After almost a decade of blogging and most of it at the same place (here), this blog has moved to Bethkanter.org. I can’t believe that I’ve been blogging for almost a decade and seven years here at typepad. According to the stats in Typepad, my blog has had:
If you subscribe via RSS, you don't have to do a thing. I will keep this blog as an archive for a while. Check out the new blog and let me know what you think.
There are different ways to close the loop between social media and offline action as we get better integrating social media into our overall marketing and communications plans. Think in both directions - offline to online and online to offline. And, remember it is important to track your tactics to see which ones work.
Offline to Online: Window Clings and Sandwich Boards
I was in Oakland, CA and discovered Fenton's Creamery, famous for its ice cream. The line was out the door.
Lines are good because you can contemplate that important decision: What flavor? While I was debating between chocolate chocolate chip and coconut pineapple 95% fat free flavors, I noticed a small sandwich board sign promoting Fenton's Facebook Page. I "liked it" from my iPhone.
I posted the above photo on my Facebook page, primarily to test how different content sparks interaction on my own Facebook page. But as a bonus, I learned from Facebook expert Mari Smith, that sandwich boards and window clings with Facebook and Twitter IDS are an effective technique to close the loop between offline and social media.
Nonprofits: Increasing Engagement
In the nonprofit world, we've been focusing on the online to offline connection, or more specifically how to turn Slacktivists into Activists with Social Media. This excellent post by my business partner, Geoff Livingston, provides some excellent tips for encouraging deeper engagement from your nonprofit's online social media friends and fans.
Creative Ways to Track
I've also been reading about tips to track how your online social network activities are driving offline actions. While these methods are geared for small business, they could be easily used by nonprofits. They include:
#1: Use Google Voice Number on All Social Media Profiles and Track
#2: Promote Offline Events On Social Media
#3: Offer Coupons Exclusive to Social Media Channels
#4: Host A Tweet Up
#5: Connect Social Media and Email Campaigns
This year, we are seeing the twin trends of greater awareness from nonprofits for the need to integrate social media with existing marketing and communications plans while at the same time audiences are yearning for greater social media engagement from the charities and causes they love most. This could be a win-win situation for your nonprofit organization if stop thinking of your social media channel in a silo.
A few questions:
My son, Harry, who likes most kids his age, loves screens: computer, video games, and television. "Screen Time" is our house is limited and a reward for good behavior. He, of course, was very aware of the launch of iPad and wanted one. (Me too)
So after a good report card, I acquired an iPad. Right now we're using it to play Blokus, a game that we have played together as family for years in its analog form. The game teaches strategy and visual skills. The iPad version lets you play against the CPU, in tournaments, alone, and with others, including multi-players. It has a coaching mode so you can improve strategy. I also found a coloring and drawing app that my daughter is enjoying, although I must admit that I'm having fun with it too.
The device isn't just a toy for the kids (or me.) I also have been exploring the iPad professional uses. So far, it is useful for note taking, live tweeting at conferences, and checking email on the go. I also admit that the first app I downloaded was one for google analytics - it's great for browsing data. Most of all, I like using it to read web content over coffee away from my desktop. I like it better than my smart phone because I don't need 300x reading glasses to read the screen and it is nice and light.
So, I was curious when I saw the question from the Chronicle of Philanthropy on Twitter about nonprofits and the iPad. The post points to an interesting article about the iPad user experience by Jeremy Rue. In short, the iPad is a lean back versus lean forward media. The post muses about the implications for nonprofits:
Organizations that think about how they can build an experience that truly captures their missions will have an advantage in attracting people who use tablets.
While acknowledging that thinking about integrating iPad apps is something that isn't yet widespread, the Chronicle is wondering what iPad apps early adopter nonprofits are working on for constituent engagement? This might be something along the lines of an interactive game that engages people around a cause.
This may not require the development of a native app, it could be something interactive on a web site that can be accessed via your iPad. In fact, I was able to join LiveStrong's Join the Ride Online Event using my iPad. This online event allows you to create your own virtual bike and race through the California landscape using your story to invite more people to join us in the fight against cancer. (BTW, their Partners RadioShack will donate $75,000 if LiveStrong can get 10,000 to join in the next 48 hours.)
I ran into Peter Conlon, the CEO of Ammado, an online giving platform, was eager to not only show me his iPad, but that one could make a donation online using their widgets.
One area of iPad development are "productivity" or "enterprise" apps that allow users to link back to a CRM or other database. Computerworld wrote about enterprise apps mentioning one from Blackbaud. So, not only is there front-end, but there is also a back-end, which assumes that the nonprofit has the iPad.
There is also another area for development and that is iPad apps for program/service delivery. Take for example this app that allows deaf people to test their hearing. Or VolunteerMatch which launched an iPhone and iPad app recently.
Conclusion
Amid the hype around the iPad and apps, there will be lots of potential ways that nonprofits could use iPad apps to support their missions - from engagement, fundraising, enterprise and program delivery as there is more widespread adoption by end users. Right now, nonprofits should recognize that we're still in the early stages and there's no compelling rush to get seduced by shiny object syndrome.
We'll no doubt watch a few nonprofit early adopters test the waters with native iPad app development, although it's bound to be expensive until we have other options. In the meantime, iPad can also be used to access web content, so easy place to start is to see if you're getting web visits via iPads and then make sure your web site content is iPad ready
What's your take on iPads and Nonprofits?
Almost a year ago, Allison Fine and I finished a reflection paper on the lessons learned from the first America's Giving Challenge from the Case Foundation. This year, we are experimenting with incorporating social media techniques as part of the evaluation process for the second America’s Giving Challenge.
While we've used traditional research methods, including a survey of 720 Challenge Participants and interviews, we are facilitating “Conversational Case Studies” that explore best practices in integrating social media with fundraising campaigns by the America’s Giving Challenge (AGC) winners. A conversational case study is a write up our interviews identifying a few questions we still have.
The first case study explores how a small organization, Darius Goes West, was successful in AGC. We wanted to begin with a small group because one finding from the survey of participants was that people still think that being a small organization is a disadvantage to using social media successfully. Our detailed case study with Darius Goes West reveals some fantastic insights and learnings.
We end with questions that we’re love to discuss with you:
So, go join the conversation in the comments over at the Case Foundation blog.
Source: Share Your Ideas
Note from Beth: I first encountered Nina Simon through her awesome blog back four or five years ago. I got a chance to meet her face-to-face for the first time at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in 2007. I'm a huge fan of work and the way she thinks - especially after she road the Scare House ride on the Santa Cruz boardwalk with me and did a brilliant reflection on its design.
Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. I've purchase a two copies, one for me and one to give away. If you want a chance of winning a copy, leave a comment saying how you might apply some of the science of participation to your social media strategy.
Imagine sitting around a conference table planning an upcoming project that involves user-generated content. One colleague suggests that users should be able to contribute original work. Another thinks that users should not only contribute content but also have a hand in determining how it is used. A third argues that the project won’t be truly participatory unless users get to define what content is sought in the first place. How can you describe user participation in a shared language that helps your team make the right decision for your project?
Science has an answer. Last year, Rick Bonney and a team of educators and science researchers at the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) tackled this question in a project designed to define the structures and benefits of public participation in science research (download the full report as a PDF here.) As far back as the 1880s, scientists have led “citizen science” projects in which amateurs are invited to participate in formal scientific research by volunteering to count birds, measure soil quality, or document non-native plant species.
Despite its long history, few researchers studied the use and impact of citizen science until the 1980s. Over the course of several projects at the Lab, Rick Bonney and others noted that different kinds of participation led to different outcomes for participants. When participants collected data, they learned a great deal about data collection processes but not so much about the overall scientific method. When, on the other hand, amateurs had the opportunity to help design scientific questions or disseminate research results, they often felt more ownership of the project and greater interest in using scientific methods to address their own community needs. Rick wanted a better way to describe what kinds of projects led to different community outcomes.
After a broad survey, Rick’s team defined three broad categories of public participation in scientific research: contribution, collaboration, and co-creation. These categories align roughly with the extent to which the public are involved in different stages of scientific research. In contributory projects, participants collect data in a scientist-controlled process. Scientists design the test questions, steer the data collection, and analyze the results. In collaborative projects, citizens collect data, but they also analyze results and draw conclusions in partnership with the scientists. In co-creative projects, the public develops the test questions, and scientists co-produce scientific regimens to address the community interest. While co-creative projects have the most lasting impact on participants, they tend to involve very small groups of participants and require a lot more work (and flexibility) on the part of the scientists who run them.
What does this have to do with nonprofits and social media? Like science labs, nonprofit organizations produce public-facing content under the guidance of authoritative experts. Like citizen science project leaders, many social media practitioners are seeking meaningful, sensible ways to invite users, customers, and citizens to participate in the development of high-quality work. I’ve been using these participatory categories to talk about how we’d like users to participate in different projects. Most of my work involves museums, but these categories can be useful in any project that involves user participation.
I’ve added one more category to the mix called hosted. Hosted projects are ones in which an organization turns over a portion of its facilities and/or resources to present programs developed and implemented entirely by users. This category is in some ways the most radical, because the organization is only minimally involved in the use of its content—but it is also potentially the most powerful for users, who can appropriate the content for whatever suits them.
What do these categories look like outside of the science environment? Here’s a brief definition and cultural example of each:
• In contributory projects, users are solicited to provide limited and specified objects, actions, or ideas to an institutionally controlled process. Blog commenters are contributors, as are people who engage in contests. The Victoria & Albert Museum’s World Beach Project is a wonderful contributory project in which people around the world make artworks on beaches per institutional specifications and submit images of their work to a central website. Participants feel like part of something bigger than themselves, but they don’t connect to each other personally as community members.
• In collaborative projects, users are invited to serve as active partners in the creation of institutional projects that are originated and ultimately controlled by the organization. Wiki users are often collaborators. They have some influence over the direction of the project but don’t steer it themselves. In the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Children of the Lodz Ghetto research project, participants work together with staff to do database research into the lives of thousands of Polish children during the Holocaust. Users report incredible connection to each other and to the project, but quality control is much more complex than in a simplified contributory project.
• In co-creative projects, community members work together with institutional staff members from the beginning to define the project’s goals and process based on community interests. Online, this may be a campaign that is started by a member and then supported and fueled with institutional help. In the physical world, at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle, staff members partner with visitors to co-produce exhibits based on community members’ interests and the institution’s collections. The resultant exhibitions are beautiful and well-received, and the institution accepts that the community process takes more time, effort, and humility than a standard exhibit design process.
• In hosted projects, users appropriate institutional content or resources for their own uses. Online, this may mean participants creating their own mashups or using organizational data to construct visualizations. When the Toronto Science Centre hosted the 888 YouTube Meetup, museum staff effectively invited YouTubers from all over the world to use the facility as a videographer’s playground. This generated many energetic videos set in the Science Centre, but many featured content that was not in-line with the institutional mission.
Contribution, collaboration, co-creation, hosted. No one model is better than the others. Nor should they even be seen as progressive steps towards a model of “maximal participation.” They each imply different levels of institutional control and participant involvement, but transformational experiences are possible in every type. Consider the difference between a book project in which an institution sources stories from users (contributory) and one in which the institution works with a small group of users to design the publication (collaborative). If the first project results in a book composed entirely of users’ voices and the second results in a volume that looks more like a “typical” institutional publication, which project is more participatory?
This question is impossible to answer, and for good reason. Participatory projects are most successful when you can find the right model for your staff culture, your users, and your goals. Here’s a chart that may help you figure out what type is best for your next project. While there are outlier innovative projects that defy categorization, this chart displays the fundamental characteristics of each model.
How will you invite participants to engage with your next project?
Nina Simon is an independent museum exhibit designer and publisher of the Museum 2.0 blog. She is the author of the new book The Participatory Museum, a practical guide to visitor participation in cultural institutions.
The “superfriends” on stage at OMCA’s California Futures at the Massive Reopening Celebration
Source
Local Oakland Tweeter @trafficologist Standing Beside Her Profile Pic in the Twitterstream.
Note from Beth: It is strange sometimes how social networks can have your past, present, and future collide. I met James Leventhal via Twitter and we ended up working together on a project. Through Facebook, I've been able to connect with friends from elementary school, high school, and college. Sometimes connections cross the boundaries of time.
Recently, James wrote about some interesting ways museums are using Twitter for offline/online engagement. And, one of the Twitter users who participated was a friend from high school!
The San Francisco Bay Area has seen some extraordinary museum openings over the past several years. When the New de Young opened it did a 32-hour party and community celebration, starting a trend that was then picked up by the Contemporary Jewish Museum with Dawn in 2008 and now the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA).
“The newly transformed Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) opens Saturday, May 1, with 31 hours of continuous, round-the-clock free programs and events until we close at 6 p.m. Sunday.” Wow.
For a lot of folks, the Oakland Museum of California is something of a standard bearer of community engagement and the building itself is a harbinger of today’s museums.
Amongst the long list of activities that took place, one of the more interesting is that a dedicated local team of social networking museum professionals from the Oakland Museum of California (@oaklandmuseumca), the Contemporary Jewish Museum (@jewseum), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (@sfmoma), the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (@ybca), the Exploratorium (@exploratorium), the California Academy of Sciences (@calacademy), and the Asian Art Museum (@asianartmuseum) are going to try and make the “topic” #CALIFORNIA trend on twitter. California is part of the OMCA’s mission.When it opened in 1969, OMCA’s design by Pritzker prize–winning architect Kevin Roche was acclaimed for its bold and innovative premise: a museum that also serves as a vibrant urban park and public space.
If you follow museums on twitter, a lot of what you find is that the “institutions” are communicating with each other in ways that are novel, educational, engaging, droll or banal — reflecting the overall tone of “dialogue” in the twitterverse.
And what’s also interesting about this is how it reveals that there are typically individuals who are responsible for these “tweets.” This provides a new level of transparency for the museum worker, and a higher degree of exposure. Ironically, the “tweeters” often mask their true identities. In fact, this group of professionals in the SF Bay Area all know each other and refer to themselves as the “superfriends,” referring perhaps more to their masked identities than their kinship.
It is also interesting because museums have come to play a cherished role in our civic constructs as the development of new museums and major renovations in the SF Bay Area reveal. But they still suffer for issues of relevance. With Twitter and other so called social networking tools, the question of relevance is now in the hands of individuals, the audience even. And it is smart for museums like the OMCA to leverage their ability to make something trend, to reveal their networks. Trending topics show up on CNN.
The Oakland Museum of California has been “in the trenches,” so to speak and crowdsourcing community engagement for decades. It’s a good thing that its marketing team can tap into a technology that’s just now catching up.
James Leventhal is Deputy Director for the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and an expert in using social media in a museum setting.
I was lucky enough to get two copies of Engage! by Brian Solis. So, I'm giving away a copy on this blog. To be eligible to win, leave a comment (be sure to include your email address).
The book is a comprehensive collection of philosophy and advice on social media, strategy, brands, and business integration. What I appreciate are the info graphics that accompany most of the chapters. Brian has collaborated with Jesse Thomas over the years to produce compelling visuals of ideas. One you may be familiar with the Conversation Prism that has probably appeared in more powerpoint presentations about social media than any other graphic.
My favorite part of the book is Chapter 21: The Social Media Marketing Compass: Creating A Social Plan.
Solis notes in his book that his inspiration for the Social Media Marketing Compass was the term "moral compass," because the plan should include more than tactics. It should also define an organization's value system. Here's the definition:
"A Social Media Marketing Compass points a brand in a physical and experiential director to genuinely and effectively connect with customers, peers, influencers, and where they interact and seek guidance online."
Jesse Thomas created the information graphic below to illustrate the full concept. The book contains a detailed explanation. The brand is at the center. The concentric circles include players (stakeholders); platforms which are places where people connect online and off; Channels (activity on platforms) and finally Emotions.
Source: Brian Solis
The Social Media Compass is a concept, the chapter also presents a framework for creating a social media plan.
Here's another Mother's Day Fundraising Campaign on Twitter. Whole Foods is donating a $1 for each Re-Tweet of this Tweet to support The National Domestic Violence Hotline. I call this type of fundraising campaign the sponsored Tweet approach where potential donors do not have to open their own check books, but instead re-tweet or use a hashtag to leverage a donation from a corporate sponsor to a charity. One of the earlier examples of this was the HoneyBees Campaign on Twitter sponsored by Haagen-Daaz Ice Cream. (See Juilos Vasconcellos analysis)
With all fundraising and activist campaigns, I think it is important to think of your conversation and messaging strategies in the context of the Ladder of Engagement - whether you are focusing on one campaign or your fundraising campaigns for the whole year.
Think about all the various ways your organization interacts with different groups of people through its communications and fundraising efforts – through social media or other traditional channels. You will no doubt discover that some people engage with you lightly and others will engage with you more deeply. Face it, not every single person your organization touches will have the same level of passion or interest in your program. And, that is not a problem, it’s just the way it is.
To be successful integrating social media into your fundraising channels, you need to use different techniques, tactics, and tools to map to the person’s level of interest. You need a portfolio of approaches or maybe even campaigns that meet people where they are at and help get them more engaged with your cause and organization.
Single Call To Action: Spread Awareness
The Whole Foods sponsored Re-Tweet donations is focused on a lower level of engagement, simply spreading the message. This type of campaign is a win-win for sponsors and for nonprofits that need to boost awareness of their issue and have just started dipping toes into the social media waters.
What is missing is some mechanism for the the nonprofit to reconnect with those who are Re-Tweeting the message and engage and educate them, perhaps getting them to the point of making a donation, volunteering, or signing up for a newsletter.
Integrated Call To Action: Spread Awareness and Donate
My colleague, Geoff Livingston, recently wrote an analysis on Mashable about Twitter's new social good initiative Hope 140. The first effort was the #EndMalaria campaign that used the TwitPay platform for donations, creating a combined call to action that asked Twitter users to retweet by donating $10. The Case Foundation matched donations with a $25,000 grant. The effort raised over $11,000.
Ecosystem of Calls To Action: Spread Awareness, Donate, and Create Content
Another example of this combined called to action comes from Epic Change and its "To Mama With Love" their call to action focuses on donating and user-generated content. What I think has made this campaign catch on is that it is powered by love or an emotion we feel for our mothers or being a mother. Also, Tweetsgiving has been building and cultivating a network and has now has a cadre of people who at the highest level of engagement and while to encourage peers to participate. The campaign also helps us save a universal problem - what should we get our mother's for that special day?
Conclusion
It is important to understand that these levels of engagement are part of an ecosystem. While fewer people may reach the very highest levels of engagement because of the time commitment, personal connection, or interest, those with lower engagement are important to ecosystem because they spread awareness. Recognize and appreciate people where they’re at, and work to get more people engaged as you strive to gently nudge them further up the rungs of your ladder.
This takes a combination of tactics and approaches - from one-on-one relationship building to more broadly spreading your message. You need also take into account where you are in developing your network at all times and be nurturing those higher levels of engagement outside of campaign mode. You also need metrics and measurement to see what works in terms of moving people up the rungs!
What is your repertoire of engagement techniques to inspire people to move up the ladder? Are you thinking about it one campaign at a time or an going activity that includes campaigns? How do you balance your social media strategy so it includes both low and high levels of engagement?
Epic Change has launched a clever social media infused fundraiser for Mother's Day, called To Mama With Love. Leveraging the emotional connection we feel with our own mothers or our own pride of being a mom, Epic Change is inviting donors to participate in an online collaborative art project to honor moms around the Globe.
The fundraiser's goal to is to raise money for one amazing Mama who dreams of building a home for children in her village in Africa. The money you donate to this effort will support Mama Lucy Kamptoni, a changemaker in Tanzania who once sold chickens and used her income to build a primary school that now provides a high-quality education to over 400 children in Tanzania. The money raised from this fundraiser will help build a boarding facility on campus so that every child who attends her school has a place to call home. To Mama With Love is a project of US 501c3 nonprofit Epic Change.
Here's how it works. You have to make a donation first. Then once you've donated, you can create a special heartspace in honor of your mother or a mother you admire. You are given the option to customize your "heartspace" with photos, video, poems and artwork. The program creates a mini-web page with a unique URL that declares your love.
Here's the one I created to honor my mother, Ruth. Ironically, she isn't on Facebook or Twitter, nor does she have an email address. So, will have print it out and send via US postal mail. The heartspace also lets you create an e-card and I sent it to my Dad to share with my mom. (And, if anyone in my house is reading this blog, this would make a terrific mother's day gift - hint - hint.)
According to Epic Change's founder, Stacey Monk, the web site was created by volunteers that included developers who are students from CMU (where Stacey attended school) and a designer in London whose parents come from a village one hour from Mama Lucy in Tanzania. I love the design.
To help spread the word, the site has integrated "sharing" your love for your mother and Mama Lucy both on Twitter as well as on Facebook (or should I say sharing your "like"). For Facebook, they're using one of the Facebook social plugins.
What are you doing to honor your mother on Mother's Day and help change the world? If you are a mother, how are you celebrating your special day and making the world a better place?
Note from Beth: I've been fan of Wiser Earth ever since I had the opportunity to hear Peggy Duvette and Angus Parker discuss their approach almost a year ago. I'm thrilled that Peggy Duvette, Executive Director, agreed to share a post about their new capacity to speak many languages and its offline events.
WiserEarth.org, a nonprofit that offers social networking for the international sustainability movement, launched today in French, Portuguese, and Spanish beta versions. This effort was realized thanks to more than 10 months of work by a team of 43 volunteer translators based in Brazil, France, Mexico and the US.
French, Portuguese and Spanish speakers can now connect with like-minded people on WiserEarth, set up their own groups, and search easily for information on nonprofits and social change organizations all over the
world.
WiserEarth offers a free and ad-free network to a vibrant member base of 37,000+ people from 231 countries, regions and territories. It is an innovative alternative to commercial social networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut, and contains over 2,000 member-created groups and 110,000 organizations in its directory.
The site was launched three years ago on Earth Day by environmentalist, writer and visionary, Paul Hawken. WiserEarth has stood the test of time and become a valuable resource for activists, social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders and changemakers working towards a just and sustainable world.
WiserEarth has also been connecting communities on the ground. In Paris, France, WiserEarth launched its first WiserTuesday gatherings, face-to-face meetups for people interested in social change, sustainability and
technology to meet, share ideas and experiences. WiserTuesdays have spread to London, UK and Monrovia, Liberia. From these WiserTuesday meetings spawned the creation of a Social Innovation Camp in Paris in June. This will be an unconference where social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders and individuals will share and discuss innovative technology moving us towards a just and sustainable world.
Peggy Duvette is the Executive Director of WiserEarth and Director of Natural Capital Institute (NCI).
Note from Beth: During my trip to India in February, I was introduced to a nonprofit children's book publisher in India, Pratham Books. “It was set up to fill a gap in the market for good quality, reasonably priced children’s books in a variety of Indian languages. [Its] mission is to make books affordable for every child in India.” I was impressed with how Pratham Books has used social media to reach out to children in rural areas who are the "Bottom of the Pyramid."
In ongoing conversations with John Gautam on Twitter, I've learned more about how their overall social publishing strategy which balances their curated content or "branded" content with community conversations to co-create social content. He offered to write a guest post sharing more about how their social publishing strategy.
India has a reading problem and the problem is two fold. The first part of the problem is that India still has low literacy rates - the 2009 Annual Status of Education Report shows that between classes 1 to 8 only around 40% of children can read a class 2 level text in their own language and an even lower 23% of children can ready easy sentences in English - sentences of the kind "What is your name?" That said, there are wonderful organizations working with State Governments to improve literacy and reading levels across the country such as Pratham and the Akshara Foundation and much progress has been made. However, once children learn how to read it is crucial to sustain their interest by cultivating a reading habit and while the aim was to provide a book in every child’s hand and a library in every neighbourhood we found that there was a dire shortage of high-quality, low-cost children’s books. To fill this gap that existed in the market, the Pratham Books Trust was registered in January 2004.
Since then, we have published and shipped over 8.5 million books, 10 million storycards and have reached over 8 million children. While that in itself probably qualifies us as one of India's largest children's book publishers, when compared to the scale of the problem - over 300 million children in India - it is still a minuscule effort. We began our journey two years ago while trying to figure out a possible catalytic approach to the children's book publishing space. First, we have our goal which is a book in every child's hand. And logical corollary to that, that the books should be in a language the children read. Second, we looked at the problems that the market currently faces, lack of scale, lack of languages, lack of content, lack of reach and expensive distribution channels. Hence, our three primary, social media or social publishing, aims are to increase the nett content available, reduce the cost of each book and to go beyond the traditional distribution networks in a large way. This is crucial if we all believe in "A Book in Every Child's Hand" and consequently, it implies the need to create alternate channels of creating and reaching books to children.
Blog: A resource which talks about publishing, reading, literacy, kidlit, learning, non-profits, events and more.
Twitter: A space where we can engage with the community, share ideas, ask for help, get feedback, listen to complaints, participate and mobilize people to help us with our vision of ‘a book in every child’s hand’.
Facebook: Updating information from the blog and infromation about the events we do and communicating with the community
Scribd: Uploading our books frequently so that they can be read by more people. Also, for our Creative Commons licensed books to be remixed/repurposed by the community in whatever way they wish to.
Flickr: Documentation of the work we do and also to upload our Creative Commons licensed illustrations so that they can be remixed/reused. (See this blog post from Creative Commons)
YouTube: Documentation of our work and to inform people about some of the initiatives we are participating in. Also to inform people about our books through book trailers.
Our strategy has relied upon being part of a larger mission, providing meaningful and valuable content, curating information and content for the community, using a legal framework that allows for a participatory culture and lastly, in time, providing a space for the community to assist in the mission by creating content themselves. The last part, a community publishing platform, is something we are working on with the Connexions Project and a brief video about it is here.
It's still a journey we are on and we've had many success till date - Skype reading sessions across countries, helping us get books to children across the country, audio books created for the blind, iPad apps being made of our content and so much more. Here's some details about some of social tactics:
Skype reading sessions: This project started after a few tweets were exchanged between a librarian from Central Manor, Pennsylvania. We started off by people from our organization having Skype reading sessions with a few children and then moved onto having sessions with entire classes. On 20th March, 2009, we managed to hold a Skype storytelling session between kids from Akshara Foundation’s community library and a class from Central Manor.The purpose is to go beyond being just a publisher. Through these activities we are encouraging reading, learning and connecting children from different communities and backgrounds. Channels used: Twitter, Skype, Blog
Inviting people to remix/repurpose our content: As a publisher, we have a lot of content available which we want people to access as easily as possible. In our attempt to do so, we have managed to license some of our books under Creative Commons licenses. Now, if we can’t publish a book in Assamese, but a teacher in Assam wants to do so, she doesn’t have to worry about copyright infringement. We have also put up some of the illustrations of our books so that people can remix or repurpose them. Channels used : Scribd, Blog, Flickr
Facilitators/connecting organisations and people: @Anorakmagazine found us on Twitter and asked if they could send us some back issues of their magazines to share with kids in India. Once the books arrived, they were sent to the community libraries run by Akshara Foundation. We also helped coordinate a drawing project that Anorak Magazine wanted to involve the children with. Now, some of the kids have their work published in an international children’s magazine.Channels used: Twitter
Audio books for the National Association of Blind : This project started off because of another blog post (on the Helen Keller Talking Library project) that got automatically updated to our Twitter account. @owos then messaged us to tell us about a similar intiative Radio Mirchi had started. Then another tweep (@barkhad) told us that she had registered with Radio Mirchi but they didn’t get back to her. So, we got in touch with Radio Mirchi to talk about a blog post and while we were talking, she asked if we would be interested in having our books recorded by Radio Mirchi for the National Association of the Blind. We also requested if @barkhad could record one of our books and they agreed. So, our Twitter friend went offline and recorded a book in their Delhi studio! Channels used: Blog, Twitter
Passing it on – the book edition: We read about about a bunch of kids in Kolkata who went around with a van full of books to reach kids who didn’t have access to books and even went on to teach the kids how to read. After reading about this initiative, one of our trustees volunteered to sponsor some Bengali books if we could find these kids. We mailed the news bureau which published the article, but were unable to get a response. So, we decided to see if the Twitter community could help us. Within half an hour of sending out a tweet, we had a volunteer who said he would get us the information and by the next day we had an address and contact number. Within a few days, Bengali books were sent by us to these kids.From this story, we decided to start an initiative which would allow our online community to participate…to help these kids as well as other kids. Channels used: Twitter, Blog, Facebook
What we've found is that honestly, transparency and accountability are the three most important elements of any social media strategy. A longer case study that we had written up is available on the IndiaSocial site.
Soren Gordhamer,Wisdom 2.0 Summit Organizer
Soren is the author of the book, "Wisdom 2.0" and writes about mindfulness and technology use for Huffington Post and on Mashable. If you want to explore the intersection of technology use and mindfulness, follow Soren's work.
Technology stress and information overload have been around for decades. I've been looking for ways to reduce techno stress since I first started working in the nonprofit technology field in 1992. As a trainer or doing shoulder-to-shoulder coaching, I'd hear people complain about information overload, anxiety, etc and started to incorporate techniques for reducing it.
The new framing for this familiar issue is one of balance. Being online or living a connected lifestyle is something many of us do - and as smart phones, Facebook, ipads, and other technology tools become part of lives, we have to examine our relationship with them and find balance.
Here's my notes (and live tweets):
Managing the Stream: Living Consciously and Effectively in a Connected World
The first panel discussion was called "Managing the Stream: Living Consciously and Effectively in a Connected World" that featured Bradley Horowitz (VP, Google), Chris Sacca (Advisor Twitter), Greg Pass (CTO, Twitter), and Roshi Joan Halifax (Upaya Zen Center). The question was really how do you say yes to a connected yes and an inner life as well?
Don't React All Day To Email
Chris Sacca made some good points about being proactive with your email, as opposed to reacting all day. "Your in-box is your publically displayed to do list. If the first thing you do when you get up, is check your email. Don't live that way." He said that there are only 24 hours in a day and you have to make choices about your time. He did this by teaching himself to be selfish and not respond. He also talked about changing his brain chemistry. "Every time we see new email in our box, it produces a positive feeling. I had to reteach my body not to respond in this way."
Chris offered this advice: "Don't just pick the low hanging fruit in your in box. Think about how you can make a difference. Try ignoring your email."
Bradley Horowitz from Google was very funny, he said, "You have to learn how to turn gmail off and live in it, in my case I can turn all of email off." What he was saying that you have to integrate periods of time where you can step way from the computer and distraction and reconnect with yourself and the environment.
Understand the Two Different Types of Attention
Roshi Joan Halifax pointed out that there are two types of attention: receptive and focused - to explain the difference between being on Twitter which she called a "Karma accelerator" and meditation which she practices daily. She said that her attention and presence in a world of hyper connectivity is the most precious thing she has. Her approach is to balance connection and disconnection and understand when and how to use the different types of attention.
Chris Sacca quipped that he usually attends technology conference where most people in the audience are buried in their smart phones or laptops and that this conference was the one where felt the mostly everyone was paying attention to him.
Organizational Culture of Balance Is Important
Sacca, Horowitz, and Pass talked about the importance of creating an organizational culture that honors balance. They talked about how Google has "no meetings Thursdays" and the audience applauded. Google recognizes that most people's work days are filled with distractions and that there is perhaps one hour a day when people are at their peak productivity. By removing the distractions, they hope to increase it two hours a day. Greg Pass, CTO/Twitter, teaching new employees something called "Twittokinetics" and advises them to pay attention to what their doing, understand & own the problem & realize learning opportunities.
A second discussion panel looked at Awareness and Wisdom in the Age of Technology and included Kaitlin Quistgaard (Yoga Journal), Tami Simon (Sounds True), Gopi Kallayil (Google) and Leah Perlman (Facebook). This was quite an interesting mix of perspectives.
Be Self Aware of How/Why You Stay Connected
Tami Simon offered a self-reflection on her technology use, she's a blackberry user, sharing her inner feelings on why she grabs her blackberry on a Friday evening. She talked about how it made her feel and her motivations underneath. She made an insightful observation - that before we had this connected lifestyle, what distracted us was our inner thoughts or "thinking." She reaching for her blackberry facilitated "hyperthinking" with others.
As Tami Simon noted, "The most important connection with technology is the one with yourself." That you have really look inward to your own patterns and use before you can be mindful. I'm inspired to start doing this.
Take Care of Yourself First
Gopi Kallayil from Google advised the audience that if you do nothing else every day, do these three things: 1) Sleep 2) Meditate 3) Exercise. He went to admit that he isn't always successful, but has learned to make these a priority over "the face to answer every email."
Playfulness
Leah Perlman talked about her journey from being burned out by technology to finding happiness and fulfillment from balanced technology use. I just loved her approach to making a game out of not being always on. For example, she does "haiku email day" where she answers each email in a haiku in the hopes that people won't send long winded reply emails.
She also plays another game with the battery life of her phone at the end of the day. She said that by the end of the day she'd be racing to an electrical outlet. So, now she trys to limit her phone use and end the day with more and more battery power.
The best question from the audience was "Is there an App for that?" or an app that can help you with meditation or mindfulness or keep you out of your email. I was sitting next to Robert Jackson who does the Quiet Mind Podcasts and had an ipad with his meditation app on it!
The day ended with a conversational keynote with Tony Hsieh on Zappos culture of happiness. I've heard Tony's speeches and presentations and he is fantastic. I enjoyed the conversational approach. He gave a review copy of his forthcoming book to everyone at the conference! One of the interesting questions came from the audience about how they create happiness in their community. It strikes me that Zappos might be a great example of lethal generosity.
Conclusion
We're all struggling with balance of technology and a purposeful life. We need to reflect inward and examine our motivations, patterns, and use of technology - understanding when we're mindful and not. Then we need to integrate ways of finding the right balance. That balance is not a simple on and off switch - it is understanding how to integrate focused and receptive attentions into our online and offline lives. And, there is also the issue of organization culture - how is your organization honoring a balanced use of technology and incorporating that into your working style.
Questions: How are you mindful about your online technology use both personally and professionally? How does your organization honor balance in the use?
