We're bringing We Are Media to San Francisco, live and in-person on February 12 and 13!

That's right! The sector's first and only social media curriculum created by YOU is coming to San Francisco. This workshop is designed for small planning teams from nonprofit organizations ready to roll up their sleeves for two days and dive deeply into understanding how to craft a social media strategy and to experiment with tactical approaches.

Throughout the workshop, we'll walk through important topics like:

We don't do a lot of podcasting around here at NTEN. (Maybe that should be one of the things we experiment more with in 2009, in accordance with Holly Ross's resolutions.)

Luckily, Sarah Durham at Big Duck has an excellent podcasting series, the Nonprofit Jungle. You should really check these out for both their helpful nonprofit communications content and as example of how to put together great podcasts.

Sarah just interviewed NTEN's Executive Director, Holly Ross, about the Social Media for Nonprofits curriculum project, We Are Media. Take a listen here to find out more about:

• What the We Are Media project is;
• General tips and strategies for your nonprofit and Web 2.0;
• How Holly got started in nptech in the first place.

Berkeley BreathedIf you know me, you know I love to talk. I find silence uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I often write on this blog about the power of social media for listening.

When I hear folks talk about pushing their message out through social media channels, I cringe. To me, social media isn't a channel, it's a cocktail party, where different kinds of conversations require that you LISTEN.

Of course, as any party host knows, when the party gets big enough, you have a problem: you simply can't listen to everyone. 2009 NTC keynoter Clay Shirky talks about this in Here Comes Everybody:

Flickr Photo: b_d_solisImagine you're at a cocktail party. Your friend introduces you to her colleague before heading off in search of drinks. You exchange names and occupations. What should you say next?

A) "Wow, that's an intersting line of work! How did you get into that field?"

B) "Yeesh! That line for drinks sure must be long. I'll go help my friend."

C) "Yeah, so the nonprofit I was telling you I work for? We're in the middle of our annual campaign. How about donating $25?"

The We Are Media Festival of Tools is wrapping up another amazing week of work on the Social Media Toolbox, adding Blogs, Podcasting, Photo Sharing, and Video Sharing to the set.

We want to make sure you're not only prepared with the right Social Media tools, but that you're styling while you're in action taking photos and videos of yourself! That's why we're sending a fabulous T-shirt to the following contributors as a small token of thanks:

• Steve Heye
• Christine Egger
• David Neff
• Erin McMahon
• Daniel Bachhuber
• Kevin Martone
• Mary Hall

We hope they'll all take a photo or video modeling their new gear to share with us!

It's photosharing day in the We Are Media toolbox festival!

Does your organization run any events? Do you hire a photographer? We used to. Now, each year at the NTC, we ask our colleagues to upload any digital photos they take into Flickr, and to tag those photos with 07NTC / 08NTC / etc. (and NTEN).

The major down side is that we don't always get the high resolution images we might want for a printed piece of collateral.

But there are many more up sides than down sides. I can't think of a better way to show the energy and enthusiasm of our community than through their own photos! Also, we get a much broader range of photos than we would from a single photographer. Finally, when the photos are in a service like Flickr, we can use them in a multitude of ways.

The We Are Media Toolfest continues today with podcasts!

I recently wrote about my first experience as a podcast guest and the process Big Duck uses to create their podcasts. Of course, there's more than one way to make a podcast. I don't do it very often, but when I do, I use a service called Utterli. (I don't like to produce "shows" per se -- but I'm really into interviewing people on the fly.)

There are many reasons you might want to podcast. But where should you start? What tools are right for what kind of podcasting? Share your favorites with us in comments or on the wki!

Week Two of the We Are Media Toolbox begins!

Today, our topic is blogs. To this day, whenever I hear the word blog, I think to myself, "It's better than bad, it's good!" Ren and Stimpy jokes aside, blogs are typically one of the first things people think of when they hear the phrase "Web 2.0." Many begin their launch into the social media space with blogs; I always get questions about how blogs work and what software an organization should use.

Since I've become a near-daily blogger, I have lots of tips and opinions. But we want to know what you use to blog. What features are important? Share your intel with us in the comments below or on the We Are Media wiki.

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.

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.