In our quest to use social media to build a social media curriculum for the sector, our WeAreMedia project has already involved more than 65 people. You've been contributing articles, photos, videos, and mindshare toward a common cause.

Over the last few weeks, our focus has been on social media strategy, or the bigger picture concepts an organization should tackle before worrying about the tools themselves. We have covered how to know if social media is a good fit for your organization, strategy mapping, meeting resistance, storytelling, engagement skills, and ROI.

If you read this blog, you can't help but know we're developing a social media training curriculum. and we're using social media to do it! Beth Kanter has been curating our We Are Media project.

The main idea behind the project is that the answers are already out there -- all we need to do is find them and put them together in a more cohesive way. One of the biggest sources of answers are the fine folks at We Media, a project of iFOCOS.

They're putting two things we love together: social media and awards! Until September 15, you can nominate someone for the We Media Game Changers Awards.

Flickr Photo: luiginterI used to give a workshop about storytelling in online mediums. Back then, it focused on email and websites -- that's all there really was. In true nerd fashion, my metaphor for the workshop was Star Wars.

But I digress. The main point of the workshop was to get folks to articulate an emotional need they could address with their stories. Stakeholders will act on our behalf only if they feel an emotional investment in the outcome. They have to want us to succeed.

This week in We Are Media, we're focusing on storytelling. The number of outlets for nonprofit stories has exploded: email, websites, blogs, video, photos, twitter and more are all part of our communications universe now.But the fundamentals remain the same: How do you tell a good story, despite the medium?

Flickr Photo: relentlesstoilYup, we're talking about the best way to communicate again. We figure the only way we'll master it is, well, by keeping the lines open.

Ryan Richards, Asturais Academy of Guatemala, and Karen Matheson, M+R Strategic Services, will be doing just that on July 31 at a Seattle Net Tuesday Event: Communicating at a Distance: Best practices communicating with members and supporters. They will offer real-world advice and research-based best practices for communicating with your membership effectively, maintaining and developing supporters, building relationships, and sharing your story.

Flickr Photo: martinenoThis week in We Are Media, we're addressing a topic I'm guessing many of you have had some experience with: resistance.

When I speak on social media around the country, no matter what I'm talking about, or who's in the room, I know that when Q&A time comes, we'll spend a lot of time talking about how to address resistance to social media. I usually give a lot of general advice about educating leadership and demonstrating value. This is more or less correct, I think. But if we're going to develop a curriculum about social media, we need to get more serious.

We have to define resistance.

Flickr Photo: fr@nsI'm not normally an Oprah's Book Club kind of girl, but I happened to be trapped in a Starbucks with no reading materials for 90 minutes one day, so I bought "The Art of Racing in the Rain." Although everything jaded and cynical in me was annoyed by the sappy homilies, one bit really stuck with me: Your car follows where your eyes lead.

When it comes to our use of social media as a sector, I have to wonder, where are we looking? Where are we trying to drive? I hear a lot of general answers: we want to raise more money; we want to spread our message further. But I don't hear the specifics needed if we're going to do those things meaningfully. Having a Facebook group and a blog will not, on their own, raise more money for your organization.

One of the interesting side affects of the new web-based world we live in is that people expect everything to be free. Have you noticed that? I totally expect to have to pay for mobile phone service, but I want Internet access for free. I know I have to buy the book if I go into Powell's, but think I should be able to read it online for free.

Because the Internet really has democratized access to information, we all expect more information, more transparency, more openness, more collaboration. While I know that not everything can be free, I generally think this trend towards sharing is great.

So I was surprised when a group of lawyers representing a forthcoming book told us they didn't want us using Be the Media for the name our latest project.