independentman
Getting Conversation Ready:

[Via Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media]

Holly Ross wrote a good reflection piece about public conversations on blogs and how to get your audience ready for that conversation. She makes the point:

What I am saying is that your audience may not be ready to have the conversation that social media enables. That’s because social media does not just enable conversations.It enables PUBLIC conversations.

I think we have to remember that it takes time build the community to have the conversation and that it doesn’t happen right away. You have to be ready as conversation facilitator. Alexandra Samuel did a workshop called “Bringing Your Community to Life” at Netsquared and offered some terrific practical advice about you get the conversation started.

Some key points:

Key points to encourage participation:

Focus on promoting conversation

Make it happen, don’t wait for it

Connect like-minded participants

Connect complimentary threads

Plan pro-actively, implement reactively

by aussiegall
Social networking site aims to help fight malaria:
[Via News at Nature - Most Recent]

New website gives smaller African projects a bigger profile.
[More]

An interesting approach - using social networking tools to help increase awareness of anti-malaria projects and help fundraising effort. It is a novel way to use some of these tools but I wonder if these would be more successful as a stand alone project or under the wings of larger social media entities?

Technorati Tags: Non-Profit, Science, Web 2.0

by m o d e

This site will be coming alive over the next week or so. We have a lot to cover and want it to be done without overwhelming anyone. SpreadingScience will make it easier for researchers to deal with the tremendous amount of information that threatens to overwhelm their efforts.

We do this through a teaching approach dealing with both Science 1.0 techniques to transmit information (papers, oral presentations and posters) as well as Science 2.0 ones.

What most scientists know about Science 1.0 comes from on the job training. We have developed some areas of good practice which permit much more effective use of their time for transferring information.

Science 2.0 approaches using online collaborative tools (wikis, blogs, podcasts) hold the promise of lowering many of the barriers to effective information transfer.

However, these tools must operate in a social network, even if it is online. Without an understanding of how the social networks of researchers are similar to those of other groups, and how they are different, the tools of Science 2.0 will not flourish.

This is where SpreadingScience has its greatest impact. Contact us to find out more about what we can do for your research organization.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

Giving Good Poke: Using Social Apps & Media for Social Causes - Beth Kanter

Her slides.

Lots of interesting ways to raise money. (Beth’s blog). used social networks to raise money. What gets through to donars and what annoys them. Has done this 3 times.

Sharing Foundations (raised $93,000!). Used America’s giving challenge. 1 individual to get most unique donars. 50 days. Dec 13 at 3 PM. She opened her Kimono (asked her community to help. Possible downside overwhelmed by huge upside. Good ideas beat possble cheaters.)

Strategy - Make it personal (shared experience, etc.). She cares about Cambodia because her children come from Cambodia. expalin whoy I care about the cause.

remake ladder of engagement (check out slide when it comes online.) Stories become very important. Talked about children, donors, examples of how people engaged, make getting on bus something people want to do.

Used stories to engage individual needs. makes story useful to user outside of specific request.

build relationship. reward people (especially new people). working on how to reward. reciprocity (asker and usrer need to connect. write about other causes. give to others. etc.

connect with others who can be part of campaign. (she used CC. she supported them before so they helped her.)

use social netowrks to help connect (found cambodian who wanted to be a lawyer. connected with CC)

fun and passion are important.

put up birthday and mentioned sending money. social networking sent it all out. asked 51 people to donate $10 for her 51st birthday. used all her social network tech (twitter, flickr, blog, youtube) to make it viral.

then summarized it all on blog. had >250 givers. Still had 20 days left. continued using blog to tell stories. lots of networking going on that she did not have any prior knowledge of. then used twwitter rally. tried to get largest as rapidly. used twitter a lot to get quick messages. raised money this way very fast.

used face to face also.

in 1st place with 24 hours left. had to fly to TX. offline for 6 hours. left in 2nd landed in 5th. through all out effort to network - asking for help from everyone in network to help. twitter would not let her lose. everyone in her network helped.

twittered last hour. ended up winning. raised $50,000

then say thank you in creative fashion.

[WOW, really passionate speaker/ uniques insights. I have been tracking her blog for a while and it is very useful for non-profits.]

Watch for it.