Archive for the 'Social-networking' Category

5 steps for hosting a successful online event

Published by
Michaela
at August 18, 2009 in Education, newparadigmtech, Non-profit, nptech, Social-networking, Technology and Web 2.0. 0 Comments

Last week my colleague Colleen and I supported  a groundbreaking, education summit in New Mexico: “Unleashing Knowledge and Innovation for the Next Generation of Learning”, convened by the Stupski Foundation, West Wind Education Policy, and the Knowledge Alliance.  Besides making silly videos in our off-time, I had a bit of time to reflect about what makes an online component to a conference successful.  I came up with the following 5 steps, which I elaborated on over at Forum One’s “Influence” blog. I’d love to know what you think makes online events successful. Feel free to share your ideas in the comments.

1. Know your audience
This seems like a no-brainer, but oftentimes people omit this step and move straight to the technology.  Knowing your audience: what they want to get out of the online portion of the event, what you hope they do online during the event, and what their relative technical expertise is are critical pieces to this puzzle and all should ultimately inform your event web strategy.

2. Use media to your advantage
There are lots of great social media tools that can enhance an in-person event, but you don’t have to do everything! (And you shouldn’t try to!) Pick a few tools and use them well.

3. Be creative AND flexible
Don’t be afraid to try something different – there is no set recipe for success. Plan ahead and try out new techniques for online engagement, but don’t be afraid to switch direction mid-stream. You never know what you’ll find on-the-ground at a conference site and you may need to change your strategy depending on people’s access to the Internet, their comfort with the tools, etc.

4. Empower people, let them own the technology and the messages
You can’t do it all yourself, and you shouldn’t! Part of the fun of using online tools during an event is the way in which technology decentralizes communication and conversation across participants and presenters.

5. Have fun!
Just because an event is a professional activity doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. Using online tools to explore the conference culture, the side conversations, the jokes, and the social experience is a great way to break up more dense content.

Tweeting and Flickring, the non profit way

Published by
Michaela
at June 13, 2008 in newparadigmtech, Non-profit, nptech, Social-networking, Technology and Web 2.0. 1 Comment

This past week was one full of lots of social media goodness. Monday I was interviewed by Kami Griffiths of TechSoup, for a non profit webinar on Twitter and Flickr. The recording of the event is located here, in case you weren’t able to attend, and there is a nice round-up here (thanks Philanthropy Potluck!).

On Tuesday, TechSoup followed up the event with an online forum discussing Twitter, which I co-hosted with Marshall Kirkpatrick.

To top it all off, I held my first office hours for NTEN, which incidentally will re-occur every Tuesday from 3-4 pm EST here, if you’re interested in stopping by! In case you have other questions I might not cover, definitely check out the office hours schedule, there are some great folks volunteering their time!

Big thanks to everyone who participated in some or all of these events this week. It was great to have some friendly faces stop by, and awesome to make some new connections with folks dedicated to using social media for good. I am particularly amazed and inspired by organizations who are using both Twitter and Flickr for so many diverse things. I’ve even found my own self reevaluating my thoughts and strategies for these tools based on some of the great topics that were discussed.

In case you missed the Twitter forum, where the bulk of discussion took place, we chatted about:

Continue reading ‘Tweeting and Flickring, the non profit way’

08NTC: Day 3, Search Engine Optimization

Published by
Michaela
at March 21, 2008 in 08NTC, Non-profit, SEO and Social-networking. 0 Comments

Kevin Lee, Didit

Are you Geeky? SEO isn’t really very geeky, but a bit of understanding of HTML is helpful.

Who is your target audience?
Your target audience for your site and your SEM efforts may extend beyond the obvious:

  • donors
  • volunteers
  • the press and analysts
  • foundations
  • government orgs
  • non-profit rating orgs
  • employees
  • potential employees

*Consider the needs and behaviors of all important constituents.

Continue reading ’08NTC: Day 3, Search Engine Optimization’

Pimp My Non Profit panel at SXSW 2008

Published by
Michaela
at March 12, 2008 in Blogging, Non-profit, nptech, Social-networking and SXSW. 1 Comment

Pimp My Non Profit photo

Our panel on Monday night went fabulously, and thanks to all who contributed and made this the most widely attended non-profit panel at SXSW! Special thanks to Ed and Katie for taking a chance on including a newbie like me, and for picking great pimp gear for us to wear, and to Rachel, Agent Handy, and Beth for being an awesome crew to “pimp” with.

Although I still have a lot of blogging to catch up on, the nasty cold/flu that I picked up in Austin is encumbering my efforts a bit. However, I did want to make sure that my notes (see below) and slides were available online in case folks had any follow-up questions (and I am happy to answer those via email too). I promise that write-ups from panels and more formulated thoughts will follow soon (and hopefully before I make it to NTEN next week!). Continue reading ‘Pimp My Non Profit panel at SXSW 2008′

Web 2.0 – it’s not just for kids

Published by
Michaela
at October 2, 2007 in Blogging, Non-profit, Social-networking, Technology and Web 2.0. 3 Comments

And I’m not saying that because I spend a good chunk of my day trying to understanding the nuances of the changing web 2.0 environment or how people are harnessing the power of the net in fun and creative ways. I’m also not saying that to defend my professionalism or my age – which despite my youthful looks – is pushing up against the 30-something mark. Whether I’m presenting on this type of information in the workplace, or responding to lectures or presentations about web 2.0, oftentimes I get skeptical looks when I share what I feel to be the power of these interactive and community-driven tools. But then these skeptics give me a once-over, do a double-take, and then they have their “Ah Ha” moment. Silly girl. She only finds these tools exciting because she’s just a kid!

I spend time using these tools NOT because I’m young, but because it’s part of my job. Maybe I just happen to be well-educated in the work that I do and I consider it imperative to know what’s out there and at least be semi-versed in it. Would you believe a year ago when I was living in Kenya I had little to nothing to do with these sites? I determined last fall that this was the kind of career I wanted and therefore I needed to go about learning the industry. And I did.
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Facebook revolt impacts university branding

Published by
Michaela
at September 25, 2007 in Education, In the news, Social-networking, Technology and Web 2.0. 0 Comments

This story about Middlebury has been out for a little less than two weeks, but I just discovered it this morning when a colleague passed it along. It has special relevance to my organization, as we’re currently going through a huge re-branding process and have been overly diligent in including various stakeholders. However, we aren’t doing a lot of testing with student audiences because our organization stands for so many different things and getting internal buy-in alone was a process that dragged on much longer than it should have. The majority of folks that are affiliated with us already is for cause-based reasons vs. image, and we’re counting on that as we move forward – the brand is just a new way to represent the great things we already and will continue to do. That said, I do think it’s important to reach-out to these student audiences a bit before we do the formal roll-out, to let them know what’s going on, and re-frame the branding process in terms of actual cause-based outcomes, such as a new focus on global citizenship and public events that focus on these initiatives.

I also don’t agree with the way that Middlebury backed down from their new branding. They obviously invested a lot of time and money in the process, and although the voices of their constituency matter, a Facebook petition shouldn’t have so much impact over their decisions, especially in such a short amount of time. Their reaction definitely sets a precedent and I imagine it will be harder and a much more arduous process to make any changes to their brand or the way they do business in the future as they’ll want to get buy-in from EVERYONE.

Facebook Petition Sinks Revamped Logo

“The College’s roll-out and subsequent retraction of its new logo this summer brought administrators face-to-face with a growing reality – the speed and power of Facebook as an organizing medium among college students.

Armed only with their computers and disdain for the “Middlebury Leaf,” Sarah Franco ’08 and Alex Benepe ’09 brought more than 700 students together in their group “Just Say No to the Middlebury Logo” within days of the College’s announcement of its new graphic identity to accompany a $500 million capital campaign…”

Non-Profit Week on Read/Write Web

Published by
Amy
at September 17, 2007 in Non-profit, Social-networking, Technology and Web 2.0. 1 Comment

Last week was Non-Profit Week on Read/Write Web, where they featured a series of articles on how non-profits are using the web framed under the question “is the Web still a windfall for Non-profits?“. Unfortunately I was away from my RSS feeds last week and I am only now catching up, so I decided to write this post-week summary of what R/WW had to offer.

  • The Non-Profits Web Tool Kit contains a great list of tools available to non-profits to leverage the power of the web. Tools listed range from the well-known to the waiting to be discovered and include blogging platforms such as WordPress and volunteer finding tools such as VolunteerMatch.
  • Beth Kanter shares her experiences with Web 2.0 and the non-profit sector and highlights her recent experiences at the Cambodian Bloggers Summit. It was interesting to hear about how she was able to use these tools to raise money and awareness for the event but I also appreciated her take home message of non-profits taking creative, low-risk experiments in order to test out the Web 2.0 waters.
  • Richard MacManus provides a nice breakdown of how Facebook and MySpace are being used by non-profits. MySpace’s Impact service is being used primarily for political campaigns whereas Facebook’s Causes are being used primarily to raise funds for a variety of causes ranging from Global Warming to Breast Cancer. I’m curious about the root of this distinction and how much of it is due to the functionality each site offers and what role demographics and socioeconomics play, if any.

Facebook is becoming like my puppy…

Published by
Michaela
at September 11, 2007 in Education, In the news, Non-profit, Social-networking, Technology and Web 2.0. 2 Comments

A topic that consumes me wholly. On the Flickr side of my life I’m becoming seen as *that* dog person, who can think of nothing more interesting/intelligent to photograph than Atlas, my 5-month year old puppy. It seems like I’m also becoming *that* Facebook person too.

Every day there is something new about this social-networking tool that’s a magnet for news, bloggers, and most everyone in my non-profit community. It’s a great tool, don’t get me wrong, but ack, the talk is ubiquitous. I remember back in the day when I first started blogging out of boredom/lack of work to do, and I’d search high and low everyday to find something on the internet that might be entertaining for an hour or two. Mostly I got lost in Yahoo Games. These days, there isn’t enough time in the day to read even 25% of the Facebook articles out there, not even taking into account the activity on Facebook itself. (Not to mention that I have a job that also consumes me wholly).
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Social networking: has the train left the station?

Published by
Michaela
at September 6, 2007 in Education, Non-profit, Social-networking, Technology and Web 2.0. 0 Comments

It’s certainly no secret, and it seems like everyone has jumped on the Facebook bandwagon these days. I don’t have to search far to find a news article, blog, or radio broadcast talking about the political, cultural, and social implications of social networking – particularly the Facebook phenomenon. Teachers are using it to communicate with their students, friends are getting back in contact after years out of touch, even parents are signing online to keep track of their kids.

One of the biggest users of the social networking site (which also happens to be the second most visited daily website in the United States) are non-profit organizations. And why not? It’s a fantastic tool that helps mobilize communities, connects groups in disparate locations, rallies people around causes, and segments demographics in such detail that it is easy to learn what your users want and subsequently serve up customized content. The new application addition to Facebook also enhances the user experience and allows these organizations to create fun widgets that provide a fun and unique service and allows them to take action, while further cementing their relationship with the organization. Once action is taken – be it via signing a petition, RSVPing to an event or rally, or sharing what you do (or your application) to a friend, that user is much more likely to support your organization in the future, either financially or through in-kind support or volunteering. Now with Facebook profiles becoming semi-public and searchable through engines like Google and Yahoo, the potential seems unlimited.

Continue reading ‘Social networking: has the train left the station?’