Blogging the NTEN Conference

There was no shortage of cyber chatter surrounding last month’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans. Here’s a sampling of some observations from bloggers around the country. For a more comprehensive list of blog entries about the conference, click here.

“Observations on the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference,” posted March 26 by Kurt Voelker and Andrew Cohen, chief technology officer and project director, respectively, at Forum One Communications’ INfluence blog:

Kurt Voelker and I (Andrew Cohen), traveled to New Orleans to participate in the 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference. This was my fourth conference and the most useful and fulfilling. In addition our volunteering and presenting, we learned quite a bit. Here are our key take-aways:

Kurt’s Observations:

1. Great to see the growing numbers! More interesting people doing more innovative work than ever before. It’s clear to me that the nonprofit community sees technology, and the Web specifically, as a critical component to creating social good.

2. Despite no singular massive success with the Social Web, it’s clear that organizations are recognizing that their constituencies and target audiences are more sophisticated than ever, and nonprofits are working hard to align their communications with the next generation of donors, activists, thinkers and doers that have already bought into the Social Web.

3. Open interoperability breeds innovation — and software providers are starting to get it. Most software vendors I spoke with saw open access to data and services as a must-have feature to remain competitive — this is good news!

Andrew’s Observations:

1. I noticed a positive continued commitment from software vendors to open the door to NTEN members and smaller organizations. I sat in on a session led by Google’s Frederick Vallaey who promised to expedite Google Grant approvals for NTEN members. This provides any registered 501(c)(3) three months of free Adwords. I also participated in a session titled “SalesForce for Good Not Evil” in which some smaller organizations showed how a central commercial platform using SalesForce’s offer of 10 free licenses for charitable orgs. Other attendees including Mozy, ReadyTalk and (ahem) Forum One’s own ProjectSpaces also offer discounts. Lesson learned: Always ask product vendors whether there is a nonprofit discount.

2. Mobile technologies are growing slowly but steadily in the United States. They are still the big exception to the open interoperability Kurt mentions above. At the Mobile Advocacy session I heard compelling case studies, but each was unusual and still rather fledgling. Once again, the closed systems of the greedy wireless carriers — AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. — are the main constraint to real innovation here. For instance, it still costs an organization $1,000/month to have a vanity mobile short code or “mobile URL.”

3. The conference continues to be one model for how to extend an event through friendly, open (and sometime frenzied) sharing of conference notes and artifacts. During the conference, over 300 attendees were Twittering — about one out of five. In some sessions, the panels took questions from people in other breakout sessions. At one point, I “tweeted” a key finding from one session, and, within a few minutes, I received (and posed to the panel) a follow-up question submitted by an attendee at a different session in another room. And I’m still working through all of the blog posts, presentations, videos, and photos tagged with “08NTC.”

“Liveblogging ‘How Do Social Networks Fit Into Your Communications Strategy’ By Brian Reich At 08NTC” posted by Britt Bravo on Britt Bravo’s Blog.

Liveblogging “How Do Social Networks Fit Into Your Communications Strategy” by Brian Reich of EchoDitto. Co-author of Media Rules. Please excuse errors from writing quickly.

Why social networks are important: tech is becoming integral to every day life. We want to stay more connected and engaged via tech. Everything we do is informed by social interactions.

Two ways people use social networks:

1. Shiny object syndrome (i.e., Everyone rushes to Facebook).

2. Niche social spaces around specific topics.

Every social network, at least 3,000 exist, offers some set of unique information or experiences to that community.

Social Networking isn’t for you if:

* your audience doesn’t use it

* you don’t have time to participate in it

* you can’t give up control

[Brian Reich] strongly recommends that you do not build your own.

Social networking about people, relationships and “little end media” (creating engaging, meaningful content).

“Online social networking involves connecting and sharing information with other like minded people via the Web”

Creating a social networking plan.

1. Goals: What is your goal? Why do you want to be a member of a social network? You need measurable, articulated goals.

2. Strategy: What is your strategy to meet that goal?

3. Tactics: What tools will you use?

4. Resources: How much do you have to spend? Aside from the time working on creating media, and time to have a conversation, most networks are free. If you build it yourself, it’s not free.

Examples

Amazon.com. Largest most influential social network in the world.

Care2. Large and easy to use. Reason they are successful is they get out of the way of their own user-base.

Changents. [Reich] thinks it is the next generation of social networks for do-gooders. There are change agents who tell us what to read, where to give money, etc. This site is networks of these changents and their networks. You can use tools on the site to organize around an issue. There is cross-pollination. It is succesful because it is extraordinarily niche.

Dodgeball and Twitter. Mobile-based social network. Successful because most people aren’t in front of their computer all day, but they always have their phone.

Eons. Social network geared towards boomers. Number one topic on Eons is death. Age-appropriate social network. Successful niche network: Interests of a particular age group.

Flickr. Social networks don’t have to be about text, getting together, or place based. It can be about images and it can tie to other social networks.

Facebook. Holds the function of what college students want from a social network. Zuckerberg said two things at SXSW that were important: 1. It was designed to make communications more efficient. The origin of the “poke” is that you contact someone you saw in a bar, or in a class. 2. It was created to bring social communities together to bring about change in society.

Gather. “Social network for really, really smart people.” Gather is about long, deep discussions about literature. Conversations are moderated and guided by authors, experts, or people who know the book well.

LinkedIn. Like a big professional rolodex. It is a way to say, if I ever need to pitch you, I can claim you are my friend. He links to everyone he gets business cards from at conferences.

MySpace was created as a platform for bands and independent filmmakers to create audiences. Co-opted by the big bands. It is still very good at music and independent film promotion. It has an impact session where it focuses on social issues. Example: Burrito Project: In weeks, 50,000 people gave burritos to homeless people in their communities.

YouTube. It is a social network too. Pogue’s video was #1 for a while because people saw it and sent it around.

Ning. Community of communities. Platform where any community can be on equal footing with any other communities.

Most nonprofits try too hard on social networks. Keep it simple like the Burrito Project.

Don’t get lazy with mass mailings. It is all about relationships.

Getting Started

1. Join/become a member where your audience or the people you want to communicate with are.

2. Listen/participate. Don’t lurk. Participate authentically.

3. Contribute/Experiment.

4. Energize/Support. You can’t just do your stuff. You have to support others too.

5. Embrace/Empower. At some point the audience is going to say, “This is awesome,” and they’re going to start to do things for your organization that may not follow your comfort plan of how you would do it. You have to give up control.

You are only as strong as your last transaction: in this case it is relationship interactions. There are tons of things vying for people’s attention and if you mess up your transaction, you go to the bottom of their attention “list.”

[Reich] thinks success will come from more niche social networks and niche search engines.