Ed. Note: As we prepare for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference, we wanted share a wee bit of the wisdom our speakers will be serving up, so as not to overwhelm you when you get to Atlanta. We're asking them all to share their answers to five very important questions.

Speaker: Mark Rovner, Sea Change Strategies

Session: That's Not Funny: Using Humor in Online Communications 

1. What's the most important trend in nonprofit technology for 2010?

A greater focus on campaign core priorities: the story, the message, the call to action.  The emphasis will be on integration, good emotional engagement, and simplicity and less on channel frenzy.

2. Why do you think your session topic is important for nonprofits to address?

Because non-profits come off to the world as humorless, stern schoolmarms, and it hurts the cause.  The people who work inside non-profits are some of the funniest people I know, but the non-profits they work for are, um, not funny.

Humor is an extraordinarily powerful tool, even when we’re discussing serious topics.  Right now we all suck at it.

Katya Andresen, Network for Good and Mark Rovner, Sea Change Strategies

Some very human principles make or break the success of absolutely everything you do online. These are the kinds of truths Buddha or Freud –- explorers of the deepest recesses of the human mind -- talked about.

To achieve true marketing "enlightenment," you need to tap into fundamental human needs with your technology rather than hoping technology can inspire alone. There are at least seven of these fundamental needs:

• To be SEEN and HEARD
• To be CONNECTED to someone or something
• To be part of something GREATER THAN OURSELVES
• To have HOPE for the future
• To have the security of TRUST
• To be of SERVICE
• To want HAPPINESS for self and others