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 Rise Of Women In Tech | MBA Online – “It’s time for the old adage that women neither like nor do well in math and science be put to rest …The benefits for women who enter tech are hard to deny. They experience smaller wage gaps due to gender than women in other industries. But the relationship between women and tech companies isn’t one-sided – the companies get some nice perks, too. Companies whose boards of directors contain 3 or more female members had higher returns on sales, returns on investments and returns on equity. The infographic below delves deeper into how the phenomenon of women in tech is on the rise.”
• Social Media for Social Good [Infographic] – “In our new Social Media for Social Good infographic, we profile several successful grassroots and nonprofit campaigns, explain tactics that increase the impact of a message, and explore emerging trends in charitable giving and volunteering.”
• A new study asks: Should the nonprofit and charitable sectors engage in political activity? : Bright+3 – “Should nonprofits engage in political activity on issues that broadly impact the nonprofit sector? That’s one question posed by a new study, Beyond The Cause: The Art and Science of Advocacy, and the conclusion is, well, inconclusive. It turns out that there just isn’t much consensus across the sector on this very basic – if difficult – question.”
• It’s official: News consumption is all about social and mobile — Tech News and Analysis – “New research from the Pew Center into news consumption habits shows that the impact of mobile and social continues to grow. Almost twice as many users got news from a mobile device compared with 2010, and almost three times as many got news from a social network.” Where do you get your news?
• ROI: How Infographics Can Help Your Business [Infographic] | Social Media Today – “With the infographic craze in full-swing, you might ask: Are infographics just a pretty way of displaying data, or will they actually benefit my business? Earlier this summer we published a Sensible Social Media Checklist for Business. The first version of the infographic was published on June 15th and included Facebook, Linked-In, and Twitter. The popularity of the graphic prompted us to publish a second version of the checklist to include even more social media channels – specifically Pinterest, YouTube, and Google+. The second version of our infographic went online on July 19th, and was even more successful! Hundreds of bloggers posted our checklist on their own blogs, and over 2000 people downloaded the checklist as a reference to use in their own social media strategy. To showcase our results, we decided to create an infographic to demonstrate the ROI (Return on Infographics) and results we experienced.”

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).

• SignOn.org Beta – Have you seen the new petition tool from MoveOn.org? "SignOn is a service provided by MoveOn.org Civic Action to allow anyone to set up their own online petition, share it with friends, and stay in touch with the signers of their petition using email." What do you think? Have you tried it yet?
• 30 Super Useful Nonprofit Hashtags – Twitter Chats, Too! « Company K Media – Kerri has an excellent round up of some of the most popular hashtags on Twitter related to the nonprofit and social impact sectors, as well as hashtags to follow to join in regular Twitter chats. Check it out and add yours to the list!
• Women Deliver » Updates » Winners Announced for the Women Bloggers Deliver Competition – Congratulations to my friend Toyin Ajao! Check out this very cool initiative and follow the stories of the three women selected to blog for Carbon for Water! "We are so excited to announce the winners of the “Women Bloggers Deliver” competition! Over the past few weeks, we received over 250 applications from bloggers around the world – from California to Kenya, and from Mexico to Iraq. The competition, a partnership between Women Deliver and Vestergaard Frandsen, was held to draw focus and attention to the just launched Carbon for Water project, a public health intervention that will contribute significantly to health and development efforts that are transforming the lives of families and communities hard hit by the lack of clean water. The three winning bloggers will accompany community workers as they distribute LifeStraw® Family water filters to almost a million households in Kakamega, Kenya."
• What We Lose if We Lose Data.gov | Freedom to Tinker – "In its latest 2011 budget proposal, Congress makes deep cuts to the Electronic Government Fund. This fund supports the continued development and upkeep of several key open government websites, including Data.gov, USASpending.gov and the IT Dashboard. An earlier proposal would have cut the funding from $34 million to $2 million this year, although the current proposal would allocate $17 million to the fund. Reports say that major cuts to the e-government fund would force OMB to shut down these transparency sites. This would strike a significant blow to the open government movement, and I think it’s important to emphasize exactly why shuttering a site like Data.gov would be so detrimental to transparency."
• Social Actions Transition: Introducing the GuideStar Team – My Social Actions – As Peter and Christine announced in March, Social Actions has a new home in Guidestar – here's an update of where the transition is at and introductions of the two Guidestar staff who will be instrumental in pushing Social Actions into the future!

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).

• Women Rule the Philanthropic Roost! – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – "According to the study, “women at every income level give to charity more often than men do. What’s more, at almost every income level, the amount women gave exceeded that of men in comparable circumstances. For example, women who earn $23,509 or less gave an average of $540 per year to charity, while men in that income bracket with similar life circumstances (such as education and number of children) gave $281. Women who earn more than $103,000 annually gave $1,910 to charity, while their male counterparts gave $984.” You can check out the study here."
• Boston Review — Kentaro Toyama: Can Technology End Poverty? – "Nothing would have pleased my group more than finding a way for technology to advance the cause of poverty alleviation. But as we conducted research projects in multiple domains (education, microfinance, agriculture, health care) and with various technologies (PCs, mobile phones, custom-designed electronics), a pattern, having little to do with the technologies themselves, emerged. In every one of our projects, a technology’s effects were wholly dependent on the intention and capacity of the people handling it. The success of PC projects in schools hinged on supportive administrators and dedicated teachers. Microcredit processes with mobile phones worked because of effective microfinance organizations…"
• YMCA of Metro Chicago Launches Facebook « Chicago YMCA's IT Space – Great resource from Steve Heye, thanks for sharing your facebook manual! "How do you get 50 authors prepared to manage 15 Facebook pages in less than 2 months with a team of 4 people? The YMCA of Metro Chicago faced just this challenge in the summer of 2010. There was a desire to get a presence established on Facebook in order to connect with our communities in new ways and do it quickly! Our bigger challenge was managing the pages once they were launched. This case study will walk through the process we followed to get the pages launched and equipped the authors to manage them."
• New Phone Apps Aim to Combat Harassment – NYTimes.com – “The Internet speeds everything up,” Ms. May said. “If we as activists can’t get the Internet to speed up social change, then we’re not doing our jobs.” There are so many examples of the increased "speed" the internet is able to provide; but I'm curious what people think about the internet's influence on scale, competition, and community. Thoughts?
• The Dragonfly Effect: 4 Principles of Engagement | Social Media For Nonprofits | Advancing the Mission of Nonprofits via Social Media – "I recently read the book The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker (@aaker) and Andy Smith (@kabbenbock). The book is packed with case studies from nonprofits and how they are leveraging the power of social media to do something good. From Charity: Water and Alex’s Lemonade to Kiva and Tom’s Shoes, the authors tell the stories of how these organizations are using social technologies to engage and inspire people to participate in movements for change."

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).

• Net2 Think Tank Round-up: Creating Awesome Video | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – "For this month's Net2 Think Tank we asked you to share your tools and tactics for creating effective video messages – regardless of budget and organization size. Affordable video capability and basic editing software are now widely available and easy to use. But, how can organizations and enterprises best use video to inspire change? Below is a list of tips and suggestions on making decisions to do with hardware and software, message and editing, video quality, and promotion ideas."
• Women Give 2010 | Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University – "Women at virtually every income level are more likely to give to charity and to give more money on average than their male counterparts, after controlling for education, income and other factors that influence giving, new research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University finds. Women Give 2010 is the first report to compare philanthropic giving between men and women across all income levels based on a nationally representative sample. It uses data from the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS), the nation’s largest study that tracks giving patterns among the same households over time."
• Facebook app causes raises $16m – "Causes, the popular Facebook charity application, has raised another $9 million in funding and introduced gift cards to let people donate online without using a credit card. The story in the San Francisco Chronicle says the new gift cards are available in Safeway and Vons supermarkets in California in denominations of $25 and $30."
• Local Philanthropy Playground | Local Philanthropy Playground – "The Local Philanthropy Workshop (LPW), developed by the Odorheiu Secuiesc Community Foundation and TechSoup Global with the support of the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe, first took place between August 31 and September 4, 2010. More than 35 NGO and IT practitioners came together to explore ways of strengthening Romanian civil society through communications and local philanthropy development, lowering barriers to outreach through involvement of the Romanian IT&C community and developing a practical best practices repository with a platform for ongoing discussion. This blog seeks to capture the information gathered at the workshop, keep the discussion alive and build momentum."
• The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet | Magazine – "Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures."

Tools and Apps to Energize Your Base

Want to build a powerful movement online? You need two key ingredients – people and tools to connect and engage with them. From “texting” to location based apps like FourSquare this panel will give you the nuts and bolts of the latest apps and tools organizations can use to effectively moblize and energize people online.

SLIDES

NOTES

My slides covered the tools and apps for the back stage side of energizing your community.  Having tools in place to help you monitor, measure, and evaluate your work in real time will help you be more successful with your campaign, better engage with the community, and make more lasting change in the long run.  Since my slides are mostly screen shots, I’ve shared a bit of context below.

Google Analytics – http://www.google.com/analytics/
Whether you have a blog, website, or even multiple, you can use Google Analytics to really drill down into the data and understand how people are visiting and using your site.  Some things I recommend watching for:

• Don’t only pay attention to what people are doing on your site, but watch where traffic is coming from! Whether you are running a campaign, trying out a new social media platform or anything else, monitoring which places are sending in the most traffic can help you focus attention to the best places.
• Use different links on different sites to see what really gets people clicking through.
• Watch for long-term trends, not just what is popular that week or month. For example, if your home page and contribute pages are the highest visited pages consistently, and then one month there is another page that makes it to the top above those, you know something interesting is going on.
• Tip: You can also get Google Analytics for your Facebook Page!

Facebook Insights
These analytics are part of having a Facebook Page. While they aren’t the most comprehensive of reports, there is no point in ignoring free metrics! Pay attention to the “change” in weekly numbers and measure it against activities or messages you were pushing that week.

URL Shorteners – http://bit.ly
There are various URL shorteners out there, but Bitly is one of the most commonly used (I use it!). There are stats built into the tool for the number of clicks and so on, but if you are measuring site traffic already it shouldn’t be new that regard.  What is actually of interest is:

• Who is doing the clicking? Check out who is actually clicking on the links you share to identify passionate and interested people who you could engage on a deeper level (invite them to help share your message in other ways and so on).
• Create easy to reuse links. This is great for use in your Twitter messages but also in emails or even text messages.  Plus, remember to make them something that even your followers/supporters will remember and can reuse!
• Don’t just look at how many clicks you get, but pay attention to when people are clicking. Your interested followers may actually be checking twitter during their lunch break, or in the evening, and not when you’re at work at posting!

Nutshell Mail – http://nutshellmail.com/
Do you prefer getting your infomration in email? If you do, check out Nutshell Mail for reports on your various social media presences.

Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
Google Alerts is one of my absolute favorite tools. It’s free, you can set up as many of them as you like, and you can choose to get roundups or individual alerts as well as subscribe via email or RSS. Here are a few ways you can take advantage of Google Alerts:

• Be sure to set up alerts for your organization name, project or program names, and key staff people (any one that may be quoted or referenced in association with your work).
• Subscribe via RSS in a reader to cut down on emails.
• Prefer email but want to be sure multiple people on staff get updates? Subscribe with an email address like comms@ or another address that forwards to or can be accessed by multiple staff members.

Listening Dashboards
I recommend using a tool like Netvibes because it allows you to have a public and/or private dashboard, and is easy to use and customize. Dashboards or RSS Readers rely heavily on RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. If you are new to RSS, here’s a great video to explain it! You can see an example of a dashboard by visiting my public Nonprofit Tech Dashboard. I’ve also set up a step-by-step guide to creating your own dashboard.

Community Mapping
Community Mapping helps you identify not just the various segments of your audience, but also create a clear picture of which tools/platforms are associated with those groups and which messages are best to target where.  To get started, first brainstorm and identify the various groups or segments of your community.  This may be other organizations/partners, donors, volunteers, fundraisers, event attendees, etc.  Then, for each group, create a chart with 4 columns and identify:

1. Their goal: why do they engage with you
2. Your goal: why do you engage with them
3. Tools: which platforms and tools do they commonly use for online engagement (don’t forget to include your website if they are visitors/donors/engaged there)
4. Action: The action or connection that ties it together

There may be just 1 item, or goal, that is listed or there may be 50! Some groups have many different reasons or pieces of communication that they want to share with you and you to them, and some may be very simple and straightforward.

At the end of the mapping exercise, you can write an overall goal, like connecting offline, or fundraising, or maybe advocating on important issues, and the main platforms where it takes place. You now have a deep understanding and chart of the kinds of engagement for all your community groups, but you always have very high level information you can easily share with your director or other key staff that identifies a group with the core goal for engagement and platform/s where it takes place.

QUESTIONS

After three presentations in such a short amount of time there was going to certainly be questions. We tried to address many on the webinar, but I have no doubt there are more out there. Here are a few questions that were asked during the session and answered via chat:

Was mGive included in the mobile report from M+R?
Yes, there are a couple case studies included in the report of organizations using mGive.

What is the cost of adding text messaging?
Prices vary by platform/provider and what you are trying to do. There are even free options but they include advertising and possible other limitations.  The best place to look for information on prices and options and even case studies is MobileActive.

How do you find time for so many tools?
Most tools allow you the option to cross post to other social media platforms – this can help save time so that you can post a message in one place and have it pushed across the web!

What about risk management issues around geo-social tools?
The best practice with geo-social tools is to practice “checking-out” and not “checking-in” which means to tag yourself at a location as you are leaving, and not necessarily when you show up.

How do you set up an unconference?
Here are two great resources to get you started: unconference and open space technology.

How do you find a developer to build an app?
A great place to start is MobileActive!

How do you know an “influencer?”
In my opinion, an influencer isn’t just someone with a lot of followers but is someone that is passionate and dedicated to making an influence. It can be much more helpful to have someone advocating on your behalf that is willing to ultimately show up at your event or bring others into your work than someone who tweets your message once and is otherwise never connected.

—–

Have any other questions or tips you want to add? Would love to hear about your favorite highlights from other WWT sessions as well!

Thanks again to Allyson Kapin and the Women Who Tech team, as well as all those at NTEN who made the webinars happen!

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."

Want to join in? Sign the pledge, add your post to the list, and get connected: http://findingada.com

My Ada Lovelace Day Story

For as long as I can remember, my mom was the one to step up first to any technology problem or opportunity in our house growing up.  Whether it was changing computers, cameras, cd players, or anything else, she was there with an attitude of, “let’s make this work!” She was the one that took me to the overnight events at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) where I had my first go at building robots.  She never sat me down or said anything overtly; but it was her consistent behavior and example that got me started down this path.

In school, and still to this day, when I think I’ve been stumped by the very tool I’m using I think of her, and think that she wouldn’t accept losing like that!  I know I can figure it out, one way or another!

A huge, heartfelt thanks to you, mom, for always taking the stance that with enough trying and thinking, technology is mine for the mastering!

How to Connect with Women In Technolgy

Want to connect with other women in technology – learn and share, network and build friendships? Here are a couple great ways to join the community:

1. Women Who Tech Telesummit – “brings together talented and renowned women breaking new ground in technology who use their tech savvy skills to transform the world and inspire change. We provide a supportive network for the vibrant and thriving community of women in technology professions by giving women an open platform to share their talents, experiences, and insights.”
2. She’s Geeky – “he brainchild of Kaliya Hamlin, She’s Geeky gives women in technology an opportunity to get together and discuss the unique issues they face in their respective fields.  Hosting unConferences across the United States, She’s Geeky aims to inspire women technologists in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, provide a space for women geeks to create enduring communities, and foster collaboration and innovation among peers.”

What do you think?

What is your Ada Lovelace story? How have you connected with other women in technology or science to learn or collaborate or build community?

Venessa Miemis discusses “How to be a Woman in a Man’s World” – picking up initially on a recent post from Clay Shirky, titled “A Rant About Women.”  Shirky’s post, or rant, claims women “aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so.”  Some of this sentiment has been shared before in the blogosphere, especially in the conversations (debates?) about the lack of women on the presenting line up at conferences or other high-profile settings (especially in the tech sector).

In response to the comment danah boyd left on Clay’s post, Venessa poses the question: “What are the expectations for women (or what should they be) as we progress into an increasingly interdependent global society?”

Venessa ends her post with this great passage:

I think we’re seeing a shift in the values we find commendable in society, and it’s not about men or women being better. It’s about being co-designers of a healthy, equitable society. It’s about keeping an eye on the big picture, and trying to live up to a standard that’s captures the essence of what it means to be human. And I don’t think that’s going to be accomplished through acting like anti-social obsessives or pompous blowhards. It’s going to be through empathy, altruism, and collaboration.

You can read the full post, How to be a Woman in a Man’s World, here.

My comment to Venessa:

Hi Venessa –

I have been blogging for a few years (professionally – personal blogs for many years) and have reached enough people that I do feel I have a community of readers, though no where near your 30,000.  When I tried to contact Clay I received a response within the hour.  But unlike any of your methods, I emailed him.  I have never gotten a response from him on Twitter or elsewhere. And reading your introduction about your trials of making contact despite all your other accomplishments and accolades juxtaposed with mine, made me think:

Maybe I simply went where he was, or where he was comfortable, or where he wanted to connect.

As I read the rest of your post (incredibly thought-provoking!), I started to think about how my reaction to the first part, actually came back to me over and over again.

Maybe it’s because I’m a “Millennial” and we have as a generation rethought or redesigned so many aspects of public and “private” identity, but I think less about if the person I am trying to connect with, the community I am trying to serve (I work in the nonprofit sector), or the audience I’m trying to reach is a man or a woman, or if they are arrogant or shy.  I ask myself where do they want to go? How do they want me to connect with them?

This could very easily turn into a post of its own and maybe I’ll write something up – but, mostly, thank you for continuing to explore in this public place and inviting us to explore with you.

I know that my focus probably starts to wander from where Venessa originally intended the meat of her post to focus, but I’m curious what you think.

Is it really about gender?

Or is it about place, process, voice, or something else?  Looking forward to your ideas!

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).

• URGENT: Facebook Pages are changing | facebook | social-advice- Advice for charities – More information about changes coming to Facebook – this time it's more changes in the way Fan Pages function. A great read if you have a fan page for your organization as these changes are said to go into effect in early 2010.
• Debating the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference – "Over 1,000 young people from 100 different countries will gather online to debate climate change. This is the largest single ongoing panel of discussions outside of the conference itself and the range of young people involved gives it an unmatched reach. This unique project will allow young people from vastly different countries to get involved in probably the single greatest challenge the world faces. Israelis will get together with Iranians, Americans with Afghanis, Sudanese with Singaporeans and they'll discuss what to do about climate change."
• Click For a Cause | Conduit – Conduit's Gives 2010 project offers $3.6 Million for 100 Nonprofit Organizations! "Since 2005, hundreds of thousands of web publishers have used the free Conduit Platform to increase engagement, grow web traffic, and drive revenue. We are now putting that experience to work with Click for a Cause to help struggling non-profits to engage and energize their communities in order to increase participation and ignite fundraising efforts during this difficult economic time."
• Social Media Today | If the Army Can Put Its Doctrine Up On a Wiki, You've Got No Excuse – "A few weeks ago I had the privilege of watching an astounding event – a room full of Soldiers typing Army doctrine onto a wiki so that Soldiers in the field could make changes as they were discovering new and better tactics in the midst of fighting a war." This is a great case study for anyone looking for support in those hard buy-in conversations…
• George Weiner: Will You Marry Me? What Not-For-Profits get Wrong on the Web – "The "Will you marry me?" (WYMM) syndrome turns every online messaging opportunity into a nail begging to be hit with the donation hammer. I can point to dozens of orgs that create sites that are essentially fundraising brochures with donation buttons and paragraphs about the history of the organization. There are also not-for-profits that take the WYMM mistake beyond web sites and into their social media strategies, advertising opportunities, newsletters and partnerships."
• Women, Social Media and Influence (cont’d) « A. Fine Blog – If you haven't seen the two recent posts from Allison Fine about women and social media, you should join in the conversation! She's posed some very interesting questions and shared some of her ideas – but most importantly there are lots of comments that are just as critical, thought-provoking and interesting! Do join in!