Lose Control: Why and How Web 2.0 Matters to Nonprofits

Holly Ross leads group in overview of distribution avenues for nonprofits' messages and news.

Contact Holly: email: holly@nten.org Phone: 415.397.9000

Resources from presentation:

View Holly's presentation here: Lose Control presentation by Holly Ross 10-19-07

News on The Overbrook Foundation’s report on the adoption of web 2.0 technologies published recently: http://nten.org/blog/2007/09/17/report-on-the-use-of-web-2-0-by-nonprofits

Read the blog conversation about participation in the great web 2.0 world: http://nten.org/blog/2007/05/14/who-is-participating-in-the-great-web-2-0-world

Read this “how-to” on putting technology to use in your nonprofit: http://nten.org/blog/2007/04/25/how-to-start-putting-technology-to-use

Session Notes

What a great presentation, Holly! I especially loved the translator/sherpa references, really helped me understand what's going on.

By the way, here's a cool little video from YouTube that sums up Web 2.0 in a most interesting way... [1]

Some of Holly's main points include: (you can download her presentation above)

• You are no longer the interpreter of information. You are a facilitator. You are a location where like-minded people know they can gather and have conversations.
• You want to use tools that bring people together and break down barriers to information.
• Ask yourself if your web strategy: 1. enables listening, 2. convenes conversations, 3. let's stakeholders share information, and 4. integrates.
• Commit 21 days to creating a habit with a new media tool. In those 21 days, document your experience using the tool as an individual and feel out how you want to use it in your nonprofit.
• Tags / Social bookmarking: try out del.icio.us, magnolia, furl and flickr
• RSS (see the breakout session on this topic)
• Blogs (see the breakout session on this topic). Note that blogging requires a certain capacity, comfort and competencies to do well.

The types of tools available to us for use include: • Tags • Email campaigns (fundraising OR action-oriented) • RSS • Blogs • Podcasts • Wikis • YouTube videos

Tags Tags, also known as social bookmarks, are a way to mark places on the Internet that you want to find again later. These are similar to bookmarks you put in your browser, however, they are available for others to see and use, and you can assign multiple keywords to them to allow them to emerge in a number of different searches. The tags are stored in a publicly accessed site such as http://del.icio.us/, http://ma.gnolia.com/, or http://www.furl.net/. You set tag access for for others, so the tags are not public (I think).

Tags can be used for building a knowledge center, hosting a photo contest, or publishing photos from an event that are then available for anyone to download, instead of clogging people’s emails with large files. Try using del.icio.us as a search engine instead of Google and see what you think.