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  • Natasha 3:10 pm on November 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Volunteering #4change 

    Social media and new technology are changing the way we recruit and manage volunteers.  They’re also changing how we define the concept of volunteering.  New forms of participation such as micro-volunteering, and web-generated events such as Twestival, are changing the way people are coming together to raise funds, donate their time and make a difference in their local and global community.

    Our next #4change chat, on Thursday 12 November, will look at how the volunteering landscape is changing.  Join us for a global conversation, sharing ideas, best practice, links and resources.

    How to join the chat

    1. If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a Twitter account (it’s free).
    2. To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use  http://search.twitter.com/ or another application to search on Twitter for “#4Change”
    3. Jump in to the conversation by adding “#4Change” (without the “”) to your Twitter message
    4. Feeling brave? Check out TweetChat – it’s a great application that integrates with your Twitter account and makes chats more fun! You can turn it off after the chat.

    Rules for #4Change chat

    1. #4Change will be structured around a series of questions which all participants can respond to. Send your questions to @tashjudd or post them below to have them considered.
    2. Introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join.
    3. Stay on topic!
    4. Be cool.

    A few links

    How social media’s changing volunteering

    Blog: Brave New World for Volunteering
    Blog: Sacrifice, optional and about other people (defining volunteering) 
    Blog: The Extraordinaries: Will micro-volunteering work?
    Article: NetSquared and the new wave of online volunteering

    Recruiting volunteers online

    VolunteerMatch
    Do-it
    All for Good

    A few interesting volunteering and participation initiatives

    The Extraordinaries
    Virtual volunteering
    Junction49
    Urbantastic
    Twestival

    Please comment below with other interesting links, case studies and questions you’d like to see raised during the chat.  Looking forward to seeing you all online on the 12th.

     

  • Natasha 8:57 am on July 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Revolutionary social media 

    “The revolution will not be televised – it will be emailed, texted, blogged, wikied…”

    So says the blurb of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: How change happens when people come together.   But, earlier this month, the #4change crew discovered first hand the limitations of social media.  At the first of our ‘Revolutionary Social Media’ chats, the Twitter search was experiencing major delays and people disappeared from altogether, and as a result, we decided to end the conversation early.  Amy’s fantastic post covers the ‘lessons learned in using twitter for a global conversation’.  Here, I’m going to pick up the baton and provide an overview of the discussion which resumed on July 23.

    Looking back through the twitter stream, some of the issues raised included:

    • Lessons learned from the Iran election, from the icon changing, the State Department and Twitter maintenance, whether awareness-raising should been seen as a success only if it motivates action or whether it’s an end-goal in itself.

    1: Create unrealistic expectations for Twtr hashtag 2: Declare #iranelection revolution 3: Democracy unrealized, proclaim social change dead

    @rootwork 4:46 AM Jul 9th http://twitter.com/rootwork/status/2548985606

    • The changing role of television and other traditional media sources from breaking the news to explaining it.
    • Social media may not be the way to coordinate protests or revolutionary activity, due to the public nature of posting.  Social networks, email, mobile, etc are a more private way to coordinate activity.
    • Different situations require different levels of anonymity.

    Anonymity depends on who you are. If you are a protester in China – anonymity is important.

    If you are trying to be a thought leader in the western world, I don’t think anonymity is the right way to go.

    @Sue_Anne Jul 23, 2009 10:06 PM GMT

    • How social media and Web 2.0 tools can be used to keep governments accountable.  mySociety’s They Work For You cited as an example.  Benefits in governments – like any brand – keeping an eye on what’s been said about them in social media.
    • Whether social media tools, such as Twitter, are inherently politically neutral and as such, whether they should bend to a particular government’s needs.

    I’ve gone through the stream and saved all the links which were referenced in the discussions, on delicious as well.

    It was a really interesting chat, and for me personally, a huge learning opportunity.  Many thanks to everyone who took part.  Feel free to add things I’ve missed, your own take-aways or thoughts on the topic below.  Let’s keep the conversation going.

     

  • Natasha 2:29 pm on July 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Reflections on the #moonwalk 

     First published on the YouthNet blog.

     

    Last Friday, after work, a group of us from YouthNet walked down to Liverpool Street station for a twitter-organised moonwalk in memory of Michael Jackson.  Given the instantaneous nature of the Internet, I’m almost too late to blog about the event itself.  All over the web, you can read about how a tweeted idea became an exercise in mass participation, involving the police and Network Rail, announcements over the loud speakers at the station, and thousands of people bobbing up and down to Jackson classics.  There are plenty of photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube, and a twitter stream using the #moonwalk hashtag where you can see how it all came together.

    However, what’s more interesting, from my point of view, is the questions it raises for charity marketers, campaigners, press people and others who spread the word about a cause.  It’s too easy for social media campaigns to fail – despite the best planning and the most inspiring causes – because they just don’t catch on.  For all that we may believe that re-tweeting a message about one of our causes doesn’t take much effort, I’m beginning to wonder if it actually does.  People have to be logged into Twitter to see the message in the first place, they have to pick it out of all the other tweets they’re receiving, they have to understand it, engage with it, and choose to pass it on.  And that’s only one social networking tool.

    It’s also easy to be impressed that the event went from concept to implementation in one day.  And while the moonwalk wasn’t actually held in Liverpool Street Station in the end, and while there wasn’t actually room for much moonwalking in such a large crowd, the fact that it happened at all is testament to the power of social media to turn buzz into action.  As charities, do we have the ability to be this spontaneous?  If the mood of the public was to turn in the direction of our cause on a particular day, would we be able and ready to react?  And, would it be appropriate for us to do so?

    Finally, when you’re pressed up against people, it’s easy to overhear their conversations.  A woman behind me was asked why she was there.  “I’m actually more a fan of Twitter than Michael Jackson”, she said.  And while, like many children of the 80s, I did bop around my room to Billie Jean, the same applied to me.  What we had then was a crowd of people who used Twitter or who know people who used Twitter or read reports of people who used Twitter.  While there were some real fans, I’d guess that a significant amount of people had come along to see what was happening and be part of it.  If we were going to organise a charity event via social media, would that matter?  Raising awareness is a goal in itself sometimes, but if some people are ‘there for the sake of being there’, is that enough?

    Would be great to hear your thoughts.

     

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