Search Results for '09ntc'

2009 Presentations

Here are the details, notes, and any applicable slides or other resources from presentations or other speaking engagements in 2009.  Looking for notes from events in other years? Visit the main Presentations page for more.

If you have any questions, please just let me know!

NCVO Foresight Leading Lights seminar: Changing ICT – What does it mean for your organisation?

  • Date: December 8th, 2009
  • Location: London, UK
  • Topic: The Future of Online Revenue Generation for Charities
  • Description: Presented a 15 minute examination of the processes that work in social media, the difference between individual-driven and organization-driven fundraising online, and what nonprofits can do to better position themselves in the space, followed by Q & A.
  • Related Links: Blog post with slides, blog post with ‘Ask the Expert’ Q & A, slides with speaker notes

MyPublicServices

  • Date: November 26th, 2009
  • Location: London, UK
  • Topic: social reporting
  • Description: David Wilcox and I lead the social reporting team at MPS09, including video and live blogging.
  • Related Links: Conference information

European Summit for Global Transformation

  • Date: November 20-22, 2009
  • Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
  • Topic: social reporting
  • Description: David Wilcox and I lead the social reporting and social media training at the ESGT, including video.
  • Related Links: Conference information

#140Conf

  • Date: November 17th, 2009
  • Location: O2 Center, Canary Wharf, London, UK
  • Topic: eDemocracy and Twitter
  • Description: I moderated a panel discussing case studies and trends in democracy and politics in social media, particularly Twitter.
  • Related Links: Conference information

Chain Reaction 2009

  • Date: November 12th, 2009
  • Location: Canary Wharf, London, UK
  • Topic: Social by Social Game
  • Description: David Wilcox and I ran a version of the Social by Social Game using Canary Wharf as our setting.  The groups identified the areas of Merging Communities, Festivals and Events, and Local Representation as the basis for creating projects/strategies using social media.
  • Related Links: Blog post and videos

eOffice – 5 min Pitches

  • Date: October 29th, 2009
  • Location: British Museum, London, UK
  • Topic: What is NetSquared?
  • Description: Presented a 5 minute pitch on the main work of NetSquared for a diverse group of entrepreneurs and business innovators.
  • Related Links: eOffice events

Social Media and Social Change

  • Date: October 23-25, 2009
  • Location: Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Italy
  • Topic: Using Social Media in Social Change Work
  • Description: I served as a technology trainer/facilitator for a small group (apx 15) of Ashoka Fellows for an intense 2.5 days training on using social media tools in social impact projects/organizations.
  • Related Links: Lake Innovation blog; Lake Innovation wiki; blog post

SANGONeT Conference

  • Date: October 15 and 20, 2009
  • Location: Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa (participated via ReadyTalk conferencing)
  • Topic: Social Media, Nonprofits and the Role of Individuals
  • Description: I presented via ReadyTalk in SANGONeT’s opening plenary for the Johannesburg and Cape Town events, covering data from research on social media use by nonprofits in the US, the UK and a case study.
  • Related Links: Blog post with slides and notes; Slides; Notes

Digital Engagement Event

  • Date: October 6, 2009
  • Location: Church House, London, UK
  • Topic: The Most Important Elements of Digital Engagement, Not Technology
  • Description: David Wilcox and I facilitated two sessions for MediaTrust’s Community Voices project at the Digital Engagement Event, focused on small group conversations around the elements most integral to digital engagement work for local communities other than the technology.
  • Related Links: Blog post; Community Voices group on SocialbySocial.net

The Baudcast, Episode 31

  • Date: September 2009
  • Location: Phone
  • Topic: International Fundraising
  • Description: International fundraising, UK not-for-profits, online giving, social media, message localization, chuggers, sofii.org, and more. Featuring Chad Norman, Danielle Brigida, Amy Sample Ward, Marc Pitman, Robert McAllen, Steve MacLaughlin, and Melanie Mathos.
  • Related Links: Download the podcast

The Feast Twitter Chat

  • Date: September 21, 2009
  • Location: Twitter
  • Topic: How can we better leverage social media for less talk and more action?
  • Description: I was the guest on The Feast’s twitter chat leading up to The All Day Buffet conference in New York around social changemakers and opportunities for collaboration and technology.
  • Related Links: Blog post

Social by Social: Local Communities

  • Date: September 21, 2009
  • Location: London, UK
  • Topic: Collaborating Locally
  • Description: This event is an opportunity for people within and outside Government, who are developing programmes supporting local online projects, to tell each about their plans – and get some input from those working on the ground or in research.  We hope it will also be a chance for everyone to share practical experience, and develop some ideas on how to blend new and older ways of communicating.  We have people attending at programme level from Communities and Local Government, Ministry of Justice, IDeA, Media Trust/Community Voices, Young Foundation, RSA, Talk About Local.
  • Related Links: Event details

Social by Social: W14 Training

  • Date: July 18, 2009
  • Location: Fulham, London, UK
  • Topic: Creating a Local Community Website (training)
  • Description: David Wilcox and I facilitated an all-day training for local W14 (postcode) residents interested in creating a local community website.  The training included an overview of best practices and examples, strategy and roles, and hands-on training.
  • Related Links: W14 site

Online Social Networks: Agents of Change

  • Date: July 7, 2009
  • 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

Reboot Britain

  • Date: July 6, 2009
  • Location: London, UK
  • Topic: Social by Social launch and game
  • Description: To launch the hardcopy of the Social by Social handbook, Andy Gibson, David Wilcox and I facilitated a version of the Social by Social Game.
  • Related Links: Blog post with details and videos; Book

London Net Tuesday

  • Date: June
  • Location: 1 London Bridge, London, UK
  • Topic: Social by Social Game
  • Description: David Wilcox, Andy Gibson and I ran a version of the Social by Social Game at the June Net Tuesday in London, UK.
  • Related Links: London Net Tuesday group; Blog post

N2Y4

  • Date: May 25-28, 2009
  • Location: Cisco, San Jose, CA, USA
  • Topic: N2Y4 Mobile Challenge and Conference
  • Description: NetSquared’s Year 4 Conference provides participants an opportunity to attend interactive sessions facilitated by leaders working at the cross-roads of technology and social change; create new collaborations, and participate in a uniquely democratic approach to funding innovation through the Project voting process.
  • Related Links: Interview by JD Lasica; Conference details

SHINE Conference

  • Date: May 16, 2009
  • Location: Hub Kings Cross, London, UK
  • Topic: Social by Social Game
  • Description: 40 people spent a couple of hours playing the Social Collaboration Game …  mixing regeneration challenges, social media tools and a splash of Social Innovation Camp. The session generated a lot of buzz as groups pitched entrepreurial ideas for tackling social, environmental and economic problems in a fictitious borough not unlike east London.
  • Related Links: SHINE conference details; Blog post

The Baudcast, Episode 23

  • Date: May 2009
  • Location: Phone
  • Topic: 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference
  • Description: 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference, WeAreMedia.org, SXSW, ROI Poetry Slam, affinity groups, ignite sessions, community roadblocks, Day of Service, new Facebook pages, Twitter search integration, BackTweets, AFP widget, Blackbaud Delivers, and more. Featuring Chad Norman, Holly Ross, Danielle Brigida, Amy Sample Ward, and Melissa Dodge.
  • Related Links: Download the podcast

Women Who Tech Telesummit

09NTC (Nonprofit Technology Conference)

The Baudcast, Episode 22

  • Date: April 2009
  • Location: Phone
  • Topic: Storytelling with social media
  • Description: Storytelling with social media, message control, Twitter, Ping.fm, video storytelling, blogging, StumbleUpon, widgets, listening, Google Alerts, and more.. Featuring Chad Norman, Steve MacLaughlin, Melanie Mathos, Danielle Brigida, and Amy Sample Ward.
  • Related Links: Download the podcast

140-Character Mission: Social Media & Entrepreneurship

  • Date: April 8, 2009
  • Location: Online
  • Topic: Twitter for Nonprofits
  • Description: How does the speed and reach of social media alter the formulas for successful social impact?  What happens when marketing evolves from broadcast to conversation, fundraising changes from large donors to e-microdonations, or collaboration moves from sweaty basements to vast social networks?
  • Related Links: Blog post and slides; Slides

New Frontiers in Social Media

  • Date: February 12, 2009
  • Location: Brighton, UK
  • Topic: Panelist representing charity sector
  • Description: An event that will explore how social media will influence our lives in the future.
    The event will bring together a mix of thought leaders, professionals and academics to answer the questions – How will these technologies evolve? How will they create new experiences for users? and how will they impact social changes?
  • Related Links: Organizing group

NTEN Webinar

  • Date: January 21, 2009
  • Location: ReadyTalk conferencing
  • Topic: Building Blocks of Social media
  • Description: Is sharing really caring?  Well, it can at least boost your internal staff knowledge and your positioning as a resource in the community!  In this webinar we’ll discuss the fundamentals of sharing information with social media tools.  You don’t have to know how to do this already to take part—this is for those just starting out!  We’ll cover social bookmarking, tagging, RSS and more, plus the tools you can start using for free to do it all.
  • Related Links: Blog post with notes and slides; Slides; Download the recording

5 Steps to a Successful Social Media Strategy

Published in socialmedia and strategy. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I have a guest post up on John Haydon’s blog!  You can visit his blog to read the post and join the conversation there.  The post is republished below.

I’m always weary of posts that claim to pronounce the 10 Best Things You Can Ever Do, or 7 Steps to Success, or any other lofty achievement wrapped up in just a number of items.  But, that doesn’t stop me from doing it myself!  Though, in these 5 steps, you’ll see there is a lot more to do, think about, and work on – no quick tick-off on this list!

Social media, as many have said time and again, is only part of your campaigning, part of your fundraising, and part of your communications.  It isn’t something that lives in its own department, nor does it have staff that are separate from the rest of the organization.  Just as the content distributed and conversations participated in are integrated into many different aspects of your organization’s work, so should the knowledge, access and responsibility to participate be integrated across your staff.

With all that being said, let’s dive in!

These 5 Steps are intended to help you create a successful social media strategy, but as you will see, they focus on your organization’s overall strategy!

1. Goals & Objectives

Evaluate your goals and objectives, as an organization.  You will not be able to identify tools and engagement methods for your organization online without knowing the bigger picture and without knowing it in concrete goals that will let you build and work towards them.  Hildy Gottlieb’s Pollyanna Principles are a great place to start if you want to learn more about how you can evaluate and identify your organizational goals (and larger view) in a way to successfully design projects, programs and even partnerships for real impact.

For more resources on goals & objectives:

2. Capacity

Before sitting down to work on your social media strategy, evaluate what kind of capacity you already have in your network.  Things to consider include: staff knowledge and experience with different tools as well as other internal knowledge or previous work experience.  It’s also a good idea to evaluate the capacity (especially if you think collaboration or partnership is an opportunity) of related organizations.  Lastly, consider what other organizations, companies or campaigns in your sector have already done!

For more resources on capacity evaluation:

3. Strategy

Now it’s time to focus in on the meat of this post, the actual “social media strategy” part—apologies for making you wait this long! :)   But, there’s a catch: it’s another 5 steps!

  1. Identify the audience or community you want to engage.
    This includes thinking about who you are already communicating with and how, as well as what groups you want to start communicating with who you currently aren’t including.  Who you want to talk to, listen to, and create a community with is the foundation for everything else you do with social media tools because it is what ultimately decides the success or failure of your other decisions—if you base your timing, tools, and process around those you want to be a part of your work, then you’ll be a lot more successful than if you pick tools you like when it’s convenient for you without considering the community you want to use them.
  2. Identify the resources currently available within your organization. Resources include staff knowledge and comfort with different tools, experience levels of staff working with supports, volunteers, and the public, staff with time available, staff with appropriate job duties to include social media, available budget for training or workshops, etc.  Often, we forget that because the actual application/software/tool may be free, really using it is not.  What we put into our social media engagement is what we get out of it, like everything else in life.  If you only have an hour a week to post to a blog, then it is unreasonable to expect a lively conversation and community emerging from it, at least not very quickly.  By evaluating what resources you already have on hand in the organization, you are much more prepared to fully examine your options.  And remember, sometimes you assumptions about social media use and your staff can be way off!  There is something out there for all of us, and more and more people around the world are engaging online, so don’t assume that it’s only your college intern who knows how to use these tools!
  3. Identify what success will look like. This is really helpful in order to evaluate the appropriate tools for your work.  If you want to create a space for volunteers and potential volunteers to share their knowledge and experiences with each other you are going to need very different tools than if you want to create a space for volunteers and potential volunteers to share that information with you.  It’s also important to remember that social media is a changing space, with tools and applications, even functionality, evolving every day.  So, your definition of success has to be flexible to the changing times and the changing needs of your audience.
  4. Identify what technologies are most appropriate. Now that you know who you want to communicate with, who and what you have to work with in your organization, and where you want to go with the relationships, you can identify some tools to start exploring.  There are lots of blogs, directories, and lists available online to help you get started picking tools that match your goals.  One great way to help guide you in the process of identifying and selecting the most appropriate technologies is to ask your community!  What are they using now?  How would they like to engage with your organization?  Explain what success looks like to you and ask how they would go about getting there!
  5. Identify what measures of success can be used. You know who and what, and you identified where you want to go, but before you dive in you also need to establish how you can measure and monitor activity from day 1 onward.  This includes things you are probably looking at already like the number of visitors to your website and subscribers of your emails; but, it also includes metrics based on the funcationality of the tools you choose and how you identified success.  If you are using a forum, then measuring the number of replies to post (or, if your forum allows voting, then the positive feedback on posts) could be appropriate, as well as the ratio of people signed up vs posting vs replying, etc.  It’s incredibly important for the success of your work to evaluate how things are going throughout.  If something isn’t working to the degree you had hoped, it’s okay!  Identify that issue, and correct it with either an alteration to the current tool or set up, or by shifting the group to a different, more appropriate tool.  Just be sure to openly communicate your evaluations, ask for feedback (”Do you see what we see?”), and explain any changes well ahead of time.

For more on building your social media strategy:

4. Feedback

Be sure that you create mechanisms for feedback and input throughout your process and throughout whatever you “build” or use (whether it’s a social networking space, a website, a blog or anything else).  You need to provide opportunities for your community, as well as your staff and any others participating on the “administrative” end of the operations to share ideas.  The best way to approach this is to create feedback opportunities that are “evergreen” or always available, like a contact form or address, a public forum, or commenting; and opportunities that are “seasonal” or based specifically on an event, idea, opportunity, etc. (like a blog post about possible functionality that could be added to the site, asking for feedback and ideas or even voting on the options).  Remember, though, that there is no point to asking for feedback and letting your community suggest their ideas if you aren’t going to listen.  More often than not, the community knows what it wants much more than you do, so listening is key!

For more on feedback and listening:

5. Evaluate

Just as part of the social media strategy process in step 3 above calls for evaluation, so does the overall process.  Evaluation in this step is focused on the higher level:  how have your networks grown or changed? are there new opportunities for partnerships or collaborations? are there new opportunities for empowering your community either in different roles within the social media/online space or in other areas of your organization?  do you have stories of volunteers, staff, community members, or those you serve that could be sharing their stories in new or different ways to highlight your impact? And more!

For more on evaluation:

Then…repeat!

As with most everything else, it’s all a cycle.  You will always be revisiting your goals, your community needs, the options for tools and how to evaluate your work.  Continuing to keep the cyclical process moving, though, means that you will ensure that you give your organization all the opportunities to possible to improve it’s work and further it’s impact.  This is one self-perpetuating cycle that’s good for you! :)

What do you think? What lessons have you learned from designing social media strategies in your organization? What did I miss?  Looking forward to your conversation!

Published on August 18, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 9 Comments

Net2 at 09NTC

Published in events and issues. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

At NTEN’s ’09 Nonprofit Technology Conference a couple weeks ago, I participated in the Ignite Presentations which was a load of fun.  An Ignite presentation is a five minute presentation, with 20 slides that change automatically every 15 seconds.  It’s quite a rush, for the speaker and the audience alike!

I presented about an idea we at NetSquared have been tossing around and wanted to share with the public to start a conversation and see where it goes: what would it be like, how would it work, and how would it look if we moved the concept of Global Challenges on the Net2 platform into the hands of local communities to use the same process to find innovative answers to local issues.  Check it out below!

Published on May 11, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Net2 Think Tank Round-Up: Entry Points for Engagement

Published in net2thinktank. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

net2thinktankNTEN’s 09NTC just wrapped up in San Francisco and many conversations at the conference focused on social media use by nonprofits.  With so many tools out there, and different options for individuals and other organizations to engage with you, how do you manage it all?  April’s Net2 Think Tank focused on the multiple entry points of engagement used by nonprofits.  It was a tough question, but someone had to answer it: Idealist’s Scott Stadum!

Topic:

How can nonprofit organizations successfully manage multiple entry points for social media engagement?

Does the message you send depend on where people connect to your organization?  Do you provide different content or appeals to your Twitter followers than to your Facebook group?  How do you decide what kind of information or campaigns are delivered to your various community members on different social networks?  Do you track how people find your organization?

From Idealist

Scott Stadum at Idealist.org responded with an excellent collection of points for nonprofits considering how to manage the multiple entry points for engagement with social media.

When developing your online presence, remember that you’re developing a community first, and generating site traffic is a by-product of that community. Speak directly to your users and interact with them; they have amazing stories and experiences. A passionate user base is invaluable.

There are plenty of best practices to follow and philosophies to think about and you’ll discover those as you research your own ideas. Below are a few simple thoughts of my own:

  • Use the social media tools that are appropriate for your work and that will connect you to your target audience. For example, you don’t need to spend an abundance of time on MySpace if the service doesn’t match the demographic you’re wanting to reach.
  • Your organization doesn’t need to be everywhere. It isn’t vital that you post to Twitter AND Pownce AND Jaiku or that you upload photos to Flickr AND Picasa AND Photobucket. Invest fully in a few tools, and use them well.
  • Develop your voice for each tool. How you use Twitter is going to be different than how you would use Facebook Pages. Develop a unique strategy and voice for each service, based on your research into the strengths and limitations of each tool.
  • Consider how tools from one site may complement your posts on another site. You can post YouTube videos to your blog posts and Flickr photos to your Upcoming.org event listings. Your approach should be integrative.
  • As your communities grow, your approach to sharing information and stories will change; nothing is formulaic.

Visit the Idealist.org Blog here!

About Net2 Think Tank:

Net2 Think Tank is a monthly blogging event open to anyone and is a great way to participate in an exchange of ideas.  We post a question or topic to the NetSquared community and participants submit responses either on their own blogs or on the NetSquared Community Blog.  Tag your post with “net2thinktank” and email a link to us to be included. At the end of the month, the entries get pulled together in the Net2 Think Tank Round-Up.

Published on April 30, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

09NTC Nonprofit Radio: How to Make Podcasts That Promote Your Brand and Engage Supporters

Published in liveblogging. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

I’m here at the 09NTC in Corey Pudhorodsky and Chad Norman’s session on podcasting!

Session Description:
With portable music players, smart phones, and cheap bandwidth everywhere, more and more online marketers are turning to podcasting as a powerful way to extend the reach of their brands and engage supporters. We’ll discuss how to produce a podcasts using free tools and from scratch, including pre-production, recording, editing, processing, and rendering. Then, we’ll look at various ways to market your podcast via your own website, the social web, and the iTunes Music Store. And finally, we’ll learn from a few case studies and go over some production best practices. So, bring your iPods and earbuds, and let’s podcast!

Check out their postcasts:

We’re live… !

Who is your audience? existing and target

  • data from edison research from 2008 on podcasting listenership
  • general awareness at around 40%, though…
  • people don’t necessarily know they are consuming a podcast, audio embedded in rss etc.
  • about 50/50 male/female
  • well educated demographic, avg income over 100K
  • 36% of listeners are most likely to have made online transactions recently
  • fluent and engaged online
  • look at stats and compare to your audience to see if it is a fit

More importantly, think about the constituents you want to attract or already engage. Can determine your theme.  Maybe you just target your board members to keep them informed, etc.; maybe one just for employees as an internal stream for updates on work and projects.  Mabye just for your volunteers to update them on volunteer opportunities.  Poll your constituency to see what they are already listening to to find themes that are appealing etc.

Consider your story.

This is the one thing that will secure the success of your podcast more than anything else.  If there are a lot of others doing the same format or topic, could be harder to get an audience.  Also look at who is going to do it – hosted show vs curated show, etc.

Take dynamic speakers from your organization, put in front of the microphone, and help share their passion and stories.  With a podcast you can edit the content, take out the “ums” and “ahs” and craft a great story.

What are your goals?

Are you trying to drive supporters, find funders, or volunteers, etc.?  Make sure that you aren’t making a podcast just to have one. Create a strategy and production plan, a schedule for the topics, etc. Maybe you want it to be seasonal and only have 9 months when you have information to share, or you want it to be on a set schedule, etc.

Hardware

One of the biggest challenges for many people.  USB headset, dynamic or condenser mics, soundboard, mobile devices, video recording, etc.

You can start small – whatever you have, even just a web cam mic.  No reason to let the hardware hold you back.  Often the cheaper out of the box equipment will help a lot because the more advanced and expensive equipment is going to have a lot of settings and options that you’ll have to manage.  You’ll take a while before you find your legs – get started hearing your voice and get feedback before you launch into the field.

Mic – to go straight into your computer with a usb headset or mic; next step up is a dynamic or condenser mic.  a dynamic could be about $20-30, the condenser could be as low as $150.  Those will pick up vibrations and everything so you’ll want a stand or a boom to lift it off the desk where people are touching/moving.  Consider how you are recroding: if you are in a board room with many people you will want an omnidirectional mic to get everyone’s voices or if you are at your desk you want a unidirectional for just your voice.

Soundboards – definitely not necessary. they make digital soundboards that plug straight into your computer and record with various software options. if you are recroding with multiple people, you can record them to separate audio files so you can edit more easily.  allows you to backup the files by recording to multiple devices.

Mobile devices – if you are out in the field, etc. they are great for getting people wherever with minimal equpiment.  Can also use skype and record the call for bringing people together from wherever they are, etc.  Want one that recrods to mp3 or wav files (will be sending mp3 out for production eventually).  Great to have a lapel mic and ear phones (to monitor how the recording sounds).  Surfrider Foundation’s podcast often has interviews out in the field so you hear the ocean or birds and it adds to the recording.  Sometimes the ambient noise is good.

Video – Flip cameras are high quality, easy to use and cheap.  You can also use web cams for a video podcast.

Software

Audacity – open source and free, lots of community resources, have to download a separate mp3 encoder but they have links on their site.  Can import other sources well. Has multiple tracks, etc.  Almost always the first tool you are pointed to for podcasting.

Garage Band (mac) – many people use it on macs to edit, free on your mac

Sony Sound Forge – much like audacity but is single track. not free.

Adobe Audition – is robust but has a cost associated with it (check TechSoup from discounts for nonprofits!)

Levelator – free, from Conversations Network, takes the raw audio and does the compression and leveling for you to give you a better sound file – this means you are just editing out ums and ahs instead of also editing balance between speakers, etc.

Skype – you will need a 3rd party tool to record the call: pamela, hot recorder, audio hijack pro, quick time pro etc. they all have demo versions before you buy them to make sure they work on your machine.  they are all very cheap though.

When you are doing editing, you want to keep it in wav format because it is uncompressed.  Don’t convert it to mp3 until you are done editing.

Production

For every ten minutes of audio, it takes about an hour to edit and clean it up.

Export to mp3, things to consider:

Bit rate – indicator of the quality of the file. don’t want to go beneath 32 and 64 is even on the low end. with increased bandwidth, going with a higher bit rate is going to have a higher value, people are still able to stream it or download it, and store it. can split/switch from stero to mono channels or the other way around; most software can do it natively.

ID3 tags – can use itunes for this, drag album art and file over. let’s you listen to mp3 format before you upload it to be sure it sounds right, add tags, etc.  The tags let a program that is reading the file know what is on the file, so it’s more than the file name but the title, the time, genre, etc. it’s the metadata for the podcast episode. Title should have a form of date and podcast name so people can see if they have already listened to it already when skimming.

File size – length depends on the format of your show. there aren’t any rules really, so long as it is engaging! some are only one minute long and others are an hour or two even. you can have multiple formats where you have one a day that is really short and a less frequent longer one, be creative.

Itunes – you can get a link directly to your itunes listening to point people right there. Corey has about 1,000 downloads a week; but be careful of looking at downloads because they aren’t necessarily listening. Look at what the purpose of your podcast is and try to link metrics to the success of your goals, instead of downloads or listenership.

Show notes – want to make a summary of your show for both itunes, etc. but on your site to tell people what the show is about: who’s the guest, who is the host, what are the orgs or links mentioned.

Hosting Services

Can host your podcasts on your web servers, transfered through ftp, etc. but bandwidth can be an issue – with fees, etc. There are services to help podcasters by offering unlimited badwidth by limiting how much you can upload a month.

Liberated Syndication – great support services, great value, $5/month has 100 mg of upload. $10/month has 250 mg upload. other packages for video support.  Gives you good metrics for downloads, where people are coming from, etc.

OurMedia & Internet Archive – a bit more technical, archived forever, nonprofit organization, RSS and community building tools. upload to Internet Archive and use OurMedia to generate RSS feed, etc.

Amazone Web Services – for very cheap

Industry standard is not limiting bandwidth/downloads but only limit upload.  Bandwidth issues come in when you are putting it on your own website.

Pdocast Directories

iTunes – want to use their tags and categories, and get the direct link to your itunes listing. automatically downloads when people subscribe, etc.

Podcast Pickle & Podcast Alley & Odeo – good directory, has a good community forum, as well as embedable widget players for your website

Promoting

Blogging – if you blog about your sessions it helps Google pick it up; also gives people opportunity to comment and talk back

Social networking – use it to promote

Twitter – great/easy way to let people know when new episodes are out

WordPress – has plugin to help with podcasts

RSS – the tool that lets people get the updates, just like with blog updates. the only difference is that there is an enclosure tag that points to the file. you can put mp3 files anywhere you want (that is where the badwidth cost is). the rss is the subscription and branding so will want that to be somewhere associated with your organization, etc. and not somewhere that will change really.

Cross Channel Promotion

  • website
  • email
  • newsletter
  • press release
  • advertisements
  • partners

Don’t let your podcast become an island from all the other communications you do.

Don’t think of podcasting being a direct revenue from advertising because it can dilute your brand and really not be worth very much (for example, maybe only a hundred dollars or so for every 1,000 listeners)

Yahoo has a great embed tool that doesn’t require any flash code, etc.

Start simple

BlogTalkRadio – call in, record your message, and as soon as you hang up you have your podcast in an mp3 (so you can’t edit it) with an RSS feed, etc. a great option for out in the field recording, it’s simple, etc. can start podcasting today, right now.

Growing

Invest in tools as you grow and as you want them, not up front.

Case Studies

Volunteer San Diego

  • interview volunteers, staff, directors
  • can see how integrated it is on their website
  • use the show notes well, point back to the blog, more information, etc.

The Nature Conservancy

  • very engaging
  • everything is on the website: itunes link, embed, show notes, etc.
  • really great content

Check out WeAreMedia.org for more resources and information on podcasting in nonprofits!

Published on April 28, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 4 Comments

09NTC How to Decide: IT Planning & Prioritizing

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The internet connection may hold up a bit better this time around but I don’t want to risk it, so I’m going to do the same as the last session and just type up the notes in real time and post as soon as the session is over.  Hopefully tomorrow the connection will sustain some real live blogging with CoverItLive (my favorite live blogging tool).

Peter Campbell’s How to Decide session:

Nonprofits have limited resources, which usually means that we have to make tough choices about where to spend our time and money. Here. we cover best practices in planning for technology projects, providing tools to help you make smart decisions about where to invest those resources. From the forthcoming NTEN book: Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission. Takeaways: 1. Top to bottom outline of the nonprofit strategic planning process, incorporating balanced scorecards, multiple bottom lines and focusing on technology planning. 2. Sound advice on how to evaluate which tech projects need to be done the exact same way that a for-profit would and which ones can be done creatively, with a deep dive into what “creatively” means. 3. Direction as to how to develop of Technology Plan – what goes in it, how do you get it in there, how do you make it a document that others can understand and engage with.

Organizational Planning:

A unified strategic plan ties together the: strategic place, business plans, and budget by using balanced scorecards and business process maps to strictly tie actions and expenses to mission-servicing strategies.

Balanced scorecards: a balanced scorecard identifies four areas that your strategic plan should address: financial, consitutent, internal business processes, and employee learning and growth.

  • Financial, revenue focus
  • Constituent, starting a newsletter or services
  • Internal processes, putting in new phone system
  • Employee training and growth, bonuses, education, etc.

Example:  Supporting Criteria

  • Strategy: increase consitutuent awareness of our accompliments by distributing a monthly email newsletter
  • Area: constituents
  • Objectives: increase mission awareness, increase donations, increase communication
  • Measures: eCRM analytics, donations
  • Targets: 5% increase in new prospects, 7% increase in donations
  • Initiatives: start montly newsletter

Technology planning: you can’t budget effectively on a year to year basis; long term planning allows you to spread out recurring costs and space out larget projects in ways that even out the expense.

Elements of the plan: technology plans should have at least three components: strategy, support, actions.

A plan answers these questions: how will the actions laid out in the plan support the mission and organizational strategic plan? how will staff be resourced to use the technology? Does the organization have a coherent strategy for application support and training?

Comprehensive evaluation: SWOT analyses, technical and end-user assessments of options, clear understanding of business needs versus software assumptions, creativity.

Peter’s philosophy: we do not have money or staff the way most for profits do, so we need to understand where we need to act exactly like a forprofit and where we can do otherwise.

SWOT = Strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats

Conclusion: good planning requires that you understand who you are, what technology must do well for you, and where you can get away with it by doing things more creatively, etc.

Resources:

Further information and relevant links are at the Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission wiki:  http://www.meetyourmission.org

Contact me: Peter Campbell psc @ techcafeteria.com

Buy Peter’s book!  He’s got a whole chapter dedicated to this subject in NTEN’s new book: Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission!

Published on April 27, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Live Blogging: 09NTC Mapping Your Social Media Strategy

Published in events and liveblogging. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I’m here at NTEN’s 09NTC and am going to live blog Beth Kanter’s session on mapping your social media strategy to metrics.  Below is the live blog or the archive of the live blog.  Can’t wait!

The internet connection here is such that I don’t think a live blog portal will sustain itself.  So, I’m going to trouble shoot and just take some live notes here and post them as soon as possible.

Here goes…

Take aways:

  • How to use listening
  • The right metrics
  • Analytics tools

Panelists:

  • Wendy Harmon: social media manager, philosophy is to use social media to execute mission
  • Danielle Brigida: using social media to increase, reach, engagement and revenue
  • Qui Diaz:Livingston, recently did research for the Philanthropy 2.0 report
  • Sarah Granger: advise nonprofits on using social media for advocating and communicating

Themes that people want to learn:

  • new metrics structures can bubble up
  • funders of a 20th century mindset – what metrics speak to them
  • what things need to be measured
  • obama reach vs local reach
  • industry benchmarks
  • how to integrate tools without reinventing the wheel
  • success stories

List, Learn, Adapt – concept from David Armano: “Insight must before investment when implementing a social media project.”

Visualizing: number of months along the bottom, insight, return and dollars up the left

  • Listening: hearing what people are talking about your issue or sector
  • Learning: evaluating what is being said and what information is needed
  • Adapting: using the listening and learning to inform how you change

Listening

  • use monitoring tools
  • know your keywords
  • use your RSS reader
  • engage and monitor responses
  • engage internally

Discussion:

How/why does listening provide value?

  • at ARC, listening has been the core value of our last three year’s of social media (mentioned online over 400 times a day), learn what people want and expect from us
  • at NWF, listening has been the foundation of our social media movement, we are nothing unless someone thinks we are something
  • everything before lays the foundation, everything during and after helps you improve and change your strategy
  • listening has been to the community and to the quantitative results

How do you use a RSS feed like a rockstar?

  • pull in hashtags from Twitter into the RSS reader (pull in the RSS of a search.twitter.com result)
  • skim a lot, mark all as read liberally, don’t feel like i have to ingest everything

Listening based on location?

  • ARC does for blood drives, etc.

How do you share your data?

  • ARC – gather data every morning and share with organization via email; issues that seem sensitive or are newsworthy will contact subject matter experts to follow up
  • ARC – social media team evaluate/watch everything and then send summary and highlights to team
  • NWF – tag mentions in delicious with which programs or projects are mentioned, can share link to that tag on delicious with staff to see their section
  • Sarah – use google alerts and a page that we update with mentions
  • Qui – for clients that are larger, we set up media citation reports (like a word doc with titles and links and relevant info about the mentions and how they should respond)

How much time is spent listening?

  • ARC – 33,000 employees, budget is over a billion $, 2-3 hours of concentrated listening every morning and then ambient listening all day
  • NWF – 363 employees, budget is around 90 million, one hour every morning and then throughout the day (google alerts and rss every morning, then if there is something that happens throughout the day)
  • Livingston – encourage small nonprofits to have at least a half time person doing listening and response (10 hours a week)
  • Sarah – budget is 100,000s, 50% of the time we are listening, 15-20 hours a week personally listening

Listening tools:

  • Netvibes
  • Feed digest

Learning

  • Think like a rocket scientist, document or journal your learnings
  • Observe and sift through qualitative data like a primatologist or anthropologist

Beth’s learning process:

  • document on the fly
  • test and teweak
  • pick the right metrics
  • harvest insights
  • look at what other nonprofits are doing in the space
  • pause for reflection time before next reiteration: how to improve results?

Engagement metrics:

  • create
  • comment
  • click
  • collect
  • critic

Think about which things you really need to track and measure those, not everything you could possibly track.

Discussion:

What is your learning process from social media? How do you involve the org?

  • NWF – ad hoc, if you look at programs individually it is based on qualitative over quantitative, we adapt when we hear people saying i wish it was like this or i could do this
  • Livingston – listening is everyone’s job, might start with social media person or dept but eventually want to make sure everyone is out there and closing the feedback loop
  • Sarah – share by email because we are an online organization, can have a spreadsheet with stats and how they are growing, organization wide as well as campaigns, etc.

Examples:

  • Yammer for internal sharing, it’s a Twitter for groups
  • Delicious

What are some specific stories for using the right metrics:

  • ARC – the right metrics are those that help you identify if you have reached your goals, so if you have a goal to offer real time information to the public in times of disaster for example, the measurement is if peole get the info they need (not fundraising or anything else), so we do that by asking them and collecting metrics like how many people retweet information on Twitter, etc. over time have gotten other metrics and impact from working on this goal
  • NWF – focus on engagement, program called Wildlife Watch and is a space for people to share wildlife they see so asked people to use #nwf on twitter when they see wildlife, will track how many times the hashtag is used each day (hashtags.org) we use bit.ly and pop.url for tracking retweets (Check out Laura Lee Dooley’s URL shortener report!)
  • Livingston – corporate example, Network Solutions, negative perseption issues related to their brand (google your organization’s name and “sucks” and see what comes up!), assessed the conversation and they had a 58% negative blog/conversation ratio (used manual researching, icerocket, forumtracker, search.twitter, etc.), new that was the metric/goal to track and 6 months later there was only 18% negative ratio
  • Sarah – presidential commition on women in legisltation, legislator read our email wanted to do it and wrote a bill, so to raise awareness and support we asked people in membership what they wanted to see, asked them to come to us, gave qualitative feedback, had a tweetcast with feedback on Twitter, used facebook and tracking membership and

WeAreMedia Project (http://wearemedia.org/) has a listening toolbox!

Distinction between what you think they want to hear and what they want to know – can you address those separately?

  • Livingston – HHS, wanted evaluation of pandemic flu conversation online, point was to understand what they were saying about the government and so on to really know what to address as an organization to that community

Culture change:

  • NWF – social media is good for engagement but not always the engagement you expect, users on myspace and did a survey with all the members but only 400 responded and the boss wanted to discontinue social media work; don’t always need to hear what every person needs if you have that one person who will really tell  you useful things; there’s still community on myspace so we still update that blog and use the platform
  • Sarah – a lot of resistance to social media in political groups, the key is biting off small pieces and educating people one at a time, finding someone to train and working with them so that they can educate another person
  • organizational change is slow, you have to have patience, opinion starts to change once you find influencers within

Nonprofit staff are so overwhelmed, how many groups have someone to measure social media?

  • survey in room: most prevalent is 20 hours/week with other job duties

Co-creation Networks, look at the ladder of engagement and the number of use and the level of engagement – need all of them in your ecosystem

Clicking = good – a change in knowledge doesn’t equal a change in behavior; can you measure that?

  • NWF – greenhour.org so we share it with people in a newsletter and then see activity in a blog – we can’t see that they really did it in their home, it is hard to measure, but we are still seeing what seems to be real actions – don’t be afraid to ask!

Are there ways of catching offline datapoints?

  • NWF – every program we have has an offline component, i try to integrate a social media strategy that leverages and encourages the offline part; like #nwf wildlife watch, raises your awareness offline if you can see something and tweet it, etc.
  • ARC – it’s easier for us to suck in what people are already doing because we have found that it’s nearly 100% chance for people to give blood and then talk about it online if they have a space online
  • Livingston – if you don’t have their email, call them, keep asking questions but it is labor intensive

Adapt

Fail formally – protesting Wendy’s with a photo sharing with a protest sign but only got a few people doing it, heard so much about how hard it was for people to participate, etc. but didn’t stop doing photo contests; instead they adapted.  next, with LOLseals campaign, they made it as easy as possible for people to participate, used the Flickr API to allow people to upload from their website instead of going to Flickr, etc. this time they got 3,000 photos and 2,500 email address.  But don’t do it again just because it worked, keep evolving. Facebook app for spay day, upload a photo of your pet and then do fundraising for the Human Society with people voting on your pet’s animal. 13,000 installs of the facebook app, and $600,000 raised.

Discussion:

How have you reiterated?

  • Livingston – Network Solutions, free online video event, know who will send the most traffic second time around
  • NWF – we are still very new at this, there haven’t been a lot of programs, the photo contest is slowly moving online; we tweak all the time though, you can’t be satisfied because you can always make it better, like with #nwf as it got more participation we moved the stream onto our website
  • ARC – we have very few campaigns like Carrie’s at HSUS, but we tweak constantly, today everything is 100% different than a year ago but it was all very small tiny changes
  • HSUS – integrated it with everything else, email campaigns/newsletters, offline, etc.

Any resources to move from national to local?

  • ARC – we are set up similarly, Robin Parker does Oregon Trail chapter for example

How do you change around from failure?

  • NWF – there is no failure. everything can be taken to scale. you have to learn from everything, if it doesn’t work one time it could still work another time. have to decide if it is worth investing in.

Have you seen examples of your org changing?

  • NWF – initially i was the outcast, driving traffic but being sneaky; you need buy in to really do it. for some people it’s intuitive but others it isn’t. we had a COO who noticed social media was important and moved me to the education dept, if you are in marketing and someone says not to do it, keep doing it! i have changed my role a bit so that i serve as a consultant internally to get people started. i don’t want to force people, if they don’t want to do it, then they don’t have to.  if it isn’t natural then it won’t work.
  • Sarah – worked with a tech oriented nonprofit, had an old tech faction and the new tech faction; eventually we just got new people on and they wanted new, too so you just move on.
  • Beth – learning a lot from resisters now and strategies for it. have to have bottom up way of organizing social media but also evolve into a star fruit so that it goes all directions.

What is your ONE takeaway?

  • be more intentional
  • failure is adapting
  • tools in context
  • when you miss in battleship you take another shot
  • want to embrace failure
  • all about relationships
  • delicate balance between involvement and take over
  • take chances
  • they can’t control people when they are taking part
  • metrics spring from your goals
  • listen more
  • even one voice can give you great insight
  • if you are really interested in this stuff and you see the opportunity at your organization, just try it and see what happens
  • metrics bubble up
  • even if people say the same thing loudly doesn’t mean the minority isn’t speaking too
  • reminder to talk to eachother

Thanks!

Published on April 27, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 4 Comments

Cause Fatigue Redefined: More conversation for the 09NTC

Published in issues and socialchange. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Yesterday’s post for Earth Day, about social media and the energy/climate change/green movement is already getting some tremendously insightful and interesting comments.  It’s just the kind of conversation starter I wanted to throw out there!

Last night I had the privileage of attending the awards ceremony for JustGiving‘s CEO Zarine Kharas who was awarded the RSA’s 2008 Albert Medal for ‘democratising fundraising and technology for charities’.  During her excellent presentation, I started thinking about this new world we live in.  I have written before about the way I believe causes are shifting be the way individuals identify themselves, group up, and organize.  JustGiving’s success, the sheer numbers (in millions) of people using the peer to peer platform for fundraising, campaigning and awareness, shows that people are ready and willing, jumping at the opportunity even, to integrate philanthropy and social change work into their every day lives.

So that got me thinking about the idea of cause fatigue.  I believe that cause fatigue should be redefined: instead of the idea that we are each faced with too many inputs and calls to action every day that we are rendered actionless (the delete all syndrome); the real cause fatigue is that calls to action, cause alignment and advocacy are so mainstream that none of the calls or campaigns are revolutionary or important, shocking or compelling.

So how does a cause, an organization, a campaign re-emerge?

What do you think?  I can’t wait to hear your ideas on this and to share mine, too.

Want to talk about in person – I’ll be at the NTC and will be eager to continue the conversation there as well (will update the blog with highlights from those offline conversations!).

Photo: Howard Lake

Published on April 23, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

09NTC: Let’s Connect in San Fran!

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nten ntc

NetSquared’s Global Community Builder, Amy Sample Ward, will be at the NTC this year to connect and collaborate with friends, colleagues and new faces in the sector. Here’s how to find Amy and connect with NetSquared.

How to follow along and connect:

Sessions and Events

Sunday, April 26

Net Tuesday & 501 Tech Club Affinity Group Meeting

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
A chance for local organizers to come together, network, ask questions, etc.
Takeaways:

  1. A chance to connect with other local organizers
  2. Clarity on the two monthly events
  3. More knowledge, confidence and excitement about organizing in your city

Monday, April 27

Lunch Time Table Discussion

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Come chat with me about online communites, some of the topics of conversation may include:

  • What have been some changes or issues recently with your online community?
  • Do you use/how did you create your terms of use?
  • How many staff use your online community space in their work?
  • What kind of presence do you consider your online community?

NetSquared Office Hours

3:00 pm – 5:00pm
Have questions about NetSquared, Net Tuesdays or innovation Challenges? Intesreted to learn more about how NetSquared is connecting those at the intersection of social media and social change? Have questions about general nonprofit technology “stuff?” Come by the TechSoup Global booth in the expo area for Office Hours with me!

Tuesday, April 28

The Rational Pursuit of Change: How the Web requires new tactics, not the evolution of current ones

3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
The Internet has a proven ability to shift the balance of power between individuals and organizations. But for online activism to reach its full potential, we – and our constituents and supporters – need to go beyond low-hanging, traditional online tactics. It’s time to go back to basics and figure out how to effectively organize.

This session will revisit the challenges of collective action in an era of “open source activism,” and highlight how the Web can help overcome those hurdles. It’s up to us to redefine how people can participate in movements that actually do something.

Takeaways:

  1. Engagement: The paradox of tactics (such as “easy petitions”) with a low barrier to entry – they don’t drive engagement or long-term relationships. Learn how to engage people that stick around to support your mission.
  2. Action: Giving people the right tools at the right time only matters if you ask them to do the right thing. Learn solutions for moving your audiences forward on a unified front towards a shared goal.
  3. Togetherness: The dream of the Web is a model maps our influence and values to appropriate collective action that has reached its tipping point. Learn the best ways to crowdsource your mission and measure progress toward your goals.

Ignite Presentation

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Come here about many different projects, ideas, and organizations in 5 minute rounds! If you’re familiar with Ignite, you know it’s an awesome way to show off. If you’re not, Ignite is a style of presentation:

  • Participants have five minutes to speak on a subject, accompanied by 20 slides.
  • Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds.
  • Slides are automatically advanced.
  • Oh, the excitement!

I’ll be presenting the slides below: Local is the new Global

Net Tuesdays

Every month, the NetSquared community comes together at Net Tuesday events in over 33 cities around the world to mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships, and reinforce the online Community. These events are great opportunities to find others working at the intersection of technology and social change, share what you are working on or ask for help, feedback, and collaborators.

Find local Meetups or start your own.

Net2 Local – Ignite Presentation

Here are the slides of my Ignite Presentation: Local is the new Global. It’ll just take 5 minutes of your time, and I’m excited to share some of the brainstorming we’ve been having at Net2. Come at 5:30 on Tuesday to the main presentation space to hear all about it!

09NTC Ignite – Local is the new Global

Are you interested in learning more? Want to keep the conversation going? How we do that will depend on how many people are intersted and where the conversation goes, so until then, please just email me and let’s connect!

TechSoup Global Talk Backs

Tell us what your biggest tech challenges are; download about budget cuts and how they affect your work; vent about your increased work load…YOU do the talking and we will listen. Help us help you – with new programs, new products and new ideas on how to make your [work] life easier. Each participant will have the opportunity to win cool raffle prizes ranging from Amazon gift cards to MP3 players and flip cameras.

The group is limited to 21 participants! Visit our vBooth or booth at the Science Fair for details and to sign up for the Tuesday Talk Back. If you want to sign up early you can email your interest to TSG here.

Published on April 19, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Great reads from around the web on April 3rd

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These are some links I wanted to share from April 3rd. Find me on Delicious for more!

  • Love & Devices | BlogHer – Susan Mernit has a wonderful piece on BlogHer about her "connection" (not addiction) to technology. As she says, "If you are dating me, you ARE dating my devices." It's a great read.
  • N2Y4 Conference Volunteers | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – Looking for a way to come to the N2Y4 Conference? It'll bring together the 14 Mobile Challenge Project teams selected in a community vote next week, along with funders, innovators, developers, nonprofits and more. Here are the volunteer opportunities (which get you a free ticket!).
  • 2009 NTC Orientation Call | NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network – Are you heading the 09NTC this year? Join this free webinar to get the low down on getting the most out of the event. There are a series of these free webinars, so even if this date doesn't work for you, there probably is one that does!
  • » Blog Archive » We Are One Central Texas – "Central Texas nonprofits joined forces today to launch “We Are One,” a campaign focused on increasing involvement and driving stronger support for local organizations and their many missions. The We Are One initiative demonstrates a new level of collaboration as twelve of Austin’s largest nonprofits come together to speak as one voice and address important needs across the region as the economy continues to decline."
  • It’s Your Content — Take Control of It! | NTEN: The Nonprofit … – "The key to a successful integrated marketing plan is to take control of your content. This requires that you actually put someone IN control — not merely a person to create and edit content, but one who can and will manage it, watch it, and cultivate it." – Michael Weiss, imagistic
Published on April 3, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments