February, 2007

I meant to post this yesterday, but a deadline prevented me from doing so. Then, of course, blogging was out of the question in the evening (you know what day it was).

I may have earned some leeway had I been bright enough to think up something as clever as this. But instead I tucked into Gicela’s home-made chicken mole, followed by a DVD (…since you asked, it was Volver).

Anyway, I digress.

This pacy video by Michael Wesch has been doing the rounds in recent days, but since I viewed it for the first time only yesterday (where have I been?), I thought I’d post it here, in case you missed it, too!

This five-minute clip itself became a lesson in viral video and the power of Web 2.0

Oh, and another video: an amusing reality check

Yet again Kathy Sierra is right on target; She writes…

People ask me… How can I get our employees to be passionate about the company?” Wrong question. Passion for our employer, manager, current job? Irrelevant. Passion for our profession and the kind of work we do? Crucial. If I own company FOO, I don’t need employees with a passion for FOO. I want those with a passion for the work they’re doing… The company should behave just like a good user interface - support people in doing what they’re trying to do, and stay the hell out of their way.

Substitute “passionate about the company” with “passionate about the charity”.  We need passion for the cause, passion for delivering real benefits to stakeholders.

Charity employees (and volunteers) need to be outward-looking, rather than inward-looking.

In my buzz director post a few months back, I put it like this:

If you see the never-ending strategic review dragging your new colleagues down, remind them of the reasons they joined your organisation in the first place. Get them passionate (and close) to your cause once again. Share their passion. Be energetic. Be useful.

Make a difference.

Last year, Hawaii-based ChipIn launched its “social ecommerce” service designed to help individuals connect with people in their social network for collection of money for a personal cause, to purchase a gift, or for community fundraising.

In recent months, the business has morphed into a “distributed fundraising widget management company”. Shel Israel blogged about this following a breakfast meeting he had with Carnet Williams, CEO at ChipIn, last December.

Now, if you want to find out how the ChipIn widget works, then you should read Beth Kanter’s case study, who incidentally interviewed Carnet in his pre-ChipIn days.

I think that distributed widget fundraising is a hugely important development and is set to sky-rocket this year… something I asked Carnet.

Do you agree that 2007 will be the Year of the Widget?

Yes! But I have a caveat on the term ‘widget’. I think in 2007 we will see a trend moving away from pure consumer-based widgets that act more like banner ads, and see the rise of the “smart” widgets - actual mini-applications that are embedded on both websites and desktops.
We are moving towards a more business-oriented rationale for widgets. Some good examples are the box.net widget to access and upload your files. It also plays mp3’s. This is a widget that serves a clear business purpose. That is where we wanted to position ChipIn - as a transactional widget that helps collect money. We will soon move beyond just tracking the collection of money, and onto tracking many different actions.

How do widgets offer a brand-building opportunity for not-for-profits?

When we think of widgets, we should be thinking of online branding and advocacy. It is not just the widget or the donations that not-for-profits should be seeking, but building a network of advocates that will carry a particular message. If the message is compelling, the donations will follow. Not-for-profits have an amazing ability to harness the power of their constituents’ social network through well-designed widgets that offer compelling value (content, actions, etc).

What is the blueprint for a successful widget strategy?

Just like selling your organisation’s mission, a widget strategy must start with a compelling message / reason to create a widget in the first place. It must cater to the stakeholder who is going to carry that widget around with them. It has to offer value in terms of changing content and help an organisation’s advocate make their case for support.

Definitely check out Beth Kanter’s Sharing Foundation case study, mentioned above [and listen to Nick Booth's podcast of Beth talking about her widget fundraising].

How do you measure the effectiveness of a widget?

We look at the number of widgets created, how many times they are viewed, and most importantly, we track the parent-child relationship between widgets. This allows us to track the word-of-mouth impact a widget is having, and the best advocates at spreading the message.

Can you identify some successful distributed fundraising activities and blog-raising campaigns?

DonorsChoose ran a great widget campaign last year to get bloggers to support school projects. I think they were one of the first not-for-profits to jump into this space themselves.

There are other campaigns running now, such as Network for Good’s SixDegrees.org campaign.

What are the main barriers to the adoption and spread of widgets (e.g. those sites which operate as ‘walled gardens’)?

I think the main barrier is going to be a crowded space and widgets that do not provide tangible value. For example, widgets that are just fancy banner ads will get old and tired very quickly for users.

The web is now all about user-generated content and changing content. Widgets need to follow this trend and provide a robust and rich media channel between the organisation and their supporters.

The walled gardens of the larger social media sites (MySpace, TypePad) will be an issue for groups, but we [ChipIn] are working to provide an aggregated approach to this problem by working with the larger sites to allow our system to work across the board. Everyone is always holding their breath to see what MySpace is going to do… but the desktop widgets may take some pressure off.

What’s behind the repositioning of your product as a Widget Management System?

Very simple. We had so many clients asking us for the platform that it made sense for us to shift our business from a consumer-facing product, to a back-end widget platform. We designed our core system to integrate very easily with our clients’ payment systems.

So, we are poised to fundamentally change the way online fundraising and advocacy will work within social media. We want to go far beyond just fundraising and see that as measurable benefit of our system. We want to see ChipIn become an online organising tool unlike anything else seen before. You’ll see a totally new and revamped ChipIn in the next month or so!!

(Wow… is this something for Comic Relief to try, perhaps?)

Compare this photo of the Windows Vista launch (blogged by Seth Godin last week to make a slightly different point) with the photo above - taken in London less than 24 hours later after the launch of Global Cool - a 10-year campaign “to reverse global warming”.

With which image do you most associate your charity?¹

I mentioned Global Cool to Whitewater’s Steve Andrews and Anna Crofton over a beer last week. I predict that we will see new charities like Global Cool popping up in other ‘areas of benefit’, perhaps filling a gap a sluggish or less effective organisation has ‘vacated’.

Small charities can now have influence way beyond their size. Individuals, too.

Steve then highlighted the examples of Kiva.org and Robert Thompson’s water buffalo movie on the Whitewater group blog, which I wrote about last time. But he offers more evidence that the charity sector cannot afford to stand still.

Earlier this week I sat through the first four Whitewater Baby Boomer focus groups and, while it’s early days, I’ve heard plenty of donors say they’re bored and turned off by fundraising that asks for generic donations into the corporate pool. And, conversely, I’ve heard them thrilled with the idea that donations might actually pay for the stuff they’ve donated to. Ear-marking really is the future, whether we like it or not.

Now I’m not qualified enough to judge the credentials of the founder Dan Morrell and the scientific brains behind Global Cool, nor get into a debate about whether carbon offsetting will really make a difference, or whether we need to go much further… but that’s not my point anyway.

Frankly, I like their style.

Platinum-selling recording artists such as KT Tunstall and Josh Hartnett will act as ‘messengers’ to “empower a community of individuals” to take positive collective action. MySpace is also on board and will be pushing the message out to its millions of subscribers.

Last week Chancellor Gordon Brown said politicians must be more open and accountable if they are to engage new generations of internet-savvy voters in tackling the most urgent problems of the 21st century.

The Chancellor (pictured right) told delegates at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in Edinburgh that young people growing up with MySpace and YouTube expect to be involved more fully in political deliberation than previous generations. Access to information and the ability to mobilise public campaigns online has empowered ordinary citizens, he said.

Personally, I don’t think Global Cool is about the cult of celebrity but recognises that by harnessing the power and energy of the entertainment industry much can be done to spread the message. What do you think - a short-term publicity stunt or 10-year slog?

Al Gore is in it for the long haul. I was surprised by Gore’s wit and style in An Inconvenient Truth, which I watched on DVD for the first time last night. Big Al is now a Nobel nominee and the film is up for an Academy Award. Environment Minister David Miliband announced on Friday that the British government will distribute the film to all secondary schools in England (in the US, the National Science Teachers Association rejected a similar offer).

Anyway, before you think I’ve lost my judgement, I know ‘being cool’ and show-offy is no substitute for substance. But I have no reason to doubt that those fronting Cool Planet do not have the passion for their cause. Now they need to show they can be effective.

A decade ago, Joe Saxton wrote in What Are Charities For?

[Charities] have the potential to do far more than a better job. They exist because of what they believe in. The roots of most charities are in visions of a better world. Yet those visions, those beliefs, those values are all too often hidden. The beliefs are there, but the passion has gone the fire in the belly, the outrage and the anger long extinguished by layers of hierarchy, working parties and procedure.

Joe called on charities to put themselves forward as moral leaders and the source of new and innovative ideas to tackle some of society’s intractable problems.

If you do not, you will end up somewhere near the middle of Kathy Sierra’s mediocrity index.

¹ I know Microsoft is not a charity… I’m just comparing the two images to make a point :)