Posts tagged ecf08
Ecampaigning Forum: Notes on Open Space sessions
Apr 12th
While my live blogging efforts focussed on the more formal sessions at ecampaigning forum, most of the event’s time and content was spent in groups following the Open Space methodology. The gatherings for people to suggest sessions were instructive in themselves as they gave considerable hints as to the key concerns of ecampaigning practitioners.
How to engage with the big social networking sites, whether to create your own, organising around big events (such as G8 summits and climate conferences) and ways of managing decentralised/coalition campaigns were some of the big themes, but the sessions covered a wide range beyond that such as engaging with young supporters, or older supporters, choosing content management systems, operating on a tight budget, pooling resources/tools and one hastily agreed discussion of twitter. What follows are a few notes on things that struck me.
The twitter session drew a mixture of existing users, aware onlookers, and newcomers. A lot of time was spent exploring existing uses of the site with examples such as teamtibet‘s usage to co-ordinate protests around the olympic flame and Downing Street’s account. Most people seemed taken with its potential for short term co-ordination, but many questions arose about its potential for long term campaigning beyond informing core supporters of news updates. Being seemingly the longest-serving twitter user there, it was interesting to hear responses to a tool I’ve quickly come to take for granted
A recurring theme was the adoption of drupal by a number of the big agencies. Most seem keen to contribute code back to the community, along the lines of AI and CivicActions‘ assets module. I’ve mentioned my mixed feelings about drupal before but am hopeful that through events like this we might be able to resolve some of the issues that frustrate me.
I brought up Russell Davies’ 2008 – the year of peak advertising in conversation over breakfast on the first day and that phrase recurred a few times. There’s a general awareness that the last few years have brought lots of opportunities to attract attention by simply being quick to adopt some new “web 2.0″ tool, but that won’t last. It didn’t seem like there was a sustained discussion or much sense of where to go next, but working hard to attain attention has been the life of campaigners for a long time and so perhaps this is just another step in that journey?
There’s clearly a growing sense of how hard it is to influence big summits where the final communique is often planned months in advance. Gatherings of world leaders are a great opportunity for media coverage and to present the “actionable moments” that Ben Brandzel spoke of, but they’re now when the real chance for change occur. It’s vital to find ways to turn the energy around these summits into sustained, directed action after the final communique is published, planning the next steps before the events themselves take place.
In the session on pooling resources and tools a number of questions came up about the ethics of collaborating with big players like google (who have just been on a big outreach programme for their new Google Earth offering for NGOs). The data provided and the tools offered by the likes of Google can be a great boon to charities operating on tight budgets, but at the expense of ceding a lot of control and a lot of attention data (and with providers like facebook there are concerns about things like this). It was obvious that there is some desire to develop open source tools that provide similar tools, but it’s not clear whether the resources are there. Mention was made of open street map and I brought up the theyworkforyou api, and it definitely would have been interesting to have had people who could present on the usage of that; some concerns remain as to how ready those tools are for non-geeky end-users, which would be easy to resolve if someone were to direct the right resources.
I’m looking forward to seeing what other people bring up in their notes on the event, and what themes come out in the ongoing discussion. You can see my photos on flickr, find some content on technorati and check out the conference wiki for more. All my posts on the topic are gathered under the ecf08 tag.
Ecampaigning forum case study: myactionaid
Apr 11th
For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.
MyActionAid Launched about a year ago. Built on plone which let them use out of the box tricks like forums, photo sharing, RSS, plus is open source so actionaid can re-invest in community.
Why bother building own online community?
More project goes on, the clearer the reasons become.
- Build closer relationship with supporters. Not UK-based service delivery org, this helps us get closer to them and add value for them
- More control of features/development
- To make money! Double the giving rate compared to presence on other sites. Wonder if that’s because of sense of closeness/more qualified relationship
- Cut out middle man, reduce fees paid to other services
What trying to achieve?
- Not competition with other social networks. Want supporters to be wherever they want to be (and link back to myactionaid!)
- People are proud of their profiles and link back to them
- Build interest groups.
- Fundraising helped them bootstrap/make case, but it pays for itself and they can diversify focus
- Going forward – empower supporters, build event-related networks
Photo sharing very popular feature. Offer unlimited public photo sharing, wonder if that will be scalable. Status updates (“twitter-esque”)
500 active supporters, meaning they are raising money. Most activities raise ~£1000 but some up to £10,000.
Cons of setting up own network/Advice
Really they are risks. Haven’t solved them all, but they are mostly opportunities too. Make sure resource well.
- Question about how deep it goes. How much content is put in? What is supporters’ journey?
- First website ever launched empty! They put very little in: event listings, news from actionaid homepage RSS feed (low maintenance). People seem to gain from the experience. Some go and visit projects. Does work a little as recruitment, but haven’t really marketed site yet. Communication strategy about to kick in.
- Cost?
- Undisclosed! Most of the investment was time getting people on board, making sure infrastructure in place, developing response mechanisms for users’ contributions. Money it’s brought in made business case for more sophisticated hosting platform, so revolutionised their IT infrastructure.
- How do staff interact with it?
- Community Fundraising Group work very closely with site. Thrilled with deepening relationship with supporters.
- How reached critical mass?
- It is vital. Site doesn’t behave like normal website. (ed: not sure this answered the question…?)
- Did it pay for itself?
- Yes. Pretty quickly.
- There’s a facebook logo on screen?
- There’s a facebook app that shows info from your myactionaid profile. it’s just launching.
- What’s the rate of growth like?
- Went up at the beginning! Grew rapidly. Levelled out for a while. Now growing steadily.
Now wondering what other ecampaigning tools they can provide to members.
Ecampaigning Forum case study: Rolf Kleef on nabuur.com
Apr 11th
For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.
Rolf Kleef talked about long tail as an introduction
nabuur is a dutch word for “neighbour”. idea is to build on idea that neighbours can help you when you’re in need. help organisations tap into peoples’ skills. volunteer expertise/knowledge online, work from home, help villages in africa/asia/latin america.
villages get page on nabuur (example). get teamed with facilitator who helps them identify project, work out what’s needed, etc. say a village wants to build a computer centre: some people might be able to supply computers, someone might be able to help with transport, someone else understands customs issues, etc.
site breaks projects down into tasks. people volunteer for tasks. volunteers are listed as a village’s “virtual neighbours”.
has been working well. for example seen reductions in infant mortality in certain villages as result of improved health/water facilities.
now redeveloping site to help online volunteers become salespeople and spread the word (like netflix). many volunteers end up going to visit the projects in person.
asked about metrics. decent size now, but next step is to harness “web 2.0″ tools to help it grow faster.
asked how many projects are skills transfer, and how many are logistics/supply. answered it’s often a mixture of things. not sure what the division is.
hardest part was building training method for facilitators. make it easy to break down the project and put it online as something compelling for people to use.
how promoted? google ads, etc. now looking at corporate partnerships to get employees to adopt projects.
also looking at SMS updates to make it easier to make it easier for people to update from the project sites. looking at how villages continue in the site once projects completed. talking to existing NGOs to see if staff already on the ground can help assess projects.
Ecampaigning Forum case study: Patrick Olszowski, Action Medical Research
Apr 11th
For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.
Using flickr for some stories http://flickr.com/photos/actionbabybook/352587940 + using facebook to let supporters share stories
taken quick wins from facebook and built www.standupfortinylives.org
- lots of usual stuff with contact your mp which sends message and directs them to a page
- use (google) map to show which MPs have signed up to support campaign
- MPs can respond and get themselves on the map
- Then keep visible record of what each MP has done for them
- Use youtube, flickr, etc. to gather stories then embed them in this site
- Asking people to share stories effective to get content and to increase the sharers’ activism
Site built on wordpress. had to make sure it could be managed without putting more burden on organisation’s IT staff.
No asks for money yet, but £140 raised so far. £23 average donation value.
Ecampaigning Forum: Fish Yu, Greenpeace China
Apr 11th
For the next couple of days I’m at the ecampaigning forum in Oxford and am going to attempt to live blog the main sessions as far as possible. These notes are largely unedited, so they’re likely to be a bit sketchy. For context, feel free to post a comment and I’ll catch up with them when I can.
Used to work for first generation internet company in China – China’s amazon.com – as sales planning manager. Then went to Canada to do a marketing degree. Started to think differently about what’s happening in China and got interested in civil society. Became first staff member for public engagement in Greenpeace China.
1999 – 1.18 million Chinese internet users
Dec 2007 – 200 million Chinese internet users
Prefers ComScore figure from Feb ’08 – 98 million – people over 15 who use internet at home or office. More than 30% of Chinese internet users use internet cafes, not home connections. Big usage areas
- IM sees biggest internet usage – 81.4%
- Search engine – Baidu most popular – 72.4%
- Posting (BBS, photos, video) – 65.7%
- Email – 56.5%
- Blogging – 23.5%
Shows map of China. Economy strongest in East. 60% of GDP. Beijing has highest internet usage, then Shanghai (not mentioning Hong Kong). Internet users primarily students (28.8%), and then white collar workers.
Unique Challenges
- Legal status. NGO’s must be registered to Ministry of Civil Affairs. Must get a “supervising entity” to report to — must report to specific entity about what you’re doing.
- Running a website. Registration can be complicated.
- Great Firewall (Golden Shield). Blocks any negative news. Blocks BBC (in Chinese), Voice of America, Youtube. Youtube blocked by keyword — eg. hard to find info on tibet. Many political sites blocked, including Chinese language taiwanese government pages. Human rights sites (amnesty), religion (gospelcom, vatican), reference sites (wikipedia, google cached pages).
Why Did Greenpeace Start Online Communication?
- Low cost. A large country with several environmental crisis
- Right audience. Need a supporter base. No other convenient access to local community
- Awareness, and beyond; people don’t trust media and want to know more
Strategy
- Audience; white collars (not middle class–that means older peope); major consumers, students
- Recruit supporters starting with simple, concrete issues. Climate change is complicated so tend to use simple ideas (examples later)
- To cultivate & maintain them for further difficult issues (supporters will learn more about complex issues)
- Access: offline + online – still think offline is very important
- Tactics: stay within the rules, but push the edges
Over 50% of audience has been to China.
Chopsticks
1.4 billion users. 80 billion pairs of disposal chopsticks made in China every year. That’s 16 million trees.
Project – I’m Not Disposable – engage a group of “environment lovers” and provide a way for them to start taking actions. Make it trendy to bring your own chopsticks. Greenpeace produced branded chopsticks with sustainable wood. Co-operated with amazon.cn to sell, not to make money but for delivery. During Christmastime GP chopsticks became best seller in their amazon category.
Also went to restaurant guide websites which let people tag restaurants, got people to say whether restaurants use re-usable chopsticks. Covered 3,000 restaurants in Beijing alone around Christmas/New Year. Over 2000 people signed up on website. Gave people HTML to include campaign ident on their blog. Good take up.
Made matching card for offline use so people can carry it. Same size as credit card. Went to big corporate offices (MS, Motorola, etc.) and distributed them to employees and got peope to sign up. Went to campuses and gave same materials to student leaders, who organised various activities. Over 15,000 student supporters. Within 2 months over 300 restaurants came to GP and signed contract to say not using disposable chopsticks any more. Go coverage in WSJ, NPR, French TV, and others without inviting it.
Got people together to lobby restaurant owners. Groups of up to 50 people went to restaurants, met each other for the first time, and lobbied restaurants. Bring their own chopsticks (of course!) and were given GP lobbying materials.
Questions
- How do Chinese disaporic populations, maybe already in environment moment, relate to work within China?
- Going to set up website for Chinese people overseas. Trying to contact local Chinese communities in Canada and Australia to talk about what’s going on, but have only just started. Many of them concerned with their local circumstance.
- How might you work with other Chinese NGOs? How difficult is that?
- Trying hard to get NGOs together. Sometimes do capacity building workshops, but are from different areas and even environmental groups are working on different levels. Most grassroots NGOs facing serious fundraising challenges.
- You said campaign is about personal commitments, and restaurant commitments. Which level has been most successful and how do you see it rolling forward?
- This is a public engagement project, rather than one of our major campaigns (Climate Change, toxins, GM food). This is for engaging people. Helps people get closer to, say, forestry issues. Restaurants are not the main target as they’re not a huge deal, but rather aiming to recruit people. Then try to move them from chopsticks to other issues.
- How do you get funding? Here it’s usually from government or supporters?
- Fundraise specifically in Hong Kong. Direct Dialogue Communication – recruit donors from streets in HK. 70% of funding comes that way. Also get money from Greenpeace International and some international foundations operating in China, such as Ford. Fundraising in mainland China may cause problems so not really doing that.
- What works well for moving people from public engagement to wider campaigning?
- Don’t have specific answer–that’s the real question at the moment. Now doing a “change your lightbulb” project hoping to cultivate chopsticks supporters and give them a next step. Give them something interesting to keep them going. Later this year going to launch a campaign on forestry, asking people to think about paper usage, publications, etc. Might ask new supporters to do letter-writing to publishers/authors/etc.