A recent event has brought up some huge red flags for me around data, around communities, around social impact, inclusion and even more.  It’s a case of letting technology lead (or, rather, the people behind the technology) instead of the communities on the other end.  This event focuses on Causes, an application for supporting and fundraising for organizations by individuals, groups and even the organizations themselves.

First, let me explain what happened yesterday.  Administrators of Causes accounts on MySpace received a notice via email stating, “Thank you for the work you’ve done on Causes on MySpace.  Do to the lack of activity on MySpace, we’ve decided to focus our efforts on the Causes Application on Facebook.”  (To read the full message, click here.)  The message indicated that all Causes-related pages and content on MySpace would be taken down at the end of the week.

This may not seem too terribly interesting or scary, but let’s take a closer look.

What it Means to Individuals

I blogged earlier this year about research that indicates very strongly we’ve replicated our offline social barriers and segmentation in our online social networking platforms.  (Visit danah boyd’s website for more information and research on this topic.) Different communities have aligned and adopted different social networks, social media tools, communications platforms, etc. The tools we use often reflect the communities we are in, whether those communities are geographic, ethnic, or otherwise.

I consistently advocate that organizations go where their community is—because that community is already connected and people are already talking about you, your services or your sector.  Why? Because individuals network together online and the biggest influencers are our closest friends in our network.  When a friend starts a campaign, supports or fundraises for an organization or cause publicly on a social networking platform, they broadcast that action and encourage their friends to do the same.

Causes leaving MySpace means that no users there (though, there certainly seem to be A LOT of users) will be able to continue promoting the causes, organizations or sectors that they care about via a process that’s already been established, adopted, and networked.  I’ve even talked before about how I believe Millennials are using alignment and promotion of social impact areas (whether it’s a sector, like Human Rights; or a nonprofit, like Planned Parenthood; etc.) as a form of self expression and identification.  Applications like Causes also enable individuals to give voices to your work that you don’t have to control or manage - campaigns that benefit you because your supporters believe and appreciate the work you are doing.  (Check out a great post from Ivan Boothe of Rootwork on this topic.)

In a big way, removing the Causes application from MySpace will mean many people don’t have the “space” to bare their badges of support, to leverage a networked dashboard of lapel pins that align them and define them.

What it Means to Communities

Causes’ About statement says, “The goal of all this is what we call “equal opportunity activism.” We’re trying to level the playing field by empowering individuals to change the world.”

The debate around social media and the Internet in general as a leveling force is still heated from all sides.  Yes you can claim that anyone has the power to blog, but that’s really only the people who have access to the tools and the time and the empowerment.  The access debate aside, the removal of Causes from MySpace where there are active communities of supporters means “equal opportunity activism” is defined by only certain communities (as we know that social networking platforms have very different demographic user groups).

It also skews the idea that organizations can focus energy where their communities already are.  Though, with MySpace, organizations have different opportunities for creating profiles and interacting with supporters than on Facebook.

Looking Ahead

Causes has yet to post anything about this on their blog and the MySpace option is still prominently displayed next to Facebook at the top of the site. Obviously, there are many questions users, administrators and communities would like answered.  For example, what will happen to the content, the communications, the information?  Will organizations or administrators still be able to connect with or communicate with their list of supporters? And so on.

But there are many other, larger, questions this example raises for me:

• Is this an indication that communities will have to take the lead of technologies (and the people behind them)?
• How can communities communicate and demand technologies take the lead from them?
• How are organizations building community online in a way that safe guards them from third-parties (maintaining the connections to supporters on MySpace that were gained via Causes by inviting users to register directly with the organization as well, etc.)?
• What will be the requirement in an open data or open web for applications serving communities?
• How do we, as public thinkers about this “stuff,” help guide organizations in navigating these questions and others?

What do you think?

I can’t wait to hear what you think! Are you using Causes on MySpace, are you using it on Facebook? Do you have ideas or feelings about the questions above? What other questions do you want answered?

Share your thoughts in a blog post of your own, in the comments below, or on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog.

– It definitely needs to be noted that Ivan Boothe and Joe Solomon were integral collaborators on this breaking news, conversation starter, idea sparking post. Thank you both! –

Well, Idealware has just taken it a step further by launching a Social Media Resource Library!

As they explain:

As a first step in our year-long social media research initiative, Idealware has compiled a library of nearly 200 – and growing – resources on social media. And, we’ve incorporated an easy-to-use tagging scheme so that you can find the resources most helpful to you.

The Social Media Resource Library , compiled in Delicious, will help your nonprofit gain valuable insights into how to best use social media for your organization. There are a lot of experts out there (while a majority of the resources tagged are from Beth Kanter and Mashable, there are tagged items from over 50 sources), and we are making it easier for you to find what you are looking for.

You can start searching the Library or learn how to add more resources by visiting the Idealware site here.

Go dive in! And be sure to share your ideas about the Library so the Idealware team and the rest of us working to provide resources can be sure there’s everything you need to meet your needs.

I recently had the opportunity to connect with Avi Kaplan, the Community and Events Director at Epic Change, to discuss the upcoming TweetsGiving campaign and events.  Avi is just back from Tanzania where he and other Epic Change team members were working with the students in the classroom built with last year’s TweetsGiving proceeds.

Find out more in the interview below!

What is Epic Change?
Epic Change is a US nonprofit dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs harness the power of their stories to create change in their communities. We are a very heartful organization and a lot of what we do is thanks to an incredible group of volunteers.

What is TweetsGiving?
TweetsGiving is a global celebration of gratitude and giving on November 24-26. Participants will share what they are grateful for through Twitter and other online media and attend gratitude parties around the world. People donate to a shared cause in honor of that for which they are most grateful. Where do the funds go? Funds raised will go to support the work of Mama Lucy Kampton (@MamaLucy), a ChangeMaker who has transformed her community in Arusha, Tanzania through her school Shepherd’s Junior.

What was last year’s celebration like and how do you think it’ll be different this year?
TweetsGiving last year was overwhelming because we put the program together so quickly and really didn’t know what kind of response we would get. Once the tweets of gratitude started to flow in we new we had identified a very powerful emotional chord with people. The tone of the messages and the level of participation we saw were hopeful and inspiring. The addition of gratitude parties this year is significant. A different kind of reflection is accomplished face-to-face than you can achieve behind a computer screen. I expect the parties to be lively gatherings and for people to form new relationships and to come with open hearts ready to share.

How can people get involved?
You can find an event to attend on our website TweetsGiving.org, volunteer to host a gratitude party (it’s not too late!), and join the Epic Change Community online to receive continued updates on the project.

What are you up to right now in Africa?
We just spent three weeks at Shepherd’s Junior near Arusha, Tanzania setting up a technology lab and wireless internet at the school. Together with our fabulous volunteers Melissa & AJ Leon of theLacProject, we taught the students and teachers about computers and social media. The students of Class Five at the school are now on Twitter and Tumblr and you can follow them all by clicking their pictures in this blog post. The internet has opened up the world for these students and their teachers are increasingly using the web in their curriculum.

For more details from our recent work here, including video, photos and more in-depth coverage of all about the work we’ve been up to in Tanzania on the “I <3 Epic Change” Blog created by theLacProject and in a recent article in the Huffington Post.

I hope you’ll join us for TweetsGiving and I’m really excited for what’s next at Epic Change.

About Avi
After over a year working as a volunteer, Avi is excited to join Epic Change as the Community and Events Director. He is a South Florida native and currently lives in Washington DC. He’s interested in using technology to organize for social change and is a recent Harvard graduate. You can find him on twitter (@MeshugAvi)or by email (Avi@EpicChange.org).

Social media and new technology are changing the way we recruit and manage volunteers.  They’re also changing how we define the concept of volunteering.  New forms of participation such as micro-volunteering, and web-generated events such as Twestival, are changing the way people are coming together to raise funds, donate their time and make a difference in their local and global community.

Our next #4change chat, on Thursday 12 November, will look at how the volunteering landscape is changing.  Join us for a global conversation, sharing ideas, best practice, links and resources.

How to join the chat

1. If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a Twitter account (it’s free).
2. To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use  http://search.twitter.com/ or another application to search on Twitter for “#4Change”
3. Jump in to the conversation by adding “#4Change” (without the “”) to your Twitter message
4. Feeling brave? Check out TweetChat – it’s a great application that integrates with your Twitter account and makes chats more fun! You can turn it off after the chat.

Rules for #4Change chat

1. #4Change will be structured around a series of questions which all participants can respond to. Send your questions to @tashjudd or post them below to have them considered.
2. Introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join.
3. Stay on topic!
4. Be cool.

A few links

How social media’s changing volunteering
Blog: Brave New World for Volunteering
Blog: Sacrifice, optional and about other people (defining volunteering)
Blog: The Extraordinaries: Will micro-volunteering work?
Article: NetSquared and the new wave of online volunteering

Recruiting volunteers online
Volunteer Match
Do-it
All for Good

A few interesting volunteering and participation initiatives
The Extraordinaries
Virtual volunteering
Junction49
Urbantastic
Twestival

Please visit the #4Change blog to contribute other interesting links, case studies and questions you’d like to see raised during the chat.  Looking forward to seeing you all online on the 12th.

We split participants up by topic areas for discussions and Community Voices team members lead the small group conversations, while others used various tools to capture what was said (audio, video, tweets and blogging). After the small group discussions, we had volunteers from each group provide a short report back to the full room of some of the highlights or lingering questions that came out of the conversation. During these report backs I captured a word cloud on a flip chart of key words. Here’s what came out of each session:

Session #1 Word Cloud:

COMMUNITY
What’s of interest?
PEOPLE
Existing Communities
Stereotypes
Individual Level
Lead
Participate
FUN
Creative Approach
Visible Benefits
Relevance
TRUST

Session #2 Word Cloud:

Relevant Content
Community of Interest
Individuals
No Jargon
Partnerships
TRUST
What’s Success?
User Generated
Access to People
COMMUNITIES
Offline vs Online
HUMAN

The words in all caps represent the words that were repeated in each report out. If you look at the two sessions, you’ll see very similar key words and phrases. Even more important to the topic of the sessions and, I think, in Community Voices’ work in general, the words that every group used that appear in all caps are pretty much the same in both. The biggest focus: trust and communities.

Digital inclusion is not about cool social media tools, or even fancy hardware. It starts with people and stays with people.

What do you think?

Were you there, and have ideas to add to this reflection? If you weren’t there, what ideas do you have about the things most important to digital inclusion other than technology? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Remember to visit the Community Voices group to connect with the rest of the conversations going on there.

Lauren outlines 7 Lists that organizations may find useful, including:

1. Your organisation’s chapters and campaigns.
2. Related international organisations and campaigns.
3. Organisations that are somewhat related to your organisation.
4. Celebrities, politicians and others with a high profile.
5. Media.
6. Volunteers.
7. Retweeters and people who have contacted you.

As I added to Lauren’s post in the comments, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for organizations to leverage the List functionality for boosting visibility of their work and finding new supporters.  Think about the way Facebook Fan pages work, the way we see when others add a Fan page and we may join as well, and so on.  This kind of visibility work taps people’s desire to be cause-related in self identity.

Here’s my idea for an organizational visibility campaign using Lists:

Create a list for Supporters. (Make sure it’s a public list, and link to it from your website and elsewhere.) Encourage people who want to be included on that list to publicly @reply to you and say why they support you. Then, add them to the list.

So, they’ve already publicly promoted you to their whole followers list and as a member of the list can feel a bit more connected with the organization (to retweet messages in the future, help promote campaigns or other projects, etc.).

What do you think?

Would love to hear if you have other ideas about using Lists for organizations. Do you already have the Lists function enabled on your account - have you used it yet?

Learn more and connect with Chain Reaction!

We succeed when we work together… Chain Reaction is a community of people, passionate about social change, who are saying ‘we can make a difference’.

Chain Reaction is a unique and challenging project based on a very simple idea - that we all have the power of our own actions, but that none of us on our own can change the world, not governments, not businesses, not charities. We succeed when we work together The Chain Reaction Networks helps individuals and organisations to connect together. We provide spaces - at ‘real life events’ and on line - in which people can collaborate with others across the boundaries that divide us and commit their energy to new ideas and new ways of working that will change the world.

Social by Social at Chain Reaction

David Wilcox and I will be leading a round of the Social by Social game!

Drawing on the learnings included in Social by Social: a practical guide to using new technology for social impact, the Social by Social Game walks participants through the strategic steps of creating a social media program for your community, whether you’re part of an organization, a geographic community, a campaign, or anything else.  The game is a fun way to collaborate with others and learn more about what’s needed to create a project that leverages social media.  We promise: it’s fun!

NFPTweetUp after Chain Reaction

The next NFPTweetUp will take place in the evening after the main Chain Reaction event.  This is a great way to pull in new people to the tweetup experience and a super opportunity to keep conversations going even longer from the event.

A meet up of social media users and those interested in the potential of social media for themselves or their organisations.  This event brings together organisations for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and networking - it will be part learning, part sharing, part social, collaborative, casual and very friendly. Note:  You need to reserve a ticket for this evening session as spaces are limited - tickets are free of charge. (Read more about NFP Tweetup here)

Connect. Collaborate. Commit.

Chain Reaction is taking place November 12th, 2009, at Canary Warf, London.  To find out more, use these links:

• Why are people coming together this year at Chain Reaction 2009?
• What will happen at Chain Reaction 2009?
• Who is speaking at Chain Reaction 2009?
• Who should attend Chain Reaction 2009?
• How can I register at Chain Reaction 2009?

You can also follow Chain Reaction on Twitter: use the hashtag #cr09 (you can also follow activity @chainreaction or @cr_events).

• BE a Government Consultant and Use Social Media: A Guide | Social Media Strategery - Here's an interesting post from Steve Radick about 10 ways to be a good government consultant using social media. "As “Government 2.0” becomes more and more popular, especially here in the Washington area, there seem to be an increasing number of people calling themselves social media or “Gov 2.0″ consultants."
• Robin Caldwell: Black Like Me? The Missing Faces in Technology and Innovation - Here is a well-written post on a very important topic from Robin Caldwell: "The beautiful thing about the Internet is that it is impervious to Affirmative Action, EEOC compliance and the Fair Housing Act. It could care less about who you love, where you live, and how many degrees you possess. The World Wide Web is the great equalizer that is not interested in race, gender or economic status. Anyone can be a landowner of this prime real estate just like the creators of Twitter whose property reportedly has a one billion dollar valuation. As we inch closer to Web 3.0, the question of ownership will be directly tied to who has access to the necessary tools to build on the "land." And if memory serves me correctly, the one who owns the land is the one who holds the power. So why is it that I see the same names and faces — none of which look like mine –positioned as thought leaders and innovators in Web 2.0?"
• Eight impressive recommendations on website governance and strategy | Social Media 4 Good - Check out this insightful post from Timo Luege about a report from the UN on web governance. "The United Nations Joint Inspection Body recently spoke to web professional in 40 UN agencies to identify what the most common problems are and how to fixed them. The result is an impressive document that can be used by many non-profit organizations, NGOs, International Organizations and even government ministries and agencies to address similar problems in their own organization. The ”Review of Management of Internet Websites in the United Nations System Organizations“ (31 pages) focuses on website governance and strategy – and I still have to meet a web manager who doesn’t feel this could be improved."
• The TwitterKids of Tanzania | The Epic Change Blog - A beautiful update from the Epic Change blog where Stacey and Avi are now in Tanzania working with the "school that Twitter built" last year from proceeds of Tweetsgiving, and where this year's donations will help bring technology. "Hujambo from Tanzania! I’m SO EXCITED to write you because I couldn’t wait to share: on Saturday, in the Moivaro village of Arusha, Tanzania, in the shadow of Mt. Meru, Shepherds Junior School was connected to the internet for the very first time. The students sent their first tweets from the TweetsGiving classroom built from your gratitude."
• Indigenous Mapping: Emerging Cultures on the Geoweb: Where 2.0 Conference 2009 - O’Reilly Conferences, May 19 - 21, 2009, San Jose, CA - Check out the video and presentation slides, too! "Indians in the Amazon rainforest are now using Google Earth to protect their lands from illegal logging, to plan for their future and to share their rich history and culture with the world. How will the Geoweb change and evolve as indigenous peoples begin to participate? What may we have to learn from tribes whose first contact with the modern world has been in our lifetime, and who are currently making the transition from the stone age to the Internet age?"

The winner is: Kim!

Even if you didn’t win, you can still read the book for free:

• Read the book online for free at socialbysocial.com
• Download the full PDF version for free here Download PDF

Kim - So excited to get a book in your hands.  Hope that you will come back and give us some feedback, share ideas, and pose questions here that we can all discuss!

To stay on top of it all, I suggest you create a listening dashboard for your organization - and here’s how to do it!

Getting Started

To create a listening dashboad, I suggest using Netvibes.  This is a free web-based tool that is totally customizeable and can be used both privately or publicly.To get started, just visit http://netvibes.com and create an account.

Finding Feeds

Netvibes will let you track all kinds of things online, all by using RSS feeds or ready-built widgets.  Here are some of the best ways to start listening online:
Google Alerts
This free service from Google let’s you identify key words, phrases, or URLs that you want to track.  Simply visit http://google.com/alerts to get started.  Here are some example searches using NetSquared as the organization.

• “netsquared” or “net squared” - putting this in the search term area of the alert would mean that any time “NetSquared” is mentioned or “Net Squared” is mentioned, I will get alerted.
• NetSquared.org - putting this URL in the search term area of the alert means that if someone wrote out our URL on their blog, for example, I would get alerted.
• “Amy Sample Ward” or “Billy Bicket” - putting this in the search term area of the alert means that any time Billy’s name (the NetSquared Director) or my own (the NetSquared Global Community Development Manager) is mentioned online, I will get alerted.

Try changing out the organization name and key staff names to match your organization’s information and give it a try!

You have a few other options when setting up the Google Alert.  You could choose to monitor only news sources, only blogs, and so on.  I would recommend choosing the “comprehensive” option as you never know where your name might pop up!

As far as the email vs feed option - we are using Netvibes so you can cut down on email!  Choose the “feed” option and then hit save on that alert.  You can then click on the linked “Feed” word that has the RSS icon next to it (the icon looks like a signal).  The URL you are given will look pretty weird (see the screen shot example below). Skip to the bottom to “Add Feeds to Netvibes” for next steps.

Twitter Search
If you want to stay on top of all the conversations on Twitter about your organization or the topic of your work, using a feed from Twitter Search is really useful. To get a feed of the Twitter conversations, visit: http://search.twitter.com.  Similar to a Google Alert, type in some key words or phrases using the quotations, like, “netsquared” or “net squared” - it’s just like the examples above!

After you hit “search,” you will see there’s a “Feed for this query” link on the right side of the screen.  Click on that and copy the URL, then jump down to the bottom to “Add Feeds to Netvibes” for next steps.

Blogs
Using the two tools above, you should get notified whenever a blogger uses your organization’s name or projects, etc.  But another great way to listen and tap into online conversations is to follow blogs about your sector or location and find opportunities where you can contribute to the conversation.  It is great to comment and be visible in the community of thinkers and doers in your sector.  There will even be instances where you can provide information or resources from your organization that may be relevant to the conversation.

Find blogs about your sector and subscribe in the same way, via RSS. A great way to find blogs relevant to your organization is to use Google Blog Search.  You can also follow one of the sector-specific blogs from Change.org.

When you find a blog you want to follow, find the “subscribe to RSS” link or icon in the sidebar, or use the RSS icon in your browser’s URL bar (the icon is a square signal).  Copy the feed URL and then jump down to “Add Feeds to Netvibes” for next steps.

Add Feeds to Netvibes

Now that you have found all kids of RSS feeds you want to track, you need to add them to your Netvibes page.  With Netvibes you can create tabs to help organize all these feeds, too!

1. Copy the full URL of the feed you’d like to add
2. Go to your Netvibes page, and hit the green “add content” button in the upper left of the screen
3. Select “add feed” and paste in the URL
4. When it shows you the preview, click “add” and it will appear in a box below

To move the boxes, simply click on the top of the box (a hand icon should appear instead of your mouse arrow) and drag the box where you’d like it to sit on the page.

To add tabs, click on “add tab” and name it something useful for categorizing the feeds in that section.

Start Listening

There you go!  With your listening dashboard in place you can start monitoring what’s being said about you, your work, and your sector instantly.  You can add to it any time you find another blog or item to follow, just follow the same steps as above!

About Net2 Think Tank

Net2 Think Tank is a monthly blogging event open to anyone and is a great way to participate in an exchange of ideas.  We post a question or topic to the NetSquared community and participants submit responses either on their own blogs or on the NetSquared Community Blog.  Tag your post with “net2thinktank” and email a link to us to be included. At the end of the month, the entries get pulled together in the Net2 Think Tank Round-Up.