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London Net Tuesday November: Such a success!

Published
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Amy Sample Ward
on November 5, 2008
in net tuesday
. 5 Comments

Last night was the inqugural London Net Tuesday.  With 45 people in attendance, we filled the space and more than our scheduled time slot with lively conversation, quality knowledge sharing, business cards exchanging, and even some drinks.

Our first event focused on blogging with a head-to-head competition of sorts and the building of a blogging strategy.

Head-to-Head Blogging

Brave and beautiful participants volunteered to represent some of the main blogging platforms including Community Server, Movable Type, Typepad and Wordpress.  We had a cheat sheet with pros, cons and comparisons (if you weren’t there, you can download the cheat sheet here) that was created via crowdsourcing before the event.  I posted the structure and basic content in a Google Document and then published it for others to contribute to - sending them the link via email and Twitter.

Our platform reps fielded questions from the crowd and shared stories from their personal experience using the blogging tools.  Questions included:

  • How much do you cost?
  • How tech-savvy do I need to be?
  • Can I monitor comments?
  • Can I control who sees my posts?
  • How quick can I get set up?

A winner?  Well, there wasn’t an official vote (though a very important vote was happening back in the US!), but the majority of bloggers in attendance used Wordpress.

Blogging Strategy

After our lively ‘debate’ of platforms, we took a step back to discuss what is most important for organizations to consider when just starting out with blogging.  We came up with lots of great things to keep in mind, questions to ask, items to identify, and so on.  After the big brainstorm, we picked out the five most important aspects of starting a blog:

  • Identify your goals (goals for content, goals for relationships, goals for measurement, etc.)
  • Write about what you are passionate about and know about
  • Practice writing blog posts for a month or so without actually posting (you’ll be surprised how much your posts change just in that first month, and you can identify if you are ready to go live or not)
  • Use your community (invite staff, volunteers, donors and email subscribers to read and comment)
  • Integrate your blog (link and content) with everything you do (email newsletters, handouts, business cards, other social media presences like Facebook)

What would you add?

London Net Tuesday

If you missed last night’s event, that’s okay.  Connect online to be sure you make the next one! If you were there last night, what would you add to this run down?

  • What was your favorite conversation?
  • Who did you meet?
  • What questions did you not get to ask?
  • What ideas do you have for future events?

UPDATE:

Miko has posted her terrific run down of the platform comparison.  And here is her post about our strategy conversation.

UPDATE:

Farhan has a great post about the event and blogging here.

29 Day Giving Challenge: Days 3-6

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on November 4, 2008
in challenge
. 3 Comments

It is already day 6 of my 29-Day Giving Challenge! The challenge is to give away something every day, for 29 days.  Thanks to Britt Bravo, I started at a time that leads up to Thanksgiving as a fitting way to celebrate the season.  Join me!

I wanted to take a minute to catch you up on my challenge progress.

Day 3 (Nov. 1)

Last week as a big one in our house (flat, actually).  I had a long list of items left on my to-do list and I expected, Friday night, to be working on them for a good chunk of Saturday.  As many of you have experienced yourselves, I’m sure, it can be pretty easy for people like us who are passionate about what they do, excited to get involved, and happy to help to get over-committed.  Or, at least, have too many items on the to-do list.  Since moving here in September, it has been a personal goal of mine to avoid establishing a pattern of work-aholicism, but I haven’t kept the goal front-and-center.  So, Saturday, I decided to give time and attention.

I gave up my whole day to whatever ELSE there was besides work.  I didn’t get online at all.  Instead, I spent time with my husband and our friend, ‘vegged out’ to some old episodes of The Office, and went to a play at the Hampstead Theatre.  It sounds very silly and selfish, but it felt great to push aside the laptop and give a full day to people and things that I love.

Day 4 (Nov. 2)

Sunday, I was browsing through my RSS feed, reading news and stories, not expecting to come upon a wonderful gift.  But I did!

Dining for Women is a nonprofit organization that I really like:

Dining for Women is a dinner giving circle. We “dine in” together once a month, each bringing a dish to share, and our “dining out” dollars are sent to international programs empowering women.

Through support of international grass-roots programs in education, healthcare, vocational training, micro-credit loans and economic development, and through our members’ combined donations, we encourage women to believe they can improve their living situations.

Education is an integral part of our mission. DFW believes that through education, our members become agents of change, capable of altering the face of world poverty.

As a new fundraising mechanism, DFW is offering beautiful charity boxes with the organization’s logo on them.  “This project was conceived and designed exclusively for DFW by the Ithaca chapter– for the nationwide DFW membership. It is a collaboration with The Zanger Company (Gloria Smith), importer of Polish Stoneware, and the women of the Ceramika Artystyczna Factory in Poland.”

I purchased a charity box for my mother - the person who first taught me about giving.  I can’t wait for it to arrive to her door!

Day 5 (Nov. 3)

Yesterday, I received an email from DonorsChoose.org wrapping up the Bloggers Challenge from last month.  I clicked through to my account and decided to check in on projects I had selected.  Many were fully-funded and the campaigns were thus closed.  The project I donated to during the challenge, was still in need, though.  So, I decided to give again.

Why?  The project is something very close to home for me - digital storytelling.  Right now, I’m in the middle of quite a few conversations, idea-sharing, and email exchanges discussing the use of video and storytelling for organizations, conferences, and more.  The power of a video, a message coming directly from those being served, is incredible.  And in this proposal from a teacher in South Carolina, we can help a classroom of elementary school students start telling stories digitally, too.  Check it out - and if you are able, help them out!

Day 6 (Nov. 4)

Today, Tuesday, November 4, 2008, is the US Election.  GO VOTE!

What did I give today?  I gave my voice, my political contribution, my commitment to the future.  Voting is the easiest, truest way to show patriotism.  Participating in the process is the best way to start engaging with your neighbors, your community, your country.

I actually already voted, because I had to mail the ballot a while ago to ensure it made it from London in time.  But today I am using all the powers I have to get out the vote.  Giving away my Facebook status to my time.

This is one of the most important elections you will probably ever participate in given the current issues facing our country and the timeline we require for answers and action.  I, obviously, would love to have the candidate I voted for take office in January.  But today, that isn’t what is most important to me: I just want you to vote.  Please.

Find your local polling place here.  Find out if there are any voting reports from your area or report with Twitter Vote Report here.

Election Day Reminder: Go Vote!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on November 4, 2008
in events
. 0 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

In the U.S., today is election day. This is your reminder from NetSquared to make your voice heard by voting today and helping get others to do the same.

This year, we have seen social media leveraged within candidate campaigns like never before.  We even posted about some of the tools and strategies being used - you can read that post here.

One tool that has really seen a lot of press and interest lately is the Twitter Vote Report: “a non-partisan, all-volunteer network of software developers, designers, and other collaborators have teamed up with the award-winning blog techPresident to launch this effort.  The only resources contributed to this project are the participants’ time and expertise!”

Millions of Americans will be voting this Election Day. Many of these voters will have terrific experiences and we’d love to hear about those.  But many voters will experience voting problems that we have been hearing about for years: long lines, broken machines, and registered voters who can’t vote because their names aren’t showing up on the registration rolls.

Using Twitter Vote Report, voters will be able to share their experiences and resources with one another (e.g. “#wait:120″ meaning that the wait time is 120 minutes). These messages will then be aggregated and mapped so that we can “see” voting problems around the country in real-time.

This election cycle has seen, as usual, some ups and downs but the new ways of engaging with supporters and energizing voters via social media are worth paying attention to and learning from.  It’s been a long time coming, though - so get out and vote!

How are you, or is your organization, engaging in get out the vote efforts?  Are you using social media in your efforts?  We’d love to hear from you, just comment on the NetSquared blog here!

Interview with John Carnell: Social media at use in BullyingUK

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on November 3, 2008
in case studies and interview
. 0 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

bullying uk logoJohn Carnell,  co-founder and project manager of  BullyingUK, a nonprofit organization working on anti-bulling campaigns in the UK including services for youth, parents and schools, recently took time from the active participation in social media to chat with me about the organization’s work.  BullyingUK has incorporated social media tools into communications, fundraising, and community buildling.  Learn more about how they are succeeding in the interview below.

Tell us a little about who BullyingUK is and the work you do:
Bullying UK was founded in 1999, then known as Bullying Online. I had a simple goal to create a new breed of charity that was light on its feet, able to react quickly to changes and be low cost but very high impact.

At the basic level we provide help, advice and support to people being bullied.  We have over 200 pages of advice and content dedicated to the subject matter, as well as tools and services to help spread the anti-bullying messages far and wide. We have a history of using the cutting edge technology to challenge convention and push the agenda in new directions.  We create the projects that others would say are too difficult or impossible.

What are the Unite Against Bullying badges?
UniteAgainstBullying.com is our online world-wide campaign site and has an associated offline campaign.  At its heart is a simple widget that can be embedded into any social site or webpage that tells everyone you’re United Against Bullying.

The campaign widget is currently served by over 3,000 websites and seen by 170k people a week. This year, we are offering 50 U.A.B badges to supporters who would like to sell them to raise a donation for Bullying UK - email supporters@bullying.co.uk with your name and address to get yours!

How have you seen social media help the organization?
Being a founding part of the modern web means social media is what we do, not just something we actively work into our organisation. It’s a core feature of our work and how we communicate.

That said, sites like Facebook and FriendFeed really help to create engagement and find like-minded people. We are out there having the conversations where people tend to find us and latch on with ideas for ways they can help.

How are you leveraging social media in your current anti-bullying campaign?We have a number of off-shoot campaigns from the UAB widget I mentioned above to more low level work connecting with bloggers and supporters to create buzz around our services.

One thing that’s important to me is that people don’t feel obligated to help us, and social media is the perfect way to find those sorts of people.  I feel there is more value added to our work by people who truely feel a connection to us than those that are just involved to be involved.

What was the order or progression of social media adoption at BullyingUK?
As I said before, social media has been a part of our work since before “social media” was a buzzword.  As the founder and CEO it’s my job to identify technologies and services years in advance of becoming mainstream. I then look at how that technology can be used to further our Anti-bullying work: Click, Create and Print is a perfect example using technology that so far no other charity or business has thought of combing the way we have.

Click, Create and Print is an online poster creater that allows schools to build and print their own posters (saving schools £34,000 so far).  Each poster then has a special barcode that allows a child to snap the code with their mobile phone to download a copy of the poster which they can then share with friends via bluetooth or mms or upload back to the web—creating a perfect circle!

I think this is the first time anyone has created a project that fills in the digital divide in such a unique way—it really is a whole new spin on a very old issue.

What has surprised you about social media use with the organization/campaigns?
The most surprising has been how quickly we can achieve critical mass (the point at which you don’t have to promote a service because supporters do it for you and pass the word along to their friends).

Historically we reach critical mass on a service in a little under 6 weeks; I consider critical mass to be 100 new supporters per day at an increase of 10% day on day (it fluncuates but its a good line in the sand).

Using a new supporter network we have been building we received over £1500 of badge pledges in just 2 days from a few thousand new supporters who had only just discovered who we were. That’s amazingly powerful.

How do you engage your supporters via social media and how can readers help out?
We have a presence on every social network site, all life streaming sites and preety much everywhere people from the UK are. Do a search for BullyingUK and you will most likely find us.

We are always looking for bloggers and social media users to help spread knowledge of our service either by adding the UAB widget, or linking to bullying.co.uk. Even just knowing we exist and mentioning us in conversation to someone dealing with bullying can have a huge impact.

To steal a tag line: “every little helps!”

USAID Development 2.0 Challenge: Share your ideas!

Published
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Amy Sample Ward
on November 3, 2008
in challenge
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Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

The 2008 USAID Development 2.0 Challenge is underway and proposals are stacking up in the USAID Project Gallery.  You can read proposals, star your favorites, leave comments and collaborate with project teams, or submit your own!  Here are some of the most recently submitted projects - check them out!

From the Project Gallery:

  • Mobile tools linking Teachers, Students and Parents to boost EducationEducation institutions often need to evaluate the academic performance of their students and teachers. Students also need to monitor their own progress. Parents/Guardians also need to monitor their student’s progress.

    Teachers frequently give tests or exams to their students during the term and this data is rarely used for analysis, apart from that given at the end of term/semester. The reason is that they do not have time to aggregate this data to a format suitable for easy analysis. These days, most academic institutions have atleast a computer which can be used for this kind of work. But there are cases where the number of computers is not enough for all teachers to enter student marks as often as analysis would be required. Also some teachers are part time employees and hence may not be at the school when their marks are needed.

  • Ushahidi v2 - Mobile.Crisis.ReportingWhy Mobile
    Mobile phones are the one ubiquitous technology found all over the globe -if the goal of Ushahidi is to let ordinary people submit reports during a crisis and know of incidents happening around them, then we must ensure that any phone can be used for this purpose.

    What
    The following features will be incorporated into Ushahidi’s mobile development:
    •    ability to send and receive SMS alerts;
    •    ability to set up a local or international alert number at short notice;
    •    ability work on different smartphones;
    •    ability to send MMS messages (images and video);
    •    ability to send GPS coordinates.

Participate in 4 easy steps:

  • Register and/or Login
  • Click on Username
  • Click on “Submit a Project to the Project Gallery” under My Project Idea
  • Select “USAID” from the Prize Tag menu located below Additional Cause Area Tags on the Submission Form

Visit the USAID Development 2.0 Challenge Project Gallery to check out proposals, vote on your favorites, and comment and collaborate with the project teams or learn more about the Challenge.

29-Day Giving Challenge: Here we go!

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 31, 2008
in challenge
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I’m really excited to participate in the 29-Day Giving Challenge with Britt Bravo and many other changebloggers.  Britt is always a great insiprer for do-good-er-ness and I hope you’ll join me in 29 days of giving, leading up to the US Thanksgiving holiday!  I think this will be a great way to feel the giving spirit of Thanksgiving, as our new location in London, UK, isn’t naturally lending itself to celebrate this year.

DAY 1 (Oct. 30th)

The London Underground, or tube, has recently put up ads that ask when you last smiled at another passenger.  As a ‘foreigner’ I quickly noticed how many people here become quite steely on public transportation, there isn’t much conversation, let alone eye contact or smiles.  The ads suggest that you can change someone’s day by smiling at them on the tube.  So, I started doing it yesterday as my first day of giving: giving away smiles!

The results?  Well, as I’m sure you can imagine.  Some people were very confused, others just ignored it, but some smiled back and passed it on!  A smile can go a long way, start one today! :)

Day 2 (Oct. 31st)

Today, I guess I didn’t technically give anything away, but I put myself out there.  I joined School of Everything and created my teaching (and learning) profile.  This way, I can connect to people right here in Camden or around the world to share skills and knowledge that I have.  This is what the site says:

School of Everything connects people who want to learn with passionate teachers in their local area. The award-wining site is free to join for both people who want to learn and people who want to teach.

Teachers register online and create a personal page giving information on their lessons, the qualifications offered and the format in which they teach - for example workshops or one-to-one sessions. Potential pupils find a tutor who’s right for them simply searching by subject, learning category and location. They can then send them a message, arrange to meet and begin learning their new subject.

I met the co-founder, Andy Gibson earlier this week so School of Everything was on my list of things to investigate.  Once I visited the site, I just had to participate!  Try it out for yourself, or connect with me!  I’m looking forward to the connections, friendships, and all the shared learning to come!

Join in with the 29-Day Giving Challenge!

Great reads from October 31st

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 31, 2008
in roundup
. 4 Comments

These are some links I wanted to share from October 31st. Find me on Delicious for more!

Great reads from October 29th through October 30th

Published
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Amy Sample Ward
on October 30, 2008
in roundup
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These are my links for October 29th through October 30th:

  • 43 Folders Series: Inbox Zero | 43 Folders - Looking to reach inbox nirvana? Here is a great series full of tips, tricks, ideas, and reminders about controlling the inbox, and not letting the inbox control us.
  • digital mentor wiki - I'm planning to participate with some new friends here in the UK on the digital mentor project; check it out and join in!
  • “Managing” Your Brand in Social Media - This is an issue many organization fear, and that holds them back from participating in the online space with their communities. Learn from some greats (Sarah Durham and Farra Trompeter, Big Duck) about managing your organization's identity in social media. I'm sure that they will offer, as always, some very fun case studies, too!
  • WeAreMedia: Social Networks - Build the Nonprofit Social Media Tool Box - Come on all you social media experts and nonprofit organizations trying these tools, what can you add to the mix?
  • Idealware: New article:- The Basics of Email Metrics - Good read from Idealware "covering what email data you might want to track, where to get it, how to make sense of it in calculated metrics, and modifications to improve your results."

Huddle featured in LinkedIn Applications

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 29, 2008
in networking and storytelling
. 0 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

Many individuals and organizations are testing and exploring new ways to collaborate on projects and connect work virtually.  LinkedIn, an online network of more than 30 million experienced professionals from around the world, serves as a networking space for business professionals and the job posting service is seeing more and more activity.  Today is the launch of LinkedIn Applications and Huddle is a featured app!

What are LinkedIn Applications

Much like adding applications to your profile on other social networking sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn Applications let you pull in content you are creating across the web —blog posts, presentations, and even travel plans—and display it on your LinkedIn profile to share with your network.

LinkedIn Applications enable you to enrich your profile, share and collaborate with your network, and get the key insights that help you be more effective.

You can determine who can view your application content and even contribute content via the application in LinkedIn without visiting the other site, like with the SlideShare app. Check it out!

What is Huddle

Huddle is an online collaboration tool providing secure online workspaces with powerful project and collaboration tools.  Connecting your online workspace with your business contacts can be a powerful combination for your work or business.

The Huddle Workspaces application for LinkedIn includes all key functionality of Huddle.net and you can easily sync it with your existing Huddle account. Simply log into LinkedIn and you can immediately set up workspaces to use with as many of your LinkedIn connections as you like.

You can try out Huddle for free; learn more.

Check out the LinkedIn Application directory to add applications to your profile, or learn more about using LinkedIn as a social networking tool.

Bookmarks for October 28th

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 28, 2008
in roundup
. 2 Comments

These are my links for October 28th. Find me on Delicious for more!

  • What type of blog should your nonprofit write? - Kivi does a great job, as usual, of putting together a great post to help you as your organization begins blogging.
  • New Research: Consumers Like Social Media Marketing - "New data from a survey of 1,092 consumers by Opinion Research Corporation found that 85% of social media users thought companies should interact with them through social media. This is strong validation for social media marketing. Consumers, tired of being shouted at, are ok with properly managed social media marketing campaigns like those we do for our clients."
  • Top-12 Nonprofit Facebook Applications - Great explanations and run-downs of the major applications in use on Facebook.
  • Seth’s Blog: In Defense of Raising Money: a Manifesto for NonProfit CEOs - "You’re devoting your life, your spirit, your energy, your faith into making the vision you have of a better future into a reality. So why are you so scared to ask people for money?"
  • Remember the Milk - Organize your work the way you want, get all the reminders you need, and check things off your list! You can use it by yourself, with your team, or even with the world.
  • tweet4good: Donate and fundraise using Twitter - Donating to a nonprofit or even a cause is as simple as your other 140 character messages! You can also use this as a nonprofit organization in your online fundraising work.