You Think, I Think, We Think (Better) Together

Been reading reviews about Charles Leadbetter’s book We Think all over the place. Got to get my hands on a copy sooon (come on Rosie, hand it over).

If anyone is trying to get their heads around Web 2.0, social media, new paradigm thinking and all that claptrap – get a look at this. Lovely simple animation. I’m going to use it at the beginning of all my courses. Free event coming up soon to give people a taste of it all. Watch this space.

Guardian review here (including Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky) which also looks reeal good.

Shame The Big Issue review isn’t available online. A different and very valid take on things.

No wonder most journalist’s I meet are annoyed with blogging and What’s Going On with we-think.

No wonder I am compelled to work in and support this space.

So glad Rosie Sherry is in it with me (thanks for the video).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiP79vYsfbo&hl=en]

Blogging for Change Agents

Libby has just started putting up info for her next series of authentic blogging courses to run this year: Blogging for Change Agents.

These are focussed on entrepreneurs, social, environmental and ethical enterprises, charities and other third sector organisations that are looking to spread their wings in the blogging and social media area.

For more info please head over to authentic blogging for the course details.

Can you unplug for 52 nights?

I’m going to move the main discussion about unplugging over to the wonderful (ironic) new community at 52 Nights Unplugged care of Ariel and Ning. She is one happening unplugger.

Come and join in.

You know you need to when…

• Your eyes/arms/body is aching from too much tapping / idiot boxing / talking
• You check your email as soon as you wake up and just before you go to bed
• There’s never enough time
• Your mental environment is smogged out with gumpf
• Computers/TV/Radio/Mobiles/Ipods/Games keep taking you away from the here and now

Many thanks to Leif Hansen from Spark NW for the 7 Step Programme to Unplugging. I’ll be referring all my clients/students/friends to it and the Unplug Challenge. Seems only right and proper when we are banging on about the wonders of the Internet on the one hand. Seems people might need a health warning to go with every new social network or application. Seems like we all need to take a break occasionally, or a lot.

No matter how good it all is, it ain’t sustainable.

Actually, we’ve just put together a 7 step e-workbook that takes people through the same process. The steps and exercises covered in the e-workbook are basically to:
(perhaps first identify what you like about your tech life)
1. Identifying your challenges with tech
2. Identify the needs trying to get met
3. Develop your vision/goals
4. Finding your focus
5. Finding solutions
6. Turning ideas into actions
7. Sticking with your plan (can be hardest)

See the full richness of Leif’s comment on the previous post here. Sounds like it could be hard work, but if you want some more reasons and to make it fun… go join 52 Nights. These guys just HAVE to present at LIFT09.

My what a helpful community we are. Sucking you in to more and more information on the one hand – then telling you to switch off with the other.

Reminds me of when we tried to buy airtime for “subvertisements” advertising TV Turn Off Week on major TV networks, only this time we (kind of) control the channel.

I’m off to bed. Now… do I take the laptop with me and catch up on the BBC programmes in iplayer, or not…. might be jut in time to read Bea (7) the last story before lights out.

We teach what we most need to learn…

Free tech resources for social/eco enterprise – and others

Social enterprises and non-profits need all the help they can get. These times require us to think smart and work together like never before.

This year we plan to give this sector even more leverage. Thank goodness hyperlinks subvert heirarchy and web 2.0 allows smaller or less resourced organisations to take on the Goliath of global warming and social justice.

Larger organisations within the sector like Greenpeace and Oxfam are already doing good stuff with blogging. (I wonder if they are aggregating and editing together blog posts coming from around their stakeholder blogosophere? Might be nice for bloggers to see their posts featured on the “mother ship” and get some cred, hits and feedback that way…)

To start the ball rolling, here is a solid list of technology-based resources to help you take action, no matter what your budget is.

Conduct research

• Survey Monkey - is our preferred tool so far. Lets you design, collate and analyse up to 10 questions for zip. Any other recommendations, just leave us a comment and we can update this post.

Fundraising

• eBay – Giving Works
• eBay – MissionFish (not entirely sure what the difference but let us know how you go)
• PayPal Donations
• Network for Good (partnered with Yahoo!) Charity Badges (widgets you can drop on your site)
• Global Giving (works for international)
• Charity.com

Build & host a blog/website

• Wordpress.com. Free blogging software alone can meet the needs of most organisations’ online presence.
• There are many other blogging platforms (blogger, typepad etc). We primarily work with and recommend Wordpress but sometimes use others and can support you in these in needs be.

With a wide range of templates to chose from and inbuild content management, you can build, host and maintain your website with a £0 budget. If you need training or support, we can offer it, specially designed for you in dialogue with your sector. Apply for a free or subsided place on our tailored training programme if you are a micro enterprise poised to make a big difference. Just drop me a line.

Even with training included, your total outlay over the first two years might be half the cost of a simple custom built website, with nearly no ongoing costs. Whenever you want to change the site, you have the power to do it. In an instant. In your own way, in your own time.

Web 2.0 tools built to fit your ideas

• Internet Artizans – Social Innovation Camp - Be quick. First event is 4-6 April and call for ideas has already opened. Let the team solve it for you.
• £5 app – ongoing project to build simple software tools.
• More to come… the world is buzzing with talent ready to support what you are doing. Don’t be shy. Engage partners wherever and whenever you can.

Understanding Social Media

E-books, blogs, events

• Authentic Blogging – search around this website to find out about blogging and other social media stuff. Our e-book on The Essence of Authentic Blogging is a good place to start. We will be doing a range of speaking engagements within social & environmental enterprise networks this year, so let me know if you want to go on the mailing list (website upgrade coming soon with subscribe for newsletter) or feel free to invite me to speak at your event.
• Nixon McInnes - e-books on social media, RSS, etc plus their blog and regular speaking engagements.
• Geek Habits for Non Geeks – will be veery useful. First one is on 13 March in Brighton, but register on upcoming to be kept in touch.
• Video Blogging – a monthly free event (in Brighton) to find out all about the wonderment of video blogging. If you want to get started right now, check out Free Vlog.
• Loads more around and regular, often free, events to support your learning and networking. Go along and see what budding talent you can find to help realise your dreams. Key word search Upcoming no matter where you live or just keep your ears and ears open. Getting an RSS feed from this blog will help you keep in touch too.

Online (dialogue) marketing

• You Tube – Broadcast Your Cause – Connect, create dialogue, network and “partner up”.

• Video blogging – If you haven’t yet got the equipment or skills to produce simple, short video clips (and even a mobile phone camera might do), then get in touch with Beth Tilson and find out all about Video Blogging while you are at it. Beth’s sessions will be monthly, so get in touch and ignore the dates on upcoming.

• Facebook Causes – love it or hate, it’s hard to deny the ongoing power of Facebook. Many causes have been fought and won with the help of Facebook. Decide for yourself.
  

• Google Adword Grants – can take them a while to get back to you (we’ve heard 6 months!) but if you are planning a campaign in advance there’s no harm in trying.

Note re: blogs vs adwords and search engine optimisation – We still think an effective blog that optimises for the key words that matter to you is better than adwords, but that can take time to build up. Although one recent Authentic Blogging “graduate” reached No. 1 for her search in a few weeks with only a few posts! All depends on what your niche is.

All ’round good guys to know

• Tactical Tech is an international NGO working at the intersection of advocacy and technology. They use their technical expertise to increase the impact of campaigns in social justice and human rights, but their resources are widely applicable. Lots on their website to explore. Work with Internet Artizans.

The list goes on and on. Many thanks to Jill for many of these. Just goes to show that posting a useful comment can really help grow a conversation.

More here at the ever wonderful Skoll Foundation… You have to subscribe to the Skoll newsletter. It is always helpful and let’s you see you are SO not alone in wanting to make a positive difference.

More resources for social/eco enterprises on Authentic Blogging…

Authentic Blogging courses in Brighton

My partner Libby has just started up a series of courses on blogging, and along with it a new blog at authenticblogging.com which aims to introduce people to blogging as a creative process, and finding an authentic voice in community.

The first course is starting in the Autumn term at Varndean College in Brighton. Places are limited and I get the feeling that these are going to be popular, so if you are interested, get in quickly.

I’m likely to be helping out a little in these courses; but only a little. The focus is very much on the creative process  and not on the technical details.

PL’s seven keys to a successful website

[Note: this article was originally written with a focus on the small business website but it equally applies to all websites for organisations. If you are working on an web presence for a large organisation, all these points still apply.]

People ask me about websites all the time. Mostly they are passionate small-business people that want some sort of presence on the Internet. These people don’t want to end up with a big designed website that is all corporate. And these sort of sites are expensive, of course, and we’ve all begun to realise that they don’t tend to work for you if they go and project an image of you that is bigger than you are.

The big ‘corporate’ website is something that isn’t really them, like a coat a couple of sizes too large that weighs at the shoulders and has overlong sleeves that get in the way of your hands.

But small business people need a web presence. So, what is appropriate and what works?

Seven keys

Well, I’d say there are seven keys to ending up with a usable, useful, comfortable website for an individual or passionate small business person. The things your website needs to be are:

Authentic

A web presence that reflects authentically the business or person that it is represents. It gives a real feeling of who it is describing and does it accurately. It doesn’t misrepresent or inflate or sell too hard. It conveys a true voice of the business or individual. I can’t stress how important being authentic is. It makes you comfortable with your web presences, which means you can write stuff on your own website and when potential customers read the site or search for the site, they find somebody that feels right to them. You get your kind of customers this way, and you waste less time with people who don’t get you or your way of doing things. If you do nothing else, be authentic!

Up-to-date

Any website needs to be current and relevant to now. It needs to convey that you and/or your business are alive and well and doing things. A dead, out-of-date site reflects badly on you and works against you. I tend to take a lot of notice of how old a site is when I’m choosing suppliers etc. Maybe I’m more picky than most, but hey,

Descriptive

It needs to describe what you do in enough detail that potential customers can find you and can understand how you are different. Being descriptive is important for search engines as well, and I’ll write more about that later. This is more than keywords. This really describing what you do.

Engaging

Like a good piece of writing, the site needs to engage the reader. If it can catch a reader and get them to be interested enough to get in touch, join in, or forward your web address to a friend, you’ve got something that works. Think about storytelling. I’ll talk more about making a website engaging in a later post.

Easy for you to update

It may sounds obvious, but, seriously, this is the one that really makes a difference. If you can easily change your own site without calling or e-mailing somebody else, then you can keep things up to date, you can write what you want to write when you want to write it.

Changing and Growing

The web went through a phase of static websites that were used by companies as brochures. Lots of that kind of web design grew from print-based design. However, these days web users and search engines really like change and growth. Why? The more content you add about what you do, the better the search engines will be able to direct searches to you. Keep adding stuff. It gives a sense of time, of history, of something ongoing.

Linked

Links from other websites help people find you from other relevant sites. These links are also used by search engines to work out how important or well-regarded your site is. So, what you are looking for here are links in context: links that come from partners or customers or others that also talk about what you do. Links exchanges and ‘cheating’ tend to work against you really, so stick to authentic links from others in context.

What now?

I’ll talk more about this in some more posts later. This dense enough for a beginning.
In the meantime, start thinking about this:

How can I build a website without a lot of effort, as a part of the rest of my business processes or a part of my creative process? See if you can imagine a way to make writing and updating you site part of your existing process.

And remember the keys:

1. Authentic, 2. Up-to-date, 3. Descriptive, 4. Engaging, 5. Easy for you to update, 6. Changing and Growing, 7. Linked

2web: Australians raising awareness of Web2.0

This is great to see (from 2web.com.au)…

2web is a group of Australian bloggers and entrepreneurs who are passionate about web 2.0. What we all have in common is that through our businesses and blogging we develop, implement and evangelise web 2.0 ideas around web services, open standards, new media, blogs and the web as a platform.

Excellent news. It is always easy to feel that Australia is following the game in the network-as-platform world, so awareness raising and [tag]evangelism[/tag] like this can only help all of us bring it on faster here in Australia.

I’d love to join in on this venture; does it matter that i’m leaving Australia for a couple of years in a couple of months? :-)

“Getting Real” by 37 Signals

I’ve just ordered “Getting Real” from the crowd at 37 Signals. This is their new book that talks about how to develop web apps. I’ll review here once I’ve read it.

Given the interesting view of the world that 37 Signals have, I’m sure it is going to be interesting.

You can only buy the book as a PDF, and there are some sample chapters and ordering information here.