Archive for the 'community' Category

Global Entrepreneurship Week: Women’s Enterprise Day

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Amy Sample Ward
on November 19, 2008
in community and events
. 0 Comments

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, I participated in Chain Reaction all day Monday and Tuesday.  Today, is Women’s Enterprise Day!

“All over the UK, organisations will be using the focus of this day to run their own events and activities. Check out the Ideas Bank for some tips and stories to help you plan a successful Women’s Enterprise Day. Search using ‘women’s enterprise’ to bring up lots of activity suggestions.”

But, my world, and I think yours, is wider than just the UK.  In honor of today, I’d like to shine a bit of spotlight on The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre and the Blogs for African Women.

The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre works to encourage Nigerian girls and women to learn about and use technology as a means of empowering themselves socially and economically. W.TEC, is a Nigerian non-governmental organization working to encourage Nigerian girls and women to learn how to use technology as a means of empowering themselves socially and economically.

This is done through projects which build technology skills among women, as well as other technology literacy workshops. W.TEC will also research and publish works examining pivotal issues related to how African women use technology, barriers preventing or limiting technology use, and strategies for more efficient technology use.

“Blogs for African Women (BAWo)” Mentoring Project was created by Ore Somolu and Sokari Ekine as a way of encouraging and supporting Africans who want to start blogging. Initially there will be a pilot project limited to Nigerian women.

I encourage you to check out the W.TEC and BAWo - get involved if you can.  It feels great to share your experiences across the cubicle; just think what sharing around the world feels like!

Learn more about Women’s Enterprise Day here.

29-Day Giving Challenge: Connecting online!

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by
Amy Sample Ward
on November 11, 2008
in challenge and community
. 1 Comment

It’s already day 13 of the 29-Day Giving Challenge!  I wanted to let you all know that I haven’t given up on the challenge; instead, I’m blogging about my participation and connecting with others online in the 29-Day Giving community set up on Ning.  It’s a great example of a community online supporting each other and sharing learning, ideas, and fun.

I invite you to join me on the 29-Day Giving Challenge Community!

Are you participating in the 29-Day Giving Challenge?  Let’s connect!

Learn more about the challenge and the online community.

Net2ThinkTank: Lessons from the campaigns

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by
Amy Sample Ward
on November 7, 2008
in community
. 0 Comments

Whether your candidate won or not on Tuesday, we can all be happy to be rid of campaign commercials, right?  Since the campaigns are still so fresh in our memory, I wanted to use it for this month’s Net2 Think Tank question.

Topic:

What was the best example or lesson learned about leveraging social media from the political campaigns this year?  We saw candidates speaking to citizens through various mechanisms, but we also know that candidates have a lot more money than most of our nonprofit organizations (even if the tools are free, staffing and strategy development isn’t).  What social media tools, tricks, and strategies were employed that could be used successfully with nonprofits?

Here are a couple links from the applications themselves in case you didn’t see them:

Deadline:

Saturday, November 22nd
(The round-up will be posted on Monday the 24th.)

How to contribute:

  1. Blog your answer to the question either on your blog or the NetSquared blog. (For directions on contributing to the NetSquared blog, click here)
  2. Tag your blog with net2thinktank
  3. Send me the link to your post! (You can leave a comment here, email me, etc.)

Thanks again to everyone who participated last month.  I’m really looking forward to your ideas and insights this month and think we have a lot of examples to choose from.  Be sure to send me the link to your post by Saturday, the 22nd!

The Net2 ThinkTank roundup will be posted on the NetSquared site on Monday, November 24th.

Final Push for a World Diabetes Day Doodle

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 27, 2008
in challenge and community
. 1 Comment

Manny Hernandez and the Tu Diabetes community needs your help! Their goal is 20,000 signatures in an appeal to Google to consider doing a World Diabetes Day doodle on Nov. 14th.  Right now, they are about half way there.  Tu Diabetes has partnered with other diabetes organization to help raise awareness and reach the 20,000 signatures goal.

You can sign the petition here!

Help get a World Diabetes Day Doodle

Nonprofit Blog Exchange: Reflections on Blog Action Day

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 24, 2008
in blogging and community
. 2 Comments

As part of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, I visited the Social Butterfly blog recently - the Nonprofit Blog Exchange connects bloggers in an effort to expand the sphere of readership and exposure (to learn more, check it out).

I was already familiar with the blog, and Social Butterfly’s twitter, too.  But, I realized the blog wasn’t in my RSS reader and thus I was missing many wonderful posts!  I suggest that if you are interested in social media, marketing, and the intersection of the two, you subscribe as well.

Social Butterfly’s post about Blog Action Day, really caught my eye.  Here’s how it begins:

What is poverty?

In researching the answer to this question, I couldn’t escape the purpose behind a campaign by the Association of Public Health Schools and the Pfizer Foundation recently created called “What is public health?” This campaign works to better brand ‘public health’ to the public, while also raising awareness, education and encouraging participation in the public health conversation. Participants are asked to put red “This is public health stickers” on items that they feel represent public health. My challenge: What would this look like if the question: “What is poverty?” was asked?

I read on, and encourage you to as well, but that question stuck in my head.  If we were going to try to put a sticker on everything that labeled it as, “This is Poverty,” how would we even begin? The definition of poverty, or at least as we think of it in public service work and public policy, is so vast and multifaceted.  The number of stickers we would need is unbelievable!

Then, as if she was reading my thoughts, I saw this tweet from my friend Audrey:

spinnerin:  Frustrated by people’s tendency to talk for everyone outside developed countries as though we know exactly what they need.

It’s such a fitting point.  When I first started thinking about sticking those “This is Poverty” stickers on things, I started thinking with my home town first, then my home state, and home country.  After that, I started thinking about London, and the UK as I’m now based here and learning a great deal about the world as it is here.  But to start thinking about puting those stickers on things in developing countries was almost unfair.  I can think of many things to put those stickers on, but I don’t live there every day nor do I face or even really understand the real issues, and definitions of poverty as they exist in developing countries.  By putting a sticker on those things, the issues as we see them from elsewhere, are we even setting the stage for help and change?

How do we first get the people IN poverty, to label things with these metaphoric and real stickers of “This is Poverty” so that help can be defined and created most effectively?

Thanks, Social Butterfly for giving me a moment to relfect on my own post from Blog Action Day, and rediscover your wonderful blog!  And, thanks to the Nonprofit Blog Exchange for connecting us!

Blog Action Day: Global Poverty

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 15, 2008
in community, events and socialchange
. 9 Comments

Blog Action Day logoIt’s Blog Action Day 2008! This year, the focus of thousands of bloggers from around the world is on poverty.

What’s the point of bloggers (over 11,000 at the time of this posting!) all talking about poverty today?  The more people talking about poverty and its related issues, the larger and larger the conversation.  When lots of people start talking about something, they naturally get excited and start sharing ideas and making plans and then start taking action to make change!

So really, Blog Action Day = Action Day!

There are so many bloggers in the discussion today, and many great ideas, organizations and projects highlighted, and so much more - I really encourage you to check out the rolling list of participating blogs to read more and jump into the conversation!

Here’s what I’m thinking…

The social web is really about aggregation and redistribution. So, we should be pulling together opportunities for people to do something about poverty, both locally and on a global scale.  Many groups, individuals and even platforms are working on doing this already, at least for social change in general, including poverty-related actions.  Tools like SocialActions aggregate the social web of social actions for you, and then let you repurpose the results the way you want - like in a widget on your blog, on an automatic footer, etc.  SocialActions still has a long way to go with how much functionality and opportunity it hopes to provide users, so check it out and see how you can participate!

We should also be pulling together and pushing out resources and information about services for people in poverty looking for help.  I’ve seen this take shape in various forms, including One Economy’s Beehive websites that provide localized information and connections to services.  But, I still think there is a lot more to be done that doesn’t require too much ‘new’ work, just new combinations.

What if…

What if there was a way that someone looking for a social service could use a touch screen monitor in a grocery store to locate the physical building where they could get help? Grocery stores are much more abundant and easily accessed than pretty much anything else in most cities, and using the touch screen monitor means you have much less technological experience required to use the tool.  Finding the address, the specific services available, hours of operation, etc. in an easy-to-access way means that person could then get on the bus, taxi, or walk to the location without having to find one social service facility just to start the process.  I love maps though, so we should add in some mapping to the process :) maybe a map can show all of the locations providing the service needed and the user can pick and choose if they want.

What if there was a shared technology van for your city that would travel between homeless shelters, social service centers, and adult education facilities providing exposure and on-the-spot training to individuals on using a computer, a digital camera, navigating the web, creating an email account, etc.? This would give people facing an uphill battle to find a job and improve their financial/economic situation some basic tools to be on their way to working in an office or even just participating in the technology-heavy demands of the 21st century.  One van wouldn’t need to cost that much, especially if a national organization was behind it and regulating it.  I’m sure that software and hardware developers (whether it is laptops, cameras, video cameras, phones, or computer applications, etc.) out there would gladly donate machines or discount them (just think of how many people they are helping to become customers!); the vehicles could be donated or discounted or come from vehicle donation services; staffing of the vehicle could be a full-time standard hour job paid for by a grant or membership fees that are very small contributed/combined from all of the facilities who have a share of the exposure.

What do you guys think of either of those ideas?  Are they doable?  Do you have better ideas?  I’d LOVE to hear them!

NetSquared welcomed in the UK!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 15, 2008
in community
. 5 Comments

I have been busy since we moved to London last month, meeting with leaders of the local nonprofit technology community to hear what the biggest obstacles are facing consultants and staff working to help nonprofits adopt strategic technologies, biggest needs are for a group that brings the community together (Net Tuesday London!), and what I can do help.  The conversations have been affirming, enlightening and enthusiastic.  I’m ready to go!

Net Tuesday London is officially in the works!  Put the evening of November 4th on your calendars folks - it should be a wonderful first event bringing together social changemakers of all kinds to discuss social media.  More details will be announced soon.

Two great movers-and-shakers that I’ve had the opportunity to talk with include David Wilcox and Dave Briggs.  David wrote up a fantastic intorduction for me on the SocialReporter blog.  Here’s a bit:

A year ago a group of enthusiasts for web-enabled social innovation and change met in London committed to setting up Netsquared in the UK, loosely based on the Netsquared conference and community started in the US.

It didn’t happen like that, and although the social innovation landscape is now more highly populated, a bit more joining-up would be helpful.

Fortunately Netsquared has come to us, because community builder Amy Sample Ward has moved to London to start up Net Tuesdays like those common in the US and elsewhere. As you’ll see from the video, Amy is already networking furiously, and would like to partner up with others in the field for events and other activities.  Read more…

Dave gave a wonderful shout out as well!

I also got the chance to catch up with Amy Sample Ward, who works with NetSquared helping non-profits get the most out of technology. She’s now based in London and will be doing her best to help UK NFPs catch up.  Read more…

Thanks so much to all the people I’ve talked with so far about supporting the nonprofit technology community here in London and in the UK!  I’m just thrilled to be working with you.

Here’s the interview David recorded with me yesterday:


Amy Sample Ward from David Wilcox on Vimeo.

Net2 ThinkTank time again!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 7, 2008
in blogging and community
. 0 Comments

It’s time again for the Net2 ThinkTank!  Here’s a question for everyone to think about, blog about, and discuss.  Thanks to Marie Deatherage for helping with it, too!

Topic:
What are the key questions nonprofit orgs should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning?

Deadline:
Saturday, October 18th

How to contribute:

  1. Blog your answer to the question either on your blog or the NetSquared blog. (For directions on contributing to the NetSquared blog, click here)
  2. Tag your blog with net2thinktank
  3. Send me the link to your post! (You can leave a comment here, on the NetSquared site, email me, etc.)

Thank so much ahead of time!  I’m really looking forward to your answers and insights.  Be sure to send me the link to your post by next Saturday so that I can be sure it is included in the roundup on Monday, October 20th.

The Net2 ThinkTank roundup will be posted on the NetSquared site on Monday, October 20th

Net Tuesday London in the works!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 3, 2008
in community and events
. 1 Comment

As most of you know, I’m now located in London, UK and the community builder at NetSquared.  I’m really excited to be here and to connect with the nonprofit technology community on the ground in the UK.

As part of my offline community building for NetSquared here, I’m laying the ground work for the first Net Tuesday London!  I’m hoping we can hold our first monthly event this November, and want it to really be something that fills a niche, connects nptechers, technologists, consultants, nonprofits and social changemakers.

If you are here in London or the UK, below is a link to a survey to help gauge what your goals and preferences are for Net Tuesday London.  I’d really love to hear your thoughts, and to see you there in November!

Thanks so much for taking the time to fill out the short survey; it should only take 5 minutes or so.

Here’s the survey!

Let me know if you have any questions about NetSquared, Net Tuesdays, the survey or anything else!

News and updates from Net2 and London

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on September 18, 2008
in community, events and workblog
. 1 Comment

I’ve made it!  We are safely in London, UK, now and staying with friends of friends who we had never met before and are much too hospitable.  The pieces of life for finding housing, food, friends, and fun are all falling into place so far, and we’ve been here less than a week!  Now, to find reliable and consistent internet!

Here are some great news bites I wanted to let everyone know about, straight from my blog on the NetSquared site: