social media “how can we use social media to engage people in our project?”

Questions & Qriously Answers

Here is a run down of questions we asked and the way people responded around the world:

Content

“what kind of personal stories do you like best?  Funny or Dramatic

“what kind of stories do you like?”   Funny or Dramatic

Dramatic won the first one, but then funny won the second question. It was helpful to know that people want to listen to moving, dramatic stories if they are listening to life stories.

Peace

“What will stop the next war?” Understanding or weapons

With understanding winning out by 8.6 %.  But the interesting thing is you can see what people in certain locations think of your question.  For instance, in India, weapons won out.  But in the U.S. it was understanding.  It was great to be able to see the geographic breakdown on these kinds of questions.

“will there ever be world peace?” Yes or no

Although most Americans answered “no,” the Argentinians were the most optimistic of all the countries.

“what effects world peace?” World leaders or citizens

It was interesting to note that most people think world leaders (18% more than citizens).  This helped us realize that our project (dealing mostly in helping citizens understand each other better) has barriers to overcome in helping other people see that their actions effect world peace.

Social Media

The last category of questions that we asked was regarding Facebook and Twitter use.  We needed to know more about how people use facebook, so we asked them:

“what are you most likely to share on Facebook?” Photos or links

The results were tied.  So, we know that we can add photos and links to help engage people on our website and we don’t have to worry about not engaging a certain group.

“what do you share on Facebook?” Photos or random news

We found out that people are more likely to share photos.  So, now we know to spend time getting great photos and not so much time on being cute with the random facts.

We also asked people if they had ever heard of Stories of Our City and if they visit our website daily or weekly, etc.   It is a great way to find out how you are doing in your marketing strategies! – like having a global focus group at your disposal!

So, basically, I love Qriously and I am so glad that we got to give it a go- Thanks a ton!

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).

• Official Google Blog: Explore museums and great works of art in the Google Art Project – Take yourself on an art tour using Google Maps! "One of the things I love about working at Google is that you can come up with an idea one day and the next day start getting to work to make it a reality. That's what happened with the Art Project—a new tool we're announcing today which puts more than 1,000 works of art at your fingertips, in extraordinary detail."
• [Book Interview] Nonprofit Example of Social Media Excellence: National Wildlife Federation – Here is a terrific interview with my friend and colleague Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation – she discusses both the tools she uses and the lessons she's learned from managing the social media presence for the NWF. One of the highlights: she notes that they would not have had such success in raising money online if they had not already invested in building up a community of active supporters.
• How Journalists Are Using Social Media to Report on the Egyptian Demonstrations – "The demonstrations are continuing despite the government’s attempts to block communications channels, including the Internet, SMS, TV broadcast by journalists, and mobile networks. Pundits have been weighing in on the role of social media in sparking the uprising, and whether it is a necessary ingredient in accelerating modern revolutions or simply an over-hyped notion. In some respects, the attempt to block communication has done little to stifle reports coming out of the country. Though much of the citizenry isn’t able to broadcast themselves, their stories are being told and amplified by reporters. What’s interesting is that the information flowing out is a hybrid of the “old school” reliance on reports from journalists on location and “new school” amplification through the social web."
• A Devaluation of "Friends" May Be Driving Trust in Thought Leaders – Steve Rubel – "This morning in Davos our CEO Richard Edelman unveiled the key findings of the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer – an annual survey. There's a lot to dig into here. However, I want to highlight three data points that underscore a critical theme that my colleague David Armano and I detailed in our recent trends deck. The takeaway: to stand out in a very cluttered media world, organizations must increasingly activate their internal subject matter experts as thought leaders and do so across several spheres of media – traditional (WSJ, CNN, etc.), Internet upstarts (eg Business Insider, Politico), corporate/owned platforms and social."
• The Battle Against Info-Overload: Is Relevance or Popularity the Best Filter? – "The rise of social media has led to an exponential proliferation of content online and widespread demand for tools to filter that information. Popularity and relevance are the most common metrics through which to filter that content – but are they the best? We asked three people building cutting-edge social software what they think the relationship between relevance, popularity and filtering is going to be in the future. They offered three very different responses. What do you think the future of information filtering will look like?"

From Lee Bryant:

KM = sense making.  We are currently suffering from filter failure; which means the need to help people navigate and work within this world is really huge; we need skilled sense makers!

KM is about helping people make better decisions

KM has a purpose, skills/values/practices related to it have a real purpose today – but why are we not succeeding? why is there not a bigger impact on organizations today?

• km has dysfunctional relationship with IT
• km people are not the IT people and the IT people are not part of the KM development process
• km people need to have more confidence and either find budets or other people with budgets so that they aren’t dependent on IT dept

Where does km sit within in the org? how much influence does it have?

Value of knowledge is contextual and relative – trying to give it value is a mistake; instead focus on the value of having it and sharing it. We need to free up knowledge in order to have healthier networks to work with.

Structure emerges with content – not the other way around. There’s a great deal of misunderstanding about psychology, human nature, and incentives.

Let’s take a critical view of process: “Process is a response to prior stupidity.”

Follow #KMUK10 on Twitter throughout today and tomorrow for more highlights that emerge from the conference!

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).

• YouTube Goes Fully Social And Challenges Facebook | Community Organizer 2.0 – "Today, YouTube announced that every single YouTube channel now comes equipped with a moderator feature. It’s an incredibly exciting step to see YouTube becoming fully social. The moderator feature allows any channel to ask for ideas, questions, or suggestions from the community..right from your YouTube channel. Users may vote the crowdsourced ideas up or down. By integrating Google moderator, YouTube has brought real time engagement features into play and made it 100% more engaging."
• Explaining racial differences in attitudes towards government use of social media | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project – "Last week a reporter from the New York Times read our recent Government Online report and emailed me with a question—how did I explain the disparity between African-Americans' and Hispanics' views of the importance of government social media versus whites? Did I think it had anything to do with minorities being more trusting of the government during the Obama era? Since my reply got pared down due to space constraints, I’m reproducing my response to his query in full below."
• The new JustGiving Facebook app is here « JustGiving blog – JustGiving has a new facebook application out! It launches alongside the current JustGiving application for Facebook which was launched in 2007, which has seen over a half million users – and over 139,000 active in the past month – and over 9500 fans. The JustGiving team is always great about sharing stories, lessons, and insights – so I'll be watching to see how this new tool goes!
• Wild Apricot Blog : Make Your Own Infographic – "Infographics are to data what storytelling is to an annual report: a more engaging way to help bring attention and understanding to your nonprofit’s cause. Yesterday we looked at an interesting infographic that suggested a new way to view your volunteers. Today, let’s look at infographics in general – and resources to help your nonprofit get started on making your own."
• Minnesota Open Idea: Crowdsourcing Contest For Social Change Done Right | Beth’s Blog – "The Minnesota Open Idea is an example of an online social good contest that works. It combines expert judging with popular vote, online strategy with good old fashion off line organizing, links objectives to a theory of change, and incorporates a fun and engaging way for people to learn about and take action on a timely community problem. In this interview, Jennifer Ford Reedy, VP for Strategy and Knowledge Management, at the Minnesota Community Foundation shares the how they designed this online social good contest for success."