Train the Trainers(working title)

Since I became a twit less than 2 months ago, I've read user guides (of varying helpfulness), as well as articles specific to every trade from marketing to attorneys to non-profits; all of these attempting to usher the greenie through the uses of social media. Some spout on in gushing terms about these new tools. Others caution readers not to get too hopeful about results. The ones I like the best describe various changes such services are likely to soon undergo.

Many of these worthy remarks are tendered by self-styled social media experts, few of whom admit that there exists a sparse selection of true experts in a field so cutting edge. The social media networking phenomenon has sprouted like Sleeping Beauty's bower of briars, as inexorable as it is insidious. In just a few short years, it has grown into such a tangle that a virtual prince of web parlance can barely fight his way through the thorny tangle. How much less so the rest of us? The office manager whose boss has asked her to network pertinent assets, or the beleagured volunteer who has been asked to make sense of the bewildering field of tweets, facebook pages, and old-school MySpace pimpin'?

The fact of the matter in the non-profit world is that organizations increasingly impacted by an incipient budget crunch in these uncertain economic times are looking for budget-friendly and easy means by which they can accomplish their missions and goals. Social media can prove to be key tools in both development and communications of non profit corporations geared toward social action. As bona fide authorities in the field like Beth Kanter are quick to point out, groups seeking to effectively utilize these exciting technologies need to plan focused strategies, choose the right tools, and employ pertinent metrics to measure actual return of investment in such social experiments.

Competent use of social action media can prove a challenge to service organizations for a number of reasons. The first is a simple lack of familiarity with the dizzying array of social media platforms, applications, add-ons, and plug ins and how they can be applied to one's mission. With so very many sites, profiles, programs, and services out there, how can a small organization pick and choose a suite tailored to their needs without resorting to an expensive consultant or hiring a web-skilled communications officer whom they just can't afford in this economy? Equally importantly, how can such a group go about measuring and enhancing the impact their often haphazard web presence is having?

Many people in the social media development community, which is largely Creative Commons or Open Source, have been asking themselves these questions and begun working together to provide solutions. One of the most basic and essential answers has been the mysocialactions blog

Christine and the wonderful staff at Social Actions / CTW have made a wonderful beginning with this catalog. The blog you are reading is my own humble attempt to provide user review of these platforms, many of which I have used in various ways in my personal & business life and as a volunteer assisting orgs with maintaining their social media. Other applications reviewed herein are new to me as well, and included as I explore them to provide others with a sense of how they might be used as part of an integrated social media approach. Finally, I will regularly include seemingly whimsical entertainment applications. Not only can levity humanize an organization's online "personality", but more and more internet users of all ages use web applications to PLAY. More and more web savvy non-profits are experimenting with ways to link games to benefit their organizations, and it is an increasingly successful approach. While I don't advocate that your organization run out and create a Second Life profile tomorrow, such web activity is having an impact. Thus I include such material in this review.

This first introductory entry wraps up with an edited version of my comments on the Social Actions
Directory. Please watch for further reviews of social media both included in and expanding upon the 40+ Directory. My personal goal is to explore and emphasize tools which I think likely to provoke engagement of all stakeholders in a given cause.

My Comment

ChangeThis Category: Crowd Sourcing Ideas
Meetup.com Category: Community Linkage to Action, Volunteer
OpenZine Category: Blog and Presentation Tools

I've found a couple of Social Action and collaboration platforms since this directory went up. Christine Egger asked me to please post them here.

The first is called ChangeThis.com . On ChangeThis, community members have the opportunity to post Manifestos, which are described as "an argument, a reasoned, rational call to action, supported by logic and facts." They are posted in PDF format, but only after readers have voted on 300 word project proposals describing the project and its relevance. After 30 days, top proposals are given the go-ahead.

Another excellent resource omitted from the list is an old one that many networking people may be familiar with. I've been on Meetup.com since September 2004, and actually once was administrator for a couple of different groups. The site is very much improved from earlier incarnations, and has social networking media functionality now, whereas the old system was entirely reliant on interested individuals finding and requesting to join your groups. While I hated working with older versions of the system, which were cumbersome and had a very low impact, I am eager to pick a topic and start a meetup just so I can get in the system as an administrator again and see how it works now!

There's one final online tool which I discovered that I think can help any organization forward its mission. Check out OpenZine This souped up blog editor allows users to "Quickly create an online magazine and collaborate with friends." You can create or clip content, and the platform features a simple graphics editor which allows creation of a fairly slick looking cover page for the project. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd sure be a happier, better networked camper if I could go to one attractive, concise and well edited place for my news on non-profits and social networking rather than an hourly check of my twitter feed to track tinyurl after tinyurl! I also like this idea because it might serve as a happy medium between old-school direct mail mags and cutting edge social media apps. Such a compromise could prove important to financially discombobulated NPO's seeking ways to bridge divides in their contact lists and still cut costs to a managable level.

I'm sure I'll run into more web tools that are conducive to social action before too long. I'll post comments detailing what I find. In the meantime, watch for my first blog entry (coming soon) offering user review of the 40+ Social Action Platforms featured above. I'll get to it soon, Christine, I promise...just as soon as I finish scouring twitterdom for possible links to more cool stuff!

Christine's Reply

"You're amazing! Cannot wait for your user review post(s). It might be best, actually, to post about just a few at a time, creating a series out of it.

FYI Social Actions has been in touch with Meetup.com and is excited about bringing their offline-connection opportunities into the API. ChangeThis and OpenZine are new to us (me, anyway!) and I'll be promptly adding them to the list above, so that continues to be a quick reference point for all of the social action platforms we're aware of.

Thanks so much for sharing all of this info. Your experience with these groups will be invaluable to the Social Actions community."

My 2nd Comment

Hands On Network Hands On Network Category:Volunteer, Community Mobilization

Comment by Teleri
Thanks, Christine! For offline connections, you might want to talk to the people at HandsOn Network as well. They connect volunteers to local initiatives after training. I'm going through their local Volunteer Training next month (Tuesday 4/14/09), so I'll have more ideas about how to integrate their program with platforms after that, I hope.

My 3rd Comment Entry

Retaggr Category: Social Media Profile Management, Online ID
StripGenerator Category: Fun Stuff, Graphics
Xtranormal Category: Fun Stuff, Graphics

Comment by Teleri
Today's New Social Media Tools:

You guys have to check out Retaggr . Have you ever wished you could use one web tool that could aggregate every social media you ever signed up for? This nifty tool not only does that, it generates a sleek little web-style business card (here's mine) with links to almost everything in your profile.

Widgets can add almost any service you ever heard of, and can also produce badges to post on other profiles. You can add any profile which you can find a proper member id url link to, including blogs, game sites, major netorking platforms like MySpace and Facebook, Twitter, and even ning communities like this one. Once you have the card and profile set up, anyone from any platform can find you. Period. Here's my full profile. Please note that the attractive background theme is one of their pregens, and a premium feature. My Retaggr Profile . Apparently, their premium service is free to upgrade for the first 2 months

My next new tool is one of those just for fun web tweaks which has the potential to minorly revolutionize office chat. Don't underestimate the power of the virtual water cooler! Have you ever wanted the artistic skill to draw a little comic lambasting the boss, pass around an office in-joke, or just humorously get a point across in a presentation? Well, now you can while away all that free time with stripgenerator.com. Check out my cheesy little first stab at lightening our mad social media plans at stripgenerator.com .

Finally, I present a neat looking little tool with a similar concept. I actually discovered xtranormal.com following a tweet thread posted by real-time rock star Dave Navarro. The platform promises that if you can type, you can make movies using its trademarked Text-to-Movie technology. I haven't had time to field test this beta app yet, but apparently text which you type is translated into action by the cute little sim-like guys in the video. Again, this might be great for adding levity to a presentation. Until your own imagination kicks in, check out a fan's rendition of what might happen when rock superstars Dave Navarro and Trent Reznor meet. xtranormal.com

Christine's Blog Suggestion

Philoptima Category: Foundation Funding Interface

"Teleri, so much great stuff in your latest comment. I'm a consummate "commenter instead of blog poster," too, so understand the appeal of tucking those observations here, but don't hesitate to create a blog post out of any or all of what you're writing. I can picture an entire series about the social media tools (bet you can, too) with an example given for each of how someone initiating or supporting a social action campaign listed in the Social Actions API might use them.

And lastly, a new social action platform for the growing list, Philoptima, courtesy of Massimo Menichinelli (aka @openP2Pdesign):

RT @openP2Pdesign RT @jranck: Open innovation platform for philanthropy: Philoptima Link"

For those of you who are interested, thanks for your patience while I got this blog together. I am not generally a blogger, so it takes me a while to consolidate my thoughts. Additionally, my lack of blogging experience translates to minimal competence with the utilities of blogging sites, even ones with basic features like this ning API (For instance, I can't figure out why the screenshots I uploaded disappear in the preview, or if they will reappear when I publish. The code is there....hmm, I think I got it figured out, trying to use open ofc file extension...) Thus I am figuring out how to use the interface on the fly! Hopefully, regular posts will get faster as I get it all sorted out...

Have a great week everyone!

Kathryn