Out of my demographic on Facebook
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February 26th, 2007 by Alex
Your Mac needs this software
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February 23rd, 2007 by Alex
Vancouver workshop: Web 2.0 and your organization
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February 22nd, 2007 by Alex
We're often approached by business and nonprofit organizations who are interested in tapping the power of the social web but don't know where to start, or how to get a feel for the possibilities. I'm delighted to be co-teaching a Hollyhock-in-Vancouver workshop next month that will be a great opportunity for Vancouver-based organizations to get smart about Web 2.0:
Web 2.0 and your organization
Are you interested in how online communities like Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube can empower your members and customers to carry your message out into the world? Could your organization benefit from deeper collaboration among your team members, clients, partners or the public? Could better knowledge-sharing, stronger relationships and closer communications inside your organization and with your core supporters foster more efficiency, insight and effectiveness?
The latest generation of "Web 2.0" or social web strategies and tools offer powerful opportunities for organizations to improve the way they work, communicate their messages, empower others, and serve the public. In this workshop you will learn how the latest tools for online collaboration and community building can make your organization smarter and more effective.
This workshop is designed for communications strategists, marketing managers, and webmasters who are interested in how this evolution of the web can help evolve your organization's online strategy. We will give you the tools, knowledge, and most crucially, the vision for how your organization can use the web as a stronger agent of change. We’ll also cover the nuts-and-bolts, introducing the latest tools so that you know which options are most promising for your needs.
About the presenters: Jason Mogus is the CEO of Communicopia, which has helped progressive companies and non-profits communicate and collaborate via the web for 13 years. Jason is also the founder of Web of Change at Hollyhock. Alexandra Samuel, PhD (Harvard), is CEO of Social Signal, and is helping some of the web's most ambitious community ecosystems use the social web to support dialogue and collaboration.
This workshop is co-sponsored by the Hollyhock Leadership Institute, Web of Change, Social Signal, Communicopia, Social Tech Brewing, and Impacs.
To register:
Visit the Hollyhock site, call 800-933-6339 x232, or e-mail registration[at]hollyhock.ca
OPML for your enjoyment
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February 7th, 2007 by Alex
An OPML file is basically a file of RSS feed addresses that tells an RSS reader which RSS feeds to track and display. My OPML file (download by clicking the filename below) includes feeds on Blogging/Web 2.0, e-consultation, e-democracy, e-politics, e-pr, friends, general news, Internet research, nonprofit technology, political blogs, RSS, social software, and tech news.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Alexandra-Samuel-OPML.xml_.txt | 19.86 KB |
My interview with Blau Exchange
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February 1st, 2007 by Alex
Paul DiPerna recently posted a conversation we had about social media on his Blau Exchange web site. Blau Exchange is
a web-based initiative that will be an intermediary for professional groups interested in how information and communications technologies (ICTs) affect society, with particular focus on the Internet and World Wide Web.
Paul interviewed me about my own history on the web and my perspective on what comes next. If you're interested in how Social Signal got started, where we're going, or how we see the web, please read the interview. Here's a sample tidbit:
I hope folks will find the interview useful, or at least interesting -- and if you check it out, be sure to read some of Paul's other fascinating interviews with folks like Howard Rheingold and Craig Newmark.
Young organizations are no more likely to make mistakes in their community-building than are well-established organizations; if anything, they're less likely, because they're less constrained by conventional ideas about message control. But anyone who's new to the social web has certain challenges and there are certainly are some mistakes we see more often.
The most common mistake is to focus all the attention, energy and resources on building the technical structure of a community, without thinking about the social structure. I was lucky to work on telecentre.org with Mark Surman, the Managing Director of that project, who made a point of allocating several times more dollars for animating and supporting his online community than he'd allocated to actually building the web infrastructure. We encourage our clients to think about spending at least as much on supporting their community as they do on setting it up -- maybe not the first year, when your technical costs are front-loaded, but certainly over time. If you haven't got a budget to pay for site animation (aka moderation), ongoing content development, and participant incentives (like contest prizes), then you're was ting your money by building an online community. Better to take half your budget, set it aside for the support of the community itself, and build a more modest site in the first place. When we design a site we create an activity plan as well as a site architecture so that our clients think through ongoing support of the site as well as set up.