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The article from Spiegel Online International begins:

They may have been dubbed the “Internet generation,” but young people are more interested in their real-world friends than Facebook. New research shows that the majority of children and teenagers are not the Web-savvy digital natives of legend. In fact, many of them don’t even know how to google properly. (Read the full story here.)

It goes on to examine a few ideas and theories about the next generation and their relationship with the Internet. But, before I jump into just what I think, I’d like to open the floor (or the comments as it were) to you!

And, if reading the article isn’t enough to get you talking, here are some conversation starters:

• Has your organization made strategic decisions or marketing with the expectation that youth are online and plugged in?
• What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned about approaching any age demographic, be it young people or not, with online content?
• Where are you on the Internet-dependent scale?

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.

Here are the slides (Hint: visit the slideshare site by clicking on the link below to see the speaking notes as well!)

Discussion

You can find notes from a couple participants here and here; and use #cgen10 to find tweets and other content tagged from the event.

One thing that struck me from doing an introduction to social media webinar the night before, and the next morning presenting the keynote here, was the difference in content strategy between the two communities and the way that our goals around content and conversations effect so much of how we operate.  There’s a real difference between creating content that you then urge people to share in any online spaces they prefer vs creating safe online spaces for conversations (often in private).  Perhaps it is the nuance between social change movements that manifest in outward or crowd-driven change vs those that focus on social work or individual-based change.

I also wrote down a few great conversation starters from other presenters, including:

• Digital inclusion is all about relevancy – what are you doing to make digital media relevant for your community?
• Digital storytelling means everyone has the power to capture and share stories – how are you empowering your community to write their own history?
• Our “soundbite society” may mean that we don’t provide enough time for real storytelling or real listening – how are you helping your community share and listen in meaningful ways?

Join In!

If you’re interested in connecting with, or following up on this topic and with those who attended, check out the Youth Work Online network.

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 />
  <br />
  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."

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!

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“Reviews show the real human impact of a nonprofits and raise the visibility and credibility of those organizations,” says GreatNonprofits CEO Perla Ni. “This will help highly-rated nonprofits attract more support and volunteers.”

Nonprofits with the most positive reviews in their category will be announced as winners and receive media coverage as well as promotion on GuideStar.org. Awards will be given out of 9 categories (6 geographic US regions and 3 budget size – small, medium and large).

Contest Deadline: September 30th.

About GreatNonprofits

“GreatNonprofits is a tool that allows you to find, review, and talk about great — and perhaps not yet great — nonprofits. You already know that reviews by other people who have gone to a restaurant or tried out a doctor are the best way to find out about the quality of those services. If you have direct experience with a nonprofit, GreatNonprofits makes it easier for you to share your knowledge so that other people can discover the great nonprofits that are out there.”

(Content pulled from GN press release.  For more news like this from GreatNonprofits visit: http://greatnonprofits.org/)

My presentation concentrated on a few case studies where certain technologies were the appropriate tools for engagement and aided work to connect, empower, and educate youth communities.

There are really just so many great examples for this topic.  If you are looking for more examples about social media and communications technologies applied to youth empowerment, here are some additional links/groups to check out:

• http://bom411.com (social media used as outreach about teen dating violence)
  
• “huge forum success via virtual worlds (e.g. Habbo’s InfoBus re: curbing violence against gay teens; developing understanding via the Matthew Shepard Foundation visiting ‘in-world’ or the War Child Int’l foundation partnership to focus in-world on kids impacted by violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda etc. (they hosted a cool “virtual Global Peace” gathering inside their world to coincide w/last fall’s UN discussion of same: http://tinyurl.com/ngzfxm)” – from Amy at Shaping Youth
• http://www.myspace.com/invisiblechildren
• http://www.myspace.com/oxjam
• http://geturvoiceheard.co.uk
• http://engage.wesharestuff.org/
• www.publicmattersgroup.com/about.htm
• www.marketmakeovers.org
• www.vimeo.com/publicmatters
• headspace: The National Youth Mental Health Foundation in Australia

After the case studies, I focused in on two aspects of the strategy building that are most important:

The Audience – if you do your research (even if you are “sure” you already know), you can identify your audience, those you already talk to and those you don’t. You can figure out how best to communicate, and how (both the medium and the words).  You can see more about this in the slides above.

The Goals – yes, we all want to, in this case, fight knife crime; but that’s not our goal.  Take the time to identify your goals focused on living in and inviting youth to co-create a community without knife crime.  There is more about goals in the slides above.

If you would like to view the presentation above with the speaker notes included, click here.

What do you think? Has your organization tackled issues in the youth community and used new technologies to support your work? Share your story – we’d love to hear it!

Location: London, UK

Topic: The Future Today: Empowering youth via social media

Description: Bebo hosted an all-day event for members of the No to Knives and Crime Coalition, as well as others working in the sector of positive youth engagement in London and beyond, where I was asked to present on case studies and findings from the US and UK.

Related Links:

• Blog post with slides and resources
• Slides

Next week I will be speaking at and event Bebo is facilitating for members of Number 10 Downing St, local Councils, civic departments (police, etc.), social agencies and nonprofits, and so on focused on creating an integrated No to Knives campaign.  This campaign is targeting youth at-risk of knife crime in the UK and plans to have a large portion of the messaging and calls to action embedded within social media tools/platforms used by local youth.

There are a few other speakers who will be presenting their ideas or personal case studies for this kind of campaigning.

I will be speaking last: tying together the previous speeches, and highlighting key case studies that show how young people have been empowered to shape the future they are a part of.

If you have case studies, either from the organization you are a part of or that you have come across outside of your organization’s work, please do share them! I have a growing list already but am looking to cover some unique and compelling stories for this integral speaking opportunity to influence a major campaign.

Please note: I will credit any and all contributions, of course.  I will also share my speech and slides next week after the event.

Thanks in advance for your ideas and contributions!