Social Media Master Class

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.

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.

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.”  

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.

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!

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?

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?

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?

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?

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

Last week, I facilitated an interactive keynote in Seattle at 2011 Tech for Good Leadership Summit sponsored by Microsoft Community Affairs, in partnership with NPower Seattle.    By all accounts, the event held the space for peer learning.

It was great to see long-time colleague from NPower Seattle Peg Giffels who I met ten years ago when she first joined the staff.   I was presenting a strategic technology workshop at one of their conferences.   I got to meet the dynamic NPower Seattle executive director Alison Carl White who talked passionately about her organization’s mission and programs.  I also got to catch up with more recent NPtech colleagues San McColloch, Erica Mills, and Peter Drury.

NPtech Colleagues: @zanarama Zan McColloch Lussier @ericamills Erica Mills @seattledrury Peter Drury photo by Akhtar

Akhtar Badshah, Senior Director of Global Community Affairs for Microsoft kicked off the day with  an interactive presentation about the trends in technology.   He didn’t do the “sage of the stage” thing,  he gave ample opportunities for the audience digest the ideas he shared as well as engage them in conversation.     Alison Carl White from NPower Seattle has a good summary on her blog.

There are people who just want an expert on the stage to share their wisdom.  They don’t want to engage, reflect, or hear what others in the room are doing.    I just don’t like that style because prevents deeper sharing of insights.    On the other hand,  people do want those tips and best practices.    So, letting the knowledge out in the room is a balancing act of peer interaction with expert insights.   So, how can you do that in a keynote with several hundred people in the room?  It’s a design challenge.

1.   Don’t Just Research Your Audience, Make Them Part of the Presentation

I used a brief pre-survey where I was able to collect information about success stories, challenges, and current social media usage.   I incorporated examples from people in the room and then asked them talk about it.    As the facilitator, you have design questions so they illicit stories.

The survey asked participants to share a story that illustrates how social media has brought value to their organization.  I’ve asked this question before, but this is the first time I had so many stories that it was hard to narrow it down to a few.   I used a “living case study” approach – doing an interview with them to share how they achieved their success.  This generated some fantastic insights:

Foundation for Early  Learning shared a story about how they used social media channels to spread awareness about a funding program and how it resulted in getting the information to a wider audience – a 33% increase in traffic and downloads of the information.    When asked to share how they achieved their success,  they told the audience about the importance of doing homework in the form of listening and setting realistic expectations for results.

Northwest Harvest Food Bank used its social media channels to mobilize supporters to give food donations that ended up breaking a Guinness Book of World Records.   While you could visit their blog, Facebook page, and Twitter stream to see how they engaged and mobilized their supporters, the hidden gem came out when asked, “What was the secret to your success?”   They had a partnership with a number of other hunger organizations and advocates who worked as volunteers to share the word of the drive through their networks, leveraging a networked effect.

Museum of History and Industry ( MOHAI) uses social media to engage with Seattle residents whom they would not be able to connect with otherwise and have a say in how history is being interpreted.    The video is part of a series of  “MOHAI Minute” videos on Youtube.   The woman in the mouth of the Alligator was in the room.  She told the story of how she created the videos herself initially, but when they started to catch on, she documented the results.  She was able to go to her boss and get some more resources in the budget for social media.

Seattle Symphony created flashmob and promoted it with Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter effectively.  It directly increased ticket sales.   In this living case study, the staff person from the Seattle Symphony shared how they did conversion tracking.    I asked her where they got the idea for doing a flash mob.   She mentioned how useful Twitter is for connecting and following peers to get ideas to evolve pilots for social media initiatives.    What is remarkable – as busy as they are getting the Symphony on the stage, this staff makes time for on the job informal learning through social media.

Photo by Microsoft Global Citizenship

2.   Use Metaphor or Inspirational Quote that Sums Up Your Key Point and Use It Throughout

Over the past year as more and more nonprofits are embracing social media, we are starting to see different levels of practice or “maturity of practice.”    On Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday this year,  I came across a quote that offered a good metaphor for such a framework:

“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.”

I created an assessment framework that a nonprofit could use to determine the level of their current social media practice and think about getting to the next step.      I explained the model and had people discuss it with their peers and then we had a full group discussion about where people were and what was needed to get to the next step.   The full group discussion allowed people at different levels to share their experiences.

Twitter Advocates

3.  Use Twitter to Bring More People Into The Conversation

The conference hashtag #watech4good was used to encourage people both in the room and not in the room to Tweet – and ask questions.   I appointed two Twitter advocates who live Tweeted the discussion and also verbalized questions and comments from Twitter, providing a link between online and offline.

4.    Give Them A Couple of Practical Tips or Insights To Solve Their Problems

The survey asked participants to share their great social media challenges.   These boiled to do:   Lack of strategy, capacity issues,  adoption issues, and lack of measurement techniques and approaches.    I used their problems to share a few points about how to begin to address those challenges, holding the space for other participants to add their knowledge.

What people in the room were most hungry for were tips and steps on listening and measurement.   After my keynote, I was to tweet a few good links to help people get started, something they could read back at the office.

Actionable Social Media Listening for Nonprofits
Social Network Analysis Tools for Social Media
Get Your Social Media Strategy in Shape: Spreadsheet Aerobics
How Feeding America Uses KPIs to Measure Social Media
A Roundup of Social Media Measurement Resources for Nonprofits

To do keynotes that illicit peer learning on a large scale takes careful design.  Most of us – when faced with a presentation – only think about content, we don’t think about ways to spark interaction.   It’s a challenge to shift from focusing on your “getting your content out” to “how to spark insights from the audience,” but well worth doing.

See my guest blog post at the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog

This year my birthday (Jan. 11) was very special indeed and not only because the date had all ones: 1-11-11. But, I’ll get to birthday fun in a minute.

I spent my part of my birthday giving a presentation at the Packard Foundation Program Forum on translating the Networked Nonprofit into the Networked NGO.  The presentation was an opportunity to share some insights about working internationally and from sharing the ideas from the book  from trip to Kenya/UK last November.  Did they translate or were they lost in translation?  It also gave me an opportunity to share some stories about my experience as Visiting Scholar over the past 6 months coaching grantees in becoming Networked Nonprofits.

I’m keen to learn and improve my practice about training and developing curriculum for NGOs in different parts of the world.  I’ve had the opportunity to work in Canada, Australia, Cambodia, Romania, India, UK, and Africa and enjoy the extra dimension of understanding different cultures as part of the instructional and learning process.

One thing I learned is that is okay to do “real-time translation,”  and to be transparent about.     It takes a different mindset – not one of  “here the knowledge I’m going to fill you with.”  Instead, you have to listen, learn, and adapt your content and co-create a new understanding together.    It is also important to a mixed delivery and adhere to simplicity.

I got a chance to meet Stephanie Lai, who works at the Packard Foundation and is a member of the YouTube Symphony.  A cellist! In the video above, she talks about her love of music and philanthropy. Her introduction was filmed in the courtyard of the foundation. (My Australia friends should definitely watch the whole video, as the orchestra will perform in Sydney and Stephanie as a particular affection for wombats.)

It was a fun way to spend part of my birthday! 

Reflection on your past practice is a great way to start a new project that builds on the same skills and ideas.   Rather than go into cut and paste mode, it is an opportunity to create something new or scale.   I’m now interested in the question of how your scale a networked capacity building approach around social media.  

In 2011,  I’ll be the lead for Zoetica on a NGO/social media train the trainers project in the Middle East, sponsored by the State Department and others and has multiple partners.   IIE is managing the project.   We’re at the very beginning of the developing the curriculum and I’ll be sharing my learning and more details as they unfold. Transparency is one of the ideas and, of course, we’ll be modeling this.

As you can see,  my birthday didn’t go unnoticed (perhaps it was over 300 birthday wishes I got on my Facebook Wall), but my new friends sang Happy Birthday to me in Arabic and taught me how to say Thank You.  I’d like to say Shokran to everyone who made my special day wonderful.

A few other things I learned during our first planning meeting.  That there is an Arabic translation of the phrase  “throwing pasta at the wall.”   Which means you are experimenting or brainstorming and you don’t know if these ideas will stick.    No, it isn’t “throwing humus at the wall,” – it translates literally to throwing flour at the wall.

Also, there is no direct translation of the word “nerd” in Arabic, but the term is understood by people there to mean “someone who is really smart.”

So, stay tuned as I explore internationally training models  and networked approaches to capacity building.

Note from Beth: If you’ve been following my blog lately, you know I’ve been having this conversation with Marnie Webb about abundance.   On Twitter, I asked Marnie for examples of abundance approaches in the nonprofit and she answered in her blog.    Marnie says that nonprofits should own the impact and not the to dos, but I asked her but who will actually do the work?    She says it is a mix between doing and curating, but the we’ve got to change the “I’ll do it” as the default organizational behavior.

Marc van Bree and I were chatting about some of the collaborative arts marketing strategies that some arts organizations have experimented with on Twitter.     Since there have been a few examples,  I asked Marc if would write a post looking at some of these.

How Abundance Can Connect Arts Organizations With Audiences by Marc van Bree

A month or two ago, museums and galleries around the world participated in a Twitter event called Ask a Curator. The hash tag #askacurator became a top trending topic on Twitter on the day of the event. I asked Jim Richardson, who blogs at the Museum Next Blog and is the brainchild behind the event, a couple of questions:

How did #askacurator come about? What was the objective?

In February 2010 I organised an event called Follow a Museum, this was prompted by the low number of followers which I felt most museums had on Twitter and simply aimed to boost those numbers. The project was a success, but I felt that it lacked real engagement between the public and the museums and Ask a Curator came to mind.

How did you get 340 museums to participate? And why did you think museums were eager to participate?

The only promotion we did was through Twitter, museums were keen to get involved and retweeted information about the event, virally spreading the word through the museum community.

I’d like to think that so many museums were keen to participate because they want to step beyond using Twitter as a tool for promoting exhibitions and try something which really engaged the public.

What were some of the outcomes of the #askacurator event?

Ask a Curator attracted a large number of questions on a whole range of subjects, the event hashtag became the number 1 trending topic on Twitter and was featured in press around the world.

We ran an evaluation after the event and found that the majority of those who had asked questions during Ask a Curator were encouraged by the event to visit the museums they had exchanged tweets with.

We also had great feedback from museum curators who told us that over 90% of them were encouraged to use social media again after the positive experience of Ask a Curator.

Editor’s note: you can read about some of the feedback here, here, and here.

What do you have in store for the future?

We are now planning to create a video platform for Ask a Curator, a website where members of the public will be able to find hundred of questions on Art, History and Science answered by leading experts from around the world.

The website will also host live video question and answer sessions with curators on a regular basis.

Editor’s note: download a PDF of the plan.

The #askacurator and #followamusuem events sparked other sectors to follow suit, like #followanarchive and #followalibrary

It also sparked a conversation on Twitter among some classical music people. “Wouldn’t it be cool to do something like that for classical music?” Well, here we are…

Together with Lacey Huszcza, Director of Operations & Promotions at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, I am putting together an event called #askaconductor. The accompanying Web site suggests that we have room to expand the event to other musicians throughout the year. Maybe we can have a #askacomposer or #askacellist in the Spring?

So, #askaconductor is the first #askthemusicians Twitter event. On December 8, 2010, conductors from around the world will come together to engage with fans, first-timers and complete strangers. The concept is simple: conductors make some time available to answer questions; Twitter followers ask their burning questions, and the conductors answer the questions. All in one day.

It is an opportunity for classical music organizations and the conductors that lead them to connect to their community and share their stories, love and passion, one tweet at a time, and really engage meaningfully with the public and to go beyond the cut-and-paste news release headlines streaming from many accounts. And itís an opportunity to have some fun on Twitter and debunk some of those stubborn classical music myths.

Of course, there are challenges. How many conductors can we sign up? The event requires a little bit more commitment from classical music organizations than say Marcia Adairís tremendously successful #operaplot event.

Rather than just relying on Twitter to spread the word, Lacey and I reached out to many orchestras to see if their music directors or other resident conductors would be interested in participating. The success of the #askaconductor event will depend on the participation from both organizations and conductors, as well as the audience asking questions. We’ve already gotten some great responses and we’ll be updating the line up as we confirm conductors. The League of American Orchestras, Chorus America and the Association of California Symphony Orchestras have pledged their support in promoting the event. Participants and bloggers can use these handy banners and already San Francisco Symphony’s Donato Cabrera put on up on his site.

What else can we do to ensure success? And how do we reach those outside of the classical music circle on Twitter?

If you’re on Twitter and have always wondered how a conductor picks the music, or what exactly it means swinging a baton in front of a hundred musicians, save your questions for December 8. Any questions about the event? Find us at @askthemusicians.

Dutch native Marc van Bree (@mcmvanbree) is a marketing communications professional and blogs at Dutch Perspective on the intersection of communications, culture and social media.

Flickr Photo by TheeErin

Is that a Zen graffiti artist?   Did he run out of paint before spraying the letter “e”?    Who knows, but if nonprofits embrace abundance, wouldn’t it give them more time to breathe?   Trying to do everything, a scarcity model,  is such an exhausting way to work.

Marnie Webb has been thinking about how the nonprofit sector might be different if organizations believed in abundance and re-thought their organizational structures and how they delivered programs as a result.   Marnie points out that working in a networked way and using social media can help actualize that belief in abundance.    She says, ” Social media, and the robust search and listening tools available to us today, can help us find the people who are talking about, the people who are supporting our causes.  Networks can help us build the capacity to take advantage of different institutional skills. “  Marnie talks about the importance of data aggregation and synthesis skills as a new competency for nonprofits.

Marnie asks a great question about the organizational structures needed to actualize abundance:

So, if we are building organizations on the abundance of goodwill, energy and eager hands — and if we are thinking of ourselves, organizationally, as platforms for change rather than agents for change. If we thinking that way, what are the organizational structures that we have to build?

In a follow up post, Marnie answers her own question or rather begins to noodle on it.   She says that organizations should support the good work that is happening elsewhere.   She uses the word “curate” which makes me imagine nonprofits as museum curators.     Museum curators have expertise in a particular area of art, they know the ecosystem around the art – the artists, the patrons, other collectors, and other museum curators interested in that art form.  When they create an exhibit,  they pick the best examples and put them together in a new and exciting way — the institution lends it support to give the works visibility.    The museum itself does not create the art, but puts into a context and connects with a broader number of people.

Marnie suggests that nonprofits need to bring curator skills to their program work:

This means you have to be able to find projects, you have to be organizationally egoless in finding out what you can do to help these projects, you have to be as non-disrutptive to the actual work as possible.

She also admits that shift from artist to curator is not an easy one for many nonprofits because of the way they are structured.

Nonprofits are built to take ownership of the tasks that lead to the change we are trying to bring about — the tasks of feeding people or providing job training ….  And, sure, those tasks need to get done.  But maybe we should start taking ownership of the impact and the change — describing it, pointing out the gaps, getting more resources to fill holes, and we should ask for more help on the tasks. We should find other people who are doing those tasks and build on it.

Marnie points out how nonprofits need to build out new structures so they  work effectively with “free agents” or as she puts it “enabling the energy around them.”   She describes this as part of the “gig economy” and gives us description of how these new nonprofit entities might work.   Sounds more like a network than an organization?

Nonprofits-as-venues needs to be about project curation but also about providing the support and structure that may be harder for free agents, individually or together, to do.   This may be things like seeking and managing funding, writing checks to necessary contractors or suppliers. But it might also be about long-term evaluations. It might be about stitching together the lessons and impacts of various projects to talk about a whole issue or present a picture of an entire community. Nonprofits can build a platform of community impact data and feed that back to the world at large — informing funding trends, municipal government decisions, and the next set of projects taken on by these collections of free agents.

Marnie has shared a lot here and it raises lots more questions than answers …

• Is there a hybrid version where nonprofits do a combination of curating and doing?  Or are we talking about all curation?
• What needs to change in the way that nonprofits are structured and their culture to make this happen?
• Are there good examples of organizations working in this new way that can inspire us?

Leng Sopharath, Phon Vandy, and CHom Thavy - Sharing Foundation College Students

Not long after we received our final letter from Leng Sopharath, a young Cambodian woman our family has been sponsoring for college over the past four years,  the first royalty check from The Networked Nonprofit arrived!  It was with sincere joy that I was able to donate the full amount of my share of the royalities to the Sharing Foundation in support of the educational programs.   So, while I am delighted with the response to book ,  I’m even more pleased that the book is able to help young people in Cambodia.

It’s made think about how far social fundraising has come in the last four years.   In December, 2006,  I launched my first personal online fundraising campaign using my blog to raise money to cover college tuition costs for Leng Sopharath, an orphan from the same orphanage in Cambodia where my daughter spent the first 18 months of her life.   I was able to raise $850 which helped cover the costs for her to participate in the Sharing Foundation’s college student sponsorship program and send her off to Noroton University with an accounting major in 2006.

In 2006,  the annual donation was a stretch for us … so we asked family, friends, and colleagues  to donate to the Sharing Foundation in lieu of holiday or birthday gifts.   Back then,   I made these requests “offline,” but we had fallen short of our goal.    At the same time,  I heard about a new online donation tool called ChipIn and realized that fundraising badges like ChipIn gave me a tool to not only take my requests online, but also to seek out new donors who might support this worthwhile cause.    It also gave me an opportunity to experiment with seeing how, if at all, social media tools might enhance an online personal fundraising campaign.

That all seems like ancient history now but this started a journey of experimenting with personal fundraising campaigns using social media to raise money for kids in Cambodia and share lessons learned with other nonprofits.   I felt lucky that I found a way to combine several areas that I am most passionate about!  Sharing knowledge, social media, and supporting young people in Cambodia.

I shared my lessons learned from my first campaign in 2006 in this case study, with best practices work today.  For Leng Sopharath’s sophomore year,  I used Twitter and with Chris Brogan’s help was able to quickly reach the goal and send two Cambodians to college through the Sharing Foundation’s program.    For her junior year,  I incorporated a fundraising experiment into my talk at Gnomedex and we were able to raise the money in less than 90 minutes and share some lessons learned.    During her senior year,  Leng Sopharath took ill – but the Sharing Foundation covered her medical expenses and I did a campaign experiment with Causes Birthday app and the following year as part of guest teaching in Jennifer Aaker’s Stanford Business School class.

Although she had to take off some time from school due to her illness, Leng Sopharath bounced back and graduated this year!    Her most recent letter came with this message:

“I would like to say thank you so much for always encouraging me and supporting me for five years.   If you had not helped me, I would not have completed my education at the university and maybe end up farming with my sister or working for a government factory.  I am applying for jobs related to my accounting major.     You are my good  parents  because I am an orphan.   I love all of you!”

London Event at Just Giving

Right before Thanksgiving,  I was in London on my way back from Kenya.   I reported on the event at the Guardian and shared some of the clips, but wanted to share some thoughts from the evening event, hosted by Just Giving, a platform for personal fundraising campaigns.   It was terrific to meet some folks face-to-face who I had “met” on Twitter like Shirley Ayers and see old friends, like Paul Henderson again (who took fantastic photos.)

Like the morning event at the Guardian, the concepts of transparency and being more open resonated as did the “free agents.”   The evening group included a number of folks who were responsible for social media and we had a productive conversation about social media and whether or not CEO’s or executive directors should have a presence.

All in all, a fantastic time in London and special thanks again to my colleague and friend, Steve Bridger, for organizing these events.

Meanwhile, thrilled to see that some new friends from Korea reading the book on their ipads.

I stopped in London on my way back to the US from Kenya for a couple of book events.   This morning I did an interactive session at the Guardian hosted by its new voluntary sector network – a new online space where professionals working in and with the voluntary sector can discuss and debate the issues which affect their professional lives – and get advice and insight from peers and experts.   The audience was a mix of CEOs from the UK’s largest charities and a mix of longtime social media/nonprofit colleagues and new colleagues.   (Steve Bridger, David Wilcox, Rob Dyson, Nick Booth, Howard Lake, Sylwia Presley, David Mills, Anne McCrossan, Mark Charmer, Jaz Cummins, Mark Phillips, Ben Matthews,  Mark Davies,  Bertie Bosredon,  Joel Bassuk, Karl Wilding and the team at Just Giving.

I shared an overview of the central thesis in the book, The Networked Nonprofit, and we took a deeper dive into  social culture, learning from mistakes, simplicity, and transparency.   The joyful funeral idea really resonated and promoted a discussion about killing off some less effective projects and activities to make room for social media.   These included less meeting times,  reallocating marketing budgets to spend less on print newsletter and little bit more on social media, and making the intranet a bit more social and open.   Many of the ideas in the book were well received and there was fabulous networking after the event.

Book Giveaways

Jaz Cummins with her copy of the book

Caron Bradshaw with her copy of the book

As is the custom,  I do a book raffle after the event asking folks to write down one idea they can put into practice.   Here’s a sampling of these:

• Hold joyful funerals to stop doing stuff that doesn’t work well
• There is nothing to fear about being open unless you have something to hide
• Engage people in your organization who don’t understand social media
• Find a free agent who can help our cause
• Use transparency to kill the myth that we never fail
• Find ways to incorporate existing workflow in the use of social media, not have it be an add-on
• Create a social media policy that integrates with HR manual

One of the highlights was to observe David Wilcox’s new technique. These days, he does video blogging with his iphone. Here’s an interview he did with me and Steve Bridger after the session.

Afterwards, we debriefed on the his tool box and techniques.

All in all a fun morning at the Guardian – many thanks to everyone who helped organize this event, particularly my good friend, Steve Bridger, and the kind folks at the Guardian for hosting.

Ushahidi Board Meeting at iHub in Kenya

I’ve just spent the last couple of days in  Nairobi, Kenya because I’m a board member of an NGO based here, Ushahidi, an organization that builds tools for democratizing information and increasing transparency.  I decided to stay a few extra days and facilitate a workshop on the Networked Nonprofit for local NGOs.   This blog post includes some reflections about my first visit to Africa, the importance of face-to-face meetings and building relationships, and some thoughts about how some of the ideas in the Networked Nonprofit transcend  boundaries.

Ushahidi has had impressive growth over the past 18 months and most visible was its work with Haiti.  What started as an ad hoc group of volunteers is growing into an impressive organization building out a platform that can be deployed for different purposes, from election monitoring to disaster relief.    (Even in unintended and surprising ways). I also learned more about crowdmap, a hosted version of the  Ushahidi code – in other words you don’t have to install it on your own web server.

I’ve had the honor of serving on the Ushahidi board for almost a year and have known two of Ushahidi’s co-founders, Ory Okolloh and Erik Hersman, for several years. Ushahidi’s board, like its staff, work together virtually across many time zones using different online tools for meetings and collaborative work. While virtual tools make it possible for a far-flung team to work with or for an organization that has global impact, I am reminded about the importance of “face time” for effectiveness – there is simply no other way to build relationships.   One of the things I like best about being on the Ushahidi board is that it was acceptable for us be also on our laptops and smart phones – and even tweet during the meeting.    Ethan Zuckerman, fellow board members, shares his impressions here.

iHub one of the best ever co-working technology spaces I've been in ...

The meeting and the workshop I facilitated took place in iHub, an open innovation space.  The space is available to any tech person in Nairobi to use once they become a green member.    With over 1900 members, the space offers a connection point and co-working space for the community, a fast Internet connection, lots of light, great views, and fantastic latte!    I thought I had died and gone to heaven.   I need to find a space like this in Silicon Valley for 2011.

Jessica Colaco places books in the iHub Community Library

In addition to the Networked Nonprofit,  I brought copies of books from colleagues that might be of interest to local NGOs. This includes:   Mary Joyce’s Digital Activism,  Charlene Li’s Open Leadership,  Jennifer Aaker’s DragonFly Effect, and  Carol Cone’s Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding.   Jessica Colaco who is the manager poses for a photo.

Just to illustrate how spaces like iHub act as connectors, while I was setting up for the workshop, Tiffany von Emmel, a colleague from San Francisco was in the room!  She kindly live tweeted the workshop and took some photos.

Photo by Tiffany von Emmel - MissionFish

I facilitated a workshop on the Networked Nonprofit, covering the concepts of social culture, simplicity, and transparency.  I also hung out at the iHub and held “office hours” for folks who wanted to work one-on-one and go into more technical depth in using the tools.     I was curious if these concepts were adaptable or relevant for NGOs in Kenya as it was my first time presenting these ideas in Africa.   When I work outside of the US, my process is to listen and observe as much as possible.     I also do not over prepare so I can be more flexible in the delivery and spark conversations around what is relevant or what isn’t.

It is always eye-opening to work on the social web from developing countries and realized just how spoiled we are in the US with fast and plentiful bandwidth.    It requires a different way of working.  I was most surprised how many online applications that I use daily in the US were slow loading and impossible to use.  I was also surprised that Facebook loaded easily, even posting photos.

I did a lot of adjusting in real time and was very transparent with the group about this idea might get “lost in translation” or “not be relevant” and that’s okay.    I designed share pair exercises that incorporated reflective questions about translation.   A few learnings:

• Just Mibli (2)Words:  I have been using an icebreaker called “Just Two Words.” I ask people to share what is top of mind when they think about social media and their NGO.   I asked for the words in English or Swahili.    The themes that emerged were identical to what I hear in the US, generally falling into these three themes:  community, connections and concerns.  Privacy and security were brought up, but I also heard the phrase “time .”   I asked for clarification and the person indicated that social media takes a lot of time.  I mentioned that in the US, we use the phrase “time suck” this was met with laughter.    The idea of social media potentially being a huge time waster if not done effectively resonated with the group.

• Cultural Norms Around Instructional Delivery: I had learned that instructional delivery in Kenya tends to be very formal, mostly the “sage on the stage” lecture approach.  I don’t teach that way.  I favor a participatory approach with full room discussion.   I had a wireless mic that was passed and included share pairs with reflective exercises.   I felt some discomfort in the room at first, some hesitancy to speak up – there were some long silent pauses.    Some of this also might have to do with gender roles.   But after a couple of share pairs, the group warmed up and several folks took the mic and shared their ideas    Needless to say I learned an enormous amount.

• What Surprised Me: On top of a concern that some of the ideas/content might not be relevant, I was worried that a lot of my verbal and visual humor might not translate either.  And, terrified that I might inadvertently be insulting or appear rude.   Humor  is a natural part of my presentation style – so it came out.   I surprised that people laughed at the some of the same  jokes that they do in the US.   Some concepts and ways of expressing them can be universal.   While I didn’t do this on purpose,  people thought my creative pronunciation of Kenyan names  and understanding Kenyan accents was funny.

Translating Networked Nonprofits Ideas Into A Kenyan Context

• Learning from Mistakes: I talk a lot about the importance of learning from failing and rapid experimentation of small pilots using social media.  I noticed that this resonated really, particularly the MomsRising approach of using  “Joyful Funerals.“  I set up the idea using the “I Can Make Better Choices Chair” photo that my son’s kindergarten class teacher used to teach the children self-reflection.     I guess the idea of children needing to learn reflective practice is a universal because there was a lot of laughter in the room.     Later, in the market,  I saw this beautiful brass chair necklace (which I purchased).

• Fortress and Sponge: We use these metaphors in the book to discuss different approaches to transparency – with the fortress being less transparent.   The image I used is one of a Russian fort.   I asked the group if anyone worked for a fortress (some people raised their hands) and I also asked if those NGOs were ones from the US or new ones created in Kenya.  (Response was laughter).   The sponge metaphor was not quite right because I realized we were pretty fair from the Ocean.  Nonetheless, this ideas prompted an interesting discussion about social media policy for NGOs.

• Simplicity: The concept of not having to do everything and focusing on what you do best and network the rest resonated.  I learned later that simplicity is a very African concept.    When I asked folks what they could do less of,  I heard what I usually hear in the US: meetings.    Perhaps there should be a global law to ban meetings in NGOs of more than 30 minutes!    One participant’s takeaway was a wonderful translation of the simplicity concept:  “Do less of the unnecessary to do more of the necessary.”

@inspireharvest one of the book winners

Book Giveaways

International travel has some restrictions on the weight of your suitcase, so I only could pack 10 books to giveaway (I was not able to find a sponsor to cover the luggage fees to bring a case of books) and I wanted to leave some room to bring books from colleagues.   As part of the book raffle,   I had people write down something they could put into practice on an index card and we did a drawing.  Here’s a couple of the takeaways:

• Share more about what we’re doing on social networks to become less of fortress
• Identify specific, measurable outcomes for how we want to use social media to support our mission
• Have our organization become more like a Sponge
• Create a “I Can Make Better Decisions” chair for our office
• Identify conversation starters with our audience to engage them more on social networks
• Encourage our audience to share their stories, not just tell people what we do

Shoulder-to-Shoulder Learning

After the formal part of the workshop,  I just hung out at iHub and engaged in a little “shoulder-to-shoulder” learning.  Huddled around our laptops,  I answered some nitty gritty questions about tools, shared resources (like the local TechSoup Global partner) and got to learn quite a bit about some NGOS in Kenya are putting social media strategies into practice – their successes and challenges.  I find this quiet observation of how people interact with social networking sites one of the best ways to learn about how different cultures approach social media.    I made some good friends like Zawadi Nyongo, a feminist social justice consultant and Kamau Sammy, who is starting an NGO to work with kids in Kenyan slums.

In this video, Wambui Gicheru and Njern Wangethi from African Woman and Children Feature Service and Ephraim Muchleau of the Media Council of Kenya talk about using Twitter for the organizations.

All in all, I loved my time in Kenya.  I did get to spend an afternoon seeing some of the local sites, including the Elephant orphanage and Giraffe reserve where I got a warm welcome from one of the residents.  I  hope to return and spend more time here.

Flickr Photo by WiserEarth - WiserEarth's team from Around the World play Peek-A-Boo With Book

I’d like to use this post to share some of the responses to the Networked Nonprofit at different book events and online during the past month and let you know about upcoming events in November. The photo above shows WiserEarth‘s team from around the world in the Bay Area during break from a staff retreat reading the Networked Nonprofit.

Networked Nonprofit in Vegas

Photo by KK

Flickr Photo by KK

In October, I presented on two panels at BlogWorld and briefly walked the exhibit floor to notice the book at the Wiley Booth and also ran into Kris Krug, a photographer and free agent. Stay tuned for a video interview I did with him while in Vegas.

Independent Sector in Atlanta

Despite a broken toe, I facilitated a workshop on Social Media for CEOs of nonprofits and foundation. But even more fun was this video interview with the good folks at the Gifts In Kind International who I ran into in the lobby and they pulled out their copy of the book and shared a few thoughts about they’re applying the ideas.

The Portland Arts and Culture Social Media Convening Workshop

Flickr Photo by James Leventhal

James Leventhal facilitated a workshop in Portland last month along with Adam Rozan of the Oakland Museum of California and Stephanie Weaver of Experienceology. The workshop was a discussion, tweet-festival, and social media community-building exercise. And, they all got copies of Networked Nonprofit (thank you James!) Meanwhile in down at action camp in San Antonio, Texas, I heard through Twitter that copies of the Networked Nonprofit were offered in a raffle.

Networked Nonprofit at PRSA in Washington, DC

Vivian from Roundy's Supermarket Chain and Kelly Linn Cheesemsn, Wal-Mart Foundation.

Kami Huyse, my business partner at Zoetica, gave a presentation at PRSA Conference in Washington, DC about social media integrated into cause-related marketing and CSR (it is the research we’re working on as part of our fellowship with the Society for New Communications Research). She also gave copies of the book away as prizes.

The Networked Nonprofit in Japan

>”ichi” – Hiroyasu Ichikawa who is president of the SocialCompany in Japan was visiting the Bay Area to attend SoCap. I met “ichi” virtually when he let me know about a Netsquared Japan meet up featuring the Networked Nonprofit. He also kindly demonstrated on a video how to do social networking in Japan the old fashion way.

Thoughtful Posts and Reviews of the Networked Nonprofit

I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying reading about people are applying the ideas in the book and the reviews. Here’s a few.

Steve Heye is blogging the book. I really like his take on the mindshift that is needed to embrace a “try it and fix it approach. >

Steve Waddell writes about building change networks through social media.

Tony Goodrow blogs about some of the ideas in the Networked Nonprofit and how they relate to volunteer management.

Tobi Johnson who purchased the book as part of our launch party has written a terrific review on her blog.

Jane Wales offered a few counter arguments to the Gladwell article in the New Yorker riffing off some ideas in the Networked Nonprofit.

A Few Events in November

• Networked Nonprofit at World Learning on November 3 at 4:00 PM in Washington, DC
• Tech@State on November 4th at Noon in Washington, DC – Keynote presentation with Mark Horvath on Working With Free Agents
• National Summer Learning Association – Networked Nonprofit Workshop on November 9th
• Boardsource Leadership Conference, Governing the Networked Nonprofit in an Age of Social Media on November 11th
• The Networked Nonprofit Nairobi Kenya on November 18th
• The Networked Nonprofit in London – Follow @stevebridger for more details

Last week,  I had the pleasure of facilitating a Networked Nonprofit and Social Media workshop at the Independent Sector Annual Conference “Forging A Stronger Future Together” in Atlanta.   As part of my role as Visiting Scholar at the Packard Foundation, I had an opportunity to coach Independent Sector on their conference social media integration.

Most participants included CEOs of nonprofit institutions and foundations and  have been working in the sector for decades.    The group also included a couple of  “next gen” leaders as well as some experienced social media users in the nonprofit and foundation areas.

Technology Changes, People Don’t

Back in 1994,  a software program called Word Perfect (circa 1994) was making the move from its DOS interface to its Windows GUI.    A very large number of their longtime users stayed with DOS.  As an early adopter, I remember switching, despite how strange it felt.    Yet, at the time, people were questioning “How could serious work ever be done using a pull down menus?”

There was a revolt that included buttons that said “I’m sticking with DOS.”    It is not uncommon that when a new technology emerges that has the potential to replace or improve upon an existing technology, people resist.  There are people or even organizational cultures comfortable with using the existing tools and are slow to change, while early adopters and agile cultures keep learning and  moving.   In many cases, the slow to change eventually adopt or they no longer remain relevant to their constituents, donors, or loose their edge.

I think we’ve reached this juncture with social media in the nonprofit sector where it is time to adopt.     Over the five years since I’ve been doing workshops on Social Media,  there has definitely been an attitude shift from nonprofit leaders.    I’m hearing less and less that using social networks is a waste of time or away to NGTD (Not Getting Things Done) and more “How do we get started strategically that right  for our organizational culture, audience, and objectives.”

The first half of the workshop focused on the “Becoming A Networked Nonprofit”  and we took a deep dive into social culture, transparency, and simplicity.    The second half of the workshop looks at social media strategy and tactics.   A couple of observations about themes that resonated:

• Joyful Funerals: This is a term I first heard from MomsRising about how they give themselves permission to fail and stop doing something that doesn’t work with social media.  And, that through this comes learning and insight.
• Silo Busting: Ironically, I had two people in the workshop who worked for the same organization, but had not met each other!   There was an excellent discussion about silo busting techniques and the role of leaders in bringing down the cubicle walls.

• Small Incremental Steps: There was a collective sign of relief when many heard me say – “You don’t have to do it all.”   I firmly believe in incremental steps when moving into social media, especially if that is the best match for an organization’s culture.

While the workshop was described a basic introduction,  we did have a small number of participants with a lot of social media experience including Jessica Lawrence, the CEO of the Gorgonio Girls Scout Council, Michael Smith, Case Foundation, and Jennifer Bahaus, High Museum of Art.    The conversations that begin with “We did this and this is what we found …” can always enrich a workshop.

I learned that CEO of local Girls Scout Council, Jessica Lawrence was using Twitter as a clever networking tool.    Her marketing staff person was tweeting, using the conference tag #ISCONF and offered anyone a free box of cookies if they found at the conference and asked, “Would you be my Caramel Delite?”    She had a number of people approach her!

I didn’t get a chance to attend many sessions because I was in Atlanta a short-term, but I am grateful for the wiki journal report by Kathy Reich from the Packard Foundation her key takeaways.   The Packard Foundation OE wiki is a pilot project aimed at providing an easy way for the OE team to share their thinking and resources with partners – a sort of  “see through” filing cabinet.

Earlier in the morning, I had the opportunity to do a remote keynote about the Networked Nonprofit with Allison Fine at the BlackBaud Conference.    Allison was in the room, but I was in my hotel room in Atlanta in my PJs!    A previously recorded video was presented and I participated in the backchannel Twitter stream while Allison delivered the keynote.

I’ve been finding RowFeeder useful to do a quick and dirty content analysis and grab all the tweets into a google spreadsheet.    The content analysis gives you some insights into what lines were Tweeted most.   Interesting to discover a line from the book, “Social Media is a contact sport, not a spectator sport” was a conversation driver.

If you were not able to attend, there is terrific coverage of the event.  Take for example this post from Rosita Cortez pointing to five videos of presentations.  Frank Barry organized a series of Ignite presentations about social media and Nonprofits.   The presenters included Geoff Livingston, my business partner at Zoetica as well as Claire Williams Diaz, Social Innovation at Twitter; Noah Everett, Founder of TwitPic; Matthew Mahan, Vice President of Impact at Causes; and Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofit and Activism, Manager at YouTube.

The downside to virtual presenting is that you don’t get to see your friends face-to-face!

Blackbaud’s Nonprofit Conference is from October 20-22 in Washington, DC.  Here’s the list of sessions.   I’ll be doing a keynote about the Networked Nonprofit on Thursday, October 21st from 8-9:30 am along with Allison Fine (live-streamed here).   But, I’ll be in Atlanta at the Independent Sector Conference.

No,  I can’t be in the same place – that is physically – at the same time.  But with the use of the  #bbcon and #netnon hashtag on Twitter and a video,  I’ll be there!   So if you don’t happen to be attending the conference, I’ll be on the backchannel on Twitter during the keynote.

The video was taped while I was in Boston – a film crew followed me around while I went from one speaking engagement to another.    Unfortunately, the weather in Boston didn’t cooperate and at one point I burst into a rendition of singing in the rain.   Let’s see if it makes the final cut.

There’s an ignite style event taking place moderated by Frank Barry – here’s the details.

Last week,  I parachuted into  BlogWorld 2010 in Las Vegas for less than 24 hours.    I presented on two panels (How Nonprofits Use Twitter and CrowdSourced Philanthropy) in the Cause Track curated by Chris Noble and the good folks at WhatGives.   During the conference,  there was a hashtag campaign – #beatcancer where PayPal and SWAGG will donated $0.05 for every hashtag mention to cancer charities.  (Hoping someone can update the final results in the comments)

This post is a quick round up of what I learned in Vegas and sharing it here because it’s too good to stay in Vegas!

How Networked Nonprofits Use Twitter

I had the pleasure of designing a panel about how Networked Nonprofits use Twitter with Claire Williams of Twitter and Danielle Brigida from NWF.   I love designing panels, not only the content but the interactive piece as well.   We had a slight glitch with our panel title that we corrected with some graffiti before we started our session.

The content we presented went from high level overview to on the ground practice, with each chunk punctuated with an interactive exercise with the audience that allowed them to  share insights with another people in the room.   We did a fun icebreaker having folks take a photo of each other with their smart phones and post on Twitter.

I started with an overview of how Networked Nonprofits become networked nonprofits, using examples from Twitter that illustrated an understanding of networks, simplicity,  trust through transparency, social culture, learning from failure, and building relationships.

Cartoon by Rob Cottingham of Social Signal

Next, Danielle Brigida gave a case study about how NWF uses Twitter.  We were lucky that Rob Cottingham from Social Signal was in the room cartoon blogging.    He captured the key points above.

Danielle @starfocus

Danielle shared a story about making mistakes on Twitter.  One where a staff member sent a tweet to the NWF instead of her personal account.  It was harmless, (about how excited she was for a new season of a television show).   Another instance occurred when a staff member tweeted something about the Gulf Oil Spill that was not based on scientifically proven information.    On both occasions, they quickly apologized – and learned that being human and honest works.    (Other nonprofits have learned this lesson the hard way)

Claire Williams presented a framework (TWEET) for using Twitter for campaigns and offered lots of on-the-ground practical tips.    Claire talked about how people get comfortable using Twitter – some by just jumping in and experimenting.  She showed the first couple of tweets from Kanya West and how he experimented.  I also loved that she shared Ushahidi’s Twitter account of how to personalize an organizational account.  (As a board member, I am hoping that we can be added to the account …)

Crowdsourced Campaigns for Causes: Benefiting social good or just social?

The next panel was organized by Allyson Burns from the Case Foundation and included Judy Chang from PayPal and Julie LaCouture from DonorsChoose.      Although we had to fight the room set up (podium, panelists on the stage with mics in front of them,  sets in room arranged in military style),  we managed to have an excellent discussion on this topic.    This panel design was all conversational, no powerpoint – but left plenty of room for audience participants share their thoughts.

The room was mostly filled with people from nonprofit organizations, some of whom had entered contests and others wanting to learn best practices.      I did a quick icebreaker asking folks in the room to share two words  — what comes to mind when you think about these online contests for nonprofits?  As you can see from the wordle,  participants viewed them in both a positive and negative light.  They were curious, but skeptical of about the value.

Judy Chang presented an overview of PayPal’s contests, including its Regift the Fruitcake.  ( I also learned about their giving app).  Julie LaCouture offered some insights from their experience at DonorsChoose. (It was great to see that Sarah Bunting to still one of their best free agent fundraisers)

We opened with a question about what we thought were the most innovative approaches in contests.  I think those are the ones that have taken a Hippocratic Oath – l “Do No Harm” to the nonprofits.  The contests that have balanced a theory of change with corporate mission,  that encourage nonprofits to use best practices in using tools, creating a responsive network, thinking strategically about the use of contests as fundraising effort, and building relationships with the influx of new donors to create a lifelong supporter vs an ATM machine.    On the nonprofit side, it takes thinking through the value of participation.

Mark Horvath of Invisible People shared an example of how a nonprofit get additional value from participating in a contest.  (Hint, drive them to a landing page on your site).

I wasn’t in Vegas long enough to attend all the Cause sessions, although I did catch the beginning of the Social Media OnRamp session featuring George Weiner, John Haydon, Renee Alexander, and Janet Aronica from OneForty.  (Janet shared an awesome tool kit for nonprofits. )

Misc.  Insights From Vegas

Photo by KK

I ran into KK (Kris Krug) who is a free agent extraordinaire and did an interview I’ll publish later.  He spotted the Networked Nonprofit in the Wiley booth on the exhibit floor.

Did get one party hosted by Carwoo and organized by Renee Blodgett who I met a BlogHer in 2005.

Ran into Dan Pacheco whose citizen journalism work I’ve followed for years and got an update on his newest venture, Book Brewer.  It’s a publishing and distribution platform for e-books – think wordpress for e-books.  It’s called Book Brewer.

Finally, I didn’t gamble at all, but did happen to see this funny way to promote social channels on the game floor.

The last chapter of the Networked Nonprofit is on networked governance.  We thought this would be an easy part of the book to write – all we’d have to do is find examples of how boards online, opening up decisionmaking to outside influences.   There were no examples – so the last chapter of the book is speculative, based on the best thinking of the people who have looked at networked governance.  I dreamed up some scenarios of boards and social media in practice.

As part of my work as Visiting Scholar at the Packard Foundation and coaching grantees on becoming a Networked Nonprofit and using social media effectively,  I’ve also been talking to boards including the museum board above.   We had an amazing conversation about the ideas in the Networked Nonprofit around social culture, transparency, and simplicity.

When we moved from the theory to the on the ground nuts and bolts,   we took look at what the organization was doing on Facebook and the ladder of engagement.  I did ask how many were using Facebook, and almost everyone on this board raised their hands.   (And if I asked who was a member of the baby boom generation or beyond, I”m sure most would have raised their hands as well.)   The next question, “How many of you have “liked” the museum’s Facebook Page?”   Not too many hands went up.

While you may find strangers on Facebook who will climb the ladder of love and go from liking your page to being your organization’s best evangelist,  should your board on the top rung as well?   This prompted a very productive discussion about how this board could use social media to support the organization.

I think you have to crawl before you fly.  So, this is a great first step.  In addition a social media policy,  education and training, maybe a live demo showing how social media works and why it is important.   But getting to networked governance  governance is a big step.

The OnLine blog published an intriguing post called “Social Media and Accountability” where Zachary Wales imagined a couple examples where social media might be injected into governance of a nonprofit.  Not many examples of  live tweeting board meeting minutes or nominating committees looking for a slate of officers on LinkedIN or getting feedback for strategic plans We’re not seeing these governance tasks infused with social media as a  common practice in our sector.   Sounds like science fiction doesn’t it?

How can boards effectively incorporate the use of the social networks and social media to govern?

Resources:
Great Governance:  How Board Members Can Use Social Media by Beth Kanter
Blogging and Tweeting An Open Board Meeting by Beth Kanter
Catching the Wave:  Twitter at a Packard Foundation Board Meeting by Beth Kanter
Social Media in the Board Room by Beth Kanter
Three Ways To Prevent Brain Drain from Nonprofit Boards by Smart Blog

Weak Tie/Strong Tie Ice Breaker

Earlier this week, I flew across the country (thanks Virgin America!) to Boston for two days of book events hosted by  Associated Grant Makers,  Barr Foundation, Public Conversations Project, TechFoundation and Berkman Center Luncheon series.   This post shares a few observations about Networked Nonprofits.

Networking: Weaving Online and Offline, Strong Ties and Weak Ties

I have been experimenting with how to deliver “networked” presentations and workshops.  So, I was delighted to get an opportunity to test some new icebreaker at the evening event that was intended to get people to know each other in the room and connect online.   You can only really do this with a technically comfortable crowd, and the folks at the Public Conversations Project and TechFoundation hosted event fit the bill.

I asked folks to raise their hands if they had a smart phone, most did. I asked folks if they were on Twitter or Facebook, most people raised their hands. Next, I asked them to stand and take a photo of someone next to them and to post the photo on their Facebook or Twitter using our hashtag, #netnon.

As I went from event to event, meeting people who “followed me on Twitter” or were “liked my Facebook Page” I could not help but think how offbase Malcolm Gladwell’s argument about strong versus weak ties was in his New Yorker article “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted”

At the events, the people I encountered were a mix of strong ties (people you know Face-to-Face) and weak ties (those you’ve met online) as well as  something in between from my “social graph” or network.   On the one hand,  Deborah Finn is an example of  “strong tie,”  a respected colleague that I’ve known for over ten years in the nonprofit technology community.  Connecting on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook allows us to keep in touch bolsters our professional connection.    Claire Murray and Kathleen Sherwin are other nonprofit technology colleagues who I first met face-to-face and have also kept up with through social media and who attended the book event.

On the other hand, Susan Kang Nam who is someone I first on Twitter where she is goes by the handle @pinkolivefamily.   We met face-t0-face at  a social media event in 2008, but that was the only time I had interacted her face-to-face.   Since then, I’ve followed her work on Twitter and feel like I know here better than the one-time meeting we’ve had.  Jack Vinson who I met at Blogher way back in 2007 is another person I have only met once or twice, but have gotten to know better through Twitter.   I’m also thinking of nonprofit technology professionals like John Haydon and Debra Askanase are another example. They work in the nonprofit technology field and we connected and have conversations online before meeting in person.

This demonstrate how the connectedness of social networks bolsters both strong ties and weak ties directly and indirectly.    Social networks like Twitter or Facebook allow for ambient intimacy or frequent informal communication with people who are weak ties.   This “relationship building” conversation is the foundation of forming stronger ties.

Dancing on Different Sides of the Adoption Curve

One of the reasons we wrote the book is that we felt it was important to put a flag in the ground at the point in time.   We are seeing the use of social media broaden beyond the early adopters and becoming more mainstream.  Organizational leaders are changing questions from “why bother with this?” to “how does our organization begin to adopt social media strategically?”

Yet, there is still some resistance.   As I have been traveling around the country and speaking to nonprofits leaders,  I ask the audience to this question, “What two words come to mind when you think about social media?”    The same themes come out and usually there is a cluster of positive words – like exciting, strategic, fun, etc.     There are also concerns like the word cloud above which represents the challenge of organizational change to adopt social media.  It takes time and patience as Allison notes.

Discussion at the Berkman Center

We were honored to do a luncheon discussion at the Berkman Center on the Networked Nonprofit.  (Here is the archived webcast and a post).    The last time I had a discussion at the Berkman Center was in 2005 during the Thursday evening bloggers group.  That’s where I first discovered and connected with the Global Voices Community around my interests in Cambodia.  (I’m now an advisor).

Ethan Zuckerman, a Berkman Fellow and (fellow board member at Ushahadi) blogged the conversation here.   Ethan asked a thought provoking question:

I asked the speakers whether we were seeing centrally-organized nonprofits figure out how to leverage networks to advance their goals, or whether we were starting to see truly networked organizations make decisions in a distributed fashion. Fine notes that she thought this would be an easy part of the book to write – all she’d have to do is find people working to make the board room virtual, opening up decisionmaking to outside influences. But she wasn’t able to find examples. As a result, the last chapter of the book – on networked governance – is speculative, based on the best thinking of people in the field. Steve Waddell, who studies nonprofits and social media, suggested that Wikipedia’s strategic planning process might represent networked decisionmaking. And David Weinberger suggested that, if we think of decisionmaking as including everything that leads up to a decision made by a small group, we may be entering a time of widespread network decisionmaking.

David Weinberger also lived blogged the presentation and q/a.  He asked if we had seen any organizations change their mission as a result of connectedness on social networks.   I have only seen one example of this so far and told the story, but am now curious.  Have you?

As always, lots of fun to actually see my co-author, Allison Fine, in person.   In my spare time, a video crew was following me around to create a short piece for Blackbaud Conference on October 20-21st in Washington, DC as part of the keynote to be delivered live by Allison.   The video is a reality tv meets Networked Nonprofit presentation, wondering around Boston in the rain.   (I’ll be on the Twitter back channel following the #netnon hashtag from the Independent Sector Conference in Atlanta.)

Net Neutrality protest at Google HQ - GoogleRally 45 by Steve Rhodes, on Flickr.

Note from Beth: Last June at the New York City book party for the Networked Nonprofit,  Stephanie Strom, New York Times, moderated a discussion on the themes in the book.  (Here’s a recording by Mike Johnson).    Vince Stehle asked a great question about how nonprofits might use some of the ideas in the book to engage their networks around Net Neutrality.    I invited Vince to write guest post about Net Neutrality and Networked Nonprofits.

This post and the more detailed piece on the Chronicle of Philanthropy will help you get up to speed on the issue and why it is important for nonprofits to get behind.    After you read this post, take some action.  I did.   I sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, contributed $10 to fight evil and encouraged people in my network to do the same.

Net Neutrality for Networked Nonprofits: Guest Post by Vince Stehle

It almost goes without saying: the Networked Nonprofit needs an open network. For nonprofits, access to an open Internet is the fundamental and necessary condition that will allow them to compete in the marketplace of ideas. But that condition is threatened.

Net neutrality has been the default law of the land since the Internet’s founding more than 40 years ago. It ensures that all kinds of information and all people are treated equally, without special pleading or payments. Advocates of net neutrality point out that the free and open nature of the Internet has been a font of innovation and the forge from which our most dynamic new companies—companies like Google—have been created.

But in recent years, a battle has been raging between consumer groups and telecommunications companies over the fate of the Internet—whether it will remain neutral in the way content is delivered or whether phone and cable companies will be able to offer special deals featuring their own content. And by contrast, will these same companies be able to degrade the experience of content that flows outside of the entertainment channels they control.

From the start, Google has been one of the most forceful advocates for an open Internet. So it was with great shock and disappointment—and perhaps even a sense of betrayal among allies and media policy activists—when Google announced in August a joint proposal with the phone giant Verizon over new ways to manage network traffic, one that in particular exempts the rapidly expanding mobile Internet from regulations governing network neutrality.

Why should nonprofits care about any of this?

Nonprofits have greatly benefited from the new information ecology, in which every organization is able to publish directly to an infinite audience of prospective supporters and contributors.

The capacity of nonprofits to communicate directly with their supporters and constituents has expanded their ability to generate financial support and deliver programs that make a difference. And that capacity should not be undermined by an unfairly slanted Internet.

Earlier this year, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission has no statutory authority to regulate the Internet. Now, the U.S.  Congress and the FCC are considering how and whether to restore the authority of the FCC over companies that deliver Internet service.

Free Press and Public Knowledge are two of the most important advocates leading the analysis and community-organizing efforts to restore sensible regulation that would promote net neutrality. And groups like the Nonprofit Technology Network have made an effort to educate nonprofits about the increasing threats to their free speech rights – and their responsibility to contact Congress and the FCC to defend them.

The battle is lopsided. The telecommunications industry, already a powerhouse in lobbying efforts, has been unshackled by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Citizen’s United decision, which permits companies to pump unlimited hoards of cash into political activity. And there’s no telling how much money telephone and cable companies will spend to eliminate regulatory constraints on their business practices.

We may not prevail. But we should not lose our voice without a fight.

Vince Stehle is a philanthropic consultant and a member of the Board of Directors of Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media. This post is adapted from an opinion article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, where Vince is a regular columnist.

I grew up in a small beach town on the South Jersey Shore where I spent summers swimming and building sand castles.   A deep appreciation for the ocean and beach is in my DNA.    My father (photographed above) was a life guard, swimmer, and one of the first to take up surfing in the early 1960′s on our beach.    So, I always had a fondness for surfing.

During my first week as Visiting Scholar at the Packard Foundation,  I had an opportunity to hear a presentation by the good folks at Surfrider Foundation about their online/offline activism.    We used their story and the way they work in the first chapter of the book, The Networked Nonprofit, to introduce people to the concept.

I was honored to read Surfrider’s CEO, Jim Moriarty’s blog post about the book and why being a networked nonprofit is important:

The reason all nonprofits should invest heavily in social media (and building/nurturing all forms of networks) is very, very simple… to amplify their impact.

Networks aren’t about technology any more than books are about paper. People can get caught up on the “hows” of networks and end up missing the larger point–the “why.”

At Surfrider this is simple–we know that we can ratchet up the impact of our mission of coastal protection if we can increase the number of participants IN that mission. In 2004 I’d guess we had 40,000 people connected to that mission. Today, that number is about 8x greater than that with more than 300,000.

Networks enable more people to connect AND connect in ways that are more personally aligned with their interests. For example, we’re currently looking for a dozen or so stunning photographs for a website rebuild.  We can easily throw that ask out to the network and give the people that love photographing coastlines the chance to connect in a personal way by plugging in their talents.

Surfrider is a global network of surfers who want to protect the world’s beaches and oceans.  Their use of social media to support and leverage their network is filled with great examples of best practices.    They recently launched an Iphone app called “Trash-Tetris.”  The goal is the same as in regular Tetris, except you play with trash.  It is a virtual beach clean up game.  It’s on itunes here (free).

Thank you Jim, Victoria, Chad and all the surfer dudes – you’ve made my day!