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How the Web Can Transform Plain Janes to Wonder Women

Should We Ban Mobile Phones in Classrooms?

Last month Allison Fine started an interesting discussion on her blog about women, social media and influence. Allison wondered if social media might be the X factor that would help women make real strides in closing the leadership gap. Among commenters, there seemed to be a general consensus that women, as well as other groups, have been able to circumvent, at least in some instances, the glass ceiling and constraints placed on them by the traditional business world. Women have been able to use social media to get their thoughts out to the marketplace without having to get permission or backing from an organization.

The Women of the Year list by She Takes on the World is full of women who have used social media to champion all manner of causes from the global water crisis and microcredit to idea-sharing and motivating young people to succeed. While all of these women would probably be making a difference without laptops and iPhones, they have been able to multiply their efforts with creative social media use.

Organizations like Blogher work to help women online by create opportunities for exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. A 2009 Blogher study reported that 42 million American women are using social media regularly both to share and find information and advice. The survey also found that more than 60 percent of these women use blogs and social networks to find information about social activism.

A recent Vanity Fair article, America's Tweethearts, discusses how previously unknown women representing different sectors and interests have been able to use social media to gain a unique kind of fame on Twitter. In the article (whose author doesn't seem to be entirely sold on with Twitter) one of the "twilebrities" featured, Felicia Day, points out: “Doors were closed to us before. Now the tools for success have been democratized. It’s just me and whoever wants to talk to me, wherever they are in the world.”

It doesn't take a celebrity spokesperson or even a twilebrity spokesperson to leverage social media for wide reach. Like an online flashmob, scores of women (and oddly, some men) began posting one-word status messages yesterday. "Black," "lavender," and "red" were littered among our news feeds, and quickly people began asking, explaining and commenting over the colorful posts, not only on Facebook, but on Twitter and other social media platforms. The Case Foundation's Allie Burns wrote a post discussing both the buzz and the criticism around the campaign. Whether a quietly orchestrated awareness by a breast cancer organization or a prank by a group of young women, it has created a discussion carried on by common women which has permeated the social media world.

It's exciting to see that social citizen gals are using social media to share their ideas and passions and to advocate for the causes that are important to them. And since Millennials may be the most active and engaged online, Millennial women - as individuals and as groups - may have a greater opportunity to be heard and wield influence at a younger age than the women before us. I hope, and trust, that we will continue to take advantage of this opportunity - not to grab self-serving fame for it's own sake, but to change the world with our creative approaches, open and transparent conversations and inspirational acts.

Reflecting On 9/11 In the Age of Social Media

Queens - Woodside: Woodside on the Move Mural - 9-11 Vigil

This morning I was in a cab on my way to the airport when I decided to quickly scroll through my email and Twitter feed to see what I might miss while on the five hour flight from DC back to San Francisco. It was very rainy this morning when my plane took off -- nothing like the September 11, that I remember while working on Capitol Hill back in 2001. The sun was beaming off of the Capitol dome and the clear blue skies created a surreal feeling as smoke from the Pentagon billowed in the distance.

But, there was something else that was very different about today – and it was the way that people were able to express themselves and seamlessly connect with one another to share their thoughts and reflections using social media. The first tweet I came across this morning was from Jeff Pulver who said, “wonder what 9/11 would have been like if twitter was around back then. Would it have saved lives or create more confusion and pain?”
 
As we mark the eighth anniversary of September 11, some choose to silently reflect, some choose to give back to their community and volunteer, and others turn to social media to share emotions, connect with each other and offer support. Jeff’s tweet got me thinking about just how far we’ve come with regard to our use of social media – which if you remember, was only in its infancy some eight years ago. Today people are using their iPhones and facebook accounts to come together and honor the victims, and share their stories.
 
As I was getting ready to push this post live, I saw an article in the LA Weekly Blog, that details what 9-11 might look like in the age of social media. Alexia Tsotis asks, "Would Twitter be able to handle the scale? Would we all switch to Facebook? Even if overwhelmed, there's no doubt our real-time communication platforms would provide crucial information on survivors and those looking for loved ones, as Craigslist did after Hurricane Katrina."

The Septmber 11, digital archive is also using electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, and its aftermath.  It contains more than 150,000 digital items, including more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images.  For my sister-in-law, a first grade teacher in the Bronx,  a digital archive like this allows her to share stories with her students, many of whom are learning of the tragedy for the first time.

What role has social media played in the way you are paying your respects or reflecting on this day?
 

This is your brain on social media

Musee Rodin - Thinking Man

As Millennials everywhere head back to school over the next few weeks, we are going to be thinking and talking about some intersections of social media and the college experience.

Today is the first day of school for many students across the country. After a few months of beach vacations, summer jobs, and lounging around the house, it's time to get back into the swing of going to class, writing papers and taking tests. With its increasing popularity, social media is bridging both worlds - in the classroom and out - and people have begun to study what all this social media is really doing to our brains.

My mom used to tell my brother that video games were going to turn his brain to mush. Many studies now dispute this, showing that gaming can actually improve perception, sharpen thinking and increase patience. Point for my brother. (Unfortunately, I lost interest in video games after they moved beyond the original Nintendo.) Similarly, some have speculated and worried lately that all of this social media use by today's young people is ruining their ability to write. At the very least, they say, Facebook and Twitter leads to time wasted talking about yourself to no one in particular.

And with all our ROTFLs BRBs TTYLs RTs, HTs, and other abbrevs, I can see how our teachers might be concerned that proper spelling, capitalization, sentence structure, and good old fashioned grammar have gone by the wayside. But could it be that our constant texting, tweeting, blogging and facebook posting are actually just as helpful as summer reading and flash cards?

Yes and no. Tracy Alloway, a psychologist in Scotland, recently studied the impact of social media on working memory. She claims that Facebook helps enhance our intelligence because keeping up with so many friends is like a workout routine for our memories, but she warns that other types of social media might not be so helpful. Twitter's character limits, along with the brevity of text messaging and YouTube videos, shrink our attention spans and fail to engage our brains because we don't have to process the endless stream of information come at us. 

So social media's effects on memory seem to be split. What about other skills? The social web has turned us all into content producers, rather than just consumers. In addition to giving us an opportunity to share what we think and voice our love, hate or indifference on all manner of subjects, it also gives us the valuable opportunity to practice writing.

Andrea Lunsford of Stanford University says that her study shows that technology and social media are improving students' ability to write. Like we've always been told, practice makes perfect, and thanks to our habits of constant online communication, this generation of students is getting more writing practice than any group of students ever before. This is because Millennial students are not just writing in the classroom; they are writing throughout the day. Clive Thompson points out that this is a huge paradigm shift - in generations before us, essays were written in class, and that was it. And it is more persuasive writing because they feel they are always writing for an audience.

Not only do they write more, but today's students are also adept at using appropriate tone and style for their audience. Because of the interactive nature of social media, users are more aware of their various audiences. Rather than just writing for one professor, they are writing for friends and peers with whom they have varying types relationships and shared interests. They know not to use the same writing style in a research paper as they do posting birthday well wishes on a friend's wall. Likewise, it's often occurred to me that Twitter helps me to practice a more concise style of writing - a habit which can be difficult to form.

Are you convinced? Is social media the best thing that's happened to the classroom since the overhead projector, or are you still waiting for our brains to turn to mush?

I Get By With a Little Help From My "Facebook" Friends

Yesterday I came across this charming video in which Graham Smith and his buddy Josh Baron set out on a Facebook road trip for a thesis project. The two traveled more than 1,800 miles in less than a week to explore how the friends made over a lifetime were more than a series of updates on Facebook. What Graham uncovers through this little exercise, is that communication through digital means can at times be limiting.

As he explains it, “Before Facebook they were friends that were starting to fall to acquaintances and acquaintances that were starting to fall to strangers. But when I reconnect with them they start to become a little bit more. This trip has really led me to see that these people I’ve lost contact with aren’t a series of updates and bits of information on a computer. They’re actually people living their lives.”
 
As we explored in an earlier post “What do all these friends add up to anyway?” we may be broadcasting our lives more efficiently than ever before, but more often than not, we still have the same small circles of intimacy that we’ve always known.
 
While at times akward, and at other times sentimental and funny, there's no doubt this video will make you think about your own social graph. Have you or would you ever take a social network roadtrip? What would you be most excited to explore and find out?
 

Are you a two-faced social networker?

A Face With Many Colors

As the use of social media in organizations grows, things are getting a bit messy for Millennials. We are having to navigate how to project the professional persona we want - with colleagues, bosses, and potential employers are checking our twitter and Facebook profiles - using the tools that, for us, cannot easily be limited to the professional.
 
We all have things we do and think but wouldn't advertise at work, yet if a colleague requests our Facebook friendship, we can't exactly deny them. We go through breakups, we take unflattering pictures, we sweat when we run 5Ks. We all have opinions on politics and religion. I wouldn't add to my resume or cover letter that I find Will Ferrell extremely funny, my favorite song to sing at karaoke night is Weezer's "Say It Ain't So," and, oh yeah, this is what I look like in a bathing suit. But since colleagues can access my facebook profile as easily as my resume, some of the stuff that, as a professional, I wouldn't mention to my intern, my CEO or my grantee is on the table.
 
It feels a little like some social media tools have been hijacked by the professional world. In 2004, Millennials were using Facebook purely to connect with friends, share pictures, personal interests, and now that the corporate and nonprofit worlds are beginning to recognize a value in Facebook for marketing, fundraising, advocacy, they are eager to capitalize on those benefits, our generation's expertise in using the tool, and our robust networks. And I agree that social media can be extremely valuable for organizations, and they help breathe new life into causes and missions. But does that mean pieces of our personal online personas need to die?
 
In some ways, I think letting the personal bleed into the professional has a positive impact. I'm not so interested in following people on Twitter that just read like an RSS feed direct from their organization's marketing department. It's like signing up to see commercials. But I follow @Zappos because he is clearly a person with thoughts that go beyond how he's going to sell me more fabulous shoes. I follow @tomjd and @AshokaTweets because I find them both interesting, but I maintain @tomjd has something that @AshokaTweets lacks. He reaches a new audience with his "personal" tweets but also exposes them to his work at Ashoka.
 
I appreciate that Craig Newmark has a soft spot for squirrels, and even though guides to professional success would tell me to hide any Susie Homemaker tendencies in the workplace, I do enjoy baking. Do we risk losing respect by revealing some of our quirks? Or do we risk more by keeping all of them offline? Will we get to the point where it doesn't matter?
 
So, what's a Millennial to do?
This is something I have struggled with, but I try to walk the line between professional and personal because I think it serves the best of both, but even doing that, there are tricky times. Friends from college might complain that I blew up their twitterfeed from a philanthropy conference, and colleagues probably don't care about seeing the Facebook pictures of the time I met Tyler Hansbrough's dad at the Final 4. That's my approach, but I know others who are adamant about using social media for only professional or only personal audiences or maintain two separate profiles. I don't see a perfect solution. What's yours?
 
Millennials are used to living in an interconnected world, where we share all kinds of information with peers via social networks, including the causes we care about, our spring break trips and our musical taste. It's against my nature to accept that I have to censor myself and try to live in silos that are wholly work and wholly personal. I don't think we can be authentic and still maintain that level of separation, and one day, I don't think it will feel necessary. I think Millennials and their use of social networks can usher in a new standard for transparency where we will all have to start admitting to being human. No, I don't need to know all the skeletons in everyone's closets, but I don't think we can continue to maintain the division between professional and personal lives that our parents had. Won't we all - as individuals and members of the public, private and nonprofit sectors - be better for it?

Your Blackberry Doesn't Bake Cookies

Jam Thumbprint Trios

Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve titled this post the name of the book my mom says she’s going to write one day.  But since I’ve lived through about 30 years of listening to the great titles of the wonderfully inspirational books my mom was going to write, I don’t think I’m blowing anything here by sharing with you what she would have included.

By way of background, my mom is the consummate volunteer – and has been for as long as I’ve known her.  Growing up I loved when she’d volunteer to chaperone field trips; by middle school I kind of wished she wasn’t the advisor for my youth group; and these days I’m inspired by her selfless service in the Indianapolis Jewish Community and particularly by her work with the senior citizens at the JCC.
 
Last week my mom called me in the middle of the day and her voice was filled with a mix of emotions.  She told me that 175 people had registered to attend the Passover seder that she was coordinating for her seniors  – and she couldn’t be more excited or terrified.  Excited because of the incredible attendance and interest in the program – terrified because she didn’t know who was going to set the table, serve the food, or help her clean up afterward. My response was of course, "don’t worry mom – we’ll get you on facebook and you’ll have volunteers in no time!"
 
I said it half joking, but at the end of the day I wanted to prove to her that this social media space I find myself absorbed in and evangelizing for, is legit.  As I helped my mom create a profile on facebook I realized that even though the statistics show the fastest growing demographic of facebook users are women 55+, like my mom  -- they aren’t completely comfortable using facebook in the same way that my peers are.  They are online because they want to see if they can catch a glimpse of who their children are dating, they want to reconnect with old high school friends, and they want to pretend to be “hip" and "in the know.”  
 
But even that said, I don’t think we should underestimate what Boomers are doing on social networking sites. They are sharing links to their favorite causes, they are getting more comfortable donating money online, and they are helping spread the word about the things they care about both personally and professionally.
 
My mom’s book (should she ever write it…) would explain the countless reasons that all of the texting, friending and tweeting will never replace the good old fashioned face to face power of interpersonal relationships.  And I would agree, but only to an extent. Because even if the tools themselves can’t make the cookies, they can help mobilize people to action.
 
My mom said that she needed to understand the value of social networking – because without that, she couldn’t get her head around why my first instinct was to have her join facebook.  After all, when it came down to it, the 15 or so volunteers who arrived this morning to help with the lunch all received phone calls from an organization called Council Connect that helps connect community members with opportunities to volunteer. (for the record they aren’t online or I’d link to their site here!)
 
I read a terrific post by Hildy Gottlieb a few weeks back as she explained to her mom, Grandma Rose, the world of Twitter in very practical terms.  It was a wonderful exchange, and I encourage you to read it.  In the meantime, here are a few of the ways I tried to answer my mom’s questions about the value of social networks to her work.

1. Boomers aren’t the luddites we (or even they) think they are: a new report from Forrester Research revealed that more than 60 percent of those in this generational group actively consume socially created content like blogs, videos, podcasts, and forums, and the percentage of those participating is on the rise.
 
2. Volunteers and donors increasingly prefer online channels. While there’s a lot of discussion targeting youth in online fundraising and mobilization efforts, the 50+ category is really the next huge opportunity for nonprofits – both in terms of dollars and manpower. As long as the ask is clear and easy, individuals are becoming more and more comfortable navigating online tools to take action.
 
3. Social Networks can attract non-traditional volunteers, those who may stumble into an opportunity they didn’t even know existed. You can also attract individuals with very specific skills like lawyers or accountants who could offer their professional skills.
 
4. Social networks can help create a feeling of community. Social media guru Chris Brogan predicts that 2009 will see an increase in ‘velvet-rope’ social networks, which give like-minded people the opportunity to collaborate online and connect in a context that matters to them.  Like gathering virtually to enjoy the Oscars or comment on an event like the State of the Union. Volunteers can share their experiences and recruit others to join them next time.  
 
What are the best online resources for reaching Baby Boomers+? Have you successfully recruited adults online for your nonprofit organization? If so, please post a comment and tell my mom how you did it....together we can convince her!

 

Front Row Seat to SXSW Via Twitter

SxSW Interactive 2009

As SXSW comes to a close, I have lived vicariously through the tweets, blog posts, and Facebook status updates which have all served as a gentle reminder that I’m not there. Let’s be honest, I have a bit of SXSW envy. For the past five days the SXSW Interactive Festival has featured a plethora of engaging panelists, digital creatives and visionary technology entrepreneurs, all in an effort to celebrate some of the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. At least that’s what I surmise from the 140 character tweets I’ve come across this past week. 

Here are a few of the highlights (with a social media/social change bent) that I enjoyed watching from my seat here in San Francisco.
 
ROI Poetry Slam: When’s the last time you learned how to measure your ROI through a good poetry slam?  Yeah, me either. But, Beth Kanter, Danielle Brigida, Holly Ross, Wendy Harman, Carie Lewis, David Neff, and Katie Paine - used a poetry slam format, to present how they are using social media at their organizations. You can check out the slam here.
Social Media for Social Good at Stubb’s: There was a time not so long ago when the thought of having a nonprofit gathering at Stubb’s BBQ during SXSW would have made traditional SXSW attendee’s ROFL. But this year, James Pulver helped bring together some of the leading social media for social good innovators  to share their thoughts on what's next for nonprofits including Stacey Monk, David Armano, Scott Goodstein, James Young, Beth Kanter and Randi Zuckerberg
 
Pledge to End Hunger Campaign: An innovative collaboration between Tyson Foods and Share Our Strength brought attention to the nation's struggle with hunger through the Pledge to End Hunger Campaign.  With a goal of 5,000 people taking the Pledge by the end of SXSW, Tyson Foods committed to donate enough food to feed 560,000 children in need. The three states with the most people signing #HungerPledge will each get a truckload of food sent to a food bank in their state.
 
SXSWi Web Awards: A mix of well-known and relatively obscure websites walked off with trophies Sunday night at the South by Southwest Interactive Web Awards. Here are the nominees and winners of the 2009 SXSWi Web Awards in the Activism Category (which included greens and nonprofits).

Whether you were on the ground in Austin or tuning in from the comfort of your couch and MacBook…what were your favorite moments as captured by Flickr, TwitPic, Facebook or others?

Facebook Redesign: Boom or Bust for Nonprofits?

Facebook

Last week as Mark Zuckerberg began to unveil the features of the now highly anticipated Facebook redesign (the second in less than a year), I posed the following question on my Twitter feed: “Interested to see if the new facebook redesign helps or hurts NPOs and their causes. Hope it helps, any ideas?”

Well, a couple of ideas filtered through, but it was Brian Reich’s that caught my eye. Brian is the Director of Community and Partnerships at iFOCOS and the brains behind the highly successful WeMedia event that took place in Miami last week. Brian basically said that my questions was, “the wrong way to think.” He continued, “Redesign doesn't change anything. NPOs need to embrace what makes Facebook great. Need to be more social, community oriented. Can't rely on tools. NPOs are missing the point still in my experience.”
 
Brian's comment certainly got me thinking, but I’m not convinced nonprofits are completely missing the point.  I think they are still trying to understand how to make sense of this new and highly open way of engaging with their audience. When Facebook rolled out some of its new features last year, the revised format placed a greater emphasis on news feeds and conversations – and it attempted to declutter our personal profiles.
 
In the coming days and weeks we’ll watch as Facebook rolls out a similar update for organizations and businesses. For those who may be unfamiliar, pages are the main way that many non-profits maintain a presence on Facebook, and the new design means doing some rethinking about how to best use Facebook to reach donors, and advocates.  So, what should nonprofits be looking for so they aren’t "missing the point?" You can learn more about the details here, and you can check out how one major nonprofit (the Red Cross) is leveraging the new design here, but I'll try to extract a few of the highlights.

The new interface means more sharing and communicating. This will allow donors, activists, volunteers and constituents to engage in real, substantive ongoing conversations. The applications which were such a central part of the Facebook user experience a year ago, will diminish as the authentic voice of the nonprofits and their constituents will have the opportunity to take a more active role.  Gone are the days of being limited to only sharing your message with your immediate fans or supporters. Updates to an organization's Wall or other discussion sat idle and were never broadcast – in other words, if your fans and supporters didn’t return to your page, they would never know a new discussion was happening. Now, they won’t have to go to your page to interact, they will see updates in their newsfeeds and participate as part of your community.

As Jo Miles from Beaconfire Communications so aptly points out, “This is the “social” in social media.  Engaging supporters in your mission will now mean engaging them in conversation, and starting a flow of ideas.  You can learn from them as much as they can learn from you.  If you interact with them frequently, they’ll be in the habit of listening, and will probably be more active, more engaged, and more excited when you ask them to get involved.”
 
Jo also points out that this new and more social interface is not with out it’s share of challenges, especially for those who are not comfortable being subjected to scrutiny and criticism by supporters and opponents. And let's face it who likes to be subjected to that? But that’s all part of the good, the bad, and the ugly of living in this new social reality.
 
Personally, I'm excited to begin interacting with my causes and fan pages in a new and hopefuly more engaging way. The past redesign focused on the individual user, and it's no secret that the power of "we" has greatly taken over the power of the individual as of late.
 
So, let us know what steps your organization or nonprofit is taking to adapt to the new opportunities on Facebook.  How is your organization embracing -- or at least attempting to adapt to the new open design, and what suggestions do you have for others who are looking to make the leap? 

What Do All These "Friends" Add Up To Anyway?

DSC_0057.JPG

An interview with Facebook’s “in-house sociologist” Cameron Marlow, appeared in last week’s issue of The Economist and has since created an interesting debate about the value and depth of our online social networks. Marlow looked at the size of one’s network on Facebook (in terms of number of friends) and then analyzed the rate of communication and interaction between those friends - based on comments, status updates, wall messages, etc.

Now, before sharing some of those numbers – here’s a quick lesson to help set some context. According to anthropologists, there is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships (this is also called Dunbar’s Number). Beyond this number, which is estimated to be around 150, the stability of the relationships begins to break down and connections are not as meaningful.
 
Think about your own network on Facebook or the people who follow you on Twitter. Most probably fit into one of these three categories: 
  • Actual legitimate friends: You may have known them since the playground or at college, these are the people who use social networks for staying up to date on what's happening in the lives of their closest connections, aka: "real" friends. Whether it's as mundane as what they're having for dinner, or as exciting as capturing their newborn's first steps - you take note and share in the moment. 
  • Information Seekers/Gatherers: These are the people who expand beyond those with whom you have pre-existing relationships. The lines may be a little blurrier, but there is an interest in networking, and sharing information with one another, most likely for professional reasons.
  • Tried and True Networkers: These are people with thousands of connections in the online world, and likely equally large rolodexes. They believe connections are fundamental to their professional careers, and they make no effort in hiding it. 
You can see how Marlow, breaks down the stats on Facebook users’ social behavior patterns here. But in short, an average man—one with 120 friends—generally responds to the postings of only seven of those friends by leaving comments on the posting individual’s photos, status messages or “wall”. An average woman is slightly more sociable, responding to ten. When it comes to two-way communication such as e-mails or chats, the average man interacts with only four people and the average woman with six. Among those Facebook users with 500 friends, these numbers are somewhat higher, but not hugely so. Men leave comments for 17 friends, women for 26. Men communicate with ten, women with 16.
 
These numbers got me thinking about the increasing number of nonprofit organizations who are using social networks to fundraise and interact with their members.  Obviously they are doing so with varying degrees of success. I wonder what the implications are for meaningful engagement between organizations and individuals -- and whether a version of the Dunbar theory might be applicable for that kind of organizational interaction.
 
As noted in the Economist article, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Or to quote the article, “Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.”
 
As we see more organizations taking their fundraising and mobilization activities online, how can the right level of interaction be maintained so that the level of social networking outweighs the "broadcast" message? And, how can organizations get and maintain individuals into their "Dunbar circles?"

What do you think about the Dunbar Number’s relevance to organizational use of social networks? Is your organization taking different steps to engage online in a more meaningful with your donors, volunteers and constituents? How can organizations move beyond the 5-10% that seems to be the human threshold for meaningful interaction?

What Does the Explosion of User Generated Content Mean for Nonprofits?

what do t hey say about too many cooks?

From entertainment to communications, consumers are increasingly taking charge of the creation, distribution and of course the consumption of digital media. We upload videos, download podcasts, we blog, vlog, rank, rate and tweet – and we’re doing it rates that are unprecedented in the history of media. That is according to eMarketer and their recent User-Generated Content report which analyzes a trend that promises not only to transform the face of the Internet, but also radically alter the distribution of all media.

eMarketer estimates there were nearly 116 million US user-generated content consumers in 2008, along with 82.5 million content creators. Both numbers are set to climb significantly by 2013. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise that this year’s favorite SuperBowl commercial wasn't made by a high paid Madison Avenue marketing firm, but instead by two guys from Indiana who entered their video into a contest and surprised everyone, maybe even themselves when it received such a positive response. So, what does all of this user generated stuff mean for nonprofit organizations?
 
Last summer I spoke to a group of nonprofit leaders, and in an effort to get to know the audience, I asked a series of quick questions.  Which of your organizations are on Facebook? Which of you are using online fundraising tools? Are any of you blogging? Are you engaging your donors and volunteers in online discussions? You get the idea. I was surprised when a woman I met just before the session from a prominent nonprofit in a large city in Florida (and, I’m protecting the innocent here) didn’t raise her hand. I said "surely your organization in Broward County has a presence on Facebook, let's check it out."  And right there, I brought up the Facebook page of her organization - with her logo, and a community of about 200 plus members who were writing on the wall, talking about their experiences, and using the space as a place for conversation.  Her reaction went something like this...."WHAT?!?! That's my logo, and I didn't authorize anyone to use it for Facebook." Welcome to Web 2.0.
 
If you’re thinking about venturing down the road of opening up and embracing user generated content here are some things to consider.
 
There can never be too many cooks in the kitchen. Don't forget to ask your users/constituents/members/donors to tell their story, and get your staff involved too. This could be in the form of video, photos, or blogging -- just make sure to open up the line of communication, you might be surprised by who shows up. 
 
Don't worry about relinquishing some of the control.  Your donors and volunteers can be your biggest advocates, largest sources of stories and your most valuable asset. Relinquishing some of that control can feel risky, but in the end let the community speak for itself.  If you’re doing things right, one bad apple won’t ruin the discussion, instead your community will take control and set him straight. Which leads me to my next point...
 
It's ok if things are a little messy. An authentic voice, even if it's not exactly on message can speak volumes about a program, and can inspire people in ways that a slick brochure or fancy website cannot.
 
Have any good stories about your experience with user generated content? Please let us know - and share other tips and tricks for those who are about to take the leap.
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