Ivan Boothe posted a link to this story recently on the Progressive Exchange list. It’s been a busy week so I just clicked through today and thought it was an
Great reads from around the web on July 19th
I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of July 19th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
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).
- Blood and Milk » Blog Archive » Ushahidi, Twitter, and the future of foreign aid – Alanna's post is a great example of the power of networks, social media, and open systems. As she notes, her example has luck but it is an example of a growing model of a changing world. What do you think?
- Net2 Think Tank Round-up: Age Segmentation in Social Networking | NetSquared – "For this month's Net2 Think Tank, we asked you to share your thoughts and best practices for using social media with or for a particular age group. We are hoping to understand what tools or practices appeal to different age groups online and how organizations can best target their efforts to those audiences. This round-up is a summary of the responses we received from the community and it will hopefully serve to help you re-think the ways that you're targeting your limited audience." Add your thoughts or blog posts in the comments!
- Marketing for Nonprofits: Want to Build Community Online? Become a Bridge Builder. – "Marketing online, in particular, is much more than putting up a static website to announce your gala or ask people to volunteer. It's about having a CONVERSATION with people who care about your work and can help you reach your goals. OK, you've heard this before. But the real question is, HOW do you become a community manager and/or how do you find the right person for the job? What is the skill set you should be looking for?"
- Social Spaces – I'm really excited to see Social Spaces, a project fueled by a friend a colleague, take off! Social Spaces is project which studies positive community projects and aims to test if these types of projects can be stimulated elsewhere through spreading ideas and practices. It is currently focused on 5 main areas: Hand Made – Portraits of Emergent New Culture, Traveling Pantry, Community of Practice, Organizational Workshops, and Research. Check it out!
- Don't focus on technology, focus on behavior — SocialFish – This presentation by Paul Adams, Senior User Experience Researcher at Google, reposted on the SocialFish blog, nails home a point I feel like I talk about it every day: it's not about the technology, it's about the people! Great slides.
Great reads from around the web on April 28th
I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of April 28th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
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).
- HopenSource – Thanks to @350 for the link – check out this great portal of hope and inspiration from Grist Magazine. "Show why Earth's not effed" and get inspired from the stories of those making change.
- LearnPhilanthropy.net – Online venue for grantmaker education – "The Grantmaker Education Initiative is bringing people together to create a stronger, more rational, and less fragmented system for grantmaker learning than we have today — one that builds a new culture of professional development in the field, works better for the individual learners involved in philanthropy, and better for the many groups and organizations that provide learning programs and resources to them.<br />
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LearnPhilanthropy.net is a simple online venue we’ve created to invite dialogue among those who are passionate about grantmaker education. We hope to establish a collaborative learning community — with plenty of space for ideas and wisdom of the field. We aim to work together to create a vision for meeting the education and learning needs of people in our field. We invite you to join us, take our survey, and we welcome your contributions." - Do Something: Helping Humanity With a Click of the Mouse | Fast Company – "Sending a text or clicking to vote may be the trendy way to help humankind. The question, says Nancy Lublin, is whether such so-called slacktivism really works. Name-calling is never nice — that much most of us learned in kindergarten. Go ahead and criticize the substance of an action or the content of a speech, but just calling a person a nasty name is like pulling hair. Unfortunately, a lot of it happens in the do-gooder sector–and lately, much of it has been directed at projects that could fall under the umbrella of a newish movement called "slacktivism.""
- OPEN CALL: Do Nonprofits Make Films? We Say Yes! – netwitsthinktank.com – "What's the top thing you can do this year to engage your constituents? Both online and off? Quick, what springs to mind? Well I'm here to tell you that it should be video. If you are going to do one new thing in 2010 to help get the word out about your organization’s mission, it should be to create a video."
- What You and Your Nonprofit Should Know About Facebook Changes – Beth's Blog – Facebook seems to be an ever-changing landscape whether it's features, privacy, security or functionality: something's always changing. Beth has a great post discussing some of the changes and how they impact your organization on facebook.
- The State of Online Word of Mouth Marketing [STATS] – "In a session yesterday at Forrester’s Marketing Forum, Forrester analysts Josh Bernoff and Augie Ray presented research findings on peer influence and word of mouth marketing. Some of the statistics were surprising, and the presentation was rife with practical tips for marketers we thought worth sharing."
Great reads from around the web on December 10th
I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of December 10th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
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!