Tools, Thoughts and Things one can Do with a little Time and Hardly any Resources

I've mentioned the UKVPM group on Yahoo in an earlier post (A few Resources for Volunteer Managers) and I recently shared the São Paulo e-Intelligence Programme 'Getting Stuff Done Handbook' with the list in the hope that it might benefit a broader audience.

Jayne Cravens, of Coyote Communications and also one of the all-time most active contributors to the UKVPM list, raised a number of issues - the answers to which I thought might be of interest to people who do not subscribe to the list.

It should be said that the handbook is normally given to people in conjunction with a workshop. In other words, it is a distillation of a much more detailed effort. But I can see that for non-workshop readers it makes sense entirely, in some cases, to expand it to take a broader view that would include some of the context otherwise delivered in our workshops. Issues specifically raised by Jayne (in bold/italics/both) leading to the clarifications below:

 

Why VoIP:

First of all, not everybody can use Skype. I’ll include www.ivisit.com in the next edition.

Now why use VoIP in the first place?

Well, let’s start with what VoIP is: It stands for Voice over Internet Protocol but put more simply, it is a ‘phone line’ for your internet connection.  The organisations I work with have first and foremost used it to cut cost – calling another user user of the same service, whether it is  iVisit, Skype, GoogleTalk or a fourth one, is free. (There's a little powertip for getting definitions illustrated on the right - click and you'll see how handy it is).

There’s more to it though – especially smaller organisations who realise that their hard raised cash is best spent on frontline services, instead of an expensive office. They can easily set up a SkypeIn number that’ll not only allow them to have different people in different locations covering the same number  - not at the same time of course – but nevertheless I am sure you can imagine the usefulness for an organisation where the office is covered on rotation.

One even simpler implementation of this is my own use of Skype – I live in São Paulo but most of my clients are in the UK – now I wouldn’t want them to worry about the cost when picking up the phone (I’d much rather that they remember the four hour time difference). So, I have a London number - which, if I am online goes to Skype (costing the caller the cost of a UK 020 call, and if I am not, reroutes to my mobile, again same cost for the caller and 12p a minute for me  … and if that doesn’t catch me either, a voicebox).

If you have just one volunteer manning ‘the office’ then, at least in the case of Skype, you don’t even need to your PC on if you’re using broadband – simply plug in a Skype Handset, which works like a normal phone, and you can call other Skype users whether next door or around the world – for free: http://accessories.skype.com/ - OK, the handset is not free but compare that with just a few months BT line rental… And yes, with that handset you can also ‘dial out’ – SkypeOut rates start at just over a pence a minute to landlines.

If the organisation is a bit bigger then it might be worth looking at the Skype Small Business Pack: “Skype Business Edition software, Business Control Panel, 10 Skype Pro subscriptions and voucher for €50 of Skype Control Panel Credit”  – again, http://accessories.skype.com/ and then select Small Business from the menu.

One more handy use is SMS – Lots of people ignore their e-mails … but it is more difficult to ignore an SMS. Now I am not suggesting anybody should start SMS-spamming their volunteers let alone service users – it is however fantastically useful for scheduling and reminders. Say you’re working at a branch of the Samaritans and you need to know if anybody can take a shift at short notice – instead of calling twenty people, one by one (and thus taking one if not several volunteers away from inbound calls) you can send an SMS to the whole, or half if you like, of the branch to see if there are any takers. Those who can’t just ask to just ignore it, those who can you ask call in and get put on the list. Cost? 5p per message. That’s less than the individual call – not to mention a lot quicker.

 

Why use RSS? Why the photo tip? Why use Google?

RSS – Really Simple Syndication

It is a bit like rain and rivers … it is all water, but the fish only tend to be found in rivers. How so?

When you have a diverse user base let alone a spread out volunteer force it can be difficult to keep everybody abreast of what is happening – taking a leaf from the Samaritans again – I believe most branches, well, at least the branch I was once in, have a ‘clip’ – every Sam coming in for a shift was obliged to flick through this folder which would carry announcements, upcoming events, ongoing issues etc. A nice low-tech system that worked really well…

But what about a volunteer force that doesn’t regularly check in at one location? Well, you can e-mail them … but e-mails are so plentiful these days that the lack of actual reach is beginning to be troublesome. What has worked well in my experience is to shift the constant feed of information to a format where people can check in at their leisure rather than feeling obliged to read something right when it hits the top of their in-box. Once an e-mail is off the main screen it is, for most users, rarely returned to. Or you can post the stories to a nice news section on your website … but experience shows that only the most determined check in regularly to see what is indeed news.

So, by encouraging people to get to the organisational newsfeed through a feed reader, say Google Reader, they can approach it a bit like a newspaper. Today’s issue of the Guardian, Independent, Times or whatever your preference doesn’t ask for you to write back … sure, you can send to a letter to the editor, but the core premise is mostly that you’ll take what you want and then move on. Also, the newspaper  carries many different stories: domestic issues, the weather forecast, the lottery numbers. Why not fit into a similar paradigm where people come with their cuppa to get updated.

In my experience, people take a different approach when tackling information presented like this than they do their e-mail. Because of the keyboard shortcuts in Google Reader (N for next, P for previous) people can flick through things as quick as a newspaper. But just like you might cut out an article from the paper and pin it on the notice board, or fold it and send it in the post to somebody, the same can be achieved with Google Reader using the option to forward a story via e-mail or to share it. (To see an example of the latter in action, check out the right hand margin of this blog).

Now this latter action taps into word of mouth – the most powerful way of reaching anybody. I’ve covered the implications of this in a recent article entitled Walled Gardens vs. Village Greens - For a practical example, check out how The Wilderness Foundation is calling for readers of their blog to leverage their message (thus, temporarily at least, turning them into volunteers):

- Action they can take, thanks to RSS, straight from Google Reader without having to go to the actual blog.

…and just like on a newsgroup like UKVPM, people can still comment, adding to the discussion.

So, by feeding into a river instead of hoping people will catch your raindrop, you give it more uses and get more reach.

NB: The handbook is end-user oriented so it doesn’t cover how to set up an organisational blog. We do have a workshop for this … but not a handbook to go with it so far.
 

Why the photo tip?

People love photos and they are best shared, especially when it comes to recognising volunteer effort – but as Jayne pointed out, not everybody has a fast connection let alone lots of hard disk space. So the tip is in the handbook as an aspirin for a common headache. We’ll talk a bit more about giving people simple skills that make a real difference further down.
 

Why use Google?

Using a search engine is a cornerstone ability for modern living. I compare it with the basic skill of knowing how to look something up in printed a dictionary or encyclopaedia. It facilitates help-for-selfhelp.

Not to mention a  couple of specialised uses if you’re:

• a volunteer driver trying to be absolutely sure where you are going http://maps.google.co.uk/
• a volunteer trying to find where to source a product for your service at the best price http://www.google.co.uk/products
• a volunteer researcher keeping tabs on academic developments in the field http://scholar.google.co.uk/
  

The key first learning point is just a basic search – the simplest but most important being the difference it makes to put inverted commas around a term, thus narrowing the results considerably (as most people never get past the first results page anyway you might as well improve the chance of what you want to find turning up there in the first place). In the workshops we normally encourage people to try this using their own name – first without inverted commas, and then with.

Policies regarding volunteers using your organization's computer equipment?

This is not covered in the document simply because we tend to use the machines at the organisations who host our workshops. They have their own policies in place, and where they do not, we help them formulate one (and it is then posted separately). Also, both handbook and workshop it is intended to give people skills, whilst basic, well beyond what they might do as a volunteer … and frankly what they do with their own machines at home is up to them – we do cover antivirus, antispyware etc. in the handbook though….
 

I also didn't see some non-tech tool resources that I think are essential for volunteers working on digital divide issues, such as tips for:

- working with people who have low-literacy skills
- addressing different learning styles
- ways to make teaching tech-related knowledge less stressful (particularly important when working with adults)
- how to document activities so that learning can be shared with other volunteers. 

These are not covered because this is not a handbook for teachers but a handbook for users. Specifically:

-          Users might work with low-literacy people, but again, the handbook is focused on getting individual users (with a certain literacy level) to use technology more confidently in the first instance.

-          Learning styles are addressed in the workshop – the handbook in itself is one expression of this. Some people prefer to work from their own notes from the workshop. Others take the handbook home and work through everything again afterwards. But addressing this point in the handbook is not appropriate I feel, simply because it is an end-user handbook, not a teach-the-teachers resource as such. Trying to keep the handbook short and to the point in other words.

-          Teaching technology can cause stress – again, the handbook is to  a certain extent free standing – but there is a reason why we back it up with a workshop where we can. Still, as I know people have found it useful without attending the workshop, I thought I’d share it. Also, once again, it is not a teachers handbook – it is for hands-on end users. I’ll make that clear in the introduction to the next version.

-          In the workshop we document and share learning using Google Docs… For those not familiar with with this superb free alternative to the ever bloated Microsoft Office, do check out this extremely pedagogical, plain-English little video: http://www.commoncraft.com/video-googledocs (it is also embedded at the end of the Village Green vs. Walled Garden article referenced above.

- how to deal with conflicts that may arise in their work with community members

Indeed an important point and something I have been meaning to blog about for quite a while. If people are interested, I’ll ping this list when I’ve put the article up.

- dealing with the needs of certain audiences; for instance, many women don't feel comfortable using computers along side men, because of cultural issues and, quite frankly, because what many men are looking at in an Internet cafe next to them makes them quite uncomfortable. How can your volunteers address the special needs of women, the elderly, people with disabilities, etc.?

All important issues and concerns – the key priority for the handbook was to keep it as simple and relevant to the individual as possible. We have other customised versions including one called ‘Green e-Intelligence or Where Next for Trails Alumni’ (PDF - 7mb) which is a call for action for young people returning from Wilderness Trails - Now that’s a customisation at the high end of user ability.

I am acutely aware of the issues both at the other end of the user scale and also the gender conundrums. Having over the years hugely enjoyed teaching ‘Silver Surfers’ how to e-mail their grandchildren not to mention their local councillor in order to complain about potholes, the PM about Iraq, and seeing them light up when their letter to the editor is posted right under an article on http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ etc. I know those user learning styles and needs are different. I am not sure we can adequately address those in this compact handbook at this stage though – In fact I recommend hands-on assistance for best results. Age Concern is leading the way in the UK on this front with their Silver Surfer initiative: http://www.silversurfer.org.uk/

Now, the most determined Silver Surfers are in my experience also women, but most of the issues I know of - and that you refer to, come not from them but from having worked with a number of gender-issue-oriented academics. We held a workshop earlier on this year specifically for this latter group  and we created a blog as a way of sharing the learning which might be of interest http://e-intelligentgenderacademics.blogspot.com/ - it has broad gender related issues coverage (it is was intended more as an example of blogging rather than an authoritative source) but is also a handy example of RSS feeds in advanced action – check out the right hand margin and you’ll see how we created a sort of ‘lite’ Gender Academic Dashboard with news and jobfeeds pulled from a number of relevant organisations.

This is however part of a separate discussion in my opinion.
 

These are all skills that are as important for your volunteers, if not more, than knowing what RSS is or defragging.

In some ways yes they are, but they reach well beyond our basic ambitions. We want people to walk away with basic skills that makes them more informed, and in the case of defragging and getting rid of spyware, making sure their machines run faster which in turn = get more stuff done.

It is a bit like learning Samba in my experience – the theory is great – but it is so much more fun to learn a few steps, turn the music up and get on the dance floor. When you then introduce the history and theory afterwards people are much more willing to listen – because they already know it is fun. That’s just my own observation though, it is by no means scientific.

You can find some further thinking on the above here though: “Net2ThinkTank: What is needed to facilitate more nonprofits' adoption of the social web?” - http://consulting.ambjorn.com/2007/09/net2thinktank_what_is_needed_t.html - an initiative kicked off by Britt Bravo, a prolific writer on Web 2.0 who apart from her own blog and her contributions to NetSquared also writes for http://www.blogher.org/ which is the “community for women who blog” (just to tie in with the gender related item above).

And the last question…

-- Windows only? Surely your volunteers are also using and promoting open source tools like Umbutu... that's certainly part of addressing the digital divide, letting people know that there are free alternatives to the world's biggest software company.

Indeed – You’re right. The idea of Ubuntu rocks http://www.ubuntu.com/ - but in practice, most of the organisations we come across use hand-me-downs which tend to run M$ software in some shape or form (and thus, in some respects they are using a free alternative). Also, M$ is what people are most likely to have at home. Now the $100 laptop which has recently been launched here in Brazil will call for an update of the handbook sooner than widespread adoption of Ubuntu let alone Mac or anything else. Of course no harm in letting people know about alternatives. I’ll consider it for an advanced version of the handbook.
 

Some further reading and resources:
 

-          $100 laptop' to sell to public -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6994957.stm

-          Net2ThinkTank: What is needed to facilitate more nonprofits' adoption of the social web?

-          Getting the Word Out and Getting the Word Out - II

-          Google Shared Items

-          Organised Information = Being Able to Get Stuff Done

-          e-Intelligence for Academics - Beginners

-          Good Stuff from Google

-          Why is Web 2.0 so Important Anyway?

 

Finding more non-profit technology discussions and resources:

Try Google Blogsearch and the type in nptech or nptechuk – Ready made searches below:

-          http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=nptech&btnG=Search+Blogs

-          http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=nptechuk&btnG=Search+Blogs

 

A few Top Nptech Bloggers:

-          Beth Kanter - http://beth.typepad.com/

-          Britt Bravo - http://havefundogood.blogspot.com/

-          David Wilcox - http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/

-          Ed Mitchell - http://www.edmitchell.co.uk/

-          Jayne Cravens - http://blogs.forumer.com/jcravens/

-          Rob Purdie - http://www.importantprojects.co.uk/

 

Posted by Michael at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Working in the City of Walls gives a unique perspective on how fragmented a community can become - not so much because of trespassing - but just as much, if not more, because of the fear of it.

Still, walled gardens can, at least for me, make one think of serene - perhaps slightly overgrown green spaces, flanked by vine-covered ancient brick or bollard walls. Safe and secure.
But that harks back to an era before barbed wire and whatnot. Also, even under the shade of an old fig tree, as pleasant as it might be - if those walls are up, you're not likely to get much interaction let alone collaboration done.

This article sets out to deal with some of the implications of the above as applied to the virtual world.

We'll start with the walled gardens: Count your username/password collection. Each set is, when combined, a key to a walled garden somewhere. My expectation is that you have tens if not more than a hundred username/password sets. It took time to set each one up. It takes time to maintain each one.

Now, you don't want to share your banking or tax return with anybody I expect - these are examples of a barbed wire, barking dog type of walled gardens that should always stay that way.

Some walled gardens have their virtues in other words.

But what about e-mail and other types of electronic messaging? Well, again, you probably wouldn't want anybody to read everything in your inbox - yet, what if you could pick bits of information and share it with trusted colleagues and collaborators? Bit like sharing news on the village green.

You're probably already doing that if you're using LinkedIn (making it easier for people to find you, reconnect and recommend you) - You might even have taken the extra step of using one of the flurry of social networks out there such as Facebook or Orkut - and maybe even one of the new highly specialised networks like Reuters' new Carbon Market Community.

Facebook and Orkut are Horizontals - in the sense that they cover a large and broad community with a diverse set of interests - yet they both allow Vertical activity in the form of open and closed groups for specialised collaboration.

Put in a more everyday language - they're village greens with big and small tents and in this mini case study we'll specifically look at Facebook. Depending on who you encounter, which tent you enter, different levels of information is shared (depending on your privacy settings and those of the group).

The advantage of this model is that it helps create active and passive word of mouth:

• Active as in the example of a forthcoming Edge Foundation event with a superb theme (Ideas that can change the world...) that my past collaborator Steve Moore of Policy Unplugged fame is running in London - Well, I can't be there myself, but thanks to the infrastructure I could easily directly invite a number of relevant leaders who I know will be able to both add something to, and benefit from, the event.
  
• Passive as in the example of last night's Nordic Business Cross Country initiative which we've just kicked off: The friends of the people attending saw that there's something going on = We doubled our modest membership in one go and expect to see that reflected in turnout for the next event.
  

Combining the two you get real impact - Steve rounded up 470+ people in no time this way - who are now collaborating like never before, without the cost of a print let alone e-mail campaign to get it off the ground. Just a few well connected people to start with and the wildfire was off.
This, by the way, is also how Facebook Apps work - Like the ever successful TripAdvisor-developed Cities I've Visited app.

Even old institutions like the RSA, which harks back to 1754, are at it - Through the OpenRSA group I'm collaborating with people in the way that was intended by the RSA's expensively developed proprietary forum system - but because of it being a walled garden instead of a tent on a village green ... it never really managed to attract a consistently active user base for collaboration. Let's see though - through feedback from this group of fellows, improvements might be made that'll drive more people directly to the RSA site (for more than just the excellent podcasts, super library, the extensive archive and lecture listings).

It is not just horizontal social networks that can have vertical applications - it even applies to the traditional PC apps: Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Google, Zoho and a raft of others are rapidly entering this space making the days of big attachments let alone the headache of copy/paste consolidation of input from six different collaborators a thing of the past. Even my alma mater, which had otherwise admitted defeat in the desktop arena, has now entered the on-line office space with a new offering called Lotus Symphony (the name is actually a recycle from '92 but that's another story).

Does this mean that you can convert whole swathes to this way of getting things done in no time? Maybe not quite. Beth Kanter created a wordplay on it recently when she talked about Fear 2.0 (which in turn was sparked by the recent Fear of Web 2.0 article on Read/WriteWeb) - Here are two key paragraphs from Beth's article on what threatens uptake:

"While organizational adoption of social media tools for external communications strategies is becoming more common, not to mention lots of practical advice such as this recent white paper: The Revolution will be Socialized and the many how-to primers for nonprofits like this one. It appears that corporations believe that desktop applications and office documents should not have a social life. MacManus refers to the Google Apps vs Microsoft Office debate as evidence of this. 

With the "I'm sticking with DOS" button analogy, I'm probably showing my age, but new technology emerges that has the potential to replace or improve upon an existing technology, people resist. There are people or even organizational cultures comfortable with using the existing tools and are slow to change, while early adopters and agile cultures keep learning and  moving. In many cases, the slow to change eventually adopt or they no longer remain relevant to their constituents, donors, or lose their edge." - Full article

And this is an apt time to return to the city analogy - Merchants have since time immemorial realised that it doesn't help much to pitch up shop if there isn't anybody around. In fact, the best place to be is often in a tight cluster - surrounded by both collaborators, competitors and hopefully a client or two. That way you get economies of scale, passing trade and you can stay in tune with what's going on. You don't lose your edge in other words.

The key is to undestand that a City of Walls, whether virtual or real - cuts us off from interaction. Now I am by no means suggesting you don't lock your front door at night nor that you should switch off the firewall on your laptop. What I am advocating is that you sensibly think about the horizontals - the village greens - where you can collaborate for the benefit of others and of course yourself. The virtual village green comes with many tents - and you can choose and pick between them and create your own walls on the fly. Just like you can choose whether to engage in conversation with somebody sitting next to you on a bench or a bus - in both cases though, I would suggest you need to be open to the opportunity. Or, to quote the anthropologist Teresa P. Caldeira in the introduction to her book City of Walls: "...spatial segregation undermines the values of openess, accessibility, freedom of circulation, and equality..."

In conclusion - If you're:

• A traditional PC app user - give Google Docs or Zoho a try (see video below) and save time consolidating docs and sorting through five versions and accidentally deleting the wrong one
• A Facebooker, Orkut or maybe even a Reuters' Carbon Market Community user - Adjust your privacy settings so they match your needs and think about how best to use the community infrastructure for both active and passive word of mouth.
• A network organizer/community builder - think twice about growing your own. Go where people already are... that'll vastly improve your chances of success.
  

Further reading and viewing:

Here's a great In Plain English explanation by the clever Common Craft People - it specifically covers Google Docs (which has just had a presentation engine added) but the same thinking applies to Zoho and the other players in this field:

If you like this one, why not check out the Common Craft Show (and translated Versions on (DotSub). Facebook? Join their The Common Craft Show group so you'll be "in the know" as they say.

Further on the social network front - Ed Mitchell, the Community advisor and facilitator, has written a great little article called What do we mean: Friends? which in turn is a follow-up of an interesting recent Guardian article titled You can’t make friends online. Further to the Beth Kanter article already mentioned, do also see Social Media Adoption: The Line Between Individual/Personal and Organizational

Related earlier articles:

• Net2ThinkTank: What is needed to facilitate more nonprofits' adoption of the social web?
• Getting the Word Out and Getting the Word Out - II
• Google Shared Items
• e-Intelligence Update
• Organised Information = Being Able to Get Stuff Done
• e-Intelligence for Academics - Beginners
• Good Stuff from Google
• Why is Web 2.0 so Important Anyway?

Posted by Michael at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Solid financial management is key for all NGOs in order to make funding sustain their efforts as effectively as possible - or put more simply, to get the biggest bang for the buck.

Good financial records are essential for good governance and funders, which many organizations rely on for their survival, obviously want to be assured that they're making a sound investment. That's not to mention the fact that fiscal discpline is essential for maintaining the integrity and reputation of the sector. It is difficult to forgive a private enterprise for waste - but almost impossible to forgive a charitable effort for the same.

Yet it can be a bewildering field to say the least. Both when sitting on, as well as when advising boards, I have found that the quality not to say quantity of reporting varies considerably.

Mango, a UK-registered charity that exists to help NGOs strengthen their financial management, has a guide. The Guide has five sections - Here's quoting from their website:

1. Introduction - key responsibilities for trustees, senior managers, finance staff and donors. Principles of financial management for NGOs.
2. Getting the Basics Right - the building blocks: keeping accounts, financial planning, financial monitoring and maintaining control. Also: working with beneficiaries, managing audits and legal requirements.
3. Advanced Issues - financial sustainability, working with donors, giving and receiving grants, accountability (including cost-effectiveness) and overseeing controls.
4. What NGOs Do - a short introduction to what NGOs do and what this means for managing their work. The important implications for managing NGOs are summed up as two golden rules.
5. Resources - practical resources available to download and use, including Mango's highly-rated training manual, a complete financial system and Mango's Health Check, available in seven different languages.

My favourite is their Health Check - available in seven languages - which alas, as I am writing from São Paulo, does not include Portuguese. Still, essential reading-for-action for Chairman and Treasurer.

I'll add it to my set of standard list of documents I suggest as essential first reading for new trustees. Here are the original three for reference, as outlined at the end of the 'Finding New Trustees' article from earlier this year:

• The Essential Trustee
  - http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/supportingcharities/efftrustintro.asp
• The role of the Charity Commission
  - http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/tcc/ccabout.asp
• Operational Guidance from the Charity Commission on charity accounts and reports
  - http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/supportingcharities/

And the essential websites for UK trustees/board members (in addition to the Charity Commission):

• The Governance Hub
  - http://www.governancehub.org.uk/
• Trustee Net
  - http://www.trusteenet.org.uk/
  

Posted by Michael at 06:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Britt Bravo - who writes the most prolific of the blogs on Netsquared.org - has kicked off a new initiative, a collaborative blog series called Net2ThinkTank.

She says:

"My hope is that your collective wisdom will spark new ideas for how the social web can be used for social change, as well as produce solutions to challenges that web-based changemakers face."

Continuing:

"The Overbrook Foundation recently published, "Web 2.0 Assessment of The Overbrook Foundation's Human Rights Grantees" by Allison Fine, author of Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age. The results of the study was that most of the organizations the Overbrook Foundation funded were struggling to incorporate the social web into their work."

Those who've worked with small NGOs, whether human rights oriented or not, won't be surprised that the report concludes, amongst other things, that:

• Overall, the grantees are firmly entrenched in the Web 1.0 world, meaning that they use the web largely as a source of information rather than a tool for interactivity.

• Most grantees are not taking advantage of easy-to-use social media tools effectively. For instance, only half of them have blogs, and only half of these groups allow comments on their blogs.

• Survey respondents and group discussion participants often felt a “common struggle” in understanding which tools are critically important to their work and were at a loss as to where and how to get help for selecting and using new social media tools. 

Which leads to the Net2ThinkTank question -  What is needed to facilitate more nonprofits' adoption of the social web?

The answer in my experience is to ensure that cornerstone skills are in place - a term I incidentally first came across in an article on Poynter.org by Amy Gahran. I think the term is a good visual for the challenge ahead and solves my longstanding conundrum of what exactly to call basic skillset,

What has worked well is to start off with some PC 101 skills that simply speed up the inevitably slow laggard-laptops/desktops … and then gently moving over into Web 2.0 without making the transition too obvious …  you'd be surprised how this improves retention. My colleague, Cesar Volpe at Tactical Communications, and I have thrown together a handbook for this purpose which can be found here: http://e-intelligence.weebly.com/beginnersiniciantes.html (English and Portuguese).

Cards as a basis for conversation also work extremely well - David Wilcox over at Designing for Civil society has pioneered this - check out his ‘demystifying Web 2.0′ deck here and also on this Social Media Game Wiki created by Beth Kanter.

It takes time and determination. But once a few board members let alone staff have become Google Reader and Google Alert addicts the road ahead is just that little bit easier. 

Posted by Michael at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (4)

In addition to the previous post on getting the word out, I should mention that there are stacks of places to promote events for free, yet reaches millions.

UK Magazine/Website Listings:

• Time Out London - "Submission date for events is two weeks prior to the day of publication, publication day is always a Wednesday."
• The Lecture List - "Any talk which is open to the public can appear on The Lecture List, from large events in major institutions through to small scale events in local community venues."
• The List in Prospect Magazine - "Your event must be open to the general public, must be a lecture, seminar or talk (not a conference, recital, exhibition etc), should run for no longer than four hours, and ideally cost under £20. Inclusion in the web version of the List is free and your event may also be included in the magazine version."
• Outlets handled by PA Entertainment - Includes Metro, Guardian (The Guide), The Independent Events Guide, The Evening Standard etc. - "To ensure your events are shown in our listings guides, please send them to us by email, fax or post. As well as details of the event, all listings need to have a date, time, price, telephone number and exact address, including a full postcode. Please send your listings to us no later than three weeks before the event and let us know about any cancellations or changes as soon as possible."
  

International Events:

• Time Out Abu Dhabi, NY, Chicago etc. - Links to all of them @ Timeout.com/
• Upcoming - "Know something going on in <your city> that we don't? Add it to Upcoming to share it with the world."

Now that doesn't mean you should underestimate the power of word of mouth - this can be driven by a simple e-mail such as the one I recently got from Roger & Satu @ Shakeurarts, which led me to update my standard advice sheet on where and how to list events.

Putting a reference to your event in the signature file of your e-mails also works well. How to do that can be learnt on page three of the 'Getting Stuff Done Handbook' from the beginners page on the São Paulo e-Intelligence Programme site.

Also, if you belong to a social network like Facebook - you can create events and invite people that way too. A spectacularly successful example of this is the Ideas that can change the world group that has grown from zero to 430+ people in just a few weeks. Click on the image to get to the group, and here to go straight to the event listing.

Anyway, back to Roger and Satu and Shake Ur Arts --- here's their forthcoming event:

Tue 18 Sept 2007 at 8pm
SATU TUOMISTO and ROGER D'OLIVERE MAPP
present
HEAP
+ Jonathan Lunn, Saya Tamagawa & Paula Conduit
 
In their own words:

" Heap is a working title for this work-in-progress performance. Heap offers you heaps of professional dancers (around 30 that is) with heaps of intense movements (at least 48), heaps of close relationships (yep, around 56) with heaps of funky sounds (yes, I’d say around 87) and heaps of ways of not bumping into each other (at least 102 if you count carefully).

For more information about the artists please check www.shakeurarts.org.uk

What can you expect?
Touch Wood is a new season of works in progress and just completed pieces running from Tue 11 Sep – Sat 6 Oct, with each unique night coming together at the last moment: perfect miniatures, embryonic epics, slapstick solutions, false starts and unforeseen consequences - a safe Place to risk and dare on a bare stage because the artists will always be able to touch wood."
 

To register for updates and book tickets click here or call The Place Box Office on 020 7121 1100.
 
The Place: Robin Howard Dance Theatre 17 Duke’s Road London WC1H 9PY
Nearest tube: Euston, King’s Cross

Which incidentally brings along a great opportunity to show how you can embed a Google Map in a blog post or a web page:

View Larger Map

How to do this? When you've looked something up on http://maps.google.co.uk/ you can get embed code by clicking on the 'Link to this page' link in the upper right hand corner immediately above the map. If you want to take it even further, check out http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/ for ideas.

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