Archive for the 'socialmedia' CategoryPage 2 of 3

More thoughts on Millenials

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on June 23, 2008
in socialmedia
. 2 Comments

Last month I shared some brief thoughts about the changing environment of nonprofits per the characteristics of Millenials.

A few weeks ago, Allison Fine participated in a live chat with the Chronicle of Philanthropy to discuss the topic of Engaging Millenials in Social Causes.  Quite a few people participated in the live discussion on the C of P website during the hour-long virtual event.  To reflect on some of the ideas and questions I raised in that previous post, I asked Allison:

How do you view the relationship between Millenials and older generations IN social media? Positive, negative, linear, hierarchical, leaders/followers, individuals, mentors/teachers, etc. And, do you think this relationship affects the conversations that nonprofits are trying to listen to, interact with, and learn from? Thanks!

I was thinking a lot about the way interactions and relationships between Millenials and those of older generations could effect the way organization adopt or integrate social media tools into their work.  Allison’s response was:

Hi, Amy, thanks for your question and the interesting thoughts on your blog last week. We provide astonishingly few opportunities for Millennials and older generations to use social media together. We’ve almost made it taboo, haven’t we? I would love to see younger people mentor older people on social media, what a great use of talents and skills! I think it would be a great way to unlock causes and organizations (again, back to provocative!) One of the most interesting aspects of Causes on Facebook is that there are so many causes for each issue. Take Darfur, for example. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Causes on Facebook dedicated to this issue. Before, in the proprietary age, people interested in this issue would have been largely locked into one or two organizations they knew about.

This is a long way to say that I think your interest in this area is right on the money and I would love to see more mentoring and more conversations between young and old people online or on Causes.org or even on Twitter (!) about issues that concern us all.

So, now I’m thinking about ways that organizations can use social media tools in a meaningful way that also allows all supporters (Millenials and beyond) to interact with each other.  How does your organization create places, on or offline, for supporters of all ages to interact or spread your work on behalf of the organization (fundraising, communications, etc.)?

You can read the other questions and answers from the Chronicle of Philanthropy live discussion with Allison Fine on the C of P website, here.

Thoughts on Millenials and political action

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on May 22, 2008
in issues and socialmedia
. 0 Comments

About a year ago, I sat down to write two white papers on issues I had rumbling around in my head that involved the changing roles, as I saw it, of nonprofit organizations and foundations as well as the changing relationship between those organizations and citizens.  Trust me that had I finished writing those, you would have been privy as they would have been up on the blog.  Needless to say, my brain was taken over by work as is the problem that always comes up, and they remain strings of thoughts in text files on my computer.

Today, I finally made a little time to read through Social Citizens from Allison Fine and The Case Foundation.  It tore apart all of the other things I was thinking about today and threw me back into the subject of those white papers from last year.  It was wonderful!  So, I took it as a sign that I needed to get some of those thoughts out to you all this time around.  Keep in mind that these are my thoughts and I would love a chance (read: the time) to expand on them fully, so I apologize for the brevity.  Also, these ideas do not only sprout from this recent publication, obviously, but are inspired through many reports and from my own experiences as a Millenial.

Changing Role of Nonprofits and Foundations

Because so much of the organizing and activism, and thus information and opinion, around issues is done in networks of friends and family, the problem with access to both sides of the story and the opportunity for an independent and unique opinion grows.  As views are shaped by those closest to the individual, there is much less of a chance for a network-created cause or action to include full dialogue of an issue.

Nonprofits and foundations will continue to be tied to causes, changes, actions, and groups that form in social networks and elsewhere on the web.  The role these organizations have in the relationship will change to incorporate the need for access to the big picture.

Nonprofits and foundations will become sources for information and reliable reporting.  They will be the places that personalized campaigns link to for the background and continued data on an issue.  As the fundraising and momentum building moves more and more into the hands of supporters across the web and around the world, the relationship with the aligned organizations changes to reallocate responsibilities.  As information, data, and reporting providers, these organizations will work to ensure that the multitude of unique campaigns taking place simultaneously by supporters provide an opportunity for those networks and potential interested citizens to learn more (and act more).

Changing Expectations of Government and Corporations

Millenials feel political change by individuals is impossible and that political actions like voting and participating in the political arena as it currently exists do not have the impact they want.  This doesn’t mean that young voters aren’t turning out, as we see from the numbers in 2004 and so far in the primaries that the youth vote is taking a big upswing.  But, young voters view their action closer to a symbolic step than a concrete motion.

Millenials are also very concerned about and aware of the cause-related work that corporations are involved in, choosing to support (or purchase from) organizations that are environmentally conscious, giving back to the community, and/or contributing to changing social problems.  Young people report, as it says in the report, having more confidence in corporations than they do in the government.

This could mean that instead of groups of citizens urging politicians and policymakers to make changes around issues or specific legislation, that citizens instead turn to corporations who are aligned with those issues and support them in pressuring the government.  Standing behind more than just a product, but trusting in the clout of a corporation to swing policymakers.

To go further, this could even have implications for key supporters to have a ‘role’ (of some sort) in the leadership of the corporation.  This would complete the circle of accountability between the corporation and the supporters who have chosen to be loyal to the organization because of the issue alignment.

Changing Identity

In previous generations, personal identify was defined by career/job title and field.  You were an engineer or a teacher or a scientist.  That meant something when you said it to a new acquaintance and similarly created automatic circles of colleagues even if you hadn’t met personally.

Now, as taking action for Millenials has become incredibly important and easy via the social communities and world of the web, who you are is no longer defined by the college major you graduated with.  Not only are people of my generation projected to change career fields, not just employers, many times over compared to past generations, but we have come of age in a time when learning is no longer a hierarchical or institutional activity.

The power to do something is in our hands and accessed any time we want online.  This means, Millenials will be identified with their issue-alignment and causes.  The personalized widgets for fundraising campaigns, challenges, and international issues now speak to who we are.  We find friends through the interconnected profile links of campaigns to save Darfur or cancer awareness.  My online actions and challenges are met by people from all backgrounds, job titles, and locations - but we are all working to protect the environment, or raise air quality standards, or stop human trafficking.

The way I expect not just my friends and family, but also my employers and politicians to identify me and communicate with me is also effected by the way I am defined by issues and not simply where I live or where I work.

—-

I know that is just the tip of the iceberg for three incredibly large areas, but I was going to burst if I didn’t get at least that much out of my head.  I would really, really love to hear what you think and keep this conversation going.  As the way individuals ‘live’ online is already drastically changing the way nonprofits do their work.

Where do you bank?

Published
by
amysampleward
on April 16, 2008
in community and socialmedia
. 0 Comments

I recently had the opportunity to interview Heather Cronk of PledgeBank to ask her about the campaign building site before her visit here to Portland to present at Net Tuesday about online campaign building.

What IS PledgeBank? PledgeBank is a conditional pledging tool for collective action. Let me re-word that in English: PledgeBank is a way to say publicly that you’ll do something (hopefully something that will improve your neighborhood/community/world), but only if others will promise to do the same thing. It’s a way to take that notion that there should be more streetlights, or that someone should clean up the local creek, or that it’s not too hard to raise money for new playground equipment at the elementary school and make those ideas a reality by including more people in the process. The site follows a simple formula: you create a pledge (i.e. “I will do X action, but only if N number of others will do the same”), you publicize the pledge (we give you tools to email your friends, post to your blog/website, organize on Facebook, or automatically generate flyers to post in your community), the pledge succeeds, and you give instructions to pledge signers for how to follow through. Easy as pie.

What has been the most interesting campaign to see grow/succeed? My favorite example is the Bakul Foundation’s pledge (found at http://www.pledgebank.com/Bakul-Library). They basically saw that a huge problem in their community was the lack of access to books for children, and had the crazy idea of building a children’s library locally. Rather than just hammer away on that project with a few other people, they mobilized their social networks in India and beyond — and ended up getting over 1000 people to pledge their support with time, money, books, and sweat. The library just celebrated their first anniversary last week and the children’s library is going strong, rather than still being a crazy idea in someone’s head.

What has been the most inspiring so far? To me, the most inspiring pledges are small ones with a big impact. For instance, a recent inspiring pledge is “undies4liberia” (found at http://www.pledgebank.com/Undies4Liberia). One person saw in her travels through Liberia that a huge problem in that country was at orphanages — those centers were operating with few resources and little capacity to pay attention to details. So Ashley created a pledge to collect new, clean underwear that she would deliver to the orphanages on her next trip over. While she certainly could have bought 20 or so pairs of underwear herself, including others in that process yielded 753 pairs of underwear for children at those orphanages, and many more people aware of and interested in Liberia. I think that’s pretty inspiring! (See Ashley’s success story at http://www.pledgebank.com/success#undies)

How do you see campaign building relate to the uprising in peer-to-peer fundraising and social action networks online? Well, what we try to do at PledgeBank is create ways for anyone to be an organizer, regardless of experience or training. The old way of organizing said that those who were *trained* as organizers went into a community and solved problems. The new way of organizing says that everyone is an expert in what needs to happen in their community to make it better, safer, and more just — and PledgeBank offers tools to do that by creating localized campaigns that mobilize a person’s own social network. In much the same way that peer-to-peer fundraising and social networking build on the capital one has generated through relationships, PledgeBank offers a way to “cash in” on that capital through positive peer pressure — “Since we know each other, and you care about the things I care about, I hope you’ll sign my pledge to actually get something done about a community problem.” PledgeBank is a fundraising tool, an action tool, a campaigning tool, and a social tool — all wrapped up in one site.

What is the hardest part of the campaign in your opinion? Well, the hardest part of running a pledge on PledgeBank is actually taking the first step of reaching out to your networks to find pledge signers. Once pledge creators take that first step of saying, “This is something I care about and think is a good idea,” it’s relatively easy to keep the momentum going. A friend of mine created a pledge and became obsessed with watching the number of pledge signers go up — it was really rewarding for her to get that affirmation that others cared about the same thing and were willing to publicly support her idea. But it’s sometimes difficult to take that first step.

How many countries have used PB so far, in how many languages? Well, users in 99 countries have created pledges, and we have pledges running in 13 languages (English, Welsh, Belarusian, German, Spanish, Esperanto, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, and Chinese)…with a few more in process. The site translations have all been done by volunteers, mostly using PledgeBank to get the job done (i.e. “I will translate 10% of the PledgeBank code into Ukrainian, but only if 9 others will each take on a different 10%).

If someone doesn’t want to be involved in a specific pledge, is there any other way to support the work of PB or its users? Well, the beauty of PledgeBank is in the site’s diversity. If your friend sends you a pledge they’ve created to raise money for a political candidate, but you’re not so sure you support that political candidate, you’re completely free not to sign the pledge. In fact, you’re completely free to create a pledge to raise money for a rival candidate, or to create/sign a pledge about something else altogether. One of the things I love about the site is that we try in many ways to put opportunities in front of users that they might not have known to look for, but that they end up finding interesting — we encourage users of the site to connect with other users, regardless of whether they personally know one another.

You can hear more from Heather about PledgeBank and online campaign building in person, if you are in the greater Portland area, at the Portland Net Tuesday. You can find out more about the event here, and sign up to join Portland Net Tuesday events each month.

How to close the gaps: leadership and social media

Published
by
amysampleward
on March 12, 2008
in issues and socialmedia
. 5 Comments

Recently, Inside Philanthropy, the blog for the Philanthropy Journal, posted about a fairly popular conversation topic: The nonprofit leadership gap. Research is coming out that predicts a large depression of leaders in the nonprofit sector as the baby boomers go into retirement. There have been many confirmations of this and less strong, concrete ideas for “fixing” it. What does the leadership gap mean for technology and social media adoption and usage for organizations?

As has been discussed online and offline, the perception (for better or worse, true or false, etc.) is that youth are the ones using social media tools personally and that if an organization wants to incorporate some of those tools in its outreach, fundraising, events, or communications strategy, they need to hire a young person to do it. I think we all know, though, that people are not dogs and we can all learn new tricks.

Often, “young people” are the ones with exposure and experience using these tools because they are at a college campus with easy access nearly 24/7 to computers and friends and friends on computers. They also have had much less of their life away from computers compared to older generations/peer groups. They don’t know the tools because they are the only ones who can understand them; they just happen to have had a great opportunity to play around with a lot of them already.

So, as I see it, there is the leadership gap which is a top down direction and the technology gap which is a bottom up direction. How can these two hands hold on to each other?

Social media tools need to become integrated, slowly and logically, into organizations’ communication/outreach/development strategies AND into the internal staff processes that are shared with all staff. This means strategies like choosing a set of tags for your organization and getting everyone using del.icio.us for sharing news, reports, information, etc. Say you work for the “Portland Children’s Affairs Counsel” (I don’t think that exisits, I’m just making it up), and you want to have tags for your staff, your board, and for general news that you could link to on your website. So, you use PCACstaff, PCACboard, and PCACnews to tag organizations, news articles, reports, or anything else you come across on the web. Then, board members know to keep an eye on items tagged with PCACboard to see interesting things happening in the field or with organizations relevant to the organization’s work, etc. Staff know to watch for items tagged by other staff instead of keeping track of so many emails with one link to a news story, etc.

Staff can begin to upload photos from events or around the office to Flickr as a way to get familiar with the tool and then publicize the group or tag for the organization on the site, encouraging others to post photos they take at events or with the staff.

Slowly integrating these kinds of tools will make for better adoption because people will have personal experience and familiarity with each tool as it is integrated instead of throwing many tools at the organization at once and causing a sink or swim atmosphere.

But, back to the original question, how do these two issues come together? It’s simple. If social media tools are introduced that enable more sharing of information across the organization and build a cohesive team around projects and campaigns, then it can be easier to train and foster staff into leadership positions. Using technology tools to streamline work and to integrate online and offline parts of campaigns/projects (which usually involve completely separate teams of staff) means that staff will be integrated and really facilitating each other’s work instead of working autonomously.

I hope to write more about this later but wanted to get the thoughts out before I forgot them. :) I would love to hear what you think and how the two “gaps” have shown themselves or not in your organization. How have you seen it play out?

Flickr for nonprofits!

Published
by
amysampleward
on March 6, 2008
in socialmedia
. 1 Comment

Flickr and TechSoup Stock have teamed up to offer Flickr pro accounts to nonprofits!

I have blogged before about ways nonprofits can use Flickr and it was a topic of great discussion when I have thought about social media implementation with folks at organizations like the Cendar Sinai Park here in Portland. It is a great tool for bringing in some smiling faces to your website, print materials, and connecting supporters online that attend events or volunteer for your organization.

Read more on TechSoup’s site to get additional details on qualifying!

My daily toolbox

Published
by
amysampleward
on February 25, 2008
in roundup and socialmedia
. 1 Comment

It’s Monday and it seems there is always a mountain to prepare for at this point in the week. I thought I would take a minute to write out what is in my daily technology toolbox - is it anything like yours?

(photo credit to: Zak Hubbard)
1. Email: I feel like this goes without saying, but, oh well. Email has become a pretty integral part of my daily life, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. I have a work account and a gmail account and check both, like, constantly. Despite what some say about not doing so, I use my email inbox as a to-do list or a reminder list. It’s just easier for me to have everything in one place, especially if the “to do” item requires connecting with others or sending out an email.

2. Google apps: I use Google Reader for my RSS feeds. There are so many different options out there to use, I prefer the simplicity of Google Reader and the sharing functionality. I have many more feeds than some and many fewer than others (I think of myself as falling in the median range for feed count) but still have to do a dump sometimes and just say “mark all as read” to get a large folder out of the way. I think managing and reading feeds can really help people more efficiently digest news and information, and stay on top of developments and conversations in their field. I have good days, and not-as-good days :)
I also use Google Calendar and Documents. What can I say, I like to share! I can share my calendar with my husband, I can share documents with coworkers, friends, co-organizers of events, or colleagues. Sharing is nice; it helps make us all better.

3. Blogging: I maintain two blogs (this one, and one at work). This is Wordpress and at work we run Moveable Type. Both open source organizations. Both are very widely used, supported, and have great development communities. I like sharing, as I said above, so blogging is a great way to share information and ideas in another way.

4. Flickr: I use Flickr to search for Creative Commons licensed photos to use for projects and blog posts. I don’t upload photos there much right now, but I’m on there very often searching through everyone else’s!

5. Facebook: Some organizations/groups/events that I participate in use Facebook instead of or before email. Also, conversations take place on group or event pages instead of in email chains. And, still fresh in many of our memories, the Causes challenge that ended last month had me driving many of my contacts to the cause page and to the donation widget. I have used Facebook since 2004 and have enjoyed the evolution of users and purposes it has gone through as a tool and I have gone through as a user and as part of the community. Are you my friend?

6. Twitter: Last, but not least, is Twitter. I use this mini-blogging tool to listen and learn, ask and answer questions, and contribute to a community that is made up of issues including: Portland, News (local and around the world), Nonprofits, NPTech, Technology, Social Media, Start Ups, and just plain interesting. I have touted Twitter before, so you can Portland Net Tuesday.

So, that’s my top 6 list for must-use every day. I do, though, use YouTube (as well as other video sites specifically for nonprofits; check out DoGooderTV and YouTube’s Nonprofit Channel), watch screencasts, listen to podcasts, and much more. Other communities online, like LinkedIn, TakingItGlobal, and It’sGettingHotInHere also quite often find their way into my life. I’m not limited to the 6 areas above, but do go through withdrawals from those and not so much others :)
What’s your list look like?

Talking about Twitter

Published
by
amysampleward
on February 15, 2008
in socialmedia and webtools
. 6 Comments

Today, I had an opportunity to get out of the office and attend an event with other staff members of grantmaking organizations to talk about and think about some out-of-the box, but not really, things (hopefully additional blog post about that to come!). So, my mind was elsewhere and now I’m feeling a bit behind for all the great conversations happening today. I just saw this post from Beth and the interesting comments that others have left so far. In it Beth discusses some of her observations of social media use, including Twitter, and what others have said.

They were all on Facebook (turned their noses up at Myspace), watch YouTube videos, and use IM applications, with more 20 people on their IM lists. No surprise there. But, none used RSS readers or knew what they were. (Not sure if this matches demographic studies of RSS users or not because this group was under 18) They were aware of tagging, but in the sense of how it is used on Facebook - to tag your friends in photographs or notes, etc. None of them had heard of Twitter, let alone used it.

Click here to read all of the post.

When it comes to my use of Twitter, it is purely as an individual and not on behalf of or associated with my employer. But! One of the most frequent recommendations I have about the micro-blogging tool is its use as a broadcasting/community building/reputation building tools for organizations. For example, the Cascade Climate Network (full disclosure: this is an organization I frequently volunteer with) just started a twitter account and are going to integrate it into their blog/website as well as use it to build community and spread news, calls to action, information, and event opportunities to those interested in the youth climate change field. Why use it? Like I have said in the past, Twitter can open a window into the conversation already taking place in your industry and bring you into that conversation as a participant, as an information provider, and as a partner in shaping the conversation.

Beth quotes an interview with Walter J Carl in which he says:

“The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work.”

I disagree. I think that many people in nonprofits using Twitter are truly building a community of people interested in their work or that can share insight in their work. They are using the tool as another facet of information gathering, listening, dispensing information, and having a conversation. I think this is what makes Twitter so powerful; not the “look at me” of going to a fancy restaurant (or at least twitter-ing that you are going there), but the “look at me” of please let me contribute, share knowledge, ask questions, and provide information.

As with most social media, I believe the resource and utility comes with the golden rule: do until to the tool and the community as you would have the tool and community do unto you! You have to give if you want to get and the Twitter community is growing to do just that!

What do you think?

Ins, outs and curlicues of RSS

Published
by
amysampleward
on January 16, 2008
in events and socialmedia
. 3 Comments

Marshall Kirkpatrick helped us start the 501 Tech Club series in Portland with a bang. The notes certainly do not demonstrate accurately the amount of information Marshall presented and the incredible dynamics of RSS, but here are some highlights:

DEFINITION: RSS readers pull in new content from pages you have selected. Instead of you visiting many of your favorite sites and blogs all the time to see if there is anything new, your reader will frequently check those sites and pull back all of the new content for you to browse/read in one convenient place, either on your desktop or in a browser.

POPULAR READERS: Bloglines, Google Reader, Net News Wire, and more

IDENTIFICATION: When you see the RSS icon (orange, soundwave looking image) on a web page or in your browser address bar, you know you can subscribe to that page just by clicking on it. You can either choose your reader from the set of options when clicking on the RSS icon, or you can copy and paste the feed’s subscribe link (that shows up in the browser when you click on it) into the reader of your choice. Different readers have different steps to add a subscription.

READING TIPS: RSS is not like email: you do NOT have to read everything. Just skim headlines for the important bits. Also, It can be helpful to use social bookmarking in partnership with RSS feeds. You can share news you found interesting. Popular social bookmarking sites include del.icio.us and ma.gnolia. (You can create a tag for yourself or your organization, then subscribe to the feed for the tag on the social bookmarking site to see what every else finds!)

REPUBLISHING: Social bookmarking also lets you create a newswire on your site or blog. Marshall publishes a “to share” feed on his blog at marshallk.com.

SEARCHING: Google blog search is like using Google News alerts with your email. You can subscribe to the RSS feed of search results from this and most other search sites.

I will be sure to let you know when February’s 501 Tech Club meeting will take place and what the topic will be. You should be sure to come to learn and connect!

How can nonprofits use twitter?

Published
by
amysampleward
on January 10, 2008
in issues and socialmedia
. 2 Comments

NetSquared’s monthly Net2ThinkTank question this month is: How can nonprofits use twitter? Should they even bother?

My first response is, “Sure! Totally! Maybe!” :)
So, my second thought is really the more important one. I have said it before and I will probably say it a million more times, but, nonprofits need to use the tools that will best help them reach goals for projects and the organization. Not everyone needs a facebook profile. Just because of that though, not everyone needs a facebook group. Some organizations don’t need some tools at all but could benefit a great deal from others.

How do you know if it is right? Use the POST method!
I blogged about POST before and still think that it is one of the best ways to approach new media planning (thanks, Forrester!). If you have identified your goals and hoped-for outcomes and Twitter is then identified as something to use to meet those goals, then dive right in!

How could Twitter help? By helping you listen and learn!
Twitter is a terrific tool for listening to and gauging the conversation of your audience (and with Twitter, you can sprawl out to hear voices beyond the community you may think you are in). You can ask questions, make comments, and otherwise participate with Twitter in the conversation like anyone else, of course. But it offers a window into live conversation about your industry, organization, or niche that you would probably miss if you weren’t using it.

Still nervous about jumping in? Use it yourself!
Twitter is just like all of the other available tools online when it comes to getting started: You should really use it yourself, in a non-organization-realted way first. This will let you feel out how it works, how to make connections and participate in conversations. Figure out areas you don’t understand and how to get answers down the road when new things come up that you may not understand. Most of all, using the tool personally will let you better visualize how it can be used most effectively and efficiently for the organization, and who at the organization would be the best to handle it (maybe you!).

Thanks to NetSquared for the great question this month! Are you using Twitter personally or is your organization tweeting away? You can also follow me to get started!

Do you have cold feet for social media?

Published
by
amysampleward
on January 10, 2008
in marketing and socialmedia
. 1 Comment

Lisa McNeill, over at the Ignite Social Media blog, posted great list of five steps to get over the cold feet you may have about social media marketing. Her list includes:

  • Set up and RSS Feed Reader and Subscribe to Feeds
  • Start Twittering
  • Start Studying
  • Start Filtering
  • Start Social Bookmarking

My favorite part of the five steps is the emphasis on learning and listening. Social media tools are really great BECAUSE of the opportunity to hear from and learn from your community and the larger community you probably didn’t realize you had.

So, warm up those feet and jump right in! Have you already checked of some of these steps? Which ones did you do first?