You've heard the phrase - eating your own dog food? It means practicing what you preach.
Anyway, Chris Brogan has just launched Project DogFood. It’s a project where you’re invited to come talk about which social media elements a business should consider adopting.
And you know I would just love anything that has to do with dogs, social media, and adoption.
the "Sticky & Sweet Tour."
babysitting the kids for a few days.
Steve Bridger just posted a nice slideshow from a recent workshop.
The description has been modified based on Nancy White pointed out some nuances in the definition of online community. (Thanks Nancy) More importantly, Nancy suggested some questions about deciding whether an online community is what your organization really needs.
Kevin Martone has shared this case study about case study of Pinemere Camp utilizing Ning.com to build an online community of this overnight camp's alumni, campers, parents, and staff.
Let's get to the question at hand - how do you encourage participation?
What are your tips for encouraging community participation? There's still a chance to win a free book - so add your ideas today!
What Can Location-Based Social Networks Learn from Dogs?
Anyone listen to the podcast and know the answer? Anyone who hasn't listened to the podcast and want to take a guess at the answer?
50 Fabulous Steps for Establishing A Consistent Social Media Presence: Can We Nonprofits Add a Few to this?
Do you think that we (nonprofit and technology folks and beyond) can add to this fabulous list of 50 steps from Chris Brogan? Let's have at it.
As his Twitter landing pages say, AJ Vaynerchuk "is a 21 year old blogger who also dabbles in social media, marketing, and SEO. He spends most of his time on twitter (follow him!)" I discovered him through a conversation with one of my twitter followers who retweeted something he said (can't remember exactly what).
He has written several excellent practical posts about using twitter - and his take is so refreshing. I learned a lot - thanks AJV.
If you only tweet about your own material and reference your own material, it can get boring to your followers and perhaps even to yourself. It's like a person you meet at a cocktail party who only talks about what they do and never asks you a question about your work.
Retweeting is taking someone else's twitter message and rebroadcasting that same message to your followers. The article gives you a structure for this and explains why it adds value. All about relationship building.
The number of people you follow is as important, if not more important than how people are following you. I often get asked this question, "What is the perfect number of people to follow on Twitter?" AJ's post answers that question. The answer is "it depends on you and what you want to do."
This is a wonderful post with lots of good tips on how to have an effective conversation in 140 characters or less. Great stuff.
I really enjoy AJ's twitter style because it is focused on his audience and he is constantly thinking about improvement.
In 2006 Sarah Bunting (Sars) from Tomato Nation said that she'd shave her head if her readers donated $30,000 to DonorsChoose.org. They did, so she did.
Gary Vaynerchuk has come up with a variation on this and he isn't shaving his head. He's calling out someone else to shave their head. In this case, it's Kevin Rose of digg fame.
Meanwhile, if you want to help out DonorsChoose.org and use wordpress, here's something that doesn't require you (or Kevin Rose) to shave. It is a wordpress plugin to installed - and cooked up by social actions.
Where have all the "twammers" gone? (Twitter Spammers) Hope they don't go to FriendFeed ..
On Thursday, a colleague, Rob Cottingham, asked me via Twitter "Are they real people being dropped? Or does Twitter do periodic sweeps for spammers and wipe 'em all at once?" It made wonder what happened to Mr. PharmacyMan who used to follow me on Twitter and seems to no longer be amongst my followers, along with 300 others.
CNET published this article reporting on two reasons why followers are going down. Apparently there was a database glitch where followers were dropped (that was fixed). The other "Twammers" are twitter spammers. Here's the official update from the Twitter Blog and more analysis from Read/Write Web.
While this looks like simple codependence, Twitter’s users haven’t stuck around through the service’s flailings out of blind loyalty, brand attachment, or gratitude. They’ve hung on for something quite tangible: their commnities.
On Twitter, users create their own communities over time, choosing to follow or be followed by others. This is the secret sauce of social media. Each user’s community is different and unique to the service. In fact, to the user, community is the service.
Earlier this week, I participated as a guest on an NTEN Webinar by John Kenyon and when we discussed Twitter - there were questions about whether it is best to use Twitter as to distribute information about your organization's programs or as a conversation tool. That's a conversation happening in other nonprofit spaces on the Web.
I've analyzed my use of Twitter and its impact on my blog and I have found the latter approach to be far more effective in building an audience for my blog (RSS subscribers) and other efforts. But yet I worry about having a community linked to a platform.
So over the past few months, while I'm still using Twitter, I also do a lot over at FriendFeed. (Alltop recently created the Frienderati - the list of the 100 top users - if you're wondering who to follow) Jeremiah Owyang (who also wrote about the Twitter dropping followers issues) shared an insight about his own Twitter/FriendFeed patterns.
If you’re creating, or critiquing a lot of social content on the web (or are a creator/critic/collector/joiner), you’ve probably noticed that it’s disjointed – content is spread all over the place. If you are regularly creating, rating, ranking content on more than 5 social websites, you should also consider aggregating all of that on Friendfeed.
He goes on to point out the conversational or discussion orientation at FriendFeed -- the commenting on threads and rooms.
I've really been enjoying the FriendFeed NpTech Room (thanks Jcolman). Right now the noise level is lower than Twitter and there is more conversation around the intentional items shared. I'm also finding a few other rooms related to my interest of value.
There are plenty of great alternatives to Twitter these days, and more in the pipeline. Move your communities over. Create new ones. If you’re on more than one platform, all the better. But clinging to Twitter’s smoking ruin is both servile and counterproductive. You and your community deserve better. Our future communities on other services deserve better. Twitter must die.
Are you investing in community building on Twitter alternatives? Why or why not?
This week we've been discussing and building Module 4: The Art of Storytelling as part of NTEN's We Are Media: Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits project. After putting together your nonprofit social media map and addressing internal resistance, you are now ready to consider how you will share your nonprofit's story. This module will cover why storytelling is an essential component of your strategy, how to compose effective stories, and look at excellent examples of nonprofit storytelling in a social media strategy.
We need YOUR examples of good storytelling in a social media strategy context. Maybe you've told the same story fifty different ways or like CogDog Blog used fifty different tools or had fifty different people tell your organization's story.
Think we can get 50 examples? Please add a link to your organization's best storytelling examples using social media whether it be on YouTube, your blogs, flickr, or wherever in the comments or even better on this page over at the WeAreMedia Wiki.
WeAreMedia Module 4: What are the best techniques for effective storytelling?
We've been discussing and building Module 4: The Art of Storytelling as part of NTEN's We Are Media: Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits project. After putting together your nonprofit's social media map and addressing internal resistance, you are now ready to consider how you will share your nonprofit's story. This module will cover why storytelling is an essential component of your strategy, how to compose effective stories, and look at excellent examples of nonprofit storytelling in a social media strategy.
We've already discussed why storytelling is important in any medium for nonprofits to use in their fundraising and marketing efforts. And in a social media strategy as Alanna points out, stories help build momentum, energize, and can help bring your organization's mission to live. As Stephen Downes mentions stories capture our attention and points to Jason Ohler's storytelling work in an educational context. Ohler says "good stories hypnotize us."
Agreed, but how? What is an easy, simple framework we can use to tell our organization's story's effectively?
Peter Cook has several favorites, including these videos by Ira Glass of This American Life explaining storytelling techniques and Barry Cook's summary presentation "How To Tell A Powerful Story". (The meat is on pages 2-3).
EaitKen1 (Elaine whoever you are, thank you) recommends Stephen Denning's Springboard which looks at Storytelling at the World Bank as well as in a corporate context.
CCTV wiki has some excellent resources.
My own particular favorite, particularly for nonprofits, and recommend by Drew Bernard is from Andy GoodmanWhy Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes. I had an opportunity to meet Andy Goodman last fall and the NTEN Webinar I attended with Andy Goodman in 2006 dramatically changed my whole approach to presentations.
What's your favorite step-by-step approach to thinking through your story? What are some of the best resources, tutorials, or blog posts? Add them to the WeAreMedia wiki or in the comments.
I'm trying to take my mind off the rain. Via Stephen Downes I discover a post by Doug Johnson called Ten Commandments of Panel Discussions. Let me tell you, this isn't first time I discovered Doug Johnson. Almost ten years ago, I discovered Doug Johnson's book about internet literacy skills - which includes the mankato scale. Fast forward a few years, and someone posts a request on the NTEN list about digital literacy skills. I send a link about Doug Johnson's work. Rick Birmingham, whose Dad worked with Doug, offers to send me an autographed copy of his book!
So, here in lies another act of Kismet ... Stephen Downes refers to a link that I mentioned in a post and links to Doug Johnson. I wonder if Stephen actually knew we were connected?
I. Thou shalt limit the session to a single question about a topic pertinent to the targeted attendees.
II. Thou shalt limit the number of panelists to not more than one per 15 minutes of presentation time allotted. For the math challenged, that means no more than four panelists per hour of session.
III. Thou shalt select panelists based on diversity of view, opinion and experience. Invite an outsider looking in, now and then.
IV. Thou shalt plan for at least one-half of allotted time for discussion based on attendee questions.It is a panel discussion, not sequential lectures, after all.
V. Thou shalt have a moderator who actually moderates - enforcing time limits and keeping panelists on topic. An electric cattle prod brandished now and then is advised.
VI. Thou shalt stay on topic. Period.
VII. Unless given a longer time to make opening remarks, thou shalt limit thy responses to less than three minutes per response. Wear a damn watch.
VIII. Thou shalt show the participants and fellow panelists respect by speaking directly to the question.
IX. Thou shalt not talk again until each panelist has replied. Heated back-and-forth dialogs are the exception.
You might notice that I haven't been blogging at my usual frenetic pace, cranking out blog posts many times a day. You may also wondering why I have this YouTube music video from Parliament singing "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker."
Let's just say that I live in an old house, it's been raining like crazy, and there appears to be a hole in the roof.
What keeps me excited about social media is the ability to connect with people who you have never met and have a conversation about ideas you care about. But what happens when you go into the real world and attend conferences? Does the audience get a chance to have a conversation with you?
And, how can you facilitate that if you're speaking to a large group? What are some techniques and tools for interactive presenting?
Back in 2005, I got a little obsessed with backchannel - after my experience at the London Global Voices Summit. Those were the days before twitter and when we used IRC to facilitate a chat discussion with both remote participants and people in the room. What Global Voices did that was particularly effective was to appoint a "Back Channel Advocate." I can't remember if it was pre-assigned or whether the moderator asked for a volunteer in the room - but that person monitored the back channel and moderator looped them in read out loud the comments or ask speakers questions.
There are different methods of incorporating audience feedback depending on the format of the panel or session. What are the best practices for blending face-to-face and online so it adds to the conversation in the room and doesn't cross the line to "rude" or "heckling"? And, if you want to present something in a instructional way, how can you incorporate interaction without it being a confusing learning experience?
During the NTC social media ROI Case Study Slam I asked the audience to @kanter me with questions. I had these directed to my cell phone. I didn't quite manage to juggle it well.
So, now comes this new toy called "Text The Mob" It lets you create a poll or discussion board and project it on the screen and have everyone send their input via their cell phones and see results instantly!
I'm presenting in August at a conference and I'm so going to test it out.
How do you incorporate audience interaction in a large room discussion format?
This week we'll be discussing and building Module 4: The Art of Storytelling as part of NTEN's We Are Media: Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits project. After putting together your nonprofit's social media map and addressing internal resistance, you are now ready to consider how you will share your nonprofit's story. This module will cover why storytelling is an essential component of your strategy, how to compose effective stories, and look at excellent examples of nonprofit storytelling in a social media strategy.
We know that people are more likely to engage with your organization's cause or contribute money if they hear the story about the impact of your organization's programs versus the dry statistics. Stories help build momentum, energize, and make a social media strategy come alive. Storytelling is an important and wonderful way to engage in a conversation with someone which is the heart and soul of social media.
Storytelling is a passion of mine and I could prattle on and on and write a detailed post answering all the questions. But, I'm more interested in what you think.
Why is storytelling so important for nonprofits and in the context of social media? What skills do you need for effective storytelling? What is an effective step-by-step process? What are the best of the best online resources and who are the best thinkers on this topic?
Tell us what you think over at the wiki or in the comments.
How do networks sustain themselves (financially)?
I'm just back from the red eye and really tired - and wanted to capture a few reflections about network effectiveness and resourcing.
Yesterday, I attended a retreat day for the Girl Geeks of the World Cafe at Juanita Brown's beautiful home in Marin County. This is a group of women who have been working/playing together to explore how technology can support the World Cafe global community. Two years ago when this group was meeting in California, Nancy White saw me online and skyped me. In a kismit way, the Fedex man rang the bell at the same time and delivered Juanita Brown's book. As I returned to the skype call, I got to hear Juanita's voice for the first time! Much of my connection has been facilitated by online technology so it was great to participate - finally - face-to-face.
The World Cafe is structured as a 501-c3, but it is really a network. One of the things we discussed was were strategies for resourcing the World Cafe. One of conversation threads was about how to make the story of how this network works more visible - and how a network goes about resourcing itself. We talked a lot about gift economies, storytelling, and some web2.0 tools that facilitate this.
Dave wrote a terrific piece called "Ten Tips for Journalists to Raise Money"
By the way, JD Lasica took some great photos of our session and at BlogHer - check them out.
It strikes that this type of fundraising - personally socially networked fundraising or crowdfunding - is something that a network will do to sustain itself. What are the best practices? What are the conditions that the network will do this for itself? How is this activity best guided?