Netcentric Advocacy

Did you Know: Youtube Video Overview of Internet Trends

Here is another interesting introduction to shift that communicaitons technology is creating.

Twitter Trumps Online Conference - Six Steps For Using Twitter For Your Conference Or Event

This is worth reading the entire post and thinking about the impact of social media on events and conferences. A way to think about twitter is like a CB channel at an event.  Everyone has a radio and the universal channel enables all the participants to comment, talk, ask questions and coordinate activity before, during and after an event.  Will this change conferences? … YES.

I joined coworkers in our “War Room” (conference room) to view the PPT on our large plasma screen (ASAE chose not to use the webinar portion), interact with the live chat, listen to the audio on the conference phone and talk with one another during the presentation. Many of us brought our mobile devices too so we could answer email, chat and send tweets as needed. This was a familiar setting and situation, as I plan similar events for our own members.

Once the conference began, the dynamics in the room were amazing: we were listening to the presentation, debriefing comments as they were being said, typing in the live chat and sending tweets. Those walking by our War Room saw a frenzied team in hyper-overdrive, on high alert, working and talking at once.

On day one, we sat through two painful presentations: one very disorganized and one with some inaccurate and outdated information. Both of these presentations dealt with low-cost or free technology strategies and web tools.

On day two, we decided to turn to the Twittersphere to see if other social media mavens and gurus agreed with what ASAE was presenting. As we tweeted ASAE positions or statements, the Twitter and social media pros began to respond to us with facts, data, reports and articles contradicting what ASAE had said. Some of their responses were:

• @ replies (replies directly to us) or
• DM (private direct text messages).
• And some were RT (retweets) where I reposted their tweet to the entire Twittersphere.

I was hoping someone from ASAE was listening, following our conversations, or had their Google Alerts or TweetBeep set so they would know we were tweeting about them. No one from ASAE replied.

Twitter Trumps Online Conference - Six Steps For Using Twitter For Your Conference Or Event

Huffington Post Publishes Riff on Internet access for the unemployed.

 

I have been working a bit lately on the ideas around the "new recovery" for the "new depression." How are we going to make this recovery quicker? How will it be different?  Please come over and join the conversation.

   

Tools I Use to Connect, Scan and React to the Web

After tweaking and refining over the last several weeks, I finally believe I have a system of software and web services figured out that support me in my work to connect with peers, scan the web and react and publish my thoughts/reaction to the conversation. etc.  

About me.  I do not write code. I don’t know how to operate a tar ball. I want things easy and out of the way.   This entire package is a few dollars a month for typepad (hosts this blog ). I tend to work long hours and spend a bit of my nights scanning the online space. I don’t mind putting the time in to set up each of these because they pay off pretty well.  I have a Vista laptop with all Office 2007 tools and an Iphone.

I am an Executive Director at a nonprofit organization a part of my job and work consists of;

1. Scanning the field for several projects (hundreds of feeds), grabbing notes that I may need or I want to share with other that are interested in the same project.
2. Working over the notes and developing some into riffs on networks and advocacy, or storing those notes for later cooking.
3. Publishing my thought process online, the raw materials and any final products. Sometimes, I need to create long and short riffs on the subject but also I am content to point people to other peoples brilliant content online. 

As a network and organizer, my instinct is to leverage a vast and far flung collection of people accelerate my learning, broaden my view and deepen my thinking.  I need to keep my ear to the web.

I am not interested in web traffic. I don’t do this for ad revenue. I am mostly interested in more fully developing my thoughts.  I am interested in getting things done in campaigns. I am interested in providing our partners and clients with a really solid understanding of what is going on across the online organizing space.

Additionally, my online activity is a bit “social”. I am interested in sharing information with a small group of friends, peers and coworkers in the progressive movement. I am interested in conversation.  I do some of my reading and reacting to stay in touch benefit from, and help my friends.  

I don’t want it to take more than an hour or two to scan, grab, kick around, react and publish.

Conversation

I love to meet people for coffee. I spend 40%-60% of my day in meetings or on the phone with people.  I love the value and richness of face to face and phone conversations. Phone calls are the best for me but if I have time to tune in and kick updates around with peers I don’t like the demand that email correspondence puts on us for social interaction.  I feel really bad when I can’t reply to someone's email.  I also no longer feel comfortable sending random update email to friends trying to get us all caught up. In addition to my email, I stay in touch by communicating via

1. Facebook (in browser and on iphone app, pulls in feeds)
2. Linked-in (just for professional connections and keeping contact pipeline with lots of people)
3. Twitter (Tweetdeck for the PC …Tweetie for $2.99 on iphone)
4. My blog (typepad – only problem..I wish I could change my domain name without messing it up.)
5. Google reader ( with 117 feeds and a shared feed)
6. I comment on others postings.

Scanning

1. Twitter – My favorite part of twitter is see “who follows and who”.  The open connections are the most valuable part of the system to me. It enables me to reach very “far” across the web to connect with people that are outside my circle of information but still trusted by traceable by degrees of separation.  I try to track lots of people right now as I am using it to see what is interesting. Many of the people that I am really close with are not yet on twitter so I use it to scan the larger field.  I assume i will really use it more for work in the months ahead.  I think the #tag stuff is brilliant.
2. Facebook – Scanning  my close network. (my family, friends and coworkers and friends are on here)
3. Google Reader (Great Tool. It grabs almost everything I need. I can look at it from my phone and it has share and share with notes that are a part of my site. Star for later)
4. Email ( I don’t want things coming into my inbox. )
5. Project related feeds on sites (Instead of the google reader) like the bottom of this site (

Working Over the Results

1. Onenote 2007– Screen Capture.  It really works like a notebook. You see something that is interesting and you highlight it and send it to Onenote (it is a tool in IE) or you can grab the screen and create a page from what you are looking at.  You have the option to send any onenote page “send to blog”
2. Windows Live Writer  (I love this)– As you are surfing a page or reading in firefox…you highlight the interesting section of the page and hit a little icon that windows live writer puts on your toolbar in firefox. A post opens up with a title and the content already linkined and in the post. It has one button publishing to send the text and images directly into your blog. 
3. Firefox – quick publish – blogger. I set up a blogger account for “clips” I don’t use the blogger account to write anything (it is linked to a www.wetpaint.com wiki) I just highlight and hit the right mouse button to see “send to blogger” and off the clip goes. 

Publish

1. Typepad – 14 bucks a month. It works.  i have been using it for years. They keep adding features, attacking spam and make sure the feeds work with almost every service (facebook, widgets etc.)  It is easy to keep free of spam and has an Iphone app.
2. Blogger – just for clips.
3. Drupal – full content management system and preferred platform for most of my sites.
4. Wetpaint.com – REally easy wiki. I have watched old hippy organizers use it so i know the technology is not a barrier. (unfortunately, the branding is difficult)

Network Feedback Loops and Data in Human Networks

This is the next evolution to organizing.  We see this "honest signals" in our advocacy work everyday.  We now are getting to the point that the feedback on networks is going to enable us to get smarter and adopt quicker on the ways we engage and lead.  I am a new fan of Sandy Pentland

  

What I like about you... Is you really know how to dance. Webinars shouldn't suck.

Ok, I am not sure why that song is in my head but i just finished a survey set up by Andy Goodman. 

I realized as I wrote my responses how few of the webinars I attend suck because of technology. (I use dim-dim, webex and Adobe connect).  I also use skype for small groups and have been turning video on more often. 

The good webinars are driven by the same "good things" as meetings. Just because the travel is cheaper DOES NOT mean the meetings will be better or worse.

The great thing about this survey is that if you fill it out ...you get the results. Here is the survey link 

Andy also sent an email to promote the survey....

http://budurl.com/uwnh

Give us 10 minutes (and save yourself from hours of boredom)
If you’ll take a new survey on teleconferences, videoconferences and webinars, you’ll receive a full report on what works, what doesn’t and why.  (A link to the survey is below.) Here’s the scoop:

Given the current economic climate, everyone’s looking for ways to cut costs and work smarter. And that means more organizations may turn to teleconferences, videoconferences and webinars instead of in-person meetings. Makes sense in theory, but will this really be a good thing?

You’ve probably endured enough badly-run “long distance meetings” to agree that these can be serious time-wasters. On the other hand, there are some organizations that are learning how to master these technologies. Our colleague Andy Goodman (author of Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes) wants to find and share those best practices (as well as the common mistakes we should all avoid), but first he needs your help.

His online survey takes only about 10 minutes to complete, and in return for your time, he’ll send you a complete report with all the results in April. So give him just a few minutes now, and hopefully he can save you from countless boring hours in the months to come!

We all really need these webinars to be an important backbone for collaboration and meeting. I strongly recommend you take the survey. ( let me know what song gets stuck in your head. )

Nice Instructional Video on Filtering and Processing a Network of People

I like this overview.  We do some of this in Demystifying the Web presentations.  

I use different tools (blog,rss,google reader,listsenves) but the logic behind it is good. You let the network filter and clean the web for what is important to you.  Small groups filter and discuss. (I let the indicaiton of discussion tell me something is interesting.)  I focus my "filter value" on the networks issues.

I also like the technique at the end for Q&A.  He turns to the video and then answers questions.