News
We Are Media Toolbox: Commenting
We're going to close out this week's round of We Are Media Toolbox fun with commenting.
Have you ever commented on a blog, a picture, or a video? In many online communities, comments are more than just, well, comments -- they're part of a conversation. Comments, and then comments on the comments, often create some of the best discussion on the web. Chris Brogan knows this. Sometimes, he lets his community do his blogging for him, in the comments section.
But comments can also be the Nobu of the online world: where you go to see and be seen. Adding value to a post on a highly trafficked blog can bring you lots of exposure -- so much so that cottage industries are springing up! (My favorite line from that site: "Minimum 3 lines of non spammy comments!")
Of course, participating in all those conversations also means that you have a lot to keep up with, so there are more and more services that allow you to track your comments, like coComment.
So tell us, what commenting tools do you love? Share in the comments (!) or on the wiki.
We Are Media Toolbox: Social Bookmarking
Another day, another We Are Media Toolbox challenge!
Today's topic is social bookmarking. When I first heard that phrase, it conjured up images of women reading their favorite passages from Nicholas Sparks novels aloud to one another while drinking white wine.
How wrong was I? Social bookmarking is now part of my everyday online experience. I use Delicious -- thanks for getting rid of all those goofy periods Yahoo! -- to keep track of articles and blog posts I may want to come back to. I search Delicious to find information about topics I'm interested in. I keep track of what other people tag with "NTEN" in Delicious, as well.
I haven't gone the extra step of building community around my tags. Have you? What social bookmarking site do you prefer, and why? Share with us in comments, below, or on the wiki.
Owning Your Own Power
A busy Friday it has been -- server installed, webinar completed, Intern taught mail merge -- and now we're looking forward to next Tuesday when we will co-host a Teleseminar with Women Who Tech and Susan Mernit on Owning Your Own Power.
Early Bird Gets the Worm (and the Best NTC Sponsorships!)
A HUGE Thank You goes to our all NTC sponsors and exhibitors to date! We are super-geeked about the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference (and not just because we're geeks). We're putting many of your ideas into action this year and we already have a crew of super folks on our side to make the NTC the best place to connect, learn, and change around the technology issues relevant to you.
Check out this amazing list of sponsors! (Don't worry, you aren't too late, learn more and sponsor the NTC!)
It's About the Future, Not the Past
Flickr Photo: paurianMuseums get a bad rap as purveyors of the past. I'd guess most of us, when we think about museums at all, think about dusty old things. But the very best museums tie all that old stuff to the world we live in today, and the future we're creating.
It's a lot like our roles as non-museum nonprofits: we sift through all the information and data out there to find what matters for our communities -- and make it relevant.
Part of that is the selection process, choosing what we'll showcase. The other part is how we design our display, or communicate what we're showcasing.
Another way of saying this: How people get your message is as important as what you're saying.
If You Listen, a T-Shirt Will Come
Congratulations to Ashley Messick!
Yesterday, we kicked off our month-long We Are Media Festival of Tools with a conversation about how to monitor the conversation. Many of you added your favorite tools for eavesdropping on the interwebs to learn more about what people are saying about your organization and your issues. We're also hoping to learn why you use those tools, and how you use them.
Ashley Messick shared her two cents yesterday, and now she's the proud owner of a We Are Media T-Shirt (designed by our own Brett Meyer). Share your thoughts on monitoring the conversation or today's topic, RSS Readers, and you could get a T-Shirt too!
Fundraising, Online Marketing, Tracking Your Impact: Tools You Can Use at Your Nonprofit
Flickr Credit: I Are Rowell You probably think about fundraising year-round, but let's face it: there's something about this time of year that revs up the intensity around organizational fundraising and impact.
Whether you're looking at your annual budget compared to the actuals, planning for the programs you'd like to add next year, tracking your success, or putting together a report of how donations helped your impact, you're probably crunching numbers and planning campaigns right now.
This month's Show & Tell session might give you some ideas and options for making the campaigns, donor management, and analysis of impact a little easier -- and your work more effective.
We Are Media Toolbox: RSS Readers
Welcome to Day 2 of the We Are Media Toolbox extravaganza! Today's topic: RSS readers.
There's so much more information out there than we can competently digest, one of the skills we need to master in this new age is information management. Enter RSS readers. One of the first people I remember hearing talk about RSS and readers in the nonprofit space was Marnie Webb. I'm glad I heard her, because I would be lost without my reader!
We Are Media Toolbox: How Do You Monitor the Conversations?
It's We Are Media toolbox time!
Most of the time, when we talk about social media, we have to be careful to temper our enthusiasm. Social media has to have context. You have to have a plan-- and an awareness that it's not for eveyone or every situation.
But sometimes, dontcha just wanna talk about how much fun it is?
Meet the Author, Read the Book, Mobilize Generation 2.0
Another Meet the Author session is right around the corner!
On October 23rd, we'll have the pleasure of hosting Ben Rigby, author of Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize, and Engage Youth for a phone call and online chat. We'll talk about this incredible guide for nonprofits, political campaigns, and other organizers who want to use new media tools effectively.
> Sign up for Meet the Author: Ben Rigby
Check out what a few folks have been saying about the book:
