My colleagues Noland Hoshino, Zan McColloch-Lussier, and Ash Shepherd have put together a nifty social media guide. This passport size booklet is called the “Social Media Road Map” and is a practically guide and checklist to help nonprofits plan, post, and measure their social media. Using the metaphor of a road tip, this book takes you through the basics plotting a strategy and executing it. I love “road rage” for how to deal with negative comments.
My friends have generously offered to give away 20 the first 20 people who leave a comment. Please be sure include your email address!
Yesterday, I had the honor of participating in the 4th annual Women Who Tech TeleSummit that brings together women breaking new ground in technology who use their tech savvy skills to transform the world and inspire change. Created by Alyson Kapin four years ago, WomenWhoTech is a network for thriving community of women in technology professions by giving women an open platform to share their talents, experiences, and insights.
I organized and moderated a panel called “Women Who Tech Globally.” Using a webinar and conference call platform, we were able to bring in participants from San Francisco, Rwanda, Kenya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt. Unfortunately, our presenter from Lebanon had connectivity issues and was unable to present. This is a common experience when you attempt to facilitate global presentations, discussions or peer groups. It is also can be expensive for participants from outside the US, but WomenWhoTech and their sponsors offset the long distance charges and one participant got access to use a faster Internet connection.
I work as a trainer and capacity builder for nonprofits and technology and more lately social media and networked approaches. Through my work with Packard Foundation and with IIE and the State Department, I have have the opportunity to work with NGOs from places like Pakistan, Rwanda, India, and the Middle East. Along the way, I’ve met some amazing women activists and women who run Women’s Rights, Women Leadership Programs and Technology Start Ups. When Alyson Kapin asked me if I was interested in doing a session for WomenWhoTech, I very much wanted to do a session that could showcase and hear from women in places outside of North America. I am grateful to Alyson, NTEN and other Summit sponsors for the opportunity to experiment with having a Global virtual discussion.
When you work in the US or the land of high Bandwidth where FAST internet is accessible and cheap, you don’t realize how good you have it until you experience what it is like in countries where the Internet infrastructure is fragile, non-existent, or slow. Even worse,you don’t realize how lucky one is on the US to have freedom of expression until you encounter Internet censorship and other barriers.
And, despite Internet connectivity issues and other big challenges, there is a vibrant network of professional tech women as well as many amazing women’s rights ngos that are creatively using the technology to improve women’s lives in many countries. The session brought in women from the Middle East and Africa to hear their stories and discuss these questions:
What is the role of women in Africa and Middle East emerging digital landscape and what types of contributions are they making?
What challenges do women who tech in Africa and Middle East face? Are these similar or different than in the US?
How is technology improving the everyday lives of women and girls in these countries?
Heather Ramsey who is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Center for Women’s Leadership Initiatives at IIE and several participants two programs, E-Mediat, and TechWomen. Heather gave an overview of the different types of programs that she managed – that help women who don’t have computer skills to gain them to run home-based businesses to supporting highly skilled technical women and social media training to support civil society goals.
Loubna Lahmici from Alergia who is the CEO and Founder of a tech start up in her country that is similar to GroupOn. Loubna said that being a women can be advantage in starting a company because women work hard, know how to nurture their networks and are trusted. She talked about how empowering it was to start own company with her sister on a small amount of funding provided by her family. She also reflected on how she had to quickly learn business skills in addition to her tech skills. ”She had to learn how to wear many hats.”
We also heard from two amazing women activists and leaders, Ghada Bahig, Engineering Manager, Mentor Graphics; TechWomen Mentee, Egypt and Chema Gargouri, Manager, Centre for Applied Training (CAT); Director, E-Mediat, WES Tunisia. Both spoke about how women emerged as new leaders in their respective countries during the revolution. As Chema noted, “Women’s participation on social media was not shy.”
Next we had a brief overview from Mary Patton Davis who works on communications for the Akilah Institute and who I had the pleasure of meeting when I was in Rwanda. Mary shared an overview of their program and their first class will graduate this June with 100% job placement. The program includes an IT program where women receive weekly instruction in using Microsoft Office and navigating the Internet. This is an important employment skill for them.
It was very inspiring here from Giselle Bhati who will graduate this year and work for the Marriott Hotels. Part of Akilah’s program is that students start social businesses to give back to their communities. Giselle’s dream is in her own words:
I have been given an opportunity to attend a human rights workshop in New York City, this summerJune 22-July 14. This is an exciting opportunity because last January, I participated in a human rights workshop here in Rwanda with Global Youth Connect (www.globalyouthconnect.org) where I visited police station, refugee camps and volunteered with a youth association for promotion of human rights (AJEPRODHO). All these taught me how to become a human right activist.
Giselle has been using Razoo to help raise funds for her to make the trip and she still has a way to go before reaching her goal. (I made a small donation and hope you might consider a small gift too)
Next we heard from Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg is Founder and Executive Director of Akili Dada and based in Kenya. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Politics department at the University of San Francisco, where her research and teaching interests center on the politics of philanthropy, gender, Africa, ethnicity, and democratization, and on the role of technology in social activism.
Originally from Kenya, she earned a B.A. in Politics from Whitman College and Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science from the University of Minnesota. In her dual roles, Wanjiru divides her time between the U.S. and Kenya, where Akili Dada is based. Working at the intersection of academia and social entrepreneurship, Wanjiru is passionate about the synergy between rigorous academic analysis and committed social activism. Wanjiru has received widespread recognition for her work with Akili Dada, including being honored as a 2012 White House ‘Champion of Change’, a winner of the 2010 United Nations Marketplace of Ideas competition, and recipient of the 2011 Yamashita Prize, the 2011 African Achievers International Award, and the 2012 HOW Fund Fellowship.
She shared Akili Dada’s model and impact for developing high-potential young women from underprivileged families who are passionate about social change. They offer comprehensive high school scholarships, personalized mentoring, and leadership training. Her vision to create an opportunity for these young people share their authentic voice about their work. They view technology as tool, and use when it has substance to get impact.
All in all, an inspiring start to the WomenWhoTech Summit 2012
NetSmart is Howard Rheingold’s latest book. It synthesizes his 30 years of experience if being a model digital citizen and what he has learned from asking other this simple question: How to use social media intelligently and mindfully? Lately, I have been working in far flung places which means long, very long airplane rides without Internet access! This book has been my companion lately – not only because it is so rich (check out the table of contents) but it has given me a lot to think about and reflect on in terms of my own social media use – and how to be a lot of smarter about it.
What I like most about this book is that isn’t rant against social media and how it is destroying our lives. Instead, Rheingold is telling us that networks and social media aren’t a fad that will go away, and that we need to put into practice intelligent ways of using it in our lives and work. He emphasizes that living mindfully in cyberspace is as important to us as civilization itself. Mindfully is defined as not just going in to auto pilot to update your FB status, but to consciously think about all aspects of our digital actions. He also suggests that making use of social media and other online tools without getting hit with information overload is the essential secret to success in the 21st century.
The book covers five digital literacies – each starting with an illustration by Anthony Weeks that graphically communicates the key points. They include: attention, crap detection, collaboration, networks, and participation.
The attention chapter is about why and how to control your attention when you’re online. Some points that particularly resonated and that I have been working on myself are:
Mindfulness is about becoming aware of how you direct your attention – both online and offline
Breath links mind, brain, and body – and paying attention to your breath help cultivate mindfulness
To say that social media facilitates distraction is not to say that social media has to control your awareness – you can take control back and through repeated conscious efforts
Social media attention training requires understanding your goals and priorities and involves asking yourself at regular intervals whether your current activity at any moment moves you closer to your goal or serves your higher priority.
Like meditation, mindful use of social media begins with noticing when your attention has wandered, and then gently bringing it back to focus on your highest priority – like training a puppy.
Sometimes your goal might be to learn or deepen relationships – in which case – having fun or making small talk or exploring from link to link is permissible – and important. Don’t make attention training so rigid that it destroys flow.
To establish new attention habits, start small, find a place in your routine for a new behavior, and repeat until paying attention has become a habit.
The networks chapter includes some important points about the value networks and a networked mindset. A few points that resonated:
A portfolio of both strong and weak ties is useful to individuals a network society. Social media can help maintain larger networks of weak ties, but only a limited number of strong-tie relationships can be maintained irrespective of media.
One’s position in social networks matters. Centrality – how many people and networks go through you to connect with each other – can be more important than the number of connections.
Diverse networks are collectively smarter and provide a richer variety of resources to participating nodes.
People who can bridge networks – fill structural holes – stand to benefit.
Small talk nourishes trust. Trust lubricates transaction.
Pay it forward. Doing favors for others online is the strongest predictor of whether you receive favors from others.
One of my favorite parts of the book is the section on content curation called “Curation is Short for “We’re All Each Other’s Filter.” This is how I first learned about Rheingold’s new book - when he was doing the research on content curation and did the above interview with Robert Scoble. Later I discovered Rheingold’s interview with master curator, Robin Good. In his book, Rheingold’s summarizes the best advice from these two curation giants and adds his own experience in curation, something he as been doing since 1987.
Rheingold reminds us of the value of becoming a content curator.
“Judgement, taste, depth, and breadth of knowledge can be an asset, a public good, and a commodity. People can gain attention, admiration, collaboration partners, professional reputations, and business relatinships by becoming known curators.”
Curation is a form of digital participation that can refine your captured information into contextualized knowledge, enhance your reputation, and serve the information needs of others.
All in all, this is a must read book - not only for those of who work in social media, but everyone who wanted to working smarter with networks and the Internet.
Last month I did a Networked NGO training in Dubai for Pakistan NGOs where I experienced Internet censorship first hand. The government blocks certain sites, including access to any group organizing features on social sites (shared photo pools for example), skype out, and tools like VPNs that can help you get around government censors. Eventually, I was able to install a VPN and get to the sites I wanted to use.
This week will be our first peer call to follow up from the training which included strategy development and learning best practices for tools like Twitter. Unfortunately, yesterday, the Pakistan government decided to block Twitter – after we had just gotten everyone comfortable tweeting!
According to Pakistan’s Express Tribune, the request to block the site was made by the Ministry of Information and Technology, because of a drawing competition (details here). The ministry asked Twitter to remove the content, but Twitter responded that it “cannot stop any individual doing anything of this nature on the website.” Directives to block the site were sent to ISPs in several parts of the country, including PTCL Broadband and Wi-Tribe. It also reports that Twitter is still accessible by mobile using secure browsers like Opera, as well as proxies and VPNs. More from GlobalVoices.
The coverage in TechCrunch came about when activists in Pakistan wrote to major social media sites about the block. Waqas Ali, who is Lahore, sent TechCrunch a screenshot of the blocked Twitter. According to TechCrunch, Ali has also played a role in a past campaign in the country to keep Facebook from getting banned.
The block did not last long. According to Pakistan’s Express Tribune, the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani made the decision to restore access to Twitter. More from TechCrunch and the Washington Post.
I am a Pinterest convert. After some initial doubt, this little-social-network-that-could has become one of my favorite new tools, and I now firmly believe that for our non-profit (and for any organization with decent images to share), it is an exceptional platform not only for storytelling, but also for improving your online presence and tapping into a new potential supporter base.
As the Web & Social Media Manager for Camfed USA (The Campaign for Female Education) I am charged with expanding our online presence in new and innovative ways. We began researching Pinterest in its early stages, when it looked like little more than an online wedding planner. The majority of the boards we saw were very much about lifestyle: pictures of pretty stuff, hot style, and cool design. If Pinterest were a person, it would be a young, upwardly mobile female – an ideal potential Camfed supporter, or so I thought. I decided it would be worth the effort to create a compelling Camfed collection of images on Pinterest, and I wanted to do it strategically, leveraging the viral nature of the platform.
As Pinterest is a sharing platform, using the most attractive images in our arsenal was essential to my strategy. Camfed has over 13,000 images on Flickr. While they are not the slick, product-placement-type images prevalent on Pinterest’s lifestyle boards, they are unique and compelling shots from the field, images that allow viewers to meet the real people Camfed supports and partners with, and see where they live, work and learn. Additionally, we took care to organize our images in a way that would communicate Camfed’s mission and hopefully pique the interest of the typical Pinterest user. For example, in the villages of rural Africa where Camfed works, local community members play an essential role in helping girls succeed in school. In many communities, Camfed students are supported by Mother Support Groups comprised of women who raise funds to support and empower their villages’ neediest girls. By titling one of our boards Moms & Daughters, we were able to tell Camfed’s story of community involvement, honor our local heroes, and display some of our most moving photographs, telling a compelling visual story to an audience much wider than the international development community.
Instead of expecting our Pinterest page to serve as a major traffic referrer back to our website (and stats showed in the first month it was not), we are optimizing our captions and image filenames using choice Google Ad keywords with the intent to boost our search engine ranking. The more content we have on the internet with consistent messaging and relevant links (in other words, content that is optimized for search engines), the higher the chances are that we’ll come up in a web search on a relevant topic. The generous 500 character caption limit in Pinterest allows us to describe images using long-tail search phrases from our Google AdWords campaigns, which also helps to unify our messaging and be consistent with the content we have on other platforms.
While a boost in our search engine ranking would be terrific, I was also interested in seeing whether or not Pinterest could become a conversion platform for Camfed, turning followers into supporters. To experiment, this Mother’s Day we promoted eCards as a way for individuals to make a donation to Camfed in honor of their mothers. We pinned images of the eCards on our Mother’s Day eCards board, and if Pinners clicked on the image, they would be taken to a donation form on our site that allowed them to purchase an eCard for their mom. Given the platform’s mostly female audience, and given Pinterest’s viral nature (pin that Mother’s Day eCard to your own board and watch your followers pin it to theirs, and so on and so on and so on!) we hoped to see at least some activity – and we did. But the activity was primarily from people following and sharing our eCards, proving that the platform, at least at this stage, is a better tool for raising awareness than funds.
Do you think that Pinterest could become an important platform for non-profit fundraising? What successes or failures have you had in trying to convert followers to donors on social media platforms? Is there a culture of not wanting to be solicited on Pinterest, like there seems to be on Twitter? Please share your thoughts!
Kate Kilbourne is the Web & Social Media Manager at Camfed USA. Camfed fights poverty and AIDS in rural Africa by educating girls and providing them with economic and leadership opportunities when they leave school.
Recent Comments