ext337

Jul 11, 09:32 pm: 10 ways to use Web 2.0 to change the world

(or at least engage more of community in the good work you are already doing)

Here’s the thing: when nonprofit staff start thinking about using web-based tools, they often think about doing it themselves. About starting a blog. About making a section of their site dedicated to photos. About creating something where there was nothing.

That’s not really necessary. Sure, you can start a blog or put up a wiki and invite your volunteers to start editing your outreach materials. But there are a lot of things that you can do to tweak what you are already doing and use social tools to push you further along the rode of acheiving your mission.

This is presented in order. I think of it as a progression. By the time you get to the end, the items will make more sense.

1. Find people. There are people out there who are interested in what you are doing. Find them. Technorati has a blog finder. Don’t worry too much about how it works (dig into that on Technorati’s site if you’re interested). Plug in keywords associated with the work you do and see if you can find people who have identified their blog as being about a topic that is near to your organizational heart. For me, this has turned into an effective recruiting tool. When I’m looking to fill new positions, I use Technorati to find people who already working on and thinking about the things I need to get done. And then I try and hire ‘em. In two cases, it’s resulted in really amazing people who were already doing things they loved and I got a chance to offer to pay them for it.
2. Find out opinions. People are sharing what they think. Tap into those opinions. Same tool: Technorati. This time, just use the main search interface and find out what people are writing about on issues near to your organizational heart. This isn’t the same thing as finding people. Sometimes, something will move a blogger to share something that is relelvant to you but not something they normally write about. Something that’s off topic for them but on topic for you. Find these things. This can inform the way that you are already doing marketing and outreach. An example? You are probably spending organizational resources writing outreach letters to your donor pool. Read what people are writing about in your topic area and use that information to inform your outreach effort. You aren’t doing something different — same staff, same tasks — but you are doing it a bit differently. Adding a new data point to it.
3. Scatter a breadcrumb trail of comments on the internet. You don’t have to blog to use ‘em. When you find the people and you find the issues, participate. Leave a comment on a post. Let those writers know that they’ve found a reader in you. Be thoughtful and be real here. If all you want to say is “Good job” drop a private email so that your comment doesn’t get confused w/ spam.
4. Make sure the API is open. Don’t even worry about what it is yet. But if you are purchasing a database or Content Management System, find out if the API is open. It shouldn’t be the most important consideration but, if you have the option, it should be a deciding factor. Looking at using some of the free tools on the internet? Check to make sure they have an open API.
5. Share the face of your organization. It’s okay to take pictures. It’s even good to take pictures. Share ‘em on your site or, ideally, in a place where you can connect to others. Use flickr. Yes there are others way to do this. But Flickr lets you tap into a stream of people who are caring and committed. An example? Go through this series of photos and tell me you don’t want to connect to the mission of March of Dimes.
6. Make yourself link friendly. You know those situation where you want to share some information w/ someone and you have to describe where to look for it? Try not to be that website. Make anchor links. If you don’t know what they are, find someone to help you.
7. Use RSS. You can’t keep up w/ these by trolling the web and using your favorites or bookmarks as the jumping off point. There are a lot of good resources (1, 2, 3) about RSS find ‘em and use them.
8. Check out the 3rd party tools. There are a lot of things that are built on top of other tools. They don’t stand alone but work specifically w/ other software services. If you start really using a particular service, find out what others have built to make it even more useful. This is where the open APIs come in. If you’ve been following this as a progression, you know which you are most interested in, which is most useful to you and your organization. You made sure it had an open API (right? you did that, right?). So now, go to Google, plug the name of the tool in and the words third party. One of the top 3 results is going to point you to some enthusiast who is maintaining a list of useful add-ons. Go through them and see if they work for you.
9. Share your path. Now, your moving around the web in meaningful, deliberate way. Your are responding to people, leaving comments, sharing the face of your organization. You are using RSS to track it all. You are a web 2.0 god-in-training. Share your path. When you find something interesting enough for you to click take the two extra steps necessary to share it w/ your friends and supports. Do this with del.icio.us, okay? Yes, there are other ways but once you get past the minimalist design I don’t think there’s anything that works better to save URLs in a social environment. There are some good tutorials (1, 2, 3) out there to help get you started.
10. Engage the developers community. By now, you should have some idea of what you want that (you think) doesn’t exist. Tap into the network of people who are really interested in building things and ask them to help you out.

tagged: nptech, net2, web2.0, tools, howto, communication, outreach, engagement