Archive for the ‘Networked Nonprofit’ Category

Oct

2011

24

Category:

Networked Nonprofit, Training Design

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2 Comments

Using Social Media Effectively and Powerful Tactics Workshop

Social Media Master Class

View more presentations from Beth Kanter

As part ongoing work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,  I am designing, facilitating, and delivering workshops with Compasspoint.    Last week, I had the great pleasure of presenting a one-day workshop with colleagues Holly Minch, JD Lasica, Janet Fouts, and Susan Tenby.   The session was designed a mix of strategy with a deep dive into content, measurement, Facebook, and Twitter.   The overall goal was to provide participants with a combination of insights and practical tips to help them be effective.    This face-to-face master class and mini-workshops will be followed with a smaller peer learning group that will meet regularly to compare notes as they put the ideas into practice.

Program outcomes:

  • Guidance on developing an effective integrated social media strategy to support your mission
  • Practical frameworks and guidelines for effectively developing an integrated content strategy and measurement practice
  • Best practices for effective use of common social media tools: Facebook and Twitter.

The workshop was hosted by Compasspoint and its  partner Thrive, The Alliance of Nonprofits for San Mateo County and with the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Morning Session

The morning session focused on social media strategy.    The first part of the workshop shared “Campfire” stories.     I kicked it off with some new stories about Networked Nonprofits – and how they apply the principles of being a networked nonprofit (transparency, public learning, experimentation, social culture,measurement, and simplicity) to get results.  Next,  participants did a self-assessment,. using the maturity of practice model (Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly).   I always try to do an extensive participant survey prior to the workshop to uncover the knowledge in the room and used a “living case study” technique.  Participants become part of the workshop curriculum and share their experience – which seems very appropriate for a social media training.

And, of course, it helps to have free stuff to give away to motivate people to share their stories.   I always come to workshops with some books to give away.   Brian Solis was kind enough to send me two copies of his new book,  The End of Business As Usual, to give away.  (My review of this excellent book is coming in the next weeks).

For the second half of the morning, I shared “Eight Habits of Highly Effective Networked Nonprofits” with some exercises that help people see that by taking small steps, they can achieve success.

  • Aligns social media with their communications strategy and objectives
  • Scales social media by empowering everyone in the organization and integrating social into work flow
  • Monitors, listens,  and researches the people in their network
  • Gets feedback and start conversations about their work
  • Masters of relationship marketing
  • Curates content to capture attention  from their network in an age of information overload
  • Works with free agents , champions, and influencers to  spread their mission
  • Learns from experience and data

One of my favorite exercises is to get folks to take a minute to think of a question or conversation starter related to their communications goals or programs.    Most people easily come up with a  question.  Next I ask, do you have a half-hour to brainstorm 30 questions that you can ask your network as part of your Facebook content strategy?   Most, if not all, raise their hands.   Then I tell them they are well on their way to a Facebook content strategy.  (Usually a huge sigh of relief in the room.)

I recently took a workshop on visual facilitation with David Sibbet.   As part of my learning journey to put these ideas into practice, I’m integrating visual techniques into my facilitation repertoire.     Two things I did.   I have a Facebook “Like” rubber stamp that I use to stamp an index card or “like” button.  I ask folks to listen and jot down any ideas that they hear and like.    I also use giant sticky notes and encourage people to write their burning questions and post them on the wall.    This helps me make sure that I’m answering folks questions, plus I photograph them and post on my Facebook page.   I usually get fantastic answers from FB page fans – and the content encourages interaction!

After lunch, colleagues Holly Minch, JD Lasica, Janet Fouts, and Susan Tenby lead mini-workshops.   Here’s their materials with a few notes of new tricks and tips that I discovered.

Integrated Content Strategy for CompassPoint

View more presentations from hollyminch

This session covered the  best practices for planning and implementing an integrated content strategy.   Once you’ve identified your objective, audience, and messaging, you need to repurpose and re-imagine content across channels including email, social sites, mobile, web site, print, and mainstream media. This session shared techniques and tools for making that process efficient.   My favorite tip was that Holly shared her  Editorial Calendar Template spreadsheet.   That’s the biggest problem we have with content strategies – getting organized.

Facebook best practices for nonprofits

View more presentations from Janet Fouts

Janet Fouts shared Facebook best practices for the ultimate nonprofit Facebook page.  She covered how to design, recruit fans, drive offline actions, content strategy, and measurement techniques.  She also shared a number of pointers about  how to use events, and Facebook ads to drive engagement.   With the demise of export.ly,  I was sure happy when she told me about “Facebook Friends to CSV.”  

Twitter compasspoint

View more presentations from Susan Tenby

Next was Susan Tenby from TechSoup who did a mini-workshop on Twitter. I was presenting with JD Lasica during the same time, but during the break she told me about “Socialbro” that help you track and identify influencers and retweets.

 

 

Measurement mini workshop

View more presentations from Beth Kanter

JD Lasica and I co-facilitated a workshop on measurement. I shared KD Paine’s basic steps. To make it fun, my presentation took on a Halloween theme and I brought candy to throw at people who answer questions or share their insights. I started with a spectragram, asking people to line up in the room – telling me whether they loved or hated measurement. It was an interesting insight to learn that the people that don’t like measurement are those that feel they’re not really doing anything with data they collect. Those that are excited by measurement say they are because they learn something!

 

Social media metrics for nonprofits

 

 

View more presentations from JD Lasica

JD Lasica took on a tour of a couple of measurement tools. It was fantastic. He has a write up here. Finally, I took people into the new Facebook Insights for a quick tour.

Participants gathered together at the end of the day to reflect on what they learned and identify small steps to put into practice. I have them write these down on 3×5 cards and use it as a raffle. Always good to identify one step.

The next step from the workshop will be to facilitate a monthly peer group where the participants to put what they leaved into practice, one small incremental step at time.

What’s your best tip or tool for using social media effectively?




Sep

2011

26

Category:

Engagement, Measurement, Movement Building, Networked Nonprofit

Tags:

11 Comments

Facebook Changes for Organization Pages: Focus On Results

Flickr Photo by Lululemon

The discussion about the recent changes on Facebook has focused mostly around what it means for individuals, particularly the tension between openness and  privacy.    Many people are wondering what it means for nonprofit brands  using Facebook as one of their marketing channels.   So are people like me who do coaching and training on how to use Facebook effectively.     It makes no sense to freak out.

When I create training, I always take a  ”principles” approach.   While the specific tactics and techniques for a tool may change, the concepts generally hold constant.    Over the years, as I have watched Facebook roll out features and changes,  it seems takes a predictable pattern:   the big announcement, hype,  backlash, more tweaks to the platform, experiments by users/organizations, and learning what works.

One of the principles is to listen,  learn, and adapt and stay informed.  That is what a lot of us are doing.  We’re trying to understand  what continues work and what doesn’t and evolve practice.     You need to be nimble and not blindly follow a template because it worked in the past.      Measurement and learning are now more important than ever for success.

Focus on Engagement That Leads To Action

The Facebook “Like” button will morph and include  more actions.    According to this post from All Facebook,  these actions might include:  Want, Buy, Own, Listen, Read, Eat, Watch, Work Out – whatever developers create.   Each of these verbs would describe a type of relationship between things that exist in what Facebook has up until today called the Social Graph (our connections) or now what is being called the “Open Graph.”

For nonprofits,  some app developers, like Causes, are already envisioning types of nonprofit supporter actions on Facebook, such as Give and Pledge, which will allow them to prominently feature higher-value actions amidst the sea activity posted to Facebook everyday.

It is important to have a good understanding your target audiences’ decision-journey or ladder of engagement.   Don’t just stop at reach or awareness and don’t just focus on the number of likes which will become meaningless.   Organizations need to think about what motivates supporters to do something that moves the needle on their outcomes.

Gloria Huang from Red Cross said in a comment, “These changes are an opportunity to use our org’s Facebook presence to inspire actual action, rather than just “liking” posts.  This puts even more pressure on us to figure out how to bridge the gap between digital and real life. For example, if someone cares enough to add an app from the Red Cross that publishes an update whenever they give blood, it’s that much more important for us to thank and reward that donor once they actually show up at the blood center.” The Red Cross uses a ladder of engagement to move people beyond the likes on Facebook from awareness all the way to volunteering.

Brands have the opportunity to use apps to tell their story.  According to David Armano, Executive Vice President, Global Innovation & Integration:

“Facebook’s latest moves add up to three things: personalization, mobilization and amplification. For users, Facebook will allow users to further personalize how they want to share their lives to friends and connections. It also means doubling down on a better mobile experience. To brands and businesses, the revisions mean their interactions can be more effectively amplified IF they work really hard at high quality content and/or leverage paid options such as sponsored stories. From a business perspective Facebook is seeking to become the social layer that is woven throughout the Web.

The changes stress the increasing importance a “brand’s voice” in that it will need to be even more meaningful and add value to Facebook users. Companies who broadcast irrelevant information will be easier to tune out vs. those who genuinely connect with customers etc. who in turn reward them with engagement and amplification. In Facebook’s latest iteration, it becomes more about quality over quantity.”

Integrated Marketing and Communications Campaigns

Last month,  I shared a case study called “Facebook Likes Are Not A Victory” that told the story of how Momsrising uses an integrated communications strategy and measures success.    Momsrising goes beyond the “like” and uses deep engagement to inspire results – actions that take place offline as well as online.  And, that is how they measure success. This advice still holds true.   Momsrising does not look at the number of fans as an end point – and neither should your nonprofit.

Another example comes from a presentation that Carie Lewis from HSUS did in June,   “Beyond the Facebook Like.   They do not focus getting as many fans a possible, they’re focused on engaging with their network and inspiring them to take some form of action.

Relationship Building Is Even More Important

The news ticker, that streams all updates by all your friends will be important for brands, but not in the way you think.  It won’t be able getting your brand’s Facebook page wall updates into the ticker, but the actions your fans take on your page that end up on the ticker. (The ticker is a box on the side of the interface that provides a scrolling list of everything that is happening inside your social network. Coupled with this is some smart technology that figures out which stories are “top” and puts those (and only those) inside the main news feed.)   ClickZ has called this feature a way that Facebook will be friendlier for brands, and it’s easy to see why.    According to a post from ClickZ:

A lot of the content from brands that consumers like will end up in here as well. Most likely, a consumer does not want to see daily information from a brand on Facebook. What would end up happening, then, is that content would be hidden from view, unless you clicked over to the “most recent” tab on the screen. Which is to say that a lot of the posts that brands were putting up were never getting seen.

Also, given that the new openness of Facebook and serendipity of being able to see everything our friends are doing (and their friends), using multiple channels for engagement of our networks is even more critical.   But not to just share your message, but to truly engagement people by sharing stories – your networks stories, shining a light on those who are making a difference, saying thank you in person and creative ways — all the good principles nonprofits have been using to build relationships with stakeholders.

The new skills are learning how to be a good community manager – and focus on relationships with people, not tactics on specific platforms.

As this all evolves, I suspect that the number of fans will be truly meaningless.   It will be harder to cut through the clutter if you are simply contributing to the clutter.    A Facebook strategy isn’t just about  recruiting fans, but  deeply engaging people, building relationships, and leading them to action – but doing this through different channels.

Another change, is that people will be able to interact with your Facebook wall content without having to like your page.     This means that engaging content will win.

I posted this link on my Facebook Page and it prompted some great discussion about how some nonprofits are going to start rethinking what they’re doing.      Instead, keep calm and take a listen, learn, and adapt approach.

Some things to consider:

  • Ask your team, what are the results that you want to achieve?  How can Facebook support your organizational communications, marketing or program objectives?
  • Facebooking for, and engaging with, a nonprofit organization is now about meaning and resolving issues. How can your nonprofit improve the quality of posts, tone and managing the creativity of the your organization’s image and its engagement style?
  • Read what analysts and pundits are saying about the changes and how brands are responding.   I like to follow what Mari Smith has to say – for example – here is her post about the privacy implications.
  • Watch what other nonprofits are doing and emulate – but be sure to test new ideas in a way that you can learn and improve.

What is your organization doing to learn and adapt its strategy to the new changes?

 

Aug

2011

09

Category:

Measurement, Networked Nonprofit

Tags:

9 Comments

Likes on Facebook Are Not A Victory: Results Are!

Source: Social Media Propaganda Posters by Aaron Wood

As part of my work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation,  I’m facilitating several peer exchanges on the topics of measurement, social media, and networked nonprofits.   This is feeding into my  work on a book with KD Paine on that topic.

Last month I had the pleasure of facilitating another peer exchange for Packard grantees who are children’s advocates and was thrilled to have Momsrising co-founder Kristin Row-Finkbeiner share some of the secrets of how networked nonprofits approach social media measurement and practice.

MomsRising is one of the best living examples of a nonprofit born as Networked Nonprofit, a  simple, agile, and transparent organization that work more like a network than a single isolated institution.   Like all Networked Nonprofits,  Momsrising values simplicity and the ability to leverage its network while engaging and building relationships with people and organizations to get results.

It comes as no surprise that Momsrising embraces measurement and learning.  It is embedded in the way they work and their organizational culture. It has fueled their growth from zero members in May of 2006, to over a million active members—moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, and uncles—today! And, they do not count “likes” on Facebook as victory.   Instead, they identify key organizational results areas and associated metrics to define successes and failures.

Their key results generally include:

• increasing the movement size by increasing membership
• garnering attention from all media through creative engagements
• getting policies passed
• working with aligned partner organizations
• increasing capacity

They know that to get results they cannot solely rely on social media tools.  They use results as a guide for designing and implementing rapid responses as part of their multi-channel citizen engagement campaigns.   Take for example how they responded last month to the ongoing budget negotiations, when  tens of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare were put on the table.

Momsrising wanted to demonstrate to Congress that there was a grassroots constituency that supported Medicaid and dispel a misperception that while Medicare has a strong constituency, Medicaid did not.

Momsrising knows from years of message testing and research, that to change minds about an issue, wonky stats fall flat.   But stories resonate.   They identified a rapid response goal of getting the stories dozens of moms who benefited from Medicaid and who could put out a strong defense for the program in the media.

Using a story collection landing page on their site, they urged their members to share their stories.   They collected over 500 stories from 43 states about how Medicaid was helping families.   They curated the best ones that illustrated their message and re-purposed these stories in to all their action alerts across channels.  This generated over 100,000 letters to Congress about the debt ceiling and the importance of Medcaid.

 

Masters of the multi-channel approach, Momsrising’s other tactics included hand delivering “story books”, hard copy compilations of the stories to Congress and the White House.   They also place these stories as letters to the editors in traditional newspapers.   Notes Kristen, “Social Media channels like Twitter and Facebook are important to us because we share those stories directly with targeted members of Congress. We post specific stories on targeted legislator’s Facebook Walls or we @reply them on Twitter. We’ve found that there are less filters between us and Congress when we use social media channels. While they can easily ignore our emails and phone calls, sharing the story directly with them through social media channels – they have to respond.”   Recent studies have shown that 64% of  Congressional offices use social media to gauge public opinion.)

Another key result area is to bring about policy change to create a more family-friendly nation.  Last month, Momsrising was invited to bring moms to the White House to talk with policy staff about their experience with Medicaid.   The White House  blogged about power of people’s stories.

As a follow up, these members to wrote a blog post about their experience.    Says Kristen, “The after-story is just as important because it will often get picked up my a traditional media outlet like NPR or “tradigital” media outlet (blogs) such as the Huffington Post.

As a Networked Nonprofit, they understand  simplicity and have not built a complex nonprofit with its own policy department.   Momsrising  focuses on what they do best – outreach and organizing moms – but not in isolation.   Momsrising  works with dozens of advocacy groups to extend their network without pulling themselves off task. Kristin said, “Our expertise is in working with our moments and powering the movement.  We don’t go out on anything solo, we rely on partners for policy analysis and many other things.”

The process of setting key results and collecting key metrics to measure progress is only half the battle.   It is the process using the data to make decisions and getting member feedback.

Momsrising holds a weekly staff meeting nicknamed “Metrics Monday.”   Each program and campaign staff person reviews their reports in preparation for a group conversation about what actions to reinforce, how refine messages, and other improvements.    Says Kristin, “Our dashboards have multiple views – a high level view and the ability to drill down into specific campaigns – this informs our discussion.”

An important part of the mix is the use of member feedback – both qualitative and surveys. “We are in dialogue with our members to figure out what works, what doesn’t.   The metrics keep us focused on our mission of building a movement for family economic security, while listening and engaging with our members breathes life into our movement.”  As a Networked Nonprofit, they understand the importance of learning loops when working a rapid response environment.

Momsrising also understands that learning leads to success.

  • Fail: Some experiments bomb.    Momrising staff gives themselves permission to kill each other’s projects  or tactical ideas that were brilliant at the time but simply don’t work.  They do this with humor to remove the failure stigma and call it a “Joyful Funeral”  Before they bury the body, they reflect on why it didn’t work. Any staff person can call a Joyful Funeral on anyone else’s idea.
  • Incremental Success Is Not A Failure: They do a lot of experiments and set realistic expectations for success.   Many times victories happen in baby steps.   They know from experience that many of their campaigns that incorporate social media lead to incremental successes, small wins or small improvements.
  • Soaring Success:     Some experiments, actions, or issues will see dramatic results – beyond the organization’s wildest dreams.   For example, an interactive educational video ended up garnering over 12 million views and hundreds of comments and lead to thousands of new members signing up or taking action. Kristen says, “That type of success does not happen every day, but we need to try for that kind of success every day. We can only do it if we kill things that don’t work.”  They also analyze game changing successes to make sure it can be replicated or wasn’t an accident.

What are your organization’s key results?  What are the best metrics to measure those?  How do you use this data to guide design and implementation of your communications strategies?

Apr

2011

28

Category:

Networked Nonprofit, Organizational Culture, Training Design

Tags:

11 Comments

How Mature Is Your Nonprofit’s Social Media Practice?

Click Through to Flickr for Attributions

In our book, Networked Nonprofit, we describe the principles for becoming a networked nonprofit – a nonprofit that is simple, agile, transparent, and works more like a network than an isolated fortress.   Networked nonprofits are experts at using new media (social media, mobile, and other emerging technologies) to spread their missions, design and scale programs, communicate with stakeholders, or inspire behavior change.   Their impact is to make the world a better place.

Yesterday, during a webinar for GuideStar, the question was how does our organization put these high level concepts into practice?    How does your organization avoid falling into the trap that  a networked nonprofit is just about using  tools and platforms?    Your organization needs to think holistically.    If you don’t have a developmental model, you won’t  know where to start or how to prioritize your time.  Or as Inga Broerman, Guide Star VP of Marketing said,  “You won’t know what to say no to.”

I’ve been experimenting with a practice model that I’ve been using over the years and was able to crystallize some of my thinking into  “Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly” that I’ve been testing for designing training workshops and peer learning projects.   It is a self-assessment that a nonprofit could use to determine the level of their current social media practice and think about getting to the next step or a tool that a coach or trainer could use.       The title was inspired by a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr:

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”


The Networked Nonprofit Practice Model

Putting the Networked Nonprofit ideas into practice and using social media and other emerging technologies will only be success if nonprofits take small, incremental and strategic steps. In this model, there are four different levels of social media practice:  Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly.   One level is not better than another; it is just where the organization is at with respect to becoming a networked nonprofit and agile at using social media and other emerging technologies.

It is important to note that it takes months, if not years, to reach the highest level of networked nonprofit practice. Not every nonprofit will go through the levels at the same pace due to organizational culture, capacity, or communication objectives, program design and target audiences.

Crawl

The nonprofit is not using social media or emerging technology or is not using it consistently.  The organization lacks  a robust communications strategy or program plan that can be scaled using a networked approach.  “Crawlers” are not just smaller nonprofits, but may include larger institutions that have all the basics in place, but lack a social culture or is highly resistant to change from a command and control style to a more networked mindset.

These nonprofits need to see inspiring stories of similar size and type of nonprofits and from adjacent practices.  For some, the first action step is to develop a basic communications strategy or program plan.  Once in place, the first social media step should be listening and enhancing the web presence.

Some crawlers may already  have a robust program plan or communications strategy in place, but are facing adoption challenges to working in a networked way.     The first step is a discussion encouraged by leadership about the issues, followed by codifying the rules in a social media policy.    The nonprofit must set up a robust listening process, integrating listening on social channels as part of program or communications planning research.

Walk

The nonprofit is using one or more social media tools consistently, but it is not strategic because it isn’t linked to a communications strategy, campaign, or program plan.    Also,  best practices on tools and techniques are part of the organizational skill set.   These organizations may need assistance developing a social media strategy to support short and long-term SMART objectives and to carefully identify the audience.

Walkers have internalized listening and are able to use the data they collect to improve  engagement and content best practices.   The nonprofit also needs to focus on one or two social media tools, going deep on tactics, and seeing tangible results.   Avoid spreading the organization’s resources too thin.

In addition, leadership may not fully understand social media and networked ways of working.   Often, a “Return on Investment” argument surfaces.  The organization must implement a small, low-risk pilots that can collect stories and numbers to help leadership better understand the value and benefit and costs.

The organization identifies low cost ways to build capacity internally – from using interns or volunteers effectively and integrating social media tasks into an existing job description.    Staff members evaluate current job tasks and identify what they don’t need to do in order to make time for social media and other emerging technologies, all with support from leadership.  They also must look to people outside their organization who they have connected with on social networks and enlist their help.
The nonprofit’s social media policy formalizes the value and vision for social media use and networked approach and encourages “outsiders” or free agents to  help with implementation.   The organization integrates simple measurement techniques and learning as an organizational habit that helps improve practice and documents results from the beginning of every networked approach.

Run

The nonprofit uses one or more social media tools and is strategic, but the problem  is scaling.  Building internal capacity may mature to a point of needing a half or full time staff person who serves as a community manager, building relationships with people on social media or new technology platforms. he networked approaches or social media is not in a silo or guarded by one person or department. This person also works internally as a network weaver or trainer to help other departments or individuals on staff incorporate the use of social media to support the organization’s programs. T This board is also using social media as part of its governance role.

The nonprofit effectively integrates social and emerging technologies such as mobile across all communications channels.  The organization has strong capacity in content creation as well as repurposing or remixing across channels.   The organization has also developed deep relationships so its crowd is inspired to create and spread content.
For program strategy, the organization uses techniques like crowdsourcing to get feedback on program design – whether it is help design a pilot, feedback on an evaluation, or rethinking of a program. The organization has adequately engaged and built relationships with key  influencers whether organizations or individuals.  The organization has codified and shared its program work flow and has made all program tools and materials available so its network can assist with implementation.

Organizations in this category also need to focus on using more sophisticated measurement techniques , tools, and processes.   This may include benchmarking, shared organizational dashboards, and linking results to job performances for larger institutions.

Fly

The nonprofit has mastered everything at the running stage and internalized it.    The organization has created a culture of public learning for both individuals and the entire organization.  The organization uses data to make decisions, but leaders understand how to lead from the heart as well as the head.   The organization has documented and shared dramatic results with its stakeholders and peer organizations.   The organization is part of a vibrant network of people and organizations all focused on a social change outcome that makes the world a better place.

Also, as with all frameworks, the reality is messy.  It might hard to for an organization to fit the profile in anyone category.     It is simply a method to for a trainer to assess or  nonprofit to self-assess their level of practice and figure out how to the next stage.

Where is your organization in this framework?  What does that look like?  What do you need to know, do, or have for success?

Feb

2011

25

Category:

E-Mediat, Networked Nonprofit, Networks

Tags:

8 Comments

What can you learn by visualizing your Twitter network?

When we apply a network mindset to the way we work – whether as an individual or as part of a network strategy,  we believe that value is created through our connections, interactions and building relationships.  That’s social capital and it does have value.   The impact,  longer term, is innovation or the result of the network in action.

Let’s focus on the very first steps.   Once you or your organization views the world with a networked mindset, then you need to visualize the network.   There are many approaches and visual analysis tools.  Let’s look at the ones  that allow you to see the current relationships and potential ways to weave them on social media and social networks like Twitter.    There are many tools to visualize your Twitter network.   While they are fun (and addicting),  they are most useful if you set aside some time to not only generate the visual, but think about what does it mean for your current practice.

The discipline of noticing your own practice in adopting a network mindset is important.   This has been the most important lesson for me in shifting the way I work to a more networked approach.  It doesn’t happen overnight and it takes daily practice.      One efficient technique is to spend five minutes of your day at the end reflecting.  What if you used that five minutes of reflection, to visualize and understand your network?

The 5K Visual Browser is one tool that help you see connections between the people you interact with on Twitter.   Based on what I could figure out by staring at the visual that the app generated about my network (see above), this Twitter app lets you search a Twitter user name and it will show you who they are having conversations with and who is connected.   You can click on any given user and it will show their connections.

The visual at the top shows the people who I’ve been connecting with on Twitter in the last week or so.    A number of those on the visual are connecting with the E-Mediat Project,a networked capacity building project in the Middle East and more recently colleagues from TechSoup Global Summit who are partners on the E-Mediat project.

E-Mediat Twitter Network

I’m leaving on Friday to travel to Beirut as part of the eight-day Train the Trainers component of the E-Mediat project.   The first day of training is this Sunday and we’ll be covering networked approaches for NGOs and social media trainers.    The participants include in-country teams from six different countries: Jordan,  Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.   On each team, we have master trainers, training center coordinators, and social media advisors.    As part of that first day, we’ll be creating individual and collective  network maps.

In addition to my own map above,  I generated maps of the social media advisors on Twitter to look at their networks and connections.    It is interested that we do not yet have many overlapping connections.

For example, Rami Al-Karmi, Founder and CEO of Shabakat, Al Ordon (JordanNet)  and is serving as the E-Mediat Strategic Adviser for the Jordan In-Country Team.   Among his many accomplishments, he runs the very popular “Tech Tuesdays” in Jordan where Arab social media geeks meet up regularly.   His organization’s name, Shabakat, translates into the word “network,” and is a terrific example of a  Networked Nonprofit in the Arab world.

Rami Al-Karmi, Founder and CEO of Shabakat on Skype during meeting January

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