Stories, software and strategies to help nonprofits do the social web.
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A week ago Facebook launched Places, the social network's entry into location-based marketing. Partners Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah appeared onstage and talked up their cooperation with the giant. Now that the Places service has been live for a week in the US, how is it changing our checkin behaviors? And what does the announcement mean for location-based marketing generally? At the Places announcement, Foursquare and the other partners were quick to point out that Facebook was bringing checkins into the mainstream. ...
Earlier this spring, I gave a talk on nonprofit social media to the DC chapter of the American Marketing Association. Now, I'm a tech guy, so it was a little intimidating -- and fun -- to speak to a houseful of marketing folks. (I'm still not sure I was their first choice... :)) But it was a great crowd, and Em Hall provided counterpoint from the messaging perspective. We were even asked to present again at at #DCWeek a month later,...
When Geoff Livingston and Jill Foster headed down to the Gulf of Mexico to see the communities affected by the BP oil spill, they thought they'd find tar balls. They didn't expect to find communities struggling with economic depression, or an officer with bullhorn commanding them to put down their cameras. The beaches of high season were empty. See the results of their investigation in a CitizenEffect project. Harder hit were the fishermen and their families. Katrina had hurt the Gulf fisheries,...
Em Hall and I presented to a great crowd at Digital Capital Week's nonprofit day today. Thanks, everybody for turning out — and thanks for the super questions. Check them on Twitter #npskillz. My favorite, "Focus on brand or issues for NPO social media?" Humungous thanks to @emilyhaha for the kickoff idea and wisdom as always! <!--more-->Update: Here's the text of the presentation, since the text seems to have gotten lost between Keynote for the iPad and Scribd. (What is...
The goal of all of this has been to harness the excitement of development for good, but also to go beyond the contests — to build communities of practice. Peter calls these innovator networks. If we’re lucky, these may grow into innovation marketplaces that just might be self-sustaining. That’s the hope, anyway. Meanwhile, it’s lots of experimentation. One prominent experiment, sponsored by Corbett’s iStrategy Labs, is this month’s Digital Capital Week (DCWeek). A week-long series of workshops, projects and parties,...
I love my phone. Not so much for the phone part, but for the little computer in there that connects me to the world, no matter where I am. The phone has our calendars, our mail -- and, increasingly, our volunteer opportunities. It's the day timer of our times. But better than a day timer, the phone offers discovery, too. Lots of nonprofits and individuals are at work to make this discovery include nonprofits and volunteering. Here are a few...
Eric: Why not just have experts help develop ideas and directly fund them? Marnie: There are many people — universities, foundations, private individuals — who find experts, give them resources to develop amazing and elegant solutions and fund them. That’s a model that has been around for a long time and, like any model, it has its strengths and weaknesses. We wanted to do something different with NetSquared. via casefoundation.org I caught up with Marnie Webb of NetSquared to ask...
Photo by Kaptain Kobold I like Apple's computers and phones. (It's a vice, I know.) Over the past couple of weeks all of this iPad, iPhone iNews has allowed for plenty of indulgence of that vice. But yesterday, Steve Jobs said something that could impact how people find nonprofits - and everybody else - online. He said folks using the iPhone: Spend about 30 minutes a day using apps Are using apps, not searchingvia casefoundation.org What does this mean to nonprofits &...