Blending the use of social tools around the current focus and concerns of your work colleagues’ and activists is a must. So I think Nigel Dunn is onto something with his concept for a widget response network.

Nigel blogged after listening to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Darfur and Chad Appeal over the weekend.

While the UK-based DEC does have a Rapid Response Network for Big Media, he believes (and I agree) that they could benefit enormously from providing a badge/widget that is available all the time.

If there’s an appeal happening then content connected with that is delivered, otherwise it’s empty. This would allow the ongoing development of a network that could be brought into play (more or less) instantly that a new appeal is launched.

He even anticipates widget strategy meetings…

Inevitably new technologies and ideas will spring up over time, which means that you will have different versions [of the badge/widget] operating at the same time. So a few years down the road you will have meetings to decide what content/functionality to deliver to everyone left on version 1 compared to the whizzy new version 2, etc.

These widgets could have a “donate” button embedded in them, but it’s the network effect of thousands of ‘smart’ widgets of the sort I wrote about in March (see widgets of the world unite) that is really exciting. Lots of potential for demonstrating real social impact.

A widget response network in the way Nigel describes would also be a powerful tool for groups like the The Genocide Intervention Network, and Amnesty’s crisis response network.

Incidently, the Appeal for Darfur and Chad has raised around £3m since its launch last Thursday, and for the first time ever in a DEC appeal, more has been raised online than by phone, according to this article in Professional Fundraising.

Twitter for urgent actions

It seems relevant to link the ‘widget response network’ concept to my first thoughts on Twitter.

It was Andy Carvin who recently asked “might text messaging… serve any purpose in times of public emergencies?”. He explored the humanitarian relief potential of Twitter in his post Can Twitter Save Lives?

For another take, check out Twitter for human rights, from the always brilliant Dan MacQuillan.

Something else to go on the radar of your buzz director. (What, you still don’t have one?)

A long blog silence. Sorry. Life has been hectic.

This is a treat.

Microsoft has produced a clever two-minute video dramatising the ‘divorce’ of a woman labelled “consumer” and her husband labelled “advertiser”.

After you’ve watched it… watch it again. I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but imagine the woman is one of your donors; you’re the other (self-obsessed) guy.

I’m reminded of this post by Jeff Brooks, Talk about your donors, not yourself. Jeff always gets it right.

The Microsoft video links to a blog that explains why they made it (to pitch its “digital advertising solutions”).

“We want to try and tell that digital media is not about technology but about quality of communication, about the interaction between 2 people. There is no better medium than a movie to symbolize the one-to-one communication between people, in this case between an advertiser and a consumer.”

I don’t want to get into whether Microsoft can follow through with this rhetoric or not. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one as they’ve won me over with the movie.

Remember, the donor wears the trousers. She decides.

Hat tip to Jeff Jarvis.

Those of you who read my recent telephone tree post will know that I studied ‘development’ at university. Naturally, I’m also a fan of Gapminder. So it was a real treat to come across this.

If you cannot make sense of big issues through storytelling, then you might as well have some fun with statistics.

Anyway, I’m off to Yorkshire for a long weekend.

First post in a while for a number of reasons. Anyway, this stroked my ego.

The three images I uploaded to the “All photographers now” exhibit were showcased in the Musée de l’Elysée galleries in Lausanne, Switzerland recently.

How do I know (given that I’m in the UK)? Well, I received an email informing me that my images were exhibited. But that’s just the half of it: attached to the email were some installation views of my images in situ, showing them projected on the gallery wall – like the one pictured (and here’s the original photo on Flickr).

I wasn’t 100 percent sure what might have happened to my images once I’d uploaded them via this form.

My mate Nigel (who knows about these things), reckons the photos would go into a database that gallery downloads, gets stuck into some sort of slideshow and then just projected, as you would a presentation.

What made this different to, say, the Flickr Peep Show in Amsterdam a couple of years ago was that they have linked it all together – by taking a photo of my photo being shown… and email that back to me – although probably not that sophisticated, really. Maybe a webcam capture linked with my name and email address.

For a not-for-profit, maybe this is something a commercial partner might want to sponsor for a few grand (my emails from the Musée de l’Elysée suggested they had done a partnership with Hewlett-Packard).

My Flickr buddy Ed Fladung recently suggested that Yahoo! develop a micro-payment system for Flickrites who wish to sell their photos. Even better, a way of funnelling the payments to their favourite cause – although you (the not-for-profit) may want to vet the photos ‘donated’ in your name. Anyway, you get the picture!

This isn’t altogether new. I know of the Big White Box, which was set up by Brunel University student, David Bailey (must be another one), as part of his research into “how the collaborative power of the internet can be used to raise money for charity”. Profits are donated to a handful of UK charities, although I couldn’t get word from David on how much, etc.

And let’s not forget the brilliant DoggySnaps.com. I interviewed Tim Malbon about how the Dogs Trust will benefit from selling the rights to the cream of the crop posted there. As an aside, I actually met Tim for the first time at the Goodness 2.0 event the other evening (see Ian Delaney’s write up on the NMK site).

Greenpeace are at the top of the innovation tree with some pretty awesome participative campaigning. Take the GreenMyApple and Defending our Oceans campaigns, which give people a voice and a platform.

I followed the Greenpeace ship “Esperanza” as she voyaged the Southern Seas, via this stunning photostream on Flickr.

The whole DIY phenomenon has certainly been spurred on by Flickr, other photo-sharing communities, and the explosion of Creative Commons.

If you’re not doing this already, ask your supporters (and their networks) to submit some photos for the front cover of your annual report. You can even draw upon the freedom of the commons, and invite photo remixes.

Have you seen the ‘naked’ covers to some Penguin Classics in the bookstores? The publisher invited readers . There’s an online gallery, and some of the best ones can be viewed on Flickr, too. Great innovation.

There are so many other examples. For example, my mate Ed Mitchell will have one of his Vietnam photos on the next WWF calendar. One of my own photos of corn drying out on the roof of a church in rural Mexico (rather mundane you might think) recently accompanied a news article on citizen journalism website, NowPublic. And I could talk all day about the impact of the After Wilma group on Flickr.

The remarkable and omnipresent Beth Kanter has pulled together Ten Cool Examples of Nonprofits Using Flickr. These include a few of my own favourites and is a must-read.

I particularly like how the ONE Campaign explains to those without a Flickr account just what they need to do to add their face to the Faces of ONE Group.

In February, Flickr released a bundle of improvements for Group administrators, including the very cool ‘Invite a Photo’ feature:

You’re surfing through the Flickrverse and you find a photo that would be perfect for your group. This new feature will allow an administrator to invite that particular photo to their group without membership requirement. You’ll see a new link under the comment box that says ‘Invite this photo to…’

I hadn’t spotted this until this week.

Amazing to think that just two or three years ago, sourcing photos for a website was a real headache.

I’m still getting over a bit of a head cold (read “man flu”), but this cheered me up.

Deborah Weil flagged this single-page parody of Second Life, Get A First Life.

Second Life – compare this page – is the virtual world that a handful of not-for-profits have dabbled in over recent months, which I have been following on this blog.

I meant to mention that journalist Peter Davy interviewed me for his alternative realities article [not sure how long this will be available online], which appeared in the Jan/Feb issue of Charity Times. The jury is still out on Second Life, of course.

And did you read that apparently avatars consume as much electricity as your average Brazilian (is there such a thing?).

I’ve got as far as creating my avatar (“Joe Boa”), but I’m with Amy Gahran: Second Life: I’ve enough going on in my First Life, thanks.

I wish ;-)

Thanks to Hugh :: http://www.gapingvoid.com/

I can’t really sign off without pointing you to Michael Baler’s Blogs And CRM for non-profits piece published in the NonProfit Times last May, but (still) one of the best introductions to this topic.

PR Blogger Stephen Davies thinks we’ll start to see a fragmentation of social networks. As people begin to tire with the vast, general nature of MySpace et al, they may migrate to niche social networks that are more relevant to them, their passions and their lives.

He asks:

So what does it mean for brands? Niche social networks can be tapped into for more relevancy in online engagement. For example, which platform makes the most sense for a brand like Pedigree? Bebo or DoggySnaps?

Stephen continues…

But identifying the right platform is just the minor part. It’s how you engage with the users in a creative, respectful and non-intrusive manner which will be the key to a successful online PR campaign…

Spot on, Stephen. I’ll come back to that.

Interestingly, there is already some activity in the ‘social networks for change’ space. Change.org launched last month, and Cauzoo.com will be “a space where you can promote your passion, rally for a cause, and raise money for charities in a variety of different ways.”

And then there’s Carebadges… who do it with widgets.

It’s early days, but I’m not totally convinced that these social networks are themselves authentic enough: they seem a little forced… activism for activism’s sake (not that there’s anything wrong with that particularly). I’m not sure about the lack of focus though – well, unless you’re an activist first, and something else second.

You need to get close to where your supporters are (and their distributed network)… which is why DoggySnaps is so good.

Moving on… I’ve harped on before about how I registered the mycauses.org.uk domain and how I hoped one of the players in the social networking space would create a “My Causes” tab in their members’ profile pages.

Well, I’m pleased to see that LinkedIn has moved a step in this direction, and should be applauded – thanks to Kerri Karvetski for the tip-off.

LinkedIn for Good

The first not-for-profit to benefit from a presence on LinkedIn is Médecins Sans Frontières.

It looks pretty good… up to a point! I feel it’s only a start though, as this still has the feel of what you might call a “networked giving” and nothing more – in other words, too much focus on fundraising.

The implementation on a member’s profile page (see below) could be improved. I’m not sure that “Member” is entirely accurate in this context either.

What if I want a different kind of relationship with a not-for-profit… or with a cause with which I identify for some reason?

LinkedIn members are – on the whole – accustomed to having more of a voice. In fact, I believe that LinkedIn will discover that members will desire a 360 degree relationship with not-for-profits.

LinkedIn feels entrepreneurial. There’s real potential here I think for the not-for-profits to engage members of the LinkedIn network in a relationship that goes beyond giving. Think of members of LinkedIn as potential ambassadors for your cause.

I might be able to indicate in my profile that a preference for becoming a virtual volunteer and trustee.

As Jeff Brooks writes, donors can also give:

• Information: ranging from market insight to specialized professional knowledge.
• Voice: the ability to speak for you in many ways.
• Influence: the ability to help things go your way.

And of course, donations will surely follow.

The 9m+ members of LinkedIn must carry a fair bit of clout between them. You’d think it would be pretty unstoppable if this collective intelligence – already into thinking about network-building and showing leadership in a networked world – could be harnessed to support individual actions through the social network, even to find solutions to problems.

I can actually foresee new agile social enterprises springing up from a network like LinkedIn… united by their ability to connect to others with shared passions, complementary skills, and a vision to change things. And I’m sure there’s a link here with the creation of like the Omidyar Network and Kiva.

There, I’ve just this minute received an email from LinkedIn’s Dave Sanford (thanks for getting back to me, Dave), so this post should serve as a good discussion opener!

Returning to the DoggySnaps example… what started as a photo-sharing community has the potential to evolve into a dynamic social network.

Niche, yes… but it can extend the reach of the Dogs Trust, the not-for-profit behind it.

(Related post: my DoggySnaps interview).

Update: See Dave Sanford’s response, below…

My daughter Nelly was shuttled off to infant school this morning dressed as “Super Nelly” with a pocketful of loose change. Yes, it’s that time again: Red Nose Day.

But did you know that 100 British bloggers have contributed to a book to raise funds for Comic Relief? You do now.

The book, “Shaggy Blog Stories: a collection of amusing tales from the UK blogosphere”, is the idea of Mike Atkinson who writes the ‘Troubled Diva’ blog.

The book went from idea to finished product in a “ridiculously short” seven days, using the latest publishing-on-demand technology.

To ORDER THE BOOK – it’s less than 10 quid – visit Lulu.com.

Take a look at Mike’s blog for the background story on how “Shaggy Blog Stories” came about.

Finally, after the laughter dies down, remind yourself here, and here, why all this silly stuff every two years.

Oh, and finally (finally)… I’ll be publishing an interview with Martin Gill, Head of New Media at Comic Relief, sometime next week. Hopefully.

We can learn a lot from our kids… and how they say thank you. I’m no exception.

But Whitewater’s Steve Andrews says it perfectly:

Saying ‘thank you’ is one of the best opportunities you have to inspire your donors, to make them feel fantastic about their decision to give.

I urge you to read Steve’s post.

Another ‘must read’ blogger, Jeff Brooks, touched on a similar theme recently:

If you want full value from donors, you need to engage them in a relationship and conversation.

Treating donors as human beings. There’s a concept.

Reminds me of something a kid once said to me at youth club. He fancied himself as a bit of a bully. He said something to me in an attempt to provoke a response. I ignored him. He got huffy, got his words muddled up and barked, “You’re talking to a brick wall”. I think he meant to say something else. Anyway, we were teens. It was a long time ago.

People have long memories.

I was recently drawn to this interesting graphic posted to Flickr by NMK’s Ian Delaney. It illustrates the fragmentation of people’s media consumption over recent decades. So what should I find when rummaging about in the garage earlier this week, but this rather dog-eared yellow card, 148mm x 210mm. Old media indeed.

Ah, but it’s so much more than that.

Now my years at university grimly coincided with Margaret Thatcher’s third term as prime minister, when the streets were often filled with the sound of protest: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out! Out! Out!”…

Among other things, Thatcher made savage cuts to higher education funding and exactly twenty years ago, our department was threatened with closure.

We, students and faculty, fought back. We organised ourselves. As the winter break approached, we vowed not to lose touch, despite physically dispersing around the globe. What tools were available to us back then, twenty years ago? The Telephone. Simple as that. So the “Save DEV” telephone tree was born. It was this that I stumbled upon in the garage on Monday.

View a larger version of the telephone tree.

But I mention this, not for old times’ sake, but because I recall what it was like to run a campaign (as I subsequently did for Oxfam) without the tools that are now available to us – to blog, to tag, to video, and so on. Part of my motivation for starting this blog was this memory (“if only we’d had these tools back then…”).

But we still networked. Quite effectively, actually (we saved our department).

It’s just easier now to make connections, and join existing ‘conversations’ we would never have known about before.

Thinking about it, I guess the computer revolution really coincided with the Thatcher regime (I still like to call it that). In 1982, TIME magazine selected ‘The Computer’ as its “Man of the Year”. In 2006, it picked “You”. The Machine is now Us.

I guess that symbolises just how far we’ve come.

Or have we? I notice that one of my lecturer’s, John Cameron, is still there. Must get in touch. And with all the others. By email. Where are they now, I wonder? Can we reconnect the network… via the internet… which is, after all, the same old network of people.