Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

10 Ways Geolocation is Changing the World

Note from Beth: It’s vacation week for me, not publishing much this week or next accept for guest posts and a few book reviews or if I find inspiration.  This guest post was written by Rob Reed. He is the founder of MomentFeed, a location-based marketing, strategy, and technology firm.

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell’s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

Kategorie: Odjinud

Visiting the Smithsonian On Vacation

Photo by Geoff Livingston

I’m on vacation this week and next!   We’re visiting family at the Jersey Shore, but stopping in DC to take the kids to the Smithsonian and other DC highlights.     You might see a few blog posts or tweets but don’t expect a fast reply via email.     Playing tourist in DC,  it is interesting to see how much your online digital life impacts your offline life.

The Smithsonian is one of the Networked Nonprofits we feature in the book.  My kids, who had been introduced to the Smithsonian through the popular movie “Night at the Smithsonian” were excited too.   There were a number of online/offline participatory visitor experiences.

We spent most of the day at the Smithsonian.   At the Natural History Museum, we visited the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins,  an immersive, interactive journey through the origins of human beings and the dramatic stories of survival and extinction in the midst of earth’s history of climate change.

There was one exhibit that the kids just loved.   It was a photo booth that took your photo and transformed you in an early human.   That’s me as a Homo floresiensis,.   It’s what I would have looked like if I lived  95,000 to 17,000 years ago on an island in what is now Southeast Asia.

You had the option of emailing the photo to yourself and it came with a description as well as a mention of what to purchase in the gift shop or where to donate.

At the Museum of American History, we visited the First Ladies Exhibit.  Outside the exhibit I noticed this sign and shared it on Twitter.  I wondered whether or not the information was of any value and asked?

Next stop, the Jersey Shore!

Kategorie: Odjinud

How To Make Social Media Experiments Fun!

Arts Council of Silicon Valley Staff

This year my work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation includes training, coaching, and facilitating peer learning sessions for grantees on using social media effectively, becoming a Networked Nonprofit.    It has been incredible laboratory to put the big ideas in the book in practice.

I’ve had the pleasure working with one of grantees in the Local Program, the Arts Council of Silicon Valley, to coach them in making the transition to being a Networked Nonprofit.     There is a wide range of comfort levels and experience using social media on staff, including the social media gurus who manage the Artsopolis which is focused on marketing the arts in SV.

This is an interesting process of spreading the expertise and way of working to all parts of the organization.   This is a fairly small staff, with limited resources.   As we discussed the challenges of culture shifts, many of the concerns were around lack of time.    The Arts Council’s leader, executive director Bruce Davis, came up a great idea.  “Let’s make the process of experimenting fun – let’s start with a Facebook Friday.”    Their experiment is going to be focused on deepening and improving their Facebook presence for the Arts Council and getting  everyone on staff to participate.   Stay tuned for more …

Sharing Some Facebook Friday Insights

I like to have fun experimenting and that’s just what I’m doing on my Facebook Page, a place for learning, and sharing insights about best practices in social media for networked nonprofits.     I learn so much from the conversation threads and people sharing what they do.  I’ve been remiss in summarizing some of the nuggets out here on the blog, so here goes.

Facebook Strategic Objectives

I asked folks on Facebook:  “What is your organization trying to accomplish on Facebook with its Fan Page?“   Here’s a few answers:

• To disseminate short stories that are unique to the fan page, as well as to link to articles on our websites. We are much more successful when the stories come with a blurb than when they are simply automated RSS-feeds.
• To keep up with our friends, to empower them to tell their stories to the world, to find out what they need from us, to introduce them to each other, to offer mission-related action items, and to have fun.

Techniques for More Engagement

Someone said to me during a workshop a few weeks back – it really sucks to log into Facebook and see a two-star post quality ranking.    This prompted me to post a question on my wall:  How many of you Facebook Page admins notice your post quality ranking every time you visit? What I learned is that “drive by” analysis of metrics is really a waste of time.  You need to grab the month’s worth of measures and look at them against your content.

Some folks have been puzzled by the Post Quality score which  is determined by the percentage of your fans that engage when you post content to your Page. (It is calculated on a rolling seven-day basis… See More. The number of stars depends on how your Post Quality compares to similar Pages (for example, Pages that have a similar number of fans.)

Holly Ross simply ignores it and track the number of comments and likes on individual posts.   Jon Dunn does something similar:  “I prefer to really try to key in to what days were successful in terms of content. Understand why we had more new fans on a certain day. What about a certain post created that big conversation. Rinse and repeat.”

That particular wall post had 31 comments and 15 likes, way higher than other types of posts.  Even better than the numbers was the knowledge nuggets shared.  And, ah, I found the secret sauce:   Simply Asking Questions That Allow People To Share Their Knowledge and Ideas sparks engagement!

Is there an App for that?

I have been wanting to test a poll app to see if having close-ended questions or running a poll might encourage engagement.   So I installed this app and set up a poll “Do you think polls increase engagement?  Yes or No?”   Of the 43 people who took the poll, 89% said yes.   Those who didn’t participate in the poll at all, but did on my wall asking for their feedback on polling apps said they didn’t like that the app asked for their personal information.

So, sometimes, the simple approaches work better.

A Couple of Useful Tools To Streamline Workflow

I asked an open-ended question “What are your Facebook administrator best practices?“  This produced a rich conversation on techniques.    This was the first time I noticed people posting on the wall taking to one another, not me.    The thread also includes some great nuggets about streamlining the content strategy as well as streamlining interactions with fans.

• NutShell Mail is an software that aggregates comments and likes on your fan page and delivers it in one email.   Manny Hernandez shared this link to a post about it.
• Spredfast is a listening/content distribution tool.  One feature that I like is that it will give you a list of the names of fans and how much a like/comment.
• There is a way to link google analytics to FB insights.

A Couple of Good Facebook Links

I share about 2-3 really juicy how to links about Facebook a week.  Here’s a couple that got the most likes or comments over the past month or so:

How To Contact Facebook for Help: Directory of Help Forms

Ten Cool Status Update Tricks

Be Careful Not To Violate Facebook Promotional Guidelines With Contests

Four Proven Steps to Facebook Page Success

Top Six Social Media Mistakes and How To Fix Them

Creating a Custom Landing Tab

Facebook Book For Your Desk

Finally, Mari Smith has co-authored a book, “Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day” – if you want one book about Facebook best practices that combines tactical and strategic – this is it!

Kategorie: Odjinud

Becoming A Networked Nonprofit Workshop: Reflections from Junior Achievement Worldwide

Becoming A Networked Nonprofit

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to deliver a half-day training workshop for staff members working at Junior Achievement Offices at their worldwide conference.    This workshop is called “Becoming A Networked Nonprofit:  Using Social Media Strategically.”

The learning objectives:

• To understand what a Networked Nonprofit is and why it is important to become one in order to implement your social media strategy effectively
• To understand the basic steps and frameworks for creating a social media strategy that supports a JA Office program or communications goal.
• To identify a couple of basic starter steps for using social media

I used a newly revamped version of the social media game that fits the learning objectives.  Participants also got a copy of The Networked Nonprofit as part of the materials.  This interactive workshop was a wide mix of perspectives – from senior management to education directors to development directors.   We had a range of attitudes about the value of social media.  This mix lead to a very rich and productive session.     Here’s a few insights.

Leveraging the Network

One of the common things I hear when teach workshops on social media is “We don’t have the time.”    We make the point in the book that if nonprofits make the shift from scarcity to abundance thinking – they will be able to leverage their networks.

Amy Boroff (@njdevmgr), development manager for Junior Achievement of NJ in Princeton, shared a wonderful story about her JA office discovered this in the video above.  They had started using Twitter about six months ago and found one of her new Twitter followers was Kate Specchio (@ecsfoundation), co-founder of Morris County-based The Emily C. Specchio Foundation. Through their conversation on Twitter, Amy recognized the potential for working together. They continued to communicate on Twitter in real-time, after working hours, to learn more about each respective organization. After several weeks, JANJ submitted a proposal to ECS for funding for an inaugural event: the Women’s Future Leadership Forum. The ECS Foundation accepted the proposal and granted funds to help support aspiring female high school students become future leaders.

Deborah L. Dalton who works with the Louisville, KY JA Office mentioned her organization reached out to the local Social Media Club to recruit a board member. They were lucky enough to have Jason Falls help them out.

I know it hard to think about “adding on” social media to the to do list.  But reframe it.  Think of opening up to the abundance of working in a networked way.

Do you have a story about how your organization made that shift?

Kategorie: Odjinud

The Networked Nonprofit Has Arrived In Australia

The Networked Nonprofit Has Arrived in Australia. Connecting Up Office has Donnie the Wombat (Aussie Squirrel) and Tim Tams by their computers along with the book!

I’m so thrilled that the Networked Nonprofit has made it Australia! A few years ago, I had the opportunity to keynote Connecting Up, the national gathering of Nonprofit Techies hosted by Connecting Up. I’m thrilled that they shared a photo of themselves eating tim-tams and their #squirrel mascot!

I just had to blog this.

Standing up, from left to right: Doug Jacquier (CEO), Sarah Rayner-Fry, Pankaj Chhalotre, Josh Goodwin, and Kyla Poyner. Sitting Down, from left: Shai Coggins, Donnie our beloved mascot, and Tu-Trinh Vuong.

Kategorie: Odjinud

August 25 – CitizenGulf’s National Day of Action

Photo by Geoff Livingston

Mark your calendars! Citizen Effect’s CitizenGulf project will become a National Day of Action on August 25th, in alignment with the week of the fifth anniversary of Katrina. The benefit — to be promoted by Gulf Coast Benefit — seeks to help fishing families find a new, more sustainable future by providing education resources for their children.  In addition to Zoetica’s support, additional promotion partners for the national day of action include Andy Sternberg, El Studio, Live Your Talk, Sloane Berrent, and Taylor Davidson.

For details on how you can participate in this important event,  see Geoff Livingston’s post.

Kategorie: Odjinud

The Networked Nonprofit Roundup: Bay Area Book Party 7/23

This is a quick roundup of some of the wonderful reviews, blog posts, photos, and videos of The Networked Nonprofit.

If you’re in the Bay Area and didn’t make it to our launch party at TechSoup,  there’s a book party in the East Bay on Friday, July 23rd.  The staff of Donordigital Bay Area are throwing a #netnon book party.  Join us on Friday, July 23, 2010, from 6 to 8 pm at Pro Arts Gallery (http://www.proartsgallery.org/) at 150 Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, a stone’s throw from the Oakland City Center/12th Street BART station. More information here.

The Networked Nonprofit is Available on Kindle!

Photo by Curious Lee

I don’t yet have a kindle, so I was thrilled to see this tweet from CuriousLee with a photo he shared on our Networked Nonprofit flickr group.

I’ve been enjoying the photos of friends and colleagues with the book popping up on my Facebook Page.  Judith Sol-Dyess and Steve Heye shared a couple of  “peek a boo” photos.   So, I sent them off a couple of the cool NTEN/Netnon t-shirts!   Hmm .. might see some photos popping up in the flickr group of people wearing #netnon t-shirts.

A Few Reviews

Rosetta Thurman created this video review. Rosetta is a fellow book nerd. (Yes, I bring nonprofit books to the beach too….). But what I love about Rosetta is her young nonprofit leader nerdiness. For example, check out her “50 Young Nonprofit Leaders To Follow on Twitter” list. She made it easy to follow these leaders – so let’s spread it far and wide.

My good friend, Roger Carr, wrote a great review of The Networked Nonprofit. More importantly, really appreciated the insights he shared in the comments of this guest post on volunteering by Robert Rosenthal from VolunteerMatch.

I loved this post from Devon Smith analyzing the metrics and reaping insights from her post on The Networked nonprofit. I learned about some new techniques for measuring blog stats and Twitter. So, go read her post now.

And last but not least,  Idealware has given us a 6 Thumbs Up Review from Johanna Bates, Heather Gardner-Madras, and Steve Backman.   Wow, honored!

I’ve been hearing a few reports that copies of the book are hard to find in the UK (and San Francisco)  and I know that they’re working on it!  In the meantime,  Social Edge is hosting a book blog with some excerpts.

If you wrote a review or have a photo to share, let me know in the comments!  And, thank you all for the great response to the book.

Kategorie: Odjinud

Craigslist Foundation Annual Bootcamp in Berkeley, CA

It has been a year since I’ve relocated to the Bay Area in California.  The summers here are much less humid than on the East Coast, but the real treat is having the Craigslist Foundation Annual Nonprofit Bootcamp practically in my backyard.  The next one takes place on August 14th – I wouldn’t miss it .

Last year, I was honored to be a workshop leader at Craigslist Foundation Nonprofit Bootcamp, but was even better is that the sessions on the program were really good and I learned a lot.  I’ll be doing a session this year on The Networked Nonprofit, but really looking forward to hearing the keynotes as well as the sessions.

This year’s boot camp is focused on strategies for fostering and building communities with sessions led by incredible people  in the field. The one-day schedule is a chance to participate in interactive workshops, meet people who can turn dreams into action, receive expert coaching, and get fired up by stories of successful community transformations. There are also opportunities for private coaching sessions, break-out sessions, and camaraderie with other passionate change-makers – not to mention pre- and post-event meetups.

Lots more information here: Boot Camp website and you can purchase a ticket here.

Kategorie: Odjinud

America’s Giving Challenge 2009 Assessment and Reflection Paper

Allison Fine and I, along with my Zoetica colleague Geoff Livingston have completed the  assessment and reflection paper for 2009 America’s Giving Challenge for the Case Foundation.   This is Case Foundation’s second online competition that encouraged people to leverage their social networks to raise money and awareness and recruit supporters for the causes they care about most.  Allison Fine and I wrote the reflection paper for the first challenge.

This year we took a more intercative approach to sharing the findings and learnings.  It was done through a series of blog posts called AGC Conversational Case Studies and encouraged the public to weigh in via comments to the blog posts, live CaseSoup video discussions, and Twitter.   You find the report, blog posts, and archived videos over at the Case Foundation site here.

We look forward to more  lively discussions and sharing of ideas about online contests.

Kategorie: Odjinud