Influence - Entries from June 2008

Follow Forum One on Twitter

Tuesday, June 24. 2008

We've discussed previously on this blog that there is utility in "status update" services such as Twitter for tracking the "back channel" observations at events we host and other conferences. For example, here is the twitter feed from the Online Community Unconference, which we hosted last week.

In addition, Twitter is a becoming a primary way people are sharing news, links, ideas and other information. It's supplanting RSS readers for some users. For breaking news, the velocity is dizzying. For example, Twitter users knew about Tim Russert's death before it was officially announced by NBC.

More practically, innovative groups like the Center for Global Development are using their Twitter feed to announce new blog posts.

Since it functions as a sort of public instant messaging system, it provides business intelligence to those who know how to mine it. Some companies are now using Twitter to learn what people are saying about their brand.

So while individual Forum One staff are already "tweeting" for fun and profit (full list at the end this post), Forum One has now established an institutional Twitter feed where we'll share news, ideas, and tidbits from our events and world travels.

So, follow us @forumone and we'll follow you back.

Forum One's staff Twitters ("Twits?") include:
Jim Cashel: @cashel
Andrew Cohen: @andrewjcohen
Bill Johnston: @billjohnston
Brian Pagels: @bkpagels
Dave Witzel: @dwitzel
Kurt Voelker: @kvoelker
Suzanne Rainey: @srainey

(It goes without saying that individuals' tweets are the voices of the respective authors and not the opinions of Forum One. For instance, Dave Witzel's frequent tweets about his choice of cuisine do not necessarily reflect official corporate positions).

Posted by Andrew Cohen in Collaboration at 14:31 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

The Long Legacy of Detainee Abuse

Wednesday, June 18. 2008

It's been several years since we first saw the horrific images of prisoner abuse from within the walls of Abu Ghraib prison. Lately, the indelible images, which first came to light in 2004, seemed to be fading into history as just another sad chapter in the story of America's misadventures in Iraq.

But recent work has shown that the impact of that incident was neither isolated nor short-lived. First, we have a new film by Errol Morris, Standing Operating Procedure, that shows that there was a lot more to the story that what the photographs showed.

And this week, a new report from Physicians for Human Rights shows, for the first time, through clinical evaluation, that the prisoners who were ill-treated in Abu Ghrab continue to suffer long-term mental and physical disability. The report documents that the prisoners' accounts are supported by the medical evidence. Titled "Broken Laws, Broken Lives," the report states that "the detainees suffer permanent hearing loss, persistent and debilitating pain in limbs and joints, major depressive disorder, severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks."

All of the detainees were released without charges or explanation.

Worse, the former detainees experience was not simply the result of a few "bad apples," but the manifestation of a top-down policy. They found similar clinical evidence among former detainees inprisoned in Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

Maj. General Antonio Taguba, led the official investigation into the Abu Gharaib abuse scandal. In a preface to PHR's new report, he writes:

This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individuals’ lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.

We don't often use this blog to endorse specific policies or take sides on issues. But with the evidence this compelling, the investigators so credentialed, and the conclusions this clear, it seemed appropriate to help publicize the work.

As Maj. General Taguba concludes:

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

(The Washington Post and Newshour have additional coverage.)

Posted by Andrew Cohen at 21:58 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Live Twitter feed from 6/18 Online Community Unconference

Wednesday, June 18. 2008

From our Online Community Conference today in Mountain View, see live Twitter posts, and Flickr pics from some of the 250 participants, on Twemes site, and below.

Twitter (and Twemes) gives a valuable and fun way to get a sense of the discussions/themes from an event (if you are luck enough to have a few dozen people Twittering!)

Posted by Chris Wolz in Communication at 13:33 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Online Community Unconference - today, June 18 in Mountain View

Wednesday, June 18. 2008

I'm not attending our 2008 Online Community Unconference today in Mountain View, CA, but will be tracking people's thoughts and impressions and photos from afar using Twitter and Twemes.

We've got an amazing group of some 250 people attending - from software businesses, media companies, online community businesses, foundations and nonprofits, and others. See attendee listing.

A number of folks attending will be "Twittering" from the event, or microblogging, 140 characters at a time (background about Twitter here ).

And by including in their twitter text the tag "#ocu2008", it is easy to see all the ocu2008 related posts on the aggregation service Twemes (eg http://twemes.com/ocu2008) and which also aggregates Flickr pictures and Delicious links tagged with "ocu2008".

Twitter and Twemes are some pretty powerful tools (and free) for generating impressions/content relating to an event and sharing with a mass audience in real-time.

I have to admit that my own twittering is pretty sporadic (i stuggle with whether I need another information feed coming at me? Or, should the scales fall from my eyes and I realize that Twitter is an info feed which adds value on top of all other info feeds?) But at conferences and events I find Twittering (and sharing via Twemes) to be a pretty fun and valuable way to engage with attendees and others on impressions and ideas. For example, here is the Twemes feed from our March 2008 Online Community Business Forum in Sante Fe.

Technorati Tags:
ocu2008

Posted by Chris Wolz in Communication at 08:56 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Job Opportunity: ENOUGH "Director of Online Communications"

Monday, June 16. 2008

The Enough Project focuses on action to stop genocide and crimes against humanity - especially in Africa - and they are looking for a "Director of Online Communications." ENOUGH is led by Gayle Smith and John Prendergast, and is is an impatient, focused, and inspiring organization:

We use in-depth knowledge to create clear, viable policy recommendations, and engage activists to apply pressure on the perpetrators and well-meaning governments whose own inertia prevents them from taking the steps necessary to stop genocide and crimes against humanity.

We shine a spotlight on policies that work. We aim to change the international conversation by demonstrating that progress is possible, and that rhetoric is meaningless without resolute, committed action. We are focusing currently on the situations in Congo, northern Uganda, Darfur, southern Sudan and the spillover violence in Chad.

The job posting says:

ENOUGH is currently seeking a Director of Online Communications who will oversee our multi-channel Communications team. As part as part of the communications management team this new position will develop and implement overall ENOUGH strategy, providing overall leadership to ENOUGH’s online national communications. The goal of this program is to use new media to expand ENOUGH’s communications reach beyond traditional audiences of policy makers and activists by proactively broadcasting our campaigns, activities, initiatives, and ideas.

And more job info here.

We at Forum One are fortunate to be working with ENOUGH on their online strategy.

Technorati Tags:
ENOUGH Project
John Prendergast
Gayle Smith

Posted by Chris Wolz in Jobs at 10:10 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Podcasts of Web Executive Seminars Now Available

Monday, June 9. 2008

Since last fall, we've been sharing all of our Web Executive Seminars presentations on SlideShare.net. We now have 26 and counting!

These "slidecasts" include the presenters PowerPoint or Keynote slides with synchronized audio. It takes a fair amount of time to prep the slides for upload, edit the audio into individual speaker segments, and match the audio with the slide transitions. We're doing it because we know that many people can't make it to the session in person due to time or distance.

We also feel that these presentations are an important contribution to the nonprofit tech community. And while there's no substitute for attending a seminar in person, these slidecasts expand the reach of our speaker's ideas.

We also realize that not everyone has time to sit at their computer and watch a slideshow for 15-20 minutes. So, I'm pleased to share that we're also distributing the audio of our sessions via podcast. This makes it easy for you to listen to the presentations wherever you go -- in your car, on a plane, or even at the gym.

You subscribe to our podcast via either of the following URLs. The first one is specifically for iTunes, the second one is for any other software that subscribes to podcasts:

Once you subscribe, you'll have access to audio from nearly 30 speakers, and we'll be rolling out the audio for our remaining May speakers over the next few weeks. So subscribe now and check the channel frequently. And let us know how you like this service via the comments below.

And of course, it's not to early to sign up for our next seminar, Policy Data Mixups and Mashups.

Technorati tags:
nptech
web redesign
webexecutiveseminars
wes08may

Posted by Andrew Cohen in Events at 09:24 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Five (and a Half) Approaches to User Testing

Friday, June 6. 2008

This week, an organization asked me about our approach to usability testing. I proceeded to prattle on about how we like to keep it simple: lose the two-way mirror, constrain the scope of what's tested, test with small numbers of users, re-test often, blah, blah, blah.

After the meeting, I recalled Kira Marchanese's presentation, "Five and a Half User Testing Approaches." Kira is the Director of Internet Communications at the Environmental Defense Fund.

If every web redesign team watched this slide show, I could spare them much of my yammering. In this presentation from Forum One's May 2008 seminar Putting Audiences First, Kira de-mystifies testing approaches. She explains that not only is usability testing affordable, but you often can't afford not to test.

(Kira calls it "User Testing." Others, including our own director of user experience, prefer the term "usability testing.")

I'll summarize Kira's points here, but I recommend that you watch and listen to her presentation below. (Click the green arrow to hear her audio.)

Kira points out that since many organizations will not routinely invest $15,000 to $20,000 on a single round of testing, there are cheaper ways:

| View | Upload your own

Approach #1 - Hire a Professional Under Your Own Roof: One of the largest costs of traditional user testings has been the cost of the facilities. If you have extra computers and a spare conference room, you can save a lot of money by letting a usability professional test on-site. You can also recruit subjects from your own contact lists. Call upon volunteers on your email list. Or if it comes to it, draft friends and family. Look for a spectrum of computer levels and a base familiarity with your work. But you need not obsess over your sample's representativeness.

Approach #2 - Do It Yourself: If money is significantly constrained, you may want to consider conducting the tests yourself. A drawback to this option is that you give up the perspective that an experienced unbiased facilitator can lend to the overall analysis. In addition, a skilled facilitator is much better at not biasing the test by inadvertently leading a subject. In addition, they are trained to draw out the reasons a user might be struggling with a given interface.

Approach: #3 - Go Virtual: Use a service such as www.usertesting.com. You submit a URL and their panel of testers does the task and records their activity. You get the screen recording with audio and written feedback. This best for simple, focused tasks. This is really cheap -- only $20/tester. So a full panel of ten tests is only $200 (plus staff time to review and analyze the recordings afterwards). The main drawback is that there is no moderator to probe and guide the subject or ask questions like "what did you mean by that?"

Approach #4: Go Virtual -- More Basic: In this method, you ask task-like questions in an online survey. You can run different versions of survey. Again works well for very focused tasks such as deciding on terminology or labeling. You can churn a few hundred users through a few variations.

Approach #5 - Go Virtual -- Still Basic: Card Sorting is a useful activity in which you have participants sort physical index cards into piles and label them. (Usability.gov has a good introduction to card sorting). You can do this online too using WebSort.net or similar. It allows people to sort items into folders and give them titles. It's about $50/test (plus staff time).

Approach #5.5: Don't Test: It is perfectly acceptable to skip testing when you realize that you already have good feedback, don't have dramatically new functionality, and need to get to market. You can always evaluate the solution further later.

Technorati tags:
usability
user experience
web design
nptech
wes08may

Posted by Andrew Cohen in Events, Strategy at 09:57 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

"The 2.0 Nonprofit" - Day 2: Social Networking

Wednesday, June 4. 2008

Picking up where my colleague Chris Wolz left off yesterday, I'm live blogging a session at a small event in DC. Today we are at the recently-opened Newseum -- an impressive building near the U.S. Capitol.

This session is titled " Networking: Using the Web to Connect with Your Stakeholders in Fundraising and In-Kind Support."

First up, Michael Silverman, partner at Echo Ditto and former Dean Campaign staffer:

It's difficult for organizations to insert themselves into these spaces that are primarily conversational. What's most exciting is social networks ability to drive offline, real-world action.

The Dean campaign was the first time this was seen using Meetup.com, a site started to bring together fans of "Lord of the Rings" fans. Today its for people like moms and dog owners looking to find each other. It enables people to gather together along interests in which there is no other group that would bring them together.

Recent example: Bill Mckibben used social networks to organize climate change activists and hold 1,000 rallies within 12 weeks to pressure Congress. And this is not new organizing, but it's just accelerated due to power of networks.

Now, we're hearing from Randall Winston, Director of Nonprofit Relations, Facebook Causes

Facebook is a real social network of "real people doing real things." Winston draws distinction with MySpace where you can create fictional profiles such as Bobba Fett" if you want.

Causes grew out of the original Facebook groups that were joining together to organize for Darfur disinvestment. These were the largest groups on Facebook. But they started to wither because you couldn't do anything in a group.

Causes founding premise was to allow people to continue to organize on their own.

Currently, there are 12 million users 80,000 causes benefiting 20,000 nonprofits in U.S. and Canada. The vast majority of Causes founders are young people who do not work for the nonprofit.

While nonprofits can go in and manage causes, but it's still meant to be for users.

Example: UNICEF. UNICEF wasn't interested in social networking until a 14-year-old girl organized over 10,000 people in a Cause without UNICEF's knowledge. UNICEF noticed when one day they received a $10,000 check in the mail. Then they became quite interested.

They wondered how to engage people. The best way to engage this community is to start at the lowest common denominator and reach critical mass before rolling out new ways to engage.

Main criticism has been in regard to fundraising. Winston says we don't know exactly how to measure success, but here are a few results:

1) Build awareness (of your organization since your organization is on people's profiles)
2) Build Community: overtime this grows
3) Education: Causes include tools for posting media, announcements, and email. There are also wall postings and lists of top supporters.

Next: Eliza Byard, Executive Director, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.)

Eliza said that she had to be dragged kicking and screaming into technology. Then, in 2001, she read (and highly recommends) More Than Bit Players.

Article points out that reaching a network is not the same thing as reaching an audience. In Web. 1.0 your only option was to yell louder. Now, with social networks, you can get people to pass along info. But this is labor-intensive. But how to engage people and build community with Web 2.0 communities.

GLSEN's case study: A young man named Larry King was shot in the back of the head by another 8th
Grader simply because he was gay. This is the organization's worst nightmare. (Four out of five gay students experience verbal and physical harassment at school on a regular basis.) This was two days before a much more visible campus shooting. This took this story out of the public's attention.

With foundation support, they launched a place for people to post vigils, and also entered social networks including a Facebook Cause, a MySpace, YouTube, etc. But the question becaume -- how do we capture this community's outrage into something sustainable.

Fortunately, GLSEN had an event coming up -- their "Day of Silence." So they were able to lay out a number of next steps for supporters related to participation in this event. They also realized that they would have to produce content just for social networks. They produced an inexpensive video for YouTube. They also were lucky to have the talk show host Larry King (the victim's namesake) record a free PSA for them.

GLSEN's results: 88% increase in annual Day of Silence and 50% increase in number of schools that held Day of Silence activities. Audience for banner ads was 14- to 17-year-olds, and click-thru rate on MySpace was double of that of MySpace.

Question & Answer:
Winston: Facebook's average age is still in mid-30s with 200,000 new users a day. Facebook makes it easier to find things via your friends. Facebook is a place of networks, MySpace is more of a mass medium.

Byard: don't forget that one of the advantages of YouTube is that the hosting costs for video have now gone away. You just need to create it.

Silverman: Think about a way to enable people to create their own media that is compelling to their networks. Such as NothingButNets.org who enable people to do their own fundraising. It scales well because everyone in the network. Another example: Witness.org lets people upload videos that show human rights abuses.

Byard: Don't underestimate the staff required to do this well. You need to substantially re-order your organization's resources. This changes how your organization does business."

Silverman: The personal news stream is often more interesting than the faceless organization itself. So people at nonprofits should create these streams.

My Takeaways:

The Newseum is a nice conference space with good food and reliable wi-fi for attendees.

Social networks are still primarily for prospecting, but let you do it in a targeted way.

You need to produce content that is social network-ready. Blog posts, short videos, etc.

Your social networking efforts will be most successful if you tie it together with real off-line events.

Web 2.0 can substantially change your organization's structure -- for the bettter -- as the implications for community organizing are substantial.

Posted by Andrew Cohen in Events at 14:38 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

"The 2.0 Nonprofit" - Live Blogging from Google.org DC

Tuesday, June 3. 2008

I will be live blogging from a small DC conference this afternoon - entitled "The 2.0 Nonprofit - How Technology Tools & Trends Meet Human Services" co-organized by idealist.org and the National Human Services Assembly, and sponsored by Google.org, CDW, Xerox. The Google.org Foundation new office in DC is impressive - large, sleek and industrial with Google primary colors sprinkled about, and fast wifi!. Seems to be interesting audience - not a typical DC NGO crowd - sitting immediately next to me someone from Boston and from Ohio.

Google's intro - Matt Dunne - their focus in co-hosting this session? Mission is help organize the world's information, and see nonprofits playing a key role in that. Google tools have embedded into them collaboration features and want to make that available for NGOs to do their work better.... They seek to provide for nonprofits tools that have three powerful attributes: free, simple and scalable.

Google.org foundation focus? Three areas, all with international focus:
-climate change
-microenterprise
-global health

See collection of tools for NGOs, and more coming all the time... google.com/nonprofits/

Jeff Keltner - Google - Cloud Computing
Now, how will he pitch this to nonprofits, I wonder? He shows some funny slides of tech limits on orgs... email storage limits (email jail) , collaboration messiness (multiple doc versions floating around), and inaccessibility when off of network... and so... cloud computing is the answer. Analogies: transition of power generation from on-site generation to a network-provided approach (but shifting back again, no ;-)?)
Benefits of CC? continual improvements to platform (eg who ever asks "what version of Gmail are you running?"), enable wider-spread collaboration, building blocks ala legos... (gee - Google colors?!).

Steve Grove, Non profit manager at YouTube
Youtube is....#6 largest site in the US, 20% of users over 55 years, in one minute 10 hours of video are uploaded,

Ramya Raghavan - how to use YouTube for Good?
-tag and title well
-embed embed embed - push it out! other web sites, e-news....
-click "subscribe"
-engage and interact - eg respond via video to others' videos, engage in discussions...
-cross-link webpage and channel
-keep us in the loop nonprofits@youtube.com

Case? 24 hours for Darfur
-video petition to get people to ask Congress to get the US to intervene
-collected over 800 videos from supporters
-80,000 channel views
-played videos outside of the UN to raise awareness - made a live event of it

-Case? Humane Society / Responding to Michael Vick Dogfighting Episode
-created public contest for people to express feelings
-got 30 submissions, with winning video getting 95,000 views
-drew 2,000 new members to Humane Society mailing list

Case? Violence in Myanmar / WITNESS
-Fall 2007, government crackdown on public protests
-citizens film action on cell phones, spreading message when journalists had been blacked out
-over 400,000 viewed WITNESS videos
-Actor Jim Carey filmed personal commentary
-Wall Street Journal gave front page coverage to WITNESS and YouTube videos on the unrest

Case? Campus Progress / "I'm Voting For"
-asked young students to post videos about issues which concern them
-bought and gave away five flip cameras - got 100 testimonials within first week.

YouTube Hub for Nonprofits and Activists
-there is a new nonprofits & activism category on YouTube (and who decides?)
-spotlights trends in the YouTube activist community, compelling content aggregated.

Kate Sands Adams / International Rescue Committee / Google Analytics
-IRC is focused on aiding refugees around the world, since 1933
-"what do we need?" track and attract visitors and supporters
-need an integrated solutions that is effective and affordable for a NGO
-"why Google?"
-more than $400k in free AdWords
-400k views of YouTube videos
-Google Analytics - use on about five web sites. free, great reports ("boss friendly"). map overlays great. "site overlay" great to show where people are clicking. goals-focused tracking ("define funnel - multi-step process to your goal")
-link Analytics and AdWords accounts to track performance.

Michelle Trousil / Artists for Humanity / Google Apps for 20-person organization
-Boston based arts/youth community program
-using Analystics, Apps, AdWords, and also YouTube
-AdWords: Google helped to set up (!), CTR hovering around 2%, 40% of recent even ticket sales derived from Google search
-Analytics: had a challenge with Flash and GA on their site, created metatags to cut bounce rate by half, have 10h/week staffer to manage AdWords and Analytics, create contact pages to have better conversion rate.
-Google Apps/email: some staff uncertainty... but won over by storage of email (6 gigs versus 10 mb from prior host), accessible anywhere around the world, preserves conversation strings (took me some getting used to, ut like it now), Mac users not able to drag doc attachments to email... looking for a Firefox add-on solution, needed to update to T1 line because of increased usage,
-Google Apps/calendar: scheduling and connecting of calendars great (yes! huge plus for us), some people still needing hand-holding.
-Google Apps/chat: has yielded more silence in office!
-Getting adoption? obtain buy-in in advance, be prepared for hold outs, listen to concerns, offer tech support, do not be afraid to call Google rep, create Standard procedures, do not let staff backslide!
-did whole set up and conversion (of Gmail) over a weekend.
-

Sighting: one guy in the audience with a cool green OLPC machine!

Cool tools...
-in lobby of Google.org, one big flat screen zooming in and out of famous sights around the world on Google Earth (can I get that on cable?), and another screen showing a steady falling down of text words and phrases.. I am guessing a live feed of search terms.

Breakout sessions

Using Google Applications: things that are new for me:

Using DOCS
-interesting features? they say strong focus on collaboration, eg adding comments (?)

Using SPREADHSEETS
-can insert gadgets, and publish from gadgets.
-easy to create forms to input data into spreadsheet - Excel meets SurveyMonkey - (pretty cool)
-gadget can create graph from data on a Google spreadsheet, which was collected via a published form, and then publish the live graph to a web page(!)

Using PRESENTATIONS
-can share live presentations online (ie replace what WebEx provides...)
-*now* has rudimentary speaker notes (that was lagging...)
-publish presentations to the web
-share share share - lotsa ways to do it.

Overall?
"Google docs let you do things that there were not tools for before... eg taking and keeping meeting notes as part of a presentation and then sharing with people.... e.g collecting and publishing data using spreadsheets and gadgets..."

Using GMAIL
-no folders, instead labels...
-can create own spam filter (great! can cut out those pesky messages from,,,)

Using CALENDAR
-"quick add" - have not used that

Using SITES
-way to have groups meet online, collaborate, share docs and action item lists
-create SITES on the fly, apply themes, choose landing page, add dashboard with a lot of gadgets, insert things like calendar or spreadsheets or YouTube videos, etc.
-collaboration - can control access in layered manner

Using MAPS
-adding addresses to database? if you are not already in their map database, on map search results click on "add a place to the map" on lower left.
-"my maps" tab: build out own maps and share and publish. I like how you can drop/drag placemarks onto map where you may not have exact address.

Using GOOGLE GRANTS
-allows NGOs to run ads for free on Google.com, at $10k a month for up to three months (then reviewed and renewed...)
-example: search on Google on "humanitarian aid"
-ads on right - sponsored links - ranked by willingness to pay. And amount deducted from a NGOs grant if they are clicked on.
-quality of the ad is also a factor in ranking: ie how often your ad is clicked upon, and whether people then take actions on your site (how does Google know?)
-design a "good ad": have a "call to action" in the ad- something you want people to do when they get to your site.
-on your "landing page", the action you desire should be really obvious and easy for people to take.
-eligibility? google.com/grants/ > program details. 501c3, not religious or lobbying.
-4 month review cycle;
-Chris thinks: is there any reason why most 501c organizations should not be taking advantage of the $10k a month free advertising, and experimenting?
-keyword tool - pretty cool way to design your ad.

OVERALL TAKEAWAYS FROM TUESDAY SESSION?
-Google.org has set up amazing office in DC - space for 200, it seems to me, and there are about 30 people there now. Could be they plan on devoting a lot of time/space to being convener of such events?
-Google's set of online applications, viewed all together, should be pretty compelling backoffice suite (and some front office) for a lot of small and large organizations, NGOs or for profits. Email, intellectual asset creation and sharing, work coordination, scheduling, online data collection and display, collaboration spaces, web analytics focused on real goals, web advertising tightly tailored to issues/audiences, maps and other widgets... What's not covered in here

Technorati Tags:
Google.org
Idealist.org

Posted by Chris Wolz in Communication at 14:36 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)