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Best web content curation quote I've seen
I've been reading a lot about web content curation lately. Yet this tongue-in-cheek quip by Craig Newmark resonates as the best explanation that I've heard:
"Most of what I do on Twitter is retweeting. Because sharing is good,& it saves me the burden of original thought" @craignewmark #12NTC
— Caitlin Kaluza (@qcait) April 3, 2012
Top learnings from Google for Nonprofits training
Google Analytics
Use segments to isolate your most valuable visitors and analyze how they interact with your website.
Social plugins for GA, add a snippet of code to your Facebook like button and it can track the number of people who click that.
Google Apps
User agreement clearly states that all data remains the property of the organization – Google does not claim ownership for hosting it on their servers.
YouTube
Nonprofits are allowed to add call-to-action overlays which link to external resources (a page on your website)
Use playlists as a content curation tool – makes for a much better user experience to watch a series of videos grouped by theme
Make your content compelling – find a talented storyteller withing your organization, tie your videos to calendar events
AdWords
Group your keywords into thematic groups, with each keyword tying directly back to the topic of the group
Use negative keywords to refine your targeting (to eliminate it from searches where you don’t want it to appear)
Have a strong call-to-action and make it prominent – in the title or first line of the ad.
Full notes that I contributed to from the Google for Nonprofits training session are here
(Originally posted at http://ntctwobie.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/notes-from-google-for-nonprofits-training/)
Key Takeaways from 12NTC
Conference logistics
Several things worth noting about how the conference was run:
Opening reception with a marching band! Things started off with a bang when at 9am on the first day, as people were milling around and wondering where the opening reception was being held, the doors of a staging room swung open, a marching band struck up, and led everyone into the ballroom. They continued on stage for about 10-15 minutes, getting everyone fired up for a great conference.
Giveaways to encourage session evaluations. Each individual session evaluation was setup as a SurveyMonkey survey, the link (and a QR code for it) was displayed on the opening slide of each PowerPoint. And every time you completed an evaluation, you got one more entry into the prize drawing. Mid-way through the conference they drew the Kindle Fire winner (using that announcement as an opportunity to promote the evals) and at the end of the conference drew the winner of an iPad. Net result was that they said they had never gotten more than 1,300 session evals before, and were at 1,200 and counting midway through. Also, the thank-you page when completing an evaluation survey showed a random cute cat video.
A designated time for exhibitions. The exhibit hall (called the Science Fair) was setup from 3pm – 7pm on the opening day with no other sessions happening at that time. It was setup in the main ballroom and was the only time period when all of the exhibitors were there. For the rest of the conference only major sponsors had booths, which were stationed around the periphery of the ballroom while receptions and plenary sessions were held.
Close on another high note. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performed at the closing reception, sending everyone off on another harmonious note.
How Nonprofits Can Defend Digital Rights in a Post SOPA Era
This session was about public policy, focusing on digital rights and the outcry that killed SOPA late last year. Aside from just being a session about policy it also highlighted some best-practices for running an issue-advocacy campaign.
Most concerning aspect of SOPA was that it would create a de-facto blacklist. Search engines and others – particularly payment providers – could have been forced to block websites. Imagine that your nonprofit puts out a video with a clip of music in it, that clip gets reported as alleged copyright-infringement, and your org’s ability to collect donations online is abruptly cut off as a result.
Threats to an open internet that didn’t end with SOPA’s demise: Trans-Pacific Partnership, online surveillance, data retention policies, backroom deals between ISPs and copyright holders
Nonprofits have a role in defending digital rights: learn about issues, commit to upholding free speech & privacy rights in our own dealings, get involved with coalitions and advocate
Best practices for data retention: EFF has some resources on their website. ; Privacy Information Clearinghouse
To create an effective issue-advocacy campaign you need to be able to distill complex issues down to palatable soundbites, without watering down the message. At the same time have a document posted online that gets down to the nitty-gritty, explains the issue in depth, and gives you something to point to for further information.
Advocacy organizations must not “cry wolf” – don’t cross the line and overstate threats, lest people tune you out when the threat is real
#1 tip for a successful advocacy campaign: use social media extensively
Opening Plenary: Dan Roam, author of Blah, Blah, Blah: What To Do When Words Don’t Work
Simple proposition to make – we can solve our problems with pictures. Sounds like a flip, superficial statement, but it’s true. Has sat in many business meetings, and every single time somebody introduces a picture it helps.
Everyone is inherently visual: 55-60% of our entire brain is dedicated to processing vision.
Don’t try to describe your problem all at once; divide it up into smaller pieces. (Visually: Draw a circle – your problem – and divide it into 6, like a pizza pie.)
Who & What = “Portrait” – the simplest possible visual representation (example: Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale)
How Much = “Chart” – We are really good at seeing numbers visually; to depict how much, draw a (bar) chart)
Where = a map shows spatial relationships, where things fit, where pieces are missing (the overlap of ideas)
When = “timeline” Time doesn’t carry with it cause-and-effect, only sequence.
How = “flowchart”
Why = “visual equation” – shows “life rules”
Building and Supporting Drupal Websites: In-House, Outhouse or Both?
Decision on whether to manage your Drupal site in-house in to outsource depends on your resources.
Good tool for A/B testing: http://www.optimizely.com
Lorem Ipsum Dolor? Yup, You Need Content Strategy
The furniture in your house is kind of like your website. You can build a great new house, but if you just bring all the same furniture from your old house and drop it in place – not gonna look good. Same with your web content. A content strategy can help you “decorate” effectively.
Core components: achieving goals, preventing fire drills, having good quality content, being able to support the content on your site after it’s put up
Qualities of good content:
Avoids jargon and acronyms
Gets to the point in the first sentence
Is concise – don’t say something in a paragraph that can be said in a sentence
Uses terms consistently (i.e. “Green Energy” / “Renewable Energy”)
What can I do today?
Look at your website – are you using short, direct sentences?
Are you using bullets are numbered lists where appropriate?
Are you using styles for headings and links?
Getting the Most Out of Your Email Communications
When do you focus on building your email list? Always.
List churn happens. Keep an eye on this, analyze it, know what’s driving it.
Engage people as soon as they get to your website. Having a prominent email signup form on your site is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to build your list.
Engage partner organizations to help build your list. Peer organizations can be a very effective way to spread the word.
Put out a signup sheet at your events. Yes, pen and paper – it’s a low barrier to entry. Send a follow-up email within a week, invite them to subscribe.
Tracking tags, like those you can build with Google’s URL builder, allow you to identify what links in your email campaigns are directing traffic to your website. It’s an extra layer of work, but it allows you to see all your data within your Google Analytics’ data for your site.
What kind of open rates can you expect? TechSoup tends to see 18-20% on general emails, and up to 50% on really targeted messages. The more targeted you can be, the better metrics you’ll see.
How do you share analytics with your staff members? TechSoup team has monthly meetings to discuss what worked, what didn’t. Very transparent about both success and failure.
Email subject line testers — see how your subject line looks across different email clients like Outlook, Gmail, etc. Here’s an example.
Morning Plenary: Innovation and Nonprofits
This was an excellent panel discussion on Innovation and Nonprofits. Because there was a range of views among the panelists, the notes may seem contradictory in places. Read them in the context of a thoughtful exchange of ideas.
We’re at an exciting moment in the social change world, where because of technological innovation there is a whole new breed of nonprofits affecting change
It’s very easy to fall into a trap that just because there is constant change you are innovating. Think constantly about where the massive innovations might come from, so that you can make smaller iterative changes on an ongoing basis.
Two reasons why nonprofits have trouble innovating: the stakes and the funders.
Innovation comes from individuals and ideas, not organizations. Yet in the NP sector there is such a focus on organization building – it’s a mindset that just because we stay around, change will happen.
The best companies, best for-profit entrepreneurs, are constantly thinking about who their customers are.
Don’t be afraid to tweak your practices slightly. Don’t always hold out for the one big innovation, go forward with the small steps.
Steve Jobs never once convened a focus group. Relied on his own vision. It’s an incredibly arrogant approach, yet his is the face of innovation.
You can convince one funder that the world is still broken because your innovation hasn’t been introduced yet. But without building a team, the impact will always be limited.
To innovate, we need to start more cross-sector conversations. The nonprofit sector has ideas, the for-profit sector knows how to bring ideas to scale.
“Fundamentally disagree with you, I think there is fantastic innovation happening in the nonprofit sector.” I’m seeing nonprofits embrace technology to make a cultural shift within the sector … Donors are now able to see exactly how their dollars are touching individual lives.
The simple metric is impact – it’s not dollars raised, or how many members you have. It’s about having vision and being focused on your mission.
Don’t confuse technology innovation with new system innovation.
“I like to think of a 21st century culture where we shift from giving reactively, to giving proactively.”
The nonprofit sector shoulders a lot of the blame for problems we didn’t create. We’re just the ones left standing to deal with them. We have a flush hand full of purpose, it’s a competitive advantage.
IT Budgeting for Nonprofits
Challenges of IT budgeting: personnel knowledge, IT costs occur at varying times and recur in multi-year patterns, unable to distinguish between mandatory & discretionary, single-year focus can result in higher long-term cost
Types of expenditures: personnel, hardware & software, subscriptions, services
Hardware budgeting questions:
What is the expected lifespan?
Are there any subscriptions associated with the hardware?
Which costs can be capitalized?
Are other departments planning changes or programs requiring investment?
Software budgeting questions:
How long is the license valid for, need to be renewed?
Installation costs?
Enough licenses on hand for new hires?
As the technical expert go out and have face-to-face conversations with each department on how IT can add value, and what their needs are. This both leads to more effective budgeting and better relationships.
Services budget questions:
Is the service level adequate for future needs?
Are services provided still needed? (Seen it happen too many times, an org keeps paying contract for something no longer in use)
If volume of services have changed, are there discounts available?
Subscriptions budget questions:
Installation for cloud services are currently not typically capitalized.
Should we consider converting any software to subscriptions? (i.e. Office 365)
Remember to focus on the coming years and not just the short term
Categories of expenditures defined: capital, operating, project
What is your fixed cost related to IT? Your baseline to keep up-and-running?
Classes of expenditures defined: Run, Grow, Transform
Understanding the IT Asset Lifecycle
Identify total costs over life of asset
Identify points in time with option to change cost structure
Ensure IT budget decisions balance short term needs and long-term value
Managed service providers will likely not save you money, but can allow IT staff to focus on higher-priority tasks.
Create a multi-year IT budget to analyze total costs
note replacement / renewal points and costs
Remember to include any associated services w/ changes
Remember disposal costs
After completing the entire IT budget, go back and look at the big picture that it shows.
Tie the IT budget to the organization’s business strategy. A good budget is really a planning tool, used for better decision making, and about better outcomes for the organization.
Easy Reading on the Go: How to Optimize Emails for Mobile
This was the most technical session I attended all conference. The code examples in the slides are a great resource!
1-in-3 Americans – over 100 million – are now using a smartphone. As of mid-2011, smartphones constitute majority of new phone purchases.
1-in-5 Americans are reading email on their phones every day
Planning for optimizing your email template:
Decide whether you should optimize
Decide which mobile phones to optimize for
Design the email
Simplify the layout
Hide content from mobile readers
Include mobile-only content?
Write the code Test in major desktop clients, phones and tablets
iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Web OS, web-version of email clients on mobile (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.)
Test against non-optimized version Roll-out! Email on Acidwill test your email against multiple clients (not mobile yet but a fantastic tool nonetheless)
Presentation slides available at: www.mrss.com/MobileEmail
(Originally posted at http://ntctwobie.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/key-takeaways-2012/)
MORE OPPORTUNITIES
*USA:* The Samuel Bronfman Foundation announced the launch of a Second Stage Growth Fund: "This fund will offer an opportunity for organizations in the post start-up phase of development to apply for general operating funding, which will help them successfully adapt their organizational structure to fit shifting and expanding needs." See details and submit your proposal by May 17 Slingshot seeks Program Director Join the Muslim Jewish Conference for a fascinating panel discussion on May 1 (New York) REALITY seeks Community Development Manager Encounter seeks Development and Communications Associate (New York) Sixth and I seeks Educator/Program Director (Washington DC) PresenTense seeks Associate Program Director (New York) Wilderness Torah seeks Administrative, Marketing, and Fundraising Associate (Berkeley) 12 young artists will join G-dcast for a week of collaborative, digital Jewish storytelling Mechon Hadar seeks Associate Director of Communications and Operations (New York) In Sector News in our last newsletter, we shared that Kevah is beginning a Teacher Training Fellowship. Applications are now open! *For plenty more job opportunities (particularly in the US), peruse the first three pages of our Opportunities section .* If you have opportunities you wish to promote, please *email us * and we will post them to the ROI website. Sector News *Powered by eJewishPhilanthropy *: Six Nonprofit Technology Takeaways from Online Fundraising Continues to Grow International Press Club to be Established in Jerusalem Talk Networks and Nonprofits * * *ROI Communityis a global network of Jewish innovators founded by Lynn Schusterman. * [image: ***] [image: facebook] [image: flickr] [image: twitter] [image: youtube] ©2012 ROI Community | 7 Derech Beit Lechem St. Jerusalem 93553 This email was sent to [email protected]. To ensure that you continue receiving our emails, please add us to your address book or safe list. View this email on the web here . You can also forward to a friend . Unsubscribe Powered by Mad Mimi®
Chief Asshole
Earlier today, as a part of a plenary discussion at the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference, I was appointed 'Chief Asshole' as part of the effort to drive innovation in the social impact space. It is an honor to hold this title.
How exactly did it happen?
We were talking about the need for innovation in the nonprofit/social impact sector -- both in terms of changing the way organizations think and operate, but also with regard to how we focus on finding solutions to the complex problems that we face as a society (these are, of course, the themes that I take up in my book, Shift & Reset). I suggested that brands, technology companies, and others on the for-profit side were, in many cases, doing more harm than good by pursing socially oriented efforts without fully understanding how to drive the kinds of meaningful, measurable change that is needed. The partnerships that exist between brands and nonprofits, under the banner of cause marketing for example, do little to identify solutions -- instead providing marketing and corporate social responsibility benefits to brands at the expense of real impact.
I challenged the nonprofit/social impact community to call out efforts that were not helping to drive innovation or pursue solutions to the most pressing issues we face. I suggested that nonprofit/social impact organizations needed to collaborate with companies in ways that allow for their expertise and experience to more fully and appropriately utilized. And I told the crowd that we needed to do a better job standing up for ourselves, our knowledge, and our work -- and as a part of that we should be holding corporations accountable for prioritizing their own reputation at the expense of achieving real outcomes.
I finished my rant by saying... "look, if I need to be the asshole who says those things, and calls people out, and makes that case so others don't have to do it... I will." And then Beth Kanter (@kanter), one of the leading voices in the nonprofit technology space and the moderator for our plenary, officially gave me the title of Chief Asshole.
As I said, it is an honor to hold this title. But I am not the only person who is willing to be a part of this conversation. This will be a team effort. We'll be a team of assholes. And together, we will shake things up.
Get your inspiration on with 101 ideas for improving your social media presence from @melmatho and @chadnorman.
101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits
View more PowerPoint from Chad Norman
