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.