Millennial Distinctions

• about 85 Million
• 1st generation raised on mobiles
• 95% own mobile devices
• 83% sleep with mobile at bedside
• 62% connect to internet wirelessly
• more likely than any other generation to post a video of themselves online

Are you Millennial ready?

There are five distinctions of Millennials.

• Co-creation: Millennials want to be part of the creation, they want to create with you and their peers.
• Be Smarter: they want to know how they are making an impact and what you’re doing with their money.
• Two-Player Game: they want to interact, know your leadership and staff.
• No Final Product: this is a social media world now, so there’s an expectation of constant evolution. You can’t stay stale.
• No such thing as un-connected: you have to be relevant wherever they are, when they want.

Why mobile?

Smartphones vs PCs – Smartphone sales beat PC sales with 100.9 million smartphones and 92.1 millions PCs in Q4 2010. This was originally estimated to happen two years later than it did. Smartphones are not just for highly educated groups.

90% of mobile subscribers in the US have internet-ready phones. 50% of Android users under 35, Apple use most under 44, RIM (Blackberry etc.) most over 45.

Start engaging Millennials now to make gains later

How do you do that? How do you use mobile to start engaging and communicating?

Apples has done a great job. They are looking for longevity. You do have to start looking at investing in the next generations now.

Big 4 In Mobile

Mobile Websites

If Millennials can’t find or connect with an organization the way they want to, they will go find a different organization. Millennials want basic information and tools for action. As an example, Soles4Souls.org’s mobile website looks very different than the normal website. It’s also important to have easily readable information via email – so be sure you use mobile rendering options for your emails, especially if you have a call to action and your email and website aren’t mobile rendered, they won’t be able to easily respond.

Smartphone Apps

Engaging with Millennials around volunteering. Millennials who volunteer more, give more. 79% of respondents volunteered in 2010, and they prefer to do it in groups. Develop a mobile app to get people interacting with your organization and encourage, track and inspire volunteering. Using a mobile app allows you as a nonprofit to have a tool where you can push messages out about how to volunteer/give, what the impact is, etc.

SmartOnline just wrapped up an Invent Your Mobile App contest. St Louis Volunteen won, two Millennials are the ones that developed it – geolocation app to find volunteering opportunities, find contests, find things tied to schools, and sharing on social media.

SMS/Text

Most every device can send a text message. Unlike mobile apps, this is something that is virtually available to everyone. Example: PETA anti-fur campaign – sms campaign to engage Millennials in anti-fur campaign against Donna Karen. Millennials were asked to respond Y (yes) to the number that they could then say how many people were voting in support.

The reason sms may be better for activism vs donation is that there isn’t as much transparency about how you’re impacting the world. They know they are voting, vs not knowing where their money is going. The average open rate for email is about 10% but with text messages it is 18%.

There’s an application from the One Campaign and Bono called One that is focused on activism.

Mobile Giving

Trust and donations were huge in the Millennial Donor Report. You must segment your channels of asking. Knowing where Millennials are and which channels do they prefer you use to talk to them is important. They said that they will stop giving if you ask too often. They want to know how their gift will be used.

Ensure your donation forms are optimized for mobile. If it’s a full screen on your computer, and you are looking at it on your phone, it’s impossible. And someone is just going to leave.

58% of Millennials prefer to give online – but they are likely to be accessing your website via a mobile phone. Mobile application giving will grow, 1:4 gave vs preferred. There’s currently very few applications. For example, a bike-a-thon in Texas has a Ride for Life app so that people can keep track of pledges and fundraising, see where others are, etc. Anything that can be game-like is great for an app.

Mobile Roadmap

One of the first things you should do is create a mobile website. Take the most important, relevant, action-oriented information and put it on the mobile version. Ensure your donation page is mobile accessible so that click throughs from emails on phones go somewhere that really works. Apps are a great way to educate and active. Native smartphone functionality is powerful, with geolocation and other services.

What are you doing now? If you haven’t started engaging yet, here’s how to start. Ask initial questions:

• What are you doing already?
• Strong social media presence?
• Activism focused mission?
• Educational programs?
• Large scale fundraising events?

Mobile plan:

• What are your biggest goals?
• What will Millennials and others do with/for you?
• Why would they want to use mobile solutions?
• Who/which departments need to be involved?
• How can enhancements and tools be paid for?
• Find a trusted partner!

Many Millennials have not yet chosen their life-long charities of choice. It’s important you start building trust and accessibility so that you can win them now.

“If your plans don’t include mobile, then your plans are not finished.” – Wendy Clark, Coca-Cola

What did they find out in the Millennial Donor Report?

Last year, we did research on Millennial donors and it spurred us to do it again. Giving, communication and engagement are the three areas of research.

Had respondents from nearly 3,000 participants, 20-35 year olds, with more than 90% with a college degree (nearly half pursued graduate studies and 37% had graduate degrees). The survey was distributed online only.

Giving

They found that when looking at giving, 93% of respondents made a donation in the last year.However, 58% said their largest gift was less than $100. 10% said they gave single gifts larger than $1,000. Millennials are giving small amount to multiple organizations.

This year’s research followed last year’s findings.

58% said they gave because of a personal request. Personal contact is important. The next biggest way to give was online on organization’s website. However, we also asked how they would prefer to give. 49% said they gave via a website, but 58% said they would prefer that way.

Compelling mission or cause for your organization is motivation to give for 85% of respondents, and 56% said personal connection and trust in the leadership/organization. 52% said they gave if their friends or family endorse the organization.

What influences trust? 77% said that if family or friends recommend an organization, they trust the organization. 70% said trust was in understanding financial information and how their donation would be used. 63% said they wanted to meet the organization’s leadership.

When are you likely to donate? 60% said they are very likely to donate if they trust the organization, 43% said very likely if it was a specific project or purpose. 41% said very likely if there was a matching gift.

What makes you stop donating? 79% very likely NOT to give if they don’t trust the organization. 37% said likely and 38% very likely that they would stop if the organization asked too often.

Only 28% of respondents said they would participate in a giving circle but only 22% rejected the notion outright. 50% said they weren’t sure what it is.

Communicating

71% said they learn about organizations through web searches (like Google). 62% said email communications from the organization and 56% said peer endorsement from family/friends. 70% say that when they first visit your website they want to know about your mission and history, and 56% want to know about your financial condition. People want transparency. 65% want an organizatoin’s website to explain how support will make a difference.

43% said they wanted communication monthly, 32% said quarterly, 10% weekly, 11% yearly. 79% said they want updates on programs and services. 70% want to know about volunteer opportunities. 56% want information about fundraising events and about activities for your professionals. Communication preference is email.

Engagement

How do Millennials want to be engaged? Interested in activities with your organization that involve others: dinner with entertainment, private events, social parties with peers, sports and walk/runs. These are also opportunities for them to connect with leadership from the organization.

How often do Millennials volunteer? 44% said a few times per year, 12% once a month, 18% a few times a month, 14% once a week or more, 12% ones a year. The primary obstacle to volunteering being a lack of time.

61% said they want to volunteer with friends and family, 56% said they want an organized group. 44% said they wanted to volunteer on their own.

Young Professional Groups – 40% said they would be interested in joining a young professional organization. Why: 80% said they would join if there was a compelling mission or cause, 77% said for networking and socialization, 75% said professional development.

What does this mean?

Communicating

Multichannel approach: direct mail still works, with a life of about 4-6 weeks. Email is core, but only has a life of about 6 hours. Strongly consider using peers and personal solicitation.

Smaller requests with appropriate frequency – Millennials said they want to hear from organizations, but not get asks all of the time (want info on programs and services monthly).

We know Millennials respond to face to face, the reality of getting out and talking to people to get a $50 gift is often not prioritized by staff – so have it be a peer to peer thing/event/group where they are asking each other.

They recommend you begin with email before you branch into social media, like facebook or mobile. Don’t start with broadcast, you need to engage and connect. Connecting via email is engagement. Work on soliciting a response via email.

Email: asking for $50 or less with a very timely message. Make your call to action in the email a button, including donation call outs. End your email with a call to action. What we see clients try to do is reformat their direct mail content into an email – that does not work.

Talk to Millennials about your goals, for example if you are trying to do something big and raise a large amount of money, break the goal and gifts down into smaller buckets so it isn’t overwhelming. Track your open rates and conversions (do they open the email and then do they actually make a gift) – open rates are important to measure, not just conversions and gifts.

As an example, visit the the ASPCA website – show small gift amounts, provide buttons, focus on impact and have used email campaigns to drive people to website for gifts

Using Google and other search engines is the most common way Millennials find you. Make sure you see how your organization comes up in search results.

Help Millennial donors experience your cause online. How do we tell our story and also engage Millennials virtually? Instead of printed annual reports, try doing a video with interview and clips from what you’ve done the last year. Engage your Millennials as guest bloggers.

As examples, check out Conservation International. They show how a donor has protected an acre of forest and provides ways for people to engage with the website and the mission. Another example is Team Fox, with it’s peer to peer fundraising.

Engagement

Millennials want to change the world and want to be challenged. Organizations need to create a challenge or they will go somewhere else. Ask them to think with us, plan with us, build with us. Share the challenges and the problems we want to tackle and asking them to join us in the whole process instead of just asking them to fund something.

Leadership interaction is important for Millennials. It isn’t that we need to organize them, but we need to facilitate ways for them to organize themselves.

Get the full Millennial Donor Report

You can get the full report, review charts and data, and more at: http://millennialdonors.com/research/report

Who: Speakers: Susan Tenby | TechSoup Global; Janet Fouts; Kira Marchenese

What: An important part of your social media strategy should be listening for people and organizations who are talking about the issues you want to discuss.How do you know which networks will be most effective to reach your goals? Listen first and discover where the conversations are!

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Tools for listening:

Goodbyebuddy – find out when people aren’t listening to you any more. Learn what people want to hear.

Tweetdeck – add columns to listen and track conversations or watch mentions. Not just following mentions but also events – anything with hashtags, etc.

Google Alerts – remember that they aren’t always accurate or enough to find everything.

Mixed Reality events – conference going on in Second Life with a live streamed video into Second Life, it expands the audience exponentially. Conversations take place in both places separately and together.  Multi-channel conversations.

Flickr and YouTube – monitor and subscribe to activity around you, not just your own.

Lessons for Listening:

Don’t be afraid! Hold the reins: if you aren’t listening, paying attention, and diving in then the conversation can get so far away that you aren’t able to join in.  You can only have a real impact and “control” or influence over the public conversation about you, your organization or your programming if you are listening and engaging.

Where are the conversations?

• Blogs
• Linkedin
• Forums
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Communities
• Ning/Yahoo/Google

What to listen for:

• brand
• cxo names
• sponsors and donors
• supporters and evangelists
• industry and local news
• topics of corporate and/or personal interest

Find conversations quickly: check out Radian6, Biz360 and so on – a fairly expensive way to listen but comes with functionality to sort, track, etc.  Not about follower numbers, but about engagement and content.

Lazyfeed: use it for when you don’t have anything to say but want to say something. Set up keyword searches and it brings you relevant tweets and links. Allows you to be a thought-leader because you are on top of the conversations.

Twitter: even if you don’t want to engage on it, you need to be listening there. Set up alerts and so on.

Check out listening tools at: http://janetfouts.com/listen/

Listen, engage, repeat!

Follow #10ntc.listen on Twitter for links and conversation from this session.

Context for the event from Rory Cellan-Jones:  Prevailing ethos of the web has been libertarian, optimistic about the potential of the internet to be a medium of free expression and break down barriers.  That ethos continued until the last three years or so with issues in Burma, Iran, and China.  We’ve seen potential for those unsympathetic to the cause to use the technology too – a bit of an arms race created.  Technology is amoral – it doesn’t care. In Iran we’ve seen it used to get out information and resist censorship but have also seen it used by the government to alter a mobile phone system and monitoring calls.

Tweets and highlights from this event on Twitter at #AITech

Panelists include:

• Susan Pointer, Google’s Director of Public Policy & Government Relations
• Andrew Keen (via video), author of Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is killing our culture
• Kevin Anderson, blogs editor of the Guardian
• Annabelle Sreberny, Professor of Global Media and Communication, School of Oriental and African Studies (with special interest in Iran, bloggers & social media)
• Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology Correspondent for the BBC, is chairing.

Susan Pointer: declaring an interest as a passionate advocate of the potential of internet technology. When it comes to the potential to underpin human rights, for me the question is not technology good for human rights but is the access to information, the ability to connect with people online, to use online tools to mobilize offline activities, to question wisdom, and shine a light of transparency – it’s a useful tool for promoting and underpinning human rights. So, the answer is yes as a tool. The access to information drives knowledge. The technology itself is not intrinsically good -at Google we are advocates for free expression on the internet and free access for all; the technology istelf is and should be a neutral platform for this. it does not itself dictate who does the communicating or how we assess the communications. Nor does it require that we leave our human faculties at the on switch – the internet democratizes the channels.  Rather than ask if the tool is perfect or not, we should work together to make it a perfect tool, keep the internet platform healthy.

Andrew Keen: I would never argue that technology is against human rights. When it comes to the internet, you can of course find lots of examples where twitter or facebook or email have been used by governments or corporations or regimes. But, the tools of the digital revolution are used by those against the regime but are equally used by those in the regimes.  Because of the natural of the internet, where traditional intermediaries have been done away with, it’s increasingly easy for regimes to use this supposed democratized media for their own.  I haven’t seen that much proof that internet has changed [post the Obama election]. Changes come through people and culture and not through technology. I’m not arguing that it is bad, but the internet isn’t necessarily good for human rights.

Annabelle Sreberny: Communication technologies have been good for human rights since we created the alphabet. These are tools that can perhaps accelerate the speed of information and the number of people involved, but it’s always had the potential for change. Politics is communications by another name. Communication technologies have always been used for political change, especially with Iran. 1905-1911, people were publishing in exile, printing and sharing over the boarder, etc. in Tehran. 1975 revolution used leaflets and cassette tapes helped mobilize and push the revolution. Youtube and facebook are just the new tools for political change. Western audiences came to know Iran through the 2009 election, the internet had been the place where you could find politics happening inside Iran when in person it was very hard there.  For example, the internet was important because it was difficult to organize offline. Given the difficulties of face to face politics and public space control, many of the people 30 and under stay home where they can be online and be free. They are inventing it for themselves. One thing that internet technologies can do is the bringing together across boundaries – so, the diaspora are slowly invited back into politics. Which causes a lot of Iranian politics to take place outside of the country.  This is politics – we need the good and the bad; the cyber army, the 10,000 bloggers claimed to be trained by the national guard, etc.  In Iran the regime hasn’t yet shown itself to be as savvy as the green movement.

Kevin Anderson: I think in terms of human rights and damage of censorship the internet has been a net good.  Without social media, we wouldn’t have been able to provide the kind of information that was available. It would have been a blackout of information but suddenly there’s a way to get it out. The Guardian had an injunction to gather all the names of the people who were killed and detained and that’s something that would have never been possible without the internet. I think what we are learning is that increasing the freedom of information isn’t all that’s needed to free those living under extremist regimes.  People point to Obama but it was actually a perfect marriage of the internet and traditional pounding on doors. The internet can be problematic – some of the debates can become quite divisive online instead of cohesion. I think underlying slacktivism isn’t enough – you can’t just turn your profile green.  Just as the Guardian used crowdsourcing to get the names of those detained, the government is using crowdsourcing too. Security is going to be increasingly one of the things that internet activists have to learn. Today, a China official said the internet is a new battlefield without gun powder. The incident with Google in China has made aware the increasing militarization of the internet – targeted attacks against corporations and activists and that’s the most worrying development.  These are sophisticated attacks and as the regimes become more sophisticated in espionage methods, people engaged in human rights will have to live in a new threat environment.

Questions:

Isn’t there plenty of evidence that technology is actually bringing information to societies in a way that was not possible 20 or 30 years ago?  Isn’t accelerating the process by which people can take on governments?

Andrew Keen: The wall in Berlin was open by accident by a guard, so you could argue that the internet is a distribution of knowledge so that would have never happened. The internet is actually a really effective tool for maintaining regimes.  So, this organization of knowledge could actually be a good thing for demoralizing government.  The more knowledge there is in the world, the easier it is to spy or look into the knowledge.  Let’s not delude ourselves that the opposition are Luddites.

We always thought of the internet as a free space with free spirits, anarchic, but it’s actually becoming dominated by a few corporate players, like Google. It has said a lot about it’s commitment to freedom of expression and so on, but it’s first duty is to it’s shareholders just like any other corporation.  Given that, how profound is Google’s commitment ever going to be to human rights?

Susan Pointer: First, Google’s size – we live or die by the trust users have in our services. We have no contract, tie-in, etc. – most all of our services are free.  Those users are free to choose whether to use our services or elsewhere. We retain their loyalty by providing services they want to use and having protections in place that they trust. It’s very different than your traditional model. Without a doubt, every user is important to our business but every user has the choice. Do we want to keep you? Of course, so we have to keep innovating, providing exciting services and that’s what drives. We support an open and competitive environment that is based on user buy in. In terms of our commitment to online freedom of expression, from the beginning our motto has been to do no evil – it means we are committed to providing as much access as possible.

Even in China?

Susan Pointer: We took the decision as a very complex – google.cn  It was not an alternative to the normal site. We found that there were users in China couldn’t access the .com site so it was created to give them access.

There was no commercial imperative behind that?

Susan Pointer: It was absolutely based on what would provide the most access to our users there. What that means  is that in order to set up the .cn site we had to be compliant with Chinese law. Which meant self censorship of the results. We would do that, we would not provide access to the .com site so you could still get results there, and on the .cn site we would provide a message when censorship was happening so the user would see when results were being withheld. In light of our investigations of attacks on the human rights activists, we have taken the point that we are no longer comfortable self censoring results and are pursing how we can provide results without censorship with China which could mean we have to discontinue use there.

Historically, people have used all kinds of methods to fight for human rights. Is there evidence that these tools are making the fight easier?

Annabelle Sreberny: The arguments would have to focus on the speed and the numbers of people involved. It’s about scale. They work like memes, the speed people react and join in.

Slacktivist term, is there not a danger that 20 or 30 years ago there was far more intensity because easy technology wasn’t there. You had to get face to face with people.

Kevin Anderson: I think it’s a bit of both. The idea that social media completely transplants face to face – one of the difficulties is that it isn’t an either or. I think there are people who say “yes, there are people who have said I’ve changed my avatar green…” One of the things with Dean’s campaign initially was that they had huge amounts of online activism but had problems turning that into real life work. It can be broad but shallow. The power of the Obama campaign was translating online activity to real world impact. Translating a click into someone on the streets is the step it takes.

People have seen technologies for a force for good and bad – in Iran you have to say that there was a unique set of circumstances. Before the election you had a population that had migrated to the internet, a government who had let them have that space. After the election that space exploded and the government was slow to catch up. But now they are catching up, with the cyber army and beyond. The question is how can we make it a force for good?

You use the term slacktivism about people in the west – the point that needs to be made is that internet lets people participate in the activism without the fear, true there is the other side of the coin…

Kevin Anderson: The point I’m making is that politics is communications but it is also a number of other actions, especially when you are dealing with regimes that have been successful at staying in power. You have to use all the tools of politics to make that change. While freedom of communications is key, there are a number of other steps. As regimes get more sophisticated, like we see China exporting some of it’s internet controlling tools elsewhere (like Iran), the methods have to get more sophisticated. If you show support you are lazy – no. But there has to be a number of people taking actions in the real world, too.

Annabelle Sreberny: Mousy solidarity – how easy it is to click on a petition, and so on.  Why the sense of solidarity? Because we don’t ave politics like this – it feels good to be part of it. We feel like we can participate.

Our attention span is ever shorter, time is relative.

Kevin Anderson: If it’s going to be that transient 24-hour news cycle, that sustained action is key. Once the novelty wears off, breaking through the media cycle is difficult. In Iran, it’s quite clear, this is a long sustained struggle and isn’t something that’s going to happen quickly. You had more democratic and open societies with the Velvet and the Orange revolutions. With the Chinese, the point they made was that we have to control information otherwise there will be chaos.

Susan Pointer: It was the immediacy that played the role in creating interest in Iran. Had that information come out weeks later it would have been restricted to academics and others pouring over the information. It’s important to sustain that information and interest. The discussion about membership of an organization and what it means to be active: lots of people would have joined a group or gone to a meeting without contributing. The power of showing numbers online can be more powerful than showing up online. We need to look at how membership and participation are defined. Where does the pressure come from on an international exposure. How we defend the nature of the internet: it makes institutions and governments nervous. We need to be as vigilant in our spaces as internationally to keep it without gatekeepers and screeners. That’s what will keep it a source of immediacy.

The deision making process by Google – with Iran it can seem clear. What kind of process does Google go through to make those decisions?

Susan Pointer: Once we created google.cn we had to meet compliance. In general terms, I spend a lot of my time with issues where access to our services are restricted and we work to fix it. The open access to our services – it shouldn’t matter where in the world you are, you should be able to access services.

Is the speed and scale of internet communications a bug as well as a feature?

Kevin Anderson: My experience online is largely positive. The places where i see the most animosity is news sites. And that’s not the internet to me.

There’s debate between those who say you should be able to say/do anything and those that say other people’s human rights are at risk in that situation.

Kevin Anderson: I can only speak for myself but I wouldn’t say anything online that I wouldn’t say face to face. It’s said that it is still so new we haven’t created social mores for it. I remember when the AOL newbies came on and we thought they were ruining the internet… if you are saying things you think would turn you red if you were saying them outloud, then you probably shouldn’t say them.

Climate change and climate gate – what are the social media implications?

Kevin Anderson: as a journalist, yes, we want to present all sides but do we present all sides as if they are valid? At the Guardian our editorial decision is very different than at the BBC. We can take a stand. I believe strongly in objectivity but it can be a difficult thing in fractious debates like this. It might be a bit beyond this debate.

If corporations are immoral – one of the reasons we expect corporations to be moral is because Google wears morals on the sleeve, etc. Where does the openness of information infringe on human rights (like Google Buzz – there was no consent for followers, etc.)?

Susan Pointer: mission, people, leadership and so on decide who a company is. I chose Google because I felt that it made good decisions. It’s easy to disassociate ourselves though. One thing I would say from our perspective is we follow through from the way we communicate, some would argue we are too open but I think that’s part of the process to engage with users. Buzz is one where we thought we had the controls in place but the options that were there could have been better with visibility – and we responded immediately.  We do have the ongoing discussion with our users. Privacy comes down to individuals having choice, transparency and control. Transparency in the human rights space is interesting – we want the option to be anonymous but we also want to know who is saying something.

Google’s business depends on knowing more and more about users – behavioral advertising. Isn’t that going to be difficult to walk that line? You have to make bigger profits and that lies in knowing more about your users.

Susan Pointer: Majority of our advertising is contextual – the search you made and the content on the page. We hold IP addresses, and not users. You can also opt out permanently of being associated with certain things. In settings, users can have the option to opt out, or opt in to certain things.

Annabelle Sreberny: So much of the content from Iran was user generated content sent to the media – what’s happened to that? Why should we be working for free for large media? Facebook is increasingly hard to excavate. People put content online that they want to share but you can’t get to it. What happens to the content we are putting up there?

Do you think access to technology will be acknowledge as a basic human right like water and shelter? Is it trivializing human rights by associating the internet with it?

Kevin Anderson: Yes. Technology – internet is about communications. We already have universal access provisions for things like telephones. Technology infuses my life. What we are seeing now is not that people don’t have access but choose not to have it. Why do people exclude themselves and what are the resasons? Especially in a technologically advanced country, that becomes a bigger issue.

Susan Pointer: When we are talking about technology we are taking it from the point that you have access to it. We have to consider the fact that in many places of the world people still don’t have access. We aren’t just talking about changing governments but giving citizens access to information at all.

Should Amnesty be fighting for the right to access the internet?

Annabelle Sreberny: Article 19 – the fundamental mission. THe right to community is all about access. Thinking about the right to communicate opens up many interesting issues.

Is there any indication that Amnesty is doing better now with technology?

Amnesty Rep: You can argue yes. If you look at Amnesty’s history, 49 years ago people wrote letters to get people out of prison. Once we had fax machines, we started having urgent actions to send a fax. Now we coax people to send emails. Technology gives us new ways to do things.

I would imagine a letter or a bag of letters 20 years ago was possibly more effective than a million emails today.

Amnesty Rep: It explains why we’ve never given up on letters. To some extent you can delete your inbox really quickly than you can get rid of a bag of letters. But it also means we can get information quickly and from everywhere quickly.

What technology means for people who are experiencing a crisis who don’t have access – don’t make it onto twitter, don’t make the news cycle?  Like Sri Lanka where pictures weren’t getting out.

Annabelle Sreberny: There were also huge demonstrations elsewhere pulling in the diaspora.  They play a role in alerting the media in other places. We can fall into the trap that one technology takes over from all others. Other technologies are still around. With the diaspora, you just need to get enough people to pay attention that they can spur the media.

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Head of Community Management at FreshNetworks, previously at iVillage, Daily Mail etc.; most proud of job at an adoption charity

What do we mean by “community” – question asked to the participants:

• people
• support
• shared interest
• label
• conversations
• reciprocity
• belonging

When you think about “what is community?” do you think about online or offline? Do you think you are part of a community?

• We mean people
• we mean connections
• we mean support
• we mean similarity
• we mean social group
• we mean peers
• we mean a group being ‘led’

Community confusion:

• people rarely consider themselves part of communities offline
• people are rarely members of just one community
• communities can be physical and conceptual
• they can be permanent or temporary

What is an online community?

• it used to mean ‘message boards’ and not much more
• for a while, people meant ‘facebook’ although that’s a social network of people you already know

What Twitter isn’t… Twitter isn’t a message board, or a social network of people you already know… So, is it a community?

What Twitter is… twitter is a platform, it’s about connections, it’s the direciton we’re heading in; it’s a micro-community that is different for every individual.

What Twitter gives us:

• freedom
• it’s blown away old rules
• a boost to existing communities and content on the web
• keeping people in touch and highlighting existing communities

One word to describe a good online community experience: nice, warm, friendly, friendship, welcoming, assistance, funny, reassurance, welcoming

People want warm and welcoming, but that it isn’t always what they get with online communities. So how?

Getting Started

Identify a community

• who are you providing a platform for?
• build it and they will come… doesn’t work
• do these people want or need a space to communicate?
• who are they?

What are the concerns of the community?

• do they need to speak anonymously?
• do they need to share images?
• do they need to be protected?
• do they have barriers to understanding technology?
• do they have fractured interests?
• are there opposing viewpoints and needs?

Sexy or quick?  there are 4 attributes to a good online community:

• easy
• safe
• secure
• sticky
• sexy can wait!  it’s great if it has all the bells and whistles but that can come later, what’s most important is that it’s usable, meets community needs etc.

Vibrant, ugly: it’s okay if it’s not perfect to look at; between timely and perfect, choose timely.  An example: Criagslist.org

Where will you host your community?

• do you have an online presence that can be enhanced?
• do you need to build community elements into your next iteration?
• do you have the budget and resources to build from scratch – and manage?
• should you set up a space where your audience already is?
• don’t automatically reject free tools like Ning.com
• what about hiring someone to maintain and participate in that space as a community manager?

How do we keep our community safe?

What do you mean by safe?

• safe from offensive material
• safe from ‘trolls’ and trouble-makers
• safe to chat without fear of personal attacks
• safe from ‘real-life’ crossover
• safe from spam attacks

Control – and lack of it: you cannot control people, but you can steer, guide and react; you must establish ground rules, and update them regularly.

• no one is solely interested in one topic – nor should they be
• single-issue parties don’t win elections; single-issue communities, don’t thrive – we don’t have only one interest
• connections are what’s important, give people the freedom to connect – start small, only 3 or 4 sections or topics and then let the community drive the development
• tools like CAPTCHA

Keeping your organization safe: if someone writes a lie about a celebrity on a community that you host, when are you liable?  The minute it goes up.  Mumsnet case study: some moms posted to Mumsnet that Gina Ford was too harsh with her practices, etc. and Gina took them to court.  Mumsnet said that they don’t moderate as there are too many message to handle and so on.  The best approach is to plan for that and have a take-down policy; encourage members to report malicious content and give them way to do so easily.

Who will keep your community safe…and vibrant?

• moderation
• welcoming members
• stimulating discussion
• removing spam and offensive content
• who is liable? – If you use something like Ning does that platform share a part of the liability? Yes. If you make it explicit on your site in your terms of use that your site is not moderated then you are not liable, according to some.
• “Can the receptionist do it?” – maybe, if they want to, but moderating and welcoming people and getting involved isn’t just for anyone; it takes someone that has the time and the interest to do.

Q&A

What’s been your biggest challenge in building a community? Launching the adoption community, it had a very intersted and active membership that communicated through local support groups and a buddy scheme but not online with many members anti-internet and people in the organization who were skeptical.  Had to prove that it was as well as, not instead of. That it could help people find the organization and provide easier access for people with limited mobility or other limitations who couldn’t get to the offline activities.  Now as a membership they see it core to the organization and have a stake in how it develops.

Have you any tips about how to deal with bad apples? sometimes turning good is the most important thing. if people are complaining and talking about how things should be use it as an opportunity to explain why you did things the way you did and ask for more ideas about how to make things better. some people are trying to get attention, often the way around that is to give them a little attention and encourage them to behave the way you’d like – engage and help, but don’t give in to what they are doing.  sometimes there’s spammers and rule breakers, so make sure you explain the rules they are breaking and explain your actions to moderate their behavior – give 3 strikes and you’re out.

Have you experience with usefulness with combining writing communication with video communication? depends on the set up, whether you are building communities in ning or drupal or from scratch, building in the ability for users to include video and so on is easier. but, other forms of communication might not be appropriate to the community.

Click here to read and participate in the live blogging (and for the archive)!

• Padlurowncanoe Dibou, formerly in charge of Hillary Clinton’s in-world HQ and co-Founder of MUVErs, LLC
• In Kenzo (aka Evonne Heyning, Creative Director and Interactive Producer for Amoration)
• Fleep Tuque (aka Chris Collins from the University of Cincinnati)
• Dannette Veale (from Cisco)

To watch and participate in the live blog, click here!

This is my first conference I’m attending in Second Life so I hope it is going to be a good, quality learning experience.  I will share thoughts about using Second Life in this way after the conference.  Today though you will be able to follow along with two live blog sessions using CoverItLive to enable you to jump in and comment or ask questions and see the comments as they unfold.  So, stick around!

The archives will be available from the live blog sessions as well.

This Friday – Sunday is the annual BlogHer conference, taking place in San Francisco.  “BlogHer’s annual conference is like no other — it is the thrilling diversity of the blogosphere come to life! Featuring technical labs, educational workshops, intense discussion sessions, relevant sponsors, speakers from every corner of the blogosphere, established and new, and plenty of opportunities to network and socialize.”

Unfortunately, I can’t make it to San Fran for the conference.  BUT! I can make it all the way to my computer and into Second Life!  What’s Second Life? It is an “online, 3D virtual world imagined and created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.”

The BlogHer conference will have simultaneous events taking place ‘off-line’ and online in Second Life.  I will be attending events throughout the conference via my virtual Second Life self. Are you attending it on or offline?

I will be live blogging from within Second Life – so you can follow along with me, ask questions and leave comments in real time whether you are in Second Life, at the conference, or sitting back at home.

All you have to do to be included is watch this blog!  The live blogging (with CoverItLive) will be hosted here.  I’m excited to share with you all the experience of attending this conference virtually, as well as getting participation from you while I’m there!

Other BlogHer folks will also be live blogging and commentating on the events throughout the three days on the BlogHer website.

Have you attended a conference in Second Life before?  Has your organization considered using Second Life as part of its social media strategy?