I attended a free webinar last week on the new book, Groundswell: Winning in World Transformed by Technologies, presented by its authors, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li of Forrester Research.

The book is geared toward the for-profit sector, but the strategies can be adopted by nonprofits in terms of building community, engaging activists, and even raising financial support around a cause or organization online.

I want to provide some of those applications and takeaways from the session:

Flickr Photo: alexander drachmannWe started the week off here at NTEN with a Q&A session with Chris Brogan, who answered questions from NTEN members about engaging people through social media. In case you missed it, you can see a transcript of the questions in the materials section (and if you're a member of NTEN, you can get the recording) here.

Chris commented a few times on how impressed he was by the questions you all asked him -- demonstrating yet again that, in many ways, the nonprofit sector is a leader in harnessing the power of social media to engage and energize communities and individuals online.

Here is a summary of take-aways from the session:

Flickr Photo: ChotdaAs many of you know, I love bacon. Ask me for my recipe for maple and bacon cake (with maple frosting!) some time. Maybe one reason I love bacon so much is because Bacon is the source of one of my favorite sayings. In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon said:

Knowledge is power.

It's practically a moral code at my house. But I've also been thinking about it in the context of nptech lately.

When the Internet first went mainstream, there was a lot of talk about how it would democratize information: more of us would be able to access more information more easily and we'd all become more powerful. Access to information is the key to Thomas Friedman's argument about how and why the Berlin Wall fell and why China is opening up, for example -- and communications technologies are behind all that.

In the early 2000s, I thought a lot about this. Yes, we did know more. More people were able to share what they knew, and more of us could access it. But it wasn't the dynamic, sweeping, grand experience that a phrase like "democratize information" might suggest. Here's why:

1. Lots of information opened up, but lots more is still locked behind walls in old delivery models. You still have to subscribe to many publications. You have to travel to get particular volumes or pay lots of money for experts to tell you what you need to know.
2. Access is not pervasive enough. The folks who, arguably, most need free and easy access to information and knowledge have the least access to the chanels that can deliver it. If you are poor in urban America, or if you live in rural areas, you can't afford or simply cannot get Internet access.

In the last year though, we've seen signs that the democratization of information is about to happen in a very real, rapid, Founding Fathers kind of way.

Does this chart make you want to rethink your Facebook strategy?

Facebook Apps

Flickr Photo: zombophotoI do a lot of traveling and talk to lots of people about social media and why I think it matters for nonprofits. I give a good twenty minutes about how the ground has shifted under our feet and social media is aligned with our current values as a society and a sector. It's one of those 10,000 feet view sorts of things.

And while I think that most people really appreciate the context, I can practically HEAR them thinking as I talk, "Yeah, but how the heck do I actually figure this stuff out?"

I usually give a few pieces of advice and then start showing off the tools that matter most to me. Now I have some new sources of inspiration for my talks. Chris Brogan has a great post today that consists almost entirely of questions:

• What were your first steps into social media?
• Who were your early people you admired and followed?
• How did you get started?
• If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?
• What will you do in the next few months with social media?

There are dozens of comments with answers already, and they reveal some pretty great advice to folks who are currently wondering how to get started with social media. A few of the points come up again and again:

Flickr Photo: savolskertsonNo matter which side of the political aisle you sit on, there's no doubt that social media is having a big impact on this presidential race. We even dedicated a whole newsletter issue to the topic.

My favorite stories are the ones that don't actually involve the campaigns. I love hearing about ordinary citizens starting up FaceBook groups or MySpace pages for their candidates, making democracy their own.

The latest example to come to my attention? Super.del.egates.us for Obama. No endorsement of candidates here, just sheer admiration for Jo and Michelle for taking the reigns of democracy into their own hands and empowering others by using a wiki.

It gives me hope on days when Hillary, Barack, and John all film spots for a WWE episode instead of debating.

Flickr Photo: Capt KodakIt's not about the technology, it's about the people.

You are not marketing, you are building community.

In case you need to remind yourself, or others, of these principles, check out Twistori. It's a perfect example of what social media is all about: people. It exposes the humanity that makes social media so powerful -- our love, our hate, our thoughts, our beliefs.

The next time you're thinking about how to get your message out in social media, visit Twistori. Then think about how you can help inspire, motivate, and excite the people in your community instead.

Chris BroganAre you an NTEN member? Then you're in luck! Chris Brogan, social media expert, is going to be kind enough to share an hour with us next week for an Ask the Expert session.

Okay, so Chris prefers to say he's not an expert, but that he advises people on social media use. That doesn't change the fact that he's smart and savvy on the social media front. One of his specialties? Starting and maintaining conversations with stakeholders.

If your organization is trying to figure out how to move your stakeholders from passive listeners to passionate participants, this is your golden opportunity. NTEN Members get exclusive access to ask questions and hear them answered, for free!

Join us on Monday, May 5 at 11am Pacific for this phone call and live chat. The event is free for NTEN members, so sign up today.

Let's see how many social media metaphors I can cram into one post, shall we? :)

Jeremiah Owyang has a piece today about trust. I don't know if you've felt this lately, but I certainly have: we're head over heels for trust in the sector these days. I wrote a bit about it back in November. Katya Andresen and Mark Rovner think it's one of the seven things everyone wants. Search for "trust" on Beth's Blog and you'll come up with myriad posts. Search for trust on the NTEN website and you'll get dozens of job listings where "building trust" is in the job description.

But back to Jeremiah's post. Want to guess what the number one source of trusted information is for most Americans?

Flickr Photo: NCBrianChris Brogan is one of my social media heroes. I really respect his approach to the power of these tools and how we should use them.  (And you can learn more from him at our Ask the Expert session on May 5th -- free for NTEN Members!)

Chris has a great post today about Online Community Management in which he shares how he would measure a community manager's performance: