I just posted over on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog on People-Powered Content: It’s Driving the Web and Could Drive Your Community! Head over to the SSIR blog to read the full post and comment!
From every corner of the Web, we can see how Web sites, campaigns, news and even fundraising is shifting from organizations and corporations at the wheel to individuals taking the driver’s seat. Is it good? It most certainly is!
We are seeing it more and more often. Organizations like The Nature Conservancy have created ways for supporters to contribute photos of nature via the Flickr group and the 2008 Photography contest. Engaging long-time supporters who enjoy taking pictures and letting nature photo enthusiasts become supporters through appealing to what they are already interested in.
News organizations have wrapped their arms around the citizen-created content wave as well. Uses of comments on news stories online are abundant. Citizen journalism like community-based news sites and iReport are inspiring more and more citizen journalist participation every day. Even citizen-inspried content like Spot.Us invites individuals to jump in.
The citizen-created content isn’t just for news and photos, though. Ushahidi, a platform that enables citizens to use SMS text messages to report incidents of violence in crisis zones to be mapped online, has just released another deployment of it’s engine—this time for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Twitter Vote Report, allowed voters to send messages via Twitter (either through SMS text messages or a web browser) with information about wait times or even fraud at polling places, to be mapped online. Both platforms let citizens share important information with others in their specific geographic location, as well as with the world, creating a more connected and transparent process.
Even President-Elect Obama is channeling the citizen-driven voice. On his website, Change.gov, citizens of both the US and the world are invited to share ideas, recommendations and priorities about policies and issues. Inviting anyone to participate.
It’s clear that the citizen-powered web is here. But, what about nonprofit organizations working hard to make a difference in the community and world at large—how do they ignite citizens and supporters?
For ways your organization can identify what your community wants to do for you, read on at SSIR!
I have another post up on the Stanford Social Innovation Review opinion blog and I’d love to hear your opinion!
Let’s assume social media is the means to an end. That ‘end’ is going to be different depending on whether you are using it as an organization or an individual, for conversations or for advertising, for profit or for community building, for fun or for policies. So, when social media meet ups, in person or online, and communities form, is it mostly around the means (specific tools, advocating for adoption, etc.) or the end (people using social media in general for the same purpose or cause)?
So, asked again: Do we come together around social media because of affinity towards specific platforms, tools, or programs or because of similarities in usage of those platforms, tools, or programs?
…
Does it then, really matter if social media communities and conversations are focused on either the means or the ends? It isn’t as if we are discussing war, right? The uses, developments, and constant permutations of social media are so diverse and evolving so quickly - is it enough to help each other just keep pace?
You can read on and share your answer on the SSIR blog post here!
Allyson Kapin, the president of the Rad Campaign as well as a friend of mine and many from launching Women Who Tech, deserves a big CONGRATULATIONS! This earlier this month she joined the team at FastCompany.com as a blogger for Radical Tech. You can read her blog posts here.
Here’s an excerpt from her first post about how the web 2.0 community came together to develop hurricane08.org:
When Hurricane Gustav threatened to crash into New Orleans and bring more destruction to the city that never recovered from Hurricane Katrina, Andy Carvin, a social media strategist for National Public Radio, used his Web 2.0 savvy skills to take action and start the websites hurricanes08.org and hurricanewiki.org. The sites serve as an information aggregator for the latest information on hurricanes threatening the US and provide an easy way for volunteers to connect with communities.
“I thought we needed something that could connect the dots,” said Carvin. Once Carvin developed the idea he put up the “Bat Signal” and friends and volunteers including Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigs List and Deanna Zandt, a media technologist for progressive and grassroots activist organizations pitched in to help. Newmark helped promote the site while Zandt spearheaded the development of the wiki. Read more…
I’m looking forward to Allyson’s weekly posts and seeing what the conversations and community are like on the Fast Company site. Find Allyson’s Radical Tech blog here. Congrats again!
I wanted to take a quick moment to let everyone know that I’ll be contributing some posts regularly on the Net Squared community blog. I think the nptech community has something special Net Squared and am excited to say that I’m now going to be a solid part of it! I’ll be posting there twice a week, with insights, case studies, and how-tos that I come across to help you all as you continue to adopt and evaluate technology for nonprofits.
Since I will be moving to London, UK, in just a few weeks, I’m really looking forward to sharing all that I learn about the similarities and differences between the US and UK as far as technology use and innovation by nonprofit organizations goes and hope that you all will be part of those conversations!
You can look for posts from me starting this week! I hope to hear from you all as we examine together what works and what is happening in this ever-changing environment we work in.
Thanks!
Are there organizations using technology, case studies, or tools in particular that you want me to cover? Just let me know and I’ll do my best to cover it!
I think that there is something about maps that ropes all of us in. Especially Google’s maps! They are easy to use, have such a range of options (look at all of the different layers you can view in Google Earth!), and with the satellite (and now Street) view we can really see what we are looking at.
Pete Forsyth, a good friend of mine, has been working in his neighborhood of Portland, OR, on a year-long planning process for a redesign of Portland Parks & Recreation’s central maintenance facility and nursery. The architect involved recently presented six concept plans as reference points during the proposal development. Pete took these concept plans and mapped them out using Google Maps, and posted them for the community’s use as conversations and decision-making takes place building the proposal. As Pete explains, “These concepts make it possible for the public to see the current status of our work, and some of the directions we’re moving in. The Google Map format gives them a friendly presentation, that allows the viewer to click on an object to see notes relevant to it, etc.”
I think it’s an awesome way of leveraging free tools to help convey ideas and stories to your community in a way that does not require you to have a conversation yourself with all those you want to reach.
If you want to try it out for yourself, log in to a Google account and visit http://maps.google.com. In the ‘my maps’ area, click on ‘create new map’ and get started! Pete says that the point-and-click tools are very intuitive. You can even invite others to collaborate on a map with you!
How do you think your organization could use a map in its storytelling? Have you used maps in the past? What successes did you have?
Marshall Kirkpatrick post a great article today for ReadWriteWeb considering the questions: Can New Media Be Taught in Schools? What do you think?
Tests on Twitter, wiki-style study groups, students quizzed on yesterday’s most popular YouTube videos and the biggest hits on Del.icio.us/Popular - is this what the future of education is going to look like? In some journalism schools around the US, it just might be. Would that really be so bad? Though many may disagree with us, we think there is some merit to teaching new media in journalism and other schools.
Marshall even quoted me, as I described just one example from my experience as a student of new media in college. There are many comments over on the article, go check it out and weigh in on the conversation!
How do you learn new media? Do you think it can be taught/learned in a ‘classroom’ or do you lean towards personal investigation and experimentation?
This week I’m filling in for Britt Bravo on the Net Squared community blog. I just posted there with some of my thoughts about using Second Life for conferences. Check it out!
This was my first conference in Second Life and I really learned a lot. What makes Second Life such a unique option for conference organizers is how much of the face-to-face nature of in-person conferences can be replicated. The biggest ones to me were:
- I can SEE you!
- I can TALK to you!
- I can FIND you!
Have you used Second Life to attend a conference or event? Have you participated in any of the free weekly meetings from the Nonprofit Commons? What advice do you have for organizations and individuals exploring this new tool?
Check out the full article on the Net Squared community blog and let me know what you think!
June 10th saw the public launch of connec+ipedia, a wiki+database tool that I have been working on for the last 18+ months with the Meyer Memorial Trust. As much as I enjoy talking about the functionality and possibilities that exist with this new kind of wiki, I think it is also important to recognize such a tool has been offered to the community for free by a private foundation.
It’s great to see more and more foundations adopting policies around open source software and grantmaking and using/developing with open source themselves. I wrote about some of the decision-making around connec+ipedia as a guest spot over at Tactical Philanthropy.
Head over there to read and comment on what you think about this process and project.
Yep, that’s right! According to BlueAvocado.org it’s “intriguing, nourishing, and practically indispensable!” It is “a new bite-sized magazine by and for people who work and volunteer in community nonprofits.”
The first issue covers volunteers, board committees, and even legal issues between funders and grantees. It promises to be an interesting voice in starting conversations related to all aspects of community nonprofits. I plan to follow along and participate, and hope you will check them out, too!
I have a new post up on the Stanford Social Innovation Review opinion blog! I have been thinking a lot about the NTC session I blogged about before, regarding techies moving up into leadership roles in their organizations. Here is an excerpt:
The discussion made me think about user-generated content and the two-way flow of information that comes with adopting new social media components. This is usually one of the biggest sources of fear for organizations just beginning on the road to web 2.0. But isn’t the openness to letting go of control of the message and specific content similar to the opening of leadership opportunities for staff? (And shouldn’t it be that neither creates fear in the organization and its leadership team?)
You can read the rest on the SSIR blog here!
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