2008 January | Ed Schipul

Posted by eschipul on Jan 29, 2008 in Nonprofit and Technology | 2 comments

Netsquared Mashup Challenge Posted

Net2sharebuild
The folks at Netsquared hosted a great conference call last week on the Netsquared Mashup Challenge, which is the theme for the 2008 Net2 conference. As one of the Netsquared Houston Meetup organizers I thought it was cool they were including us (also on the call are my partners in crime with Houston net2 Katie and Jason.)

So… I have been waiting to see this posted on the Netsquared site, and now here is the skinny:

Get Ready for The NetSquared Mashup Challenge!

Do you have an idea for how a mashup that could be a tool for social change?

Do you look at all of the data available online, and imagine ways to
combine and connect it to increase awareness about an issue?

Do you see projects like MAPLight.org or chicagocrime.org and think, I’ve got an idea for something like that, I just need a little help getting it off the ground?

If you answered yes, then join the NetSquared Mashup Challenge! We’ve created the Challenge because we believe you have great ideas for how data can create insight,
and we want to create a platform to facilitate those kinds of mashups
being built. Plus, we’ve got cash prizes to award to the folks who come
up with the most innovative mashups for social change.

There are three parts to the Challenge:

1. Applications
Individuals working to create
change will share with the NetSquared Community what change they are
trying to make, as well as the information/data sources they believe
can be married to help create that change. Applications will be available online February 1 and accepted until March 14, 2008.

(KEEP READING HERE)

The big take away is that you can submit starting on Friday. I know I’ll be pestering some of our past Netsquared speakers to submit their organizations. I suggest YOU do the same!

Posted by eschipul on Jan 28, 2008 in Social Media | 8 comments

Careful with the word “research” Mr. Tabin

No, a conversation is NOT considered "research" Mr. Tabin. To state otherwise is wrong.

My original plan was to ignore this erroneous tweet – specifically the part I highlighted in yellow above. I saw it after my presentation at GotSocialMedia last Thursday. Unfortunately a number of people believed Josh and have asked me if I was working with him! Thus I feel it needs to be corrected openly on behalf of the community as the original comment was made in a public forum.

Let me be clear. Josh Tabin has not in the past, and will not in the future, collaborate with me on "research". He most definitely was NOT a part of research on the 3 Motivations of People article. Period.

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Posted by eschipul on Jan 24, 2008 in Social Media | Comments Off

Social Media for Non Profits Presentation

Presentation from today at GotSocialMedia. Thanks again Erica and Kelsey for having me as a speaker! And now here is the deck.

| View | Upload your own

Resource Links – The 3 Motivations framework comes from years of research of sociology and psychology. It is *not* revolutionary or new, rather it is a simplification of academic research into an actionable framework. I like simple. You know, something you can do by folding a paper in thirds. If I get credit for writing it, well, to be fair I’d like to also post the bibliography from the original article on schipul.com.

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Posted by eschipul on Jan 23, 2008 in Nonprofit and Technology | 2 comments

Non Profits and Social Media Research

Research links for my talk at GotSocialMedia tomorrow. Just some interesting notes on social media and non profits from recent events. As usual the primary trouble maker in the middle of it all is Beth.

On quote worth extracting is from the interview of Eric Mattson on netsquared:

We found that in general, charities and nonprofits are very familiar
with social media. If memory serves, blogging was the technology
they’re most familiar with, and that certainly makes sense when you
look at the growth and the popularity of social media. Social
networking is very popular, but it’s certainly skewed towards the
younger generation, whereas blogs seem to have spread across all sorts
of places, including major media outlets, really coming along as the
one technology that people are most familiar with.

Themes from the above links and from other reading:

Non profits have adopted social media very quickly. Some argue faster than for profit businesses.
Reading is as important as writing. Be a part of the community. Link out. Pay attention.
Metrics only partially measure ROI. Dual non profit bottom lines compound the "reporting" problem but does not take away from actual changes resulting from the use of social media.
Microfundraising has huge potential (Kanter, FrozenPeaFund examples)
Video – the adoption rate of video isn’t quite there yet, but it will be.
Mashups Rule – programmableweb mashups for example.
Crisis forms communities. Communities exist after crises subside, yet aren’t leveraged typically.

What seems to be missing from the dialog on non profits, social change and social software

Discussion of brands, both NGO brands and personal brands that we are all developing
A break down of audiences by motivation type (obviously an interest of mine)
Clear delineation of web apps versus mobile phone applications.
Retention and renewal of "membership" isn’t discussed (for Associations this is a big deal, so to see the topic of audience engagement and a concerted effort for "renewal" not discussed seems odd to me. Possibly for lack of a material motive given most SNs are free? Hmmm.)
Little talk of the current recession in the US (with some exceptions)
Little talk about "public relations" in the sector (but this is not a new trend, Red Cross comes to mind)

The deck from GotSocialMedia isn’t as comprehensive as the links and thoughts above. But I’ll slidedeck post it either right before or the day after the talk. Gnite y’all.