We had a 501 Tech Club meeting here in Portland this week, where we spent a lot of time talking about video. It seems some groups are really starting to get interested in all of the ways they can use video to tell their stories and inspire action. One performance group was interested in live-streaming their performances. Another wanted to get their event fundraising teams to take video of their experiences as they prepared for the big event.

I finally gave a presentation in my own back yard! The fine folks at Blackbaud were in town to run NetWits Live, and they were nice enough to let me yammer at their guests for a while.

As usual, the people in the session were more interesting than anything I had to say, and we had some great conversations, especially around metrics. Several folks asked me to share some resources, so I figured I'd throw them up here in case anyone else might find them useful.

You've seen the tweets. You want the shirt. Now's your chance!

Keep your eyes peeled next week, because all month long, we're going to "fondle the hammer!" We'll be talking about social media tools just for the sake of how cool they are. (Because let's face it, they are wicked fun.)

Every day, we'll ask you to share the tools you use to listen, share, and build community. All we need you to do is tell us what tools you use, and why you love them.

You'll get two great rewards:

• First, you'll get the satisfaction of helping to build a curriculum that will help other nonprofits learn how to use social media effectively.
• AND, you'll get the shirt. (You know you want one!)

I get calls and emails almost every day from folks who want to know: "How do I start a Facebook group?" My response, invariably, is: "WHY do you want a Facebook group?"

That's the topic we're covering this week in We Are Media: Social Networks (and Widgets) for Community Building, Taking Action, and/or Fundraising. Why are social networks important to our causes? Under what conditions? And what kinds of investments do you need to make to get the most out of them?

Today, we had the great fortune of talking with John Palfrey, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. John and his colleague Urs Gasser co-wrote a great new book, Born Digital.

John talks almost as fast as I do, but he thinks even faster -- and bigger. In our hour together, John switched seamlessly from the impact of Digital Natives on the future of democracy to privacy to productivity.

While all of it was fantastic, my favorite bit came at the end: the Berkman Center does not have a communications department. Instead, they have community organizers.

Remember when we all started using email in our nonprofit work?

(If you're under 25, you are excluded from the next paragraph: you don't remember a time WITHOUT it!)

First, we got excited because email made communications cheaper and faster; you could send out 1,000 messages in no time at all, and for very little money. Then, we realized email had a little secret sauce to it. Unlike direct mail, emails could acutally change hands and reach NEW audiences pretty easily. So, we all started adding "Forward this to a friend" pleas to our messages and waited for our campaigns to go "viral."

What we were hoping to do was tap the power of networks. Just like the old shampoo commercial, we wanted our supporters to get our message and tell it to friends, ad infinitum.

Sometimes it worked. Most of the time it didn't.

Flickr Photo: VisualAgeOne of the tensions that surfaces when nonprofits start to integrate social media into their communications strategy is that social media is, by nature, personal and organizational communications, well, aren't. 

Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and blogs are all about helping individual actors share, and by so doing, meet other individuals.  The central question of Twitter is, "What are you doing?"  Facebook has Groups, but the Groups are designed to be expressions of individual enthusiasms, and aren't really geared toward organization-speak.

Another way of putting this: Organizations don't make friends.  People make friends.  

In the friend-crazy world of social media, you've really got to think about how the people who work for and empower your organization can build your organization into their social media brand.  How will you make sure that when Staffer A blogs, tweets, or friends someone else as part of her work with you, that her posts, tweets, and friends are representative of your organization and your brand, while still being personal?

It's a tough line to walk.  I do it all the time.  On the one hand, I want to make sure NTEN's values are imbued in all my social media contributions.  On the other hand, sometimes I'm just looking for a good cornbread recipe.  Are those two things at odds?  I don't think so, but I actually do a lot of self-editing in my head.

One resource I've found helpful over the last week is a handy guide from Chris Brogan, "Personal Branding for the Business Professional."  I think the guide should be an exercise organizations go through with their staff who use social media on the org's behalf.

I also just found a post from one of my favorite women in tech, Deborah Schultz.  Looks like we're on the same brainwave lately.  She writes:

No matter how you slice it - everything is personal.  Not personal as in taking things personally [tho there is plenty of that taking place], but personal as in this is 'personal to me'.  Social web tools are just that social and personal. They are a reflection of their creator - without a personal voice and tone there is no "there there". And they are changing the dynamics of how we interact, relate and do business.

The challenge for a business or political campaign is how do you infuse the personal without over-sharing and how do you find the balance of what is appropriate? 

Neither Chris's guide nor Deborah's post actually contains answers.  Nope.  Instead, they have pointers.  That's the fun of all this: no one has the answers, but we're all required to try.

UPDATE: I just found this post from Dave Crain which offers a complimentary perspective. I especially loved his "dichotomies of Personal Branding"

Flickr Photo: JamesPDXAdmittedly, Portland is not the Silicon Valley, but that doesn't mean we can't flex our tech muscles up here in the Silicon Forest!  After all, we're home to Linus, IBM, Intel, and a slew of startups.  We've also got over 6,000 nonprofits.  So I'm really excited Blackbaud is headed our way next month with a free social media for marketers event: NetWits, to be held at the Hilton on October 2.

It doesn't hurt my enthusiasm that they asked me to speak at the event, but I'd be happy about it anyway. 

Allison, Chad, and the rest of the crew will kick things off on Oct. 1st by presenting at our Portland 501TechClub meeting. So, join us on the 1st for tech and beer (you KNOW how I feel about that combination), then on the 2nd for tech and breakfast!

Flickr Photo: tankgirlThe big DNC Convention kicks off this week in Denver, CO. While I'm super jealous of my colleagues who are there, I also hate crowds. Luckily, there is a bevy of social media at my fingertips to help me feel like I'm right in the midst of the action. Here are just a smattering of ways to follow the action from your own desk chair:

• Tweetscan: following all tweets with "DNC" in them
• YouTube: videos tagged "dnc2008"
• Technorati: blog posts tagged "dnc2008"
• Flickr: images tagged "dnc2008"
• FriendFeed: what all my friends are saying about the DNC

It can be hard to convince leadership that working with social media doesn't mean they've been paying you to catch up with friends on Facebook. You've probably heard some of the objections:

• I suffer from information overload already.
• So much of what's discussed online is meaningless. These forms of communication are shallow and make us dumber. We have real work to do!
• I don't have the time to contribute and moderate. It looks like it takes a lot of time and energy.
• Our customers don't use this stuff. The learning curve limits its usefulness to geeks.
• Communicators [bloggers, tweeters] are so fickle, it's better to stay unengaged than risk random brand damage. We don't want hostile comments left about us on any forum we've legitimized.

And there are more. But there are ways you can respond. Here's a list of suggestions: