Post, Post It Passion Exercise from Youth Noise, Youth Summit
Blogging and New (to me) Blogs
Blogging 101 Community Blogging describes how to avoid the slow hard agonizing death of a blog: Make it a team effort. Many nonprofits considering starting a blog should look at a team approach so the onus isn't on one person to blog. This articles provides some excellent tips and strategies for a successful group approach to blogging.
Laura's Notebook has turned pink for the month of October to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month and so has Michelle Martin. I've also added the pink ribbon to my Facebook profile.
Finding a cure for breast cancer takes more than virtual pink ribbons
and color schemes for your blog. Early detection is important. Learn
more about it here. Many blogs, like the Razoo blog, went red on Thursday as part of Free Burma: International Bloggers Day.
Edge4Dev blog aims to help
non-IT professionals understand web applications for collaboration
without becoming slaves to technology. There's an interesting post on the roles and behavior of online communities of practice.
Small dots is an advocate for technology in the arts. Love both the title and this post "SnagIt, TagIt, and Sell it to the Butcher in the Store."
Nonprofits and Web2.0
Alexandra Samuels has a terrific post on Best Practices for Nonprofits Using Web.2.0. A key point about how difficult it is for most non-profits to shift from message delivery to conversation and advice about being patience.
From last week's Web2.04Dev Conference is a snap poll "What does Web2.0 mean for you?" -- the poll was done with mp3 files and so you can hear their voices.
Allison Fine asks, "Do most people really fine web2.0 hard to use?" Does that include cell phones?
The Technovist offers some 5 tips for nonprofits to get started with social networking sites.
Facebook
The Non-Profits on Facebook Group is for those who work for, belong to, or support nonprofits on Facebook. Why not join, upload your logo in the photo pool, and write a wall post promoting your latest your Facebook project!
The best question to come through the "Ask Your Friends" application on Facebook thjs week is "Have you used Mechanical Turk?" from Marnie Webb. I don't even know what it is, but she also posted the question with more details on her blog.
Is Facebook becoming the default front end for nonprofits? Deborah Finn isn't crazy about Facebook, although she likes giving virtual gifts and especially using the applications of her clients, like Changing the Present. Social Source blog (whose new blog template sports Facebook colors and font style) takes issue with Deborah's post. Michelle Murrain adds that she won't sign up until the content is more compelling and the social graph is open. Britt Bravo looks back on a poll from last year about recommending social networking software and points to recent spoofs about Facebook and Social Networking.
To answer Deborah's question, I don't think Facebook is yet the default front end for nonprofits, but it has become an increasingly important fundraising channel give the impressive growth statistics (not just users but in the age 35 plus category). And, of course, Facebook is a taste of what is coming in November.
Graphing Social Patterns is a conference devoted to the business and technology of Facebook taking place next week in Silicon Valley. It's for both developers and marketers. There's an unconference called OpenFaced taking place in tandem with the conference.
Dave McClure has a guest post on TechCrunch called "Seven Steps to Graphing Your Facebook Strategy." It's good piece, although for nonprofits, it doesn't include "causes" in the "Make Connections" step 2. For more on that topic, read the excellent interview with Carie Lewis of the HSUS here.
Web Analytics, Statistics, and Social Networking Analysis
The Net2ThinkTank: What is The Return On Investment Of The Social Web For Nonprofits? Tag your post with "net2thinktank." Post by Wednesday, October 10th at 5: PM EST.
Allan Benamer is still obsessed with statistics and has posted the "Top 25 Philanthropy and Non-Profit List" based on monthly visitation numbers from Quantcast and Compete. Aside from visitation numbers, the only other selection criteria is that the nonprofit must be listed in Guidestar. (And, looking at the list, it's only US-based charities) He raises a great question that gets beyond the scoreboard, numbers only focus of his approach: "Don't you think that they might have lessons to teach all of us?"
If your organization is using social media, perhaps you've been wondering how to measure or whether if you can even measure "embeds" (that cut and paste script for videos, badges, widgets, and the like). Rashmi Sinha offers some thoughts on how to do it.
This is a really interesting analysis of Social Networking/Online Community behaviors or personalities based roughly on Myers-Briggs. If we're thinking of Facebook groups (or listservs for that matter) as online communities, what personalities do you see in the communities you are managing?
Compete provides information on every site on the Internet including site traffic history and competitive analytics.
The Nonprofit Eye walks us through how to compute the ROI of ITC for nonprofits. See also the post on TechSoup, "How to Fund and Cost ICT," a publication from the ICTHUB. In the social software blogosphere, there is a lot being written about how ROI is so 1.0 (here, here, and here)
Video on the Web
JournaMarketing is reminding us that YouTube launched its Nonprofit Program and it's promising video cameras to the first 300 nonprofit organizations to sign up. Not sure if they reached their threshold. I wonder how many of those 300 cameras will actually get used? Here's some inspiration if your organization gets a camera from YouTube. And, if not, you can always sign up for the FlipVideo Spotlight Program camera giveaway.
You'll also need some video editing software. So, do check out the Audio/Video Edition of the NGO-in-a-Box which includes a collection of Free and Open Source Software tools. It's recently been updated.
Mobile
MobileActive.org has released a new resource for mobile activists in the Spanish-language according to the AFP blog.
Alexandra Samuel has a great idea for using twitter - provide updates on how you've changed the world! Use the track trends option and set to track "Nptech" for nptech related twitters. Unfortunately, not the best thing for global nonprofits.
And now for a chuckle from LOLnptech about twitter.
Wikis
Laura Whitehead writes about how to use a wiki as a trainer tool.
NTEN blog summarizes the discussion thread about wiki software from the listserv on its blog.
An excellent slide show about the issues in wiki adoption within the organization.
I've added a wiki to my Facebook profile. I'm not quite sure yet how it might be useful. I'm using to collect resources and information I gather from Facebook for an upcoming workshop.
Second Life
Ruby has an update on the demonstrations occurring in Second Life in support of Burma.
If you can't to Naples and you're want to attend the Plone Conference, it is streaming into Second Life this week.
Policing Social Media
These two items were both found in the nptech tag stream:
Due to a new wiki launched by New Zealand police, members of the public can now contribute to the drafting of a new law.
The police officers in Makati acted in and uploaded public service videos to help the viewers understand the modus operandi of the criminals.
Web-Based Software Apps
The nonprofit marketing blog gives us some tips for using Google Checkout.
NTEN blog reviews the Google Presentation tool and is sticking with powerpoint.
PicNet reviews MyQuire, a collaboration tool for nonprofits.
This web page will self-destruct in ten seconds.
Timeline is a web-based collaborative application that lets people collaborate on a timeline for an idea, issue, organization, or field.
The NpTech Tag started as an experimental community tagging project in 2005. A loosely coupled group of nonprofit techies and social change activists decided to use the tag "NpTech" to identify web resources that would create an ongoing stream of information to promote and educate those working in nonprofit technology. Many individuals tag hundreds of resources each week. Through TechSoup's Netsquared project, blogger Beth Kanter, was commissioned to write a weekly summary.
And if you’re enjoying this blog, please consider subscribing for free.
Here's an interesting issue... I purposely did NOT tag my nonprofit Top 25 list with an "nptech" tag. I've often tagged posts I've written with nptech just to see if it would show up in your weekly roundup.
I'm just trying to understand the selection criteria for this summary. Is this summary an attempt at curating the flow of nptech-tagged articles? Is this due to the large number of nptech entries? Does one even have to be tagging an article as nptech in order to be included?
And as a correction, I've blogged my Top 25 list exactly twice in the last few weeks. It's actually going to be a monthly feature. Does that really qualify to be called an "obsession"?
Posted by: Allan Benamer | October 06, 2007 at 02:40 PM
Allan,
Anyone can tag anything nptech, including me. Your blog is called the nonprofit tech blog, it is one of the key nptech sources. I included it because there were a number of other posts on the theme of stats, analytics, roi - seem to be the meme of the week.
I meant that you were obsessed with stats in general - I don't think obsessions are a bad thing - means you have a depth of sme in it.
B
Posted by: Beth Kanter | October 06, 2007 at 03:21 PM
Thank you for helping. FREE Burma!!!
Bush slammed the UN and the rulers of Myanmar in his UN speech last week. The only country that has any influence over Myanmar is China, and they can't and won't push too hard. There is too much Oil & Gas there that they need.
The UN must do something, but they never use military force to fight.
That is a huge problem.
Illegal drug and ruby fortunes are a BIG part of this too.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe wants
complete narco states
criminals in power
loving the corrupt drug war
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
shoot peaceful protesters
calling for democracy
which you must never allow
absurd thought -
God of the Universe thinks
keep trying communism
you can never KILL too much
pursuing Utopia...
http://free-burma.org/
http://absurdthoughtsaboutgod.blogspot.com/
:)
.
Posted by: USpace | October 07, 2007 at 02:51 PM
Beth, thanks so much for including my post!
- Seth
www.technovist.com
Posted by: Seth Rosen | October 15, 2007 at 05:49 PM