Archive for the 'webtools' Category

Is your ‘database’ made of paper?

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on September 11, 2008
in webtools
. 0 Comments

Thanks to Paul Lamb for this news.

The UnaMesa Association, a nonprofit serving organizations and individuals around the world by providing free software tools and web services for schools, clinics, and other community organizations.  UnaMesa is currently conducing a pilot in the greater San Francisco area for nonprofits and other social benefit organizations needing a simple and secure way to move data-entry and storage online: making information more easily accessible to staff, clients, and partners. Trainees will receive facilitated needs analysis and design, technology tools, training, and on-going technical support — all free of charge! To see a sample of an UnaMesa project and relevant technologies, watch this short video. Contact heather @ unamesa.org for more information.

Social Actions & Social Actions Labs - Lot’s about to come your way!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on July 15, 2008
in socialchange and webtools
. 4 Comments

Social Actions “connects individuals with actionable opportunities. By helping people to take action, our work is increasing the scope and impact of the citizen sector,” while the Social Actions Labs builds web applications that draw on the Social Actions API.

Great, but why am I interested?

What Social Actions is really doing is combining the ‘what-you-can-do’ stuff of the social change web into one place that you can search, link to, rely on, and even (with a widget from the Social Actions Labs) integrate into your web site or blog!  How great is that?!

Social Actions helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that grassroots solutions to local and global problems can flourish.

Toward this end, Social Actions:

  • Provides a search engine of peer-to-peer social change campaigns;
  • Aggregates peer-to-peer social change campaigns from 14 unique social action platforms;
  • Publishes materials for individuals on planning and implementing peer-to-peer social change campaigns;
  • Distributes materials for nonprofits and foundations on engaging constituents;
  • Connects technology consultants and thought leaders with nonprofits and foundations;
  • Encourages collaboration among social action platforms.

I may be biased (full disclosure: part of the project mentor group), but think I’m understandably excited.

That IS awesome! What can I do?

Do you want to take action now?

Maybe you want to help identify the 3 -5 initial applications for the Social Actions Labs!

Try out the new (beta) search interface to find social actions you are interested in!

Or, you can sign up to stay abreast of more developments!

Wanna hear more?

Social Actions founder, Peter Deitz, has a great interview with Corey Pudhorodsky on the 501c3Cast from July 14th.  You can listen to it here!  If you don’t already, you should also add Corey’s awesome 501c3Cast podcast to your itunes or RSS library!

If you were able to integrate actions for volunteers, supporters, and interested citizens to take part in, where would you put it? On your organization’s home page, blog, action center page? Would you want it on your personal site or other social networking pages?  What about the social networking spaces for your organization?

Posterous is blogging with emails!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on July 1, 2008
in blogging and webtools
. 10 Comments

I have talked about blogging and micro-blogging before, but what about blogging without a blog?

Posterous is a new tool that let’s you do just that! All you need is email, and I’d put money on the fact that you all have email already! All you need to do is send an email to post@posterous.com and you’ve just posted to your blog!

The subject line of your email is the post title. The message body is the post content. You can even send pictures, audio or video attachments to be posted as well! “If you can use email, you can have your own website to share thoughts and media with friends, family and the world.”

If you send in multiple photos, they’ll automatically make a photo gallery for you. If you send in a link, they will make it an active link; unless it’s a link to a video or photo or some other media, when they embed the video for you so readers don’t have to click to see it. And much more!

I just did it myself. It REALLY is just as easy as it sounds. All I did was send an email. But, it was fun so I did it twice. :) You can see it here!

If you want to try it out, just send an email to post@posterous.com! You can check Posterous out on the web, too; here are the FAQs.

With tools like this that narrow the adoption requirements for blogging and social media use, do you see the culture change or organizational use changing?

Googleforce?

Published
by
amysampleward
on April 14, 2008
in webtools
. 1 Comment

Google Apps + SalesforceGoogle and Salesforce have announced a great partnership: Salesforce for Google Apps.  You can see a quick overview of the integration of Salesforce utilities with those of Google Applications and take a tour here.

Do you already use Google Apps or Salesforce in your organization? What do you think of the partnership?

Adding MyBlogLog

Published
by
amysampleward
on April 10, 2008
in community and webtools
. 0 Comments

I thought I would add MyBlogLog to this blog and see what kind of community it can create. I have been following it’s development and spread for a while now and think that it is an interesting way to allow visitors to connect with each other, and not just me.

Have you used it before? What are your thoughts?

Digital story-telling at its best!

Published
by
amysampleward
on April 3, 2008
in maps and webtools
. 0 Comments

Take a look at this incredible story, told through the use of maps.  It really makes me think about the dynamic way nonprofits and other social change agents should and could be using dynamic media to tell their stories and grow supporters.  Watch ReadWriteWeb for Marshall Kirkpatrick’s article on the digital story!

What do you think?  Has your organization tried using a dynamic tool like maps or photos online to tell a story?

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?

Mashup Challenge from NetSquared

Published
by
amysampleward
on February 11, 2008
in webtools
. 1 Comment

Do you work for an organization, campaign, or constituency that could benefit from the access to and utility of a “mashup” of data? (What’s a mashup? A tool that brings together information to help tell a story in a new way, for example, check out Maplight.org which combines data on campaign contributions and legislative votes.) NetSquared has the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge running now as part of this year’s Conference.

Applications are open February 1 - March 14th!

Here is how NetSquared outlines the three parts to the challenge:

Applications:

Individuals creating change are invited (and enabled) to tell the community what change they are trying to make, as well as the information and data sources they believe can be joined to help illustrate their mission’s point. For example, you might be trying to illustrate the correlation between childhood asthma rates and Superfund sites. Or you might be working on same-sex marriage legislation and are interested in illustrating the companies that provide health care coverage for same-sex partners mixed together with various kinds of family law legislation.

Recruiting and specification-building:

We will reach out to friendly collaborators who spend their days working with Web stuff to help translate your change into a Mashup project.

Mashup Development:

Finally, we’ll set teams off to the races to start building the Mashups.

Here is the outline for dates:

02/01/08:

On February 1, the Mashup Project Submission process for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge opens. Nonprofits and other social-change agents will be expressing their visions of how data can be recombined to advance social missions. NetSquared’s team will make sure that everyone gets the appropriate help they need to define their vision in a way that will be accessible and attractive to technical volunteers.

03/14/08:

On March 14 at 5 PM, PST, the ability to publish a Project Submission will close.

03/17/08 - 03/21/08:

Voting for the Mashup Project Challenge. Like last year, registered NetSquared users will be able to vote for their favorite Projects.

03/24/08:

The top 20 Mashup Projects will be announced on March 24 and the winners will be invited to attend this year’s NetSquared conference in San Jose, CA, scheduled for 5/27 and 5/28. Each of the top 20 projects gets an allowance for travel (including airfare to and from the conference, along with a hotel room for two nights).

05/27/08 & 05/28/08:

At the conference, Project Teams will have an opportunity to display and discuss their Mashups and attendees will vote to select the top three. All 20 projects at the conference will receive a share of $100,000 in prize money. The share will be determined by voting at the conference. Of course, there will be more legalese regarding the prize and its allocation after we open the application process on February 1, 2008.

Submissions have started coming for some terrific ideas. You can check out current applications (keep in mind, comments you make can help those in the application process further refine and improve their plan up to the March 14th deadline!) by visiting the list of projects. If you have thoughts or feedback, send them an email at net2@techsoup.org.

Why wikis?

Published
by
amysampleward
on December 10, 2007
in socialmedia and webtools
. 1 Comment

This past Friday, we held our third event in the series Communicating in the Age of New Media for nonprofit organizations to learn, this time, about social media tools. It was quite a success, with a great deal of conversation, learning, ideas, and even Beth Kanter to accompany participants through the day.

One tool that I felt was getting talked about and asked about quite a bit, was the wiki. How would we use it? What is so great about it? What is it to begin with?

We weren’t shy about showing our support of wikis, as the event had a wiki of its own for participants to share notes, questions, and resources. Using a tool for collaboration and shared learning is a terrific place for nonprofits to enter the new media world. There is plenty of free wiki software out there so you can start using it in your office or home to get the feel of it, which kind you are comfortable with, and how you want to use it at work.

After all the conversations I had about wikis at the event, and all the ways I was suggesting people could use a wiki in their organization or with their members, I’m curious how you are already or planning to use them. Does your organization use a wiki internally or externally? What was the biggest hurdle in getting non-new media users on board? I’d love to hear your stories!

Also, a good friend and colleague helped us faciliate our event and has a wealth of knowledge about wikis: Brandon at AboutUs.

Staffing Constraints = Technology Adoption

Published
by
amysampleward
on November 15, 2007
in reports and webtools
. 0 Comments

As the baby-boomers start retiring or transitioning out of leadership roles, nonprofits stand in an interesting position. The need for knowledgeable and experienced leaders and management staff in the nonprofit sector is about to become incredibly high. Nonprofits are in a unique position where, unlike the for-profit sector, they are not usually afforded the opportunity to grow their own leaders from the inside due to lack of funds and capacity for development training. (For more information on forecasted leadership staff trends, see the Bridgespan Group’s report “The Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership Deficit.)

What does it mean for nonprofit technology?

It means there is a tremendous opportunity for nonprofits to leverage new media tools to take care of many things for them, freeing up staff time and allowing the community to help carry the organization.

How?

Tools that enable online/viral fundraising can let supporters raise funds, support your cause, and campaign for you online without staff time dedicated to outreach or campaign development. These tools include Change.org, 6 Degrees, and Google Checkout for Nonprofits in various degrees, just to name a few.

Tools that enable wide-spread communication can allow staff to relay information in one space instead of many and cut down on repetition of job responsibilities. Using a blog like those I have mentioned before would provide volunteers, interested citizens, media and members alike the same, complete information in a timely manner without adapting the message and using various staff and communications tools to deliver it. Micro-blogging tools like Twitter are also available to make this far-reaching communications option quick and easy.

There are many more tools available but these are just a couple to get you thinking. Are you already using new media tools to free up staff time?