Tag Archive for ‘blogging’ at Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech

Tag Archive for 'blogging'

London Net Tuesday November: Such a success!

Published

on November 5, 2008

. 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.

Good rules for using Twitter

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on September 29, 2008

in issues, marketing and socialmedia

. 5 Comments

Is your organization using Twitter? Are members of your staff using Twitter to representat your organization? The wave of companies and nonprofits joining the growing Twitter community is increasing rapidly. That doesn’t mean every group signing on has a good set of rules though…

Jeff Trexler asked if nonprofit staff using Twitter, Facebook and other social media during the election are doing so responsibly. On the uncivilsociety blog, Jeff writes:

One effect of online social networking technology is that it intensifies the environment that Marshall McLuhan called “all-at-onceness.” Old divisions fall away–near and far, high and low, word vs. picture–in favor of composition.

Part of this integrative process is the fusion of the personal and professional. Topics that were once taboo in polite conversation–money, religion, politics–are now a salient feature of the connected self.

In most respects I have no problem with this. I see myself primarily as a Watcher when it comes to organizational technology–I’m interested in seeing what happens but have little to no personal stake in any particular tool.

But there’s something going on that’s gotta stop.

Namely, political campaigning in social networking accounts connected to 501(c)(3) organizations. Read more…

Jeremy Pepper, a friend and PR-Social Media guru, coins a new term with Twitteriocy, claiming too many companies joining Twitter are doing so irresponsibly. He suggests six rules for organizations adopting Twitter (and really, these rules can be expanded to work for most social media tools):

1. Don’t have your PR firm set up and be your Twitter account.
2. Don’t follow everyone willy nilly.
3. Get Tweetdeck.
4. Be engaged. Be personable. Be responsive.
5. Be a person.
6. Twitter is not for everyone.

You can read more of Jeremy’s post as well as explanations to all of these points on the POP! PR Jots blog.

What concerns has your organization had with using social media? What policies has your organization adopted that really work for helping staff use social media tools responsibly?

Blog Action Day 08: Focusing on poverty

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on August 28, 2008

in community and events

. 2 Comments

I plan to participate on October 15th in the Blog Action Day 2008 and hope that you will, too!

"Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion."

Blogging, as I have talked about many times in the past, is really about conversations and I think the idea behind Blog Action Day is the perfect example of that. By encouraging as many people to focus on the same issue for one day we can ignite ideas, conversations, and even actions to help fight poverty and the issues related to it.

I’m excited to participate and hope to blog about some great examples of social media use by poverty-focused organizations as well as the missions and work of those groups. So, join me for Blog Action Day this year and help further the reach of the conversation!

Organizations putting blogs to good use

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on August 25, 2008

in blogging and case studies

. 8 Comments

Posted first on the Net Squared blog

The number of people blogging is still growing (just check Technorati for numbers), but the number of organizations starting blogs is rising, too. After enough staff members and volunteers touted the usefulness of blogs for conversation, news, and general transparency, it seems organizations are looking to give blogs a chance. Organizations of all sizes and sectors are utilizing this community building tool. Here are some examples of how far and wide blogs are being used to reach out to the community.

ARK Adventure

The ARK Adventure is a small organization working to facilitate random acts of kindness and passion in the communities of members/participants.The ARK Adventure Blog provides a space for the organization’s directors/staff to share ideas and ignite conversation about social change and community involvement.

African American Environmentalist Association

AAEA is dedicated to protecting the environment, enhancing human, animal and plant ecologies, promoting the efficient use of natural resources and increasing African American participation in the environmental movement. The AAEnironmental Blog is a great example of a successful organizational blog. It doesn’t get a high number of comments, but it does get some and is providing thoughtful, timely, and important pieces of news, information and commentary to the community. It also makes terrific use of the side bar panel to provide more information, relevant links (like to the organization’s main website), and actions for readers.

Dining for Women

Dining for Women empowers women living in extreme poverty by funding programs fostering good health, education, and economic self-sufficiency and cultivates educational dinner circles inspiring individuals to make a difference through the power of collective giving. The DFW Blog covers big questions like sustainable program funding, as well as personal and fun stories like trips and meetups. Members have a valuable contribution to make to this volunteer-driven organization by participating in the blog; you can see this by reading comments to questions posed regarding the organization itself.

PolicyLink

The EquityBlog is a project of PolicyLink to help nurture and inspire the nation’s equity movement. It does a good job of providing relevant and fresh content in an engaging way, as well as provide additional resource links for visitors. Keeping the recent comments list at the top of the page encourages visitors to participate right away.

Meyer Memorial Trust

Meyer Memorial Trust is a private foundation serving Oregon and southwest Washington providing general purpose and strategic funding for over 25 years. MMT uses a few different blogs to engage different constiuents and provide tailored pockets of information. Most notably, the MMT Main Blog, which covers organizational updates and sector-wide news, engages nonprofits and other foundations alike in an open and conversational way—just check out the responses to the blog entry discussing what the name ‘non-profit’ means to the sector.

Does your organization have a blog? Who maintains/contributes to it? How does it fit in with other communications, fundraising, or campaign work?

Now Blogging for Net Squared

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on August 18, 2008

in blogging and otherblogs

. 6 Comments

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!

Posterous is blogging with emails!

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on July 1, 2008

in blogging and webtools

. 9 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?

31-Day Comment Challenge (catching up!)

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on May 28, 2008

in blogging and community

. 5 Comments

I’ve been a horrible challenge participant and fallen behind. Here’s a stab at catching up and keeping you all up to speed on both my thoughts and the ideas shared in this challenge about evaluating and improving blog commenting.

Day 23: What Makes a Great Comment?

Describe the feature and characteristics of a great comment: Personally, one thing I think makes a blog post interesting, inviting, and better is the questions it asks and not necessarily the questions it answers. So, this carries over to comments. When I leave a comment on someone else’s blog, I like to take a stab at answering or responding to the main question asked but also like to include another question. This keeps the conversation going and what are blogs and comments for but enabling conversation!

Day 24: Comment on a Blog Written in a Foreign Language

There are growing numbers of translating services available online to help you find and read blog posts and websites that are generated in other languages. Although this isn’t a blog, for this challenge I started following and sent messages to a few Twitter users from Madrid. I was actually feeling nervous when I sent the first message in Spanish, but received kind replies and have enjoyed following the new connections.

Day 25: Take a Break!

I have obviously taken a break from some blogging/commenting but it is all due to heavy work load of a project about to launch that I will blog about in a few minutes!

Day 26: Exploring Other Ways to Comment

Explore how you might use multimedia for a richer commenting experience. Consider whether or not you think multimedia is a better option and how it might impact learning.

I am excited by enriching conversations by multimedia commenting and look forward to incorporating more into my own blog. I often find that I begin to leave a comment on another blog and realize I’ve written a few paragraphs and still have more to say. So, I will just turn that comment into a blog post here and link back to the post as a more interesting and fleshed out comment. This is the same for linking back to posts that spur you to get out thoughts using Seesmic, Utterz or something similar. I’m curious if any of you have enjoyed exploring new options for commenting/posting/sharing.

Day 27: What Do You Communicate About Your Personal Brand Through Comments

To me, this goes back to the “What makes a great comment” question. I think that much of what I try to do both on this blog and in the many events/trainings I coordinate and help with is to ask more questions than answer more questions. I love sharing the ideas, thoughts, experiences and opinions I have about nonprofits and social media. But, I think that there is a great deal of value in the questions we can ask to help guide strategies, adoption, decisions, and work. So, in a face-to-face meeting, email, blog or comments, I’m always trying to stir up, consider and provoke questions. How am I doing?

Day 28: What’s Your Blog Commenting Strategy?

Commenting wasn’t something I really looked at strategically prior to this 31 day challenge. Something that I have taken from all of these wonderful opportunities for self reflection and evaluation is that commenting, just like blogging and other social media practices, needs to be done strategically if it is going to be successful and at the same time not drive you mad. There are so many insightful and interesting blogs out there that I could read and comment all day long, every day. That wouldn’t be very strategic, though. I have decided to try to have ‘blogging’ days and ‘commenting’ days where I do one or the other with the amount of time I would otherwise try to spend on both together. So far, I am really finding it a good balance and much less stressful as I’m not worried about commenting too long and not getting to the blog, or vice versa. Do you have a strategy for your commenting? Or commenting rules you use when leaving comments?

There are lots of questions embedded in the different topics above, but, one thing I’d also like to hear from you is a suggestion for a blog you read but have never commented on and what keeps you from taking that next step in the conversation.

31-Day Comment Challenge: Day 20 & 21

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on May 21, 2008

in blogging and community

. 1 Comment

The challenges for days 20 and 21 are such that I want to combine them. Day 20: Three Links Out; Day 21: Make a Recommendation.

The ‘Three Links Out’ idea is that you go to a blog you regularly read and from there click a link to another blog, then from that blog click to another blog, and then one more time. So, you are three links out from where you started. Then leave a comment there!

To explain my steps, I started with a good friend and colleague’s blog: Britt’s Have Fun Do Good blog. From there, I clicked on The Happiness Project in her list of blogs she reads. And from there, I clicked on Design Sponge. So, being the third link, I left a comment. Not only was I surprised by the site I ended up on but was also very excited! I’m a crafter and enjoy craft time alone, in cooperations with my husband, or in groups for crafting parties. I want to recommend to you all that you explore the world that is just three links away and to check out the three sites that I linked through.

Why do I also recommend the three blogs I happened to have clicked through? Because I think that it is important to have a few ‘random’ blogs in our readers that we come across and read from time to time so we don’t let our minds sit in the same pool. And, it’s exciting to take just a couple minutes and find something that interests you that you wouldn’t have otherwise have found!

Let me know where you end up by click three links out!

31-Day Comment Challenge: Day 19

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on May 20, 2008

in blogging and community

. 6 Comments

I’m still catching up with everything and have missed out on many days of this great challenge. Day 19 was “Respond to a commenter on your own blog.” This got me thinking…

If any of you have left a comment before, then you know I do respond. (I’m 99.9% sure that I have responded to every commenter.) The difference is that I respond directly in email with my commenters to continue the conversation in that way. Sometimes, I respond both directly in email and on the blog, especially if it is something that would clarify a question or remark to other readers.

Should I change my practices to responding to commenters on the blog instead of email? What do you think?

It could seem to readers that I don’t reply so there is less incentive to leave a comment. But, as I said, I always respond in email (and sometimes those responses turn into long email chains of conversation with readers.) Should I try to continue responding in email but also respond on the blog? This would definitely take some extra steps on my part but if you all would be more engaged by it, I’d certainly be up to it!

I consider my readers friends and colleagues and cherish the relationship built by responding and emailing personally back and forth from comments and questions. If my responses to comments were all also in the comments area of the posts, I often feel that commenters are less likely to see them (at least quickly.) But, if the relationships with readers was made richer by publicly responding, then I’d definitely change.

So, readers, what do you think? I’d appreciate your thoughts on this very much - and will reply personally in email and publicly!

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