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

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