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Putting Audiences -- Not just Facebook -- FirstThursday, May 1. 2008 Next week, we're hosting a usability seminar at the National Press Club titled "Putting Audiences First, Again and Again." Registration has been steady, but it's at half the clip of our previous session "Social Sites for Social Good."This is a shame, because this session's topic is equally important. Certainly Facebook, MySpace, digg.com and all of the other new social sites possess huge potential to build prominence, recruit supporters, and drive traffic. Orgs need to be actively incorporating social approaches into their online strategy -- as Tim has pointed out previously. But it can't be at the expense of fundamentals. Usability gets to the essence of why some sites succeed more than others. It's what separates the iPod from the Zune. Those of us who build web sites spend a lot of time hypothesizing about how our visitors experience our sites. Rarely do we actually sit back and watch them in action. For this reason, next week we're dedicating a significant portion of our session to useful examples of straightforward usability testing. Many of us know we should be testing our designs and sites, but we think its too complicated, too expensive, or too time-consuming. Or we think we can't convince the boss that it's worthwhile. Next week, our presenters are going put these myths to rest. Speakers from FDA, Voice of America, senate.gov, and the Environmental Defense Fund will explain how they approached usability testing. They'll explain its benefits, and how the results satisfied their visitors, and propelled their mission. So while social media help connect people with your organization and bring them to your site, good user experience is what keeps them coming back. There's still time to register. I hope you'll join us! 
Event: Scott McNealy - May 5th - Sharing as a Business Strategy for the Social SectorTuesday, April 29. 2008
Interview: MySpace for Nonprofit OrganizationsWednesday, April 9. 2008
I hosted a live online interview with Heather Mansfield earlier today. During a live interview, we take questions from whomever wishes to submit them. Heather is an expert on how nonprofit organizations can use MySpace to spread their message and recruit supporters. Here is the transcript of the interview.
Also, here are the slides from her recent presentation at our Web Executive Seminar at the National Press Club: Coming up tomorrow, April 10: A live interview with John Sebes on open source voting systems.
Observations on the 2008 Nonprofit Technology ConferenceWednesday, March 26. 2008 Kurt Voelker and I (Andrew Cohen), traveled to New Orleans to participate in the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference. This was my fourth conference and the most useful and fulfilling. In addition our volunteering and presenting, we learned quite a bit. Here are our key take-aways:Kurt's Observations:
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Social Sites for Social Good - Presentation Slides/Audio Now OnlineWednesday, March 26. 2008 We had a great Web Executive Seminar on February 26th about "Social Sites for Social Good" - exploring how organizations are using social media and social networking for social causes.(The picture is from the event organized, largely using Facebook, "One Million Voices Against FARC" in Bogotá, Colombia. Feb 4, 2008. By: Alberto Acero Source: Facebook- and see news) The slides from the session - slides+audio - are now publicly available for viewing on Forum One's event web page. Some reflections on the session: * Ivan Boothe, Internet strategy coordinator of the Genocide Intervention Network - talked about use of Facebook to raise visibility of GIN work. * Qui Diaz, Ogilvy PR, and Stephanie Marshall, Director of Pandemic Communications at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services talked about HHS effort to engage flu bloggers to raise awareness of HHS efforts and messages. * Heather Mansfield, Online community manager for Change.org, talked about some interesting ways groups are using MySpace to drive interest in their issues. * Janice R. Nall, Director, Division of eHealth Marketing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - shared examples of how CDC is taking their messages to where the audiences are on social networks. * Jonathon D. Colman, Associate Director, Digital Marketing at the Nature Conservancy - shared his fascinating experiences in using social media services like Digg to raise the prominence of TNC's work. (Hint - takes some diligence!) We're interested in feedback about the presentations and the seminar - feel free to add below. Thanks!
Five Tips for Getting Started with the Social WebThursday, March 6. 2008
This most recent installment in our ongoing series of Web Executive Seminars at the National Press Club in Washington featured six engaging speakers who presented case studies of their forays into the social web. We hosted speakers from the Centers for Disease Control, Ogilvy PR, Health and Human Services, the Genocide Intervention Network, the Nonprofit MySpace, and the Nature Conservancy. Our speakers are listed here. Each speaker shared advice for getting your feet wet with social media and networking sites ranging from MySpace to Facebook to Digg. Here, I boil their presentations down to a delicious five-tip reduction: 1. Do your research. If you think that people aren't already actively socializing online on the issues you and your organization care about, look harder. There's probabaly a community out there talking about everything from avian flu to zinc water treatment. You need to find out who is blogging, posting to message boards, uploading viral video, etc. related to your issue. These are your "influencers" and you'll need their support to succeed in your social web efforts. Useful places to search for communities and blogs discussing your issue include Boardreader, BoardTracker, Clusty, Technorati, and Google Blog Search. 2. Give your advocates some ownership. The social web is, by nature, a democracy -- not a representative, two-party democracy mind you -- but a direct democracy where the only barrier to participation is an internet connection. There are no "Super Delegates" here. You don't need to be a member of Congress to vote for a post on Digg or fillibuster all night long to write on your blog. The last thing your online audiences need is a big organization coming in and demanding that they play by its rules. So listen to your advocates, early and often, and give them a degree of ownership of your initiatives within the sites and online communities you sponsor or promote. 3. Measure what you can. No matter how cool your boss is, chances are he or she is not going to let you invest countless hours building a Facebook presence if you can't demonstrate some returns that support your mission. But it's important to set realistic goals for yourself as these social sites are new. Few organizations are raising much money directly through social networks. But there are other ways to assess value. Membership or "friends" counts are an obvious one. Quantity and timeliness of various social networking activities are worth tracking. Sometimes you can track newsletter signups that originated from a social site. But the main output of many of these efforts can be simply brand awareness, which is very valuable, but difficult to measure. 4. Embrace the chaos. Yes, user-controlled pages on the social web -- particularly MySpace -- can be ugly and make user experience folks want to paint over their Macbook monitors. You have to look beyond the clashing color schemes and informal writing styles. If you don't, you risk missing an opportunity to get ahead of your competitors or critics.5. Don't be afraid to experiment. Social media and networking sites are big and growing. They are influential, popular, and worthy of investment. But they are also overwhelming. Decide on one or two key social sites you are going to concentrate on, learn them, and stick with it. It will take time. It will take patience. It may take internship labor. And you may not see immediate results. But, like the earliest days of the internet, experimenters enjoy first-mover advantage. Don't wait. Check back here soon for narrated "slidecasts" of the speakers' presentations, and let me know in the comments if you have any tips to add (whether you were at the event or not).
Hope to See You at the NTEN ConferenceThursday, March 6. 2008Each spring, the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN) holds its Nonprofit Technology Conference showcasing leading nonprofit projects and organizations. It's a useful and inspiring three-day opportunity to network, collaborate, and have fun. This year's conference is March 19-21 in New Orleans and me-- Andrew Cohen -- and my co-worker Kurt Voelker are participating. If you are attending, here's where you can find us:
And if you want to see the full agenda on the device of your choice, NTEN has helpfully published feeds that enable you to add all of the conference events to your calendar. They also produced a nifty widget -- see below:
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