Nptech

Over at Netsquared.org Amy Sample Ward has posted another of their regular ThinkTank questions. This time around it’s: What are the key questions nonprofit orgs should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning? I’m coming in a bit late. There are some good responses appearing, such as those from Ashley Messick and Beth Kanter which offer a number of key questions to consider when developing a strategy for your organisation. The responses to date are summarised on the netsquared site. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. Karina Brisby - Interactive Campaigns Manager - Oxfam ...

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. ...

A couple of weeks back I attended NCVO’s seminar on the Future of Citizenship. Building on a recent report by The Henley Centre that developed four scenarios of how notions of citizenship and civic involvement may change over the next twenty years, the workshop-based afternoon was focussed on the challenges and opportunities that such changes will present to voluntary organisations. It was a fascinating afternoon and I’d highly recommend taking a look at the full report (PDF) and checking out the follow up questions on the Third Sector Foresight website. ...

When running a campaign a good strategy always used to be to ask your supporters to write letters to their local newspaper. Local newspapers are far more widely read than their national equivalents, you’re much more likely to get your photo published in them, and because of their more tightly defined audience they present a much greater chance to contextualise your message and suggest options for local action. In many ways, that is the campaign tactic that a strategy for web 2.0/social media should build from. It’s not about having a presence on flickr, delicious, facebook, upcoming, myspace, or any of the dozens of other “web 2.0” sites, though an official presence may be useful in some cases and personal experiences with all of them is a good idea. Instead it’s about resourcing your key supporters to be there for you, just as they would in their local papers. ...

Whether or not you should build your own social networking site and/or make use of sites like facebook is currently a hot topic within the not-for-profit web developer/consultant world. The launch of sites like Amnesty International’s “unsubscribed”, which bears many hallmarks of a social networking site, combined with growing attention for facebook campaigns and tools like SuperBadger bring the options and potential into clear focus. Elizabeth Dunn’s post last month " social networks, walled gardens, and decision trees" makes a compelling argument that non-profits should be focussing on these questions now even if they’re not key for their current audience: sooner or later they will be and you don’t want to be playing catchup. ...

A number of people have been linking to Jeremiah Owyang’s presentation at the Web Community Forum (I think I found it via Beth Kanter). It’s a good overview of the pros, cons and options for using facebook to promote a cause, campaign or brand, and well worth some time if that’s your focus. There are two pieces from his presentation that I wanted to pull out. The first appears to be a recurring theme in his work on web strategy, centered on the acronym POST. That breaks down into: ...