Houston SXSW Panels – Can You Spare a Vote (and a comment?)

Voting ends tomorrow (Friday) the 29th of August 2008 for SXSW 2009. If you have a minute and like the topics, a vote would be truly appreciated!

Me!
Personal Branding for Profit and

Social Media for NonProfit Rockstars

HappyKatie also has two panels submitted:
Strategic PR for Social Media Geeks and Heart Your Peeps – Build Your Business From Within

@deneyterrio has two panels submitted:
Is Your Company Blog Cheating On You and one with Reggie called My Life With NF in Web 2.0 

The Houston crew has a bunch of sxsw panels submitted and they are all listed here. But there is a catch. Less than 24 hours of voting left! And commenting – comments are GREATLY appreciated! Houston Panels for SXSW Submission are listed here.

Erin, Rachel, Michaela and Beth – THANKS!

A huge thanks to our panelists from the SXSW "Pimp my non profit" panel.

A few other shout outs:

1. Thanks to the DC Netsquared chapter for the concept.
2. Thanks to Techsoup for starting Netsquared which is how I met these folks to begin with.
3. Thanks to Katie who’s hard work made the panel possible.
4. Thanks to the approximately 300 people who attended our panel, asked questions and demonstrated the number of sxsw attendees interested in the topic!
5. Thanks to the people who voted and commented to help us get on the radar for non profits at SXSW!

Also – as noted on Beth’s blog, here are a few other bloggers’ take on the panel

Long Station
Patty in the Burbs
07G
Community Mobilization

SXSW Schedule Set – Pimp My Non Profit Panel Monday

Back late last night from ETech in San Diego. Just attending that one. Not big enough with the west coast glitterati to have a panel there. But yes yes, indeed we are rocking SXSW with the Pimp My Non Profit Panel!

Our panel is Monday from 5 to 6!

If you are attending SXSW and I am missing a great panel I should attend please DO let me know? This is my initial plan.

Netsquared Mashup Challenge Posted

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!

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.

1. Metrics and evaluation of social media – Beth Kanter
2. Evaluating the value of network causes – Allison Fine Blog
3. Mobile phone credits in Kenya as part of activism – apophenia
4. Social Media Outreach – Rising Voices
5. fundraisers need to be worried about a pending financial disaster in the global economy
6. Nonprofits Outpacing Business in Use of Social Media
7. ROI: Can You Quantify the Untangible? You Can’t Quantify Love

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:

1. Non profits have adopted social media very quickly. Some argue faster than for profit businesses.
2. Reading is as important as writing. Be a part of the community. Link out. Pay attention.
3. 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.
4. Microfundraising has huge potential (Kanter, FrozenPeaFund examples)
5. Video – the adoption rate of video isn’t quite there yet, but it will be.
6. Mashups Rule – programmableweb mashups for example.
7. 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

1. Discussion of brands, both NGO brands and personal brands that we are all developing
2. A break down of audiences by motivation type (obviously an interest of mine)
3. Clear delineation of web apps versus mobile phone applications.
4. 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.)
5. Little talk of the current recession in the US (with some exceptions)
6. 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.

The Frozen Pea Fund

This is a repost of many many blog posts on the subject of the Frozen Pea Fund. But it is simply too important not to talk about it.

Why Frozen Peas?

Here is Susan’s explanation, from Boobs on Ice, the blog she’s using to chronicle her cancer experience:

aWhen I discovered a very thick area in my breast I called the
doctor. The next day I was in her office. A half hour after that I was
in the diagnostic radiologist’s.

A full afternoon and multiple stab wounds later we had a variety
of samples of malignant tentacles of tissue that were on their way to
the lab.

I was in a little pain – it would increase as the local
anesthetic wore off – but left his office with a soft cold pack in my
bra.

To keep bleeding down & relieve pain I’d need to keep things
cool. Traditional ice packs are hard and heavy. As much as I try to be
a good sport I’m not into having a brick sitting on my chest.

Enter a bag of frozen peas.

(continue reading and get involved here)