Web 2.0 and You

Thanks to all the participants in this week’s workshop for your energy, focus and contributions. Thanks to our hosts and sponsors at the Centre for Social Innovation. And thanks to sponsoring organizations The Sustainability Network and Creative Trust.

Participants from the arts organizations who work with Creative Trust may be particularly interested in our collection of arts examples. Sustainability Network members may be particularly interested in our collection of sustainability examples.

Thank you to the wonderful Sarah Pullman for making this event run smoothly — and for getting our energy going with yoga for geeks!

Please complete our evaluation survey so we can make future workshops even better. And please contact us at web2andyou(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to be notified of future workshops, or would like to offer a Web 2 and Workshop to your organization’s team or partners.

You can reach us with any questions or comments by e-mailing jason(at)communicopia(dot)com or alex(at)socialsignal(dot)com. Find more of our resources and ideas online by visiting the Communicopia web site and blog or by visiting Social Signal’s blog and tech tips collection. And continue to talk and learn from one another — and from the fabulous group of colleagues who took our earlier workshop in Vancouver — by joining the Web 2 and You group on Facebook.

PROCESS

1. Identify a facilitator/reporter
2. What is the challenge your organization is facing? (5 m)
3. Clarifying questions (5 m)
4. Discussion (20 m)
5. Wrap up: top 3 insights (5 m)

INDIVIDUAL CASES

1. BUILDING TRAFFIC

We just put up a blog, and it hardly has any comments.
How do we increase traffic and comments?
event blogging tie into an event real time
leave comments on other blogs that are related to your topic see boosting traffic with tags in Tagging for world domination, http://www.socialsignal.com/blog/alexandra-samuel/tagging-for-world-domination
mail out to attract people to blog
solicit comments from people on the inside/friendlies
reduce number of steps to get to comments by posting comments directly under article
increase interrelationship of different bits of content across the site

2. INTERNAL ADOPTION

We are looking at integrating new contact management and project management tools into our office along with other Web 2.0 tools.
How do we introduce new tools into our organization at a reasonable pace and in a way that ensures staff can use these tools effectively?
the challenge of change management
get CEO to recognize that change management/morale is an issue
identify a champion for change management
identify a staff member who has a real feel for one of the tools and make that person the evangelist integrate training/encouragement/learning into social event (but not a lunch & learn)
web 2.0 tools are not the problem; they are the lightning rod for other things going on in organization
every organization has both innovators & operators; they need to respect each other

3. REACHING YOUTH

We have a new season that is heavily aimed at teens, who we’ve had trouble attracting to our shows in the past.
How can we use Web 2.0 tools to build interest and awareness of our shows among teens?
how do we bring people who arent in school groups into the theatre
get students involved graduates from Humber etc to bring out sexy ideas the theatre wouldnt think of
job opportunities on site post volunteer positions too
theres an ensemble thats part of drama school program get the students to blog about their experience; interview each other; involve them in creating show from scratch
develop a brand specifically for students & high school kids
make it a good date night
keeping it authentic/real ideas that come from bloggers need to make their way up to creative team
give youth a seat at the table work with their ideas

4. SCALING TO STAFF AVAILABILITY

The most help we will have for our social web work is a staff person or volunteer working about 5 hours a week.
How can we use Web 2.0 tools to attract an audience to our events, working with such a limited level of staffing?
use interns, computer students, journalism students to interview musicians before/after concert & podcast those interviews
provide backstage experiences incl. pictures
how do we make the web site coming to it because people are gaining an experience they wouldnt get just from coming to a show? could be:
o backstage at a rehearsal
o interview with conductor
o picture of what happens pre- and post-show
what gets people to a show? what excites them? what do they want to learn more about?
how can we build on the most popular/most visited page(s) on the site?
who are the champions who are coming to the shows and might like to help?
send out an open call through newsletter to invite people to contribute e.g. recording/writing interviews, commenting on shows
branding: make sure people identify the production with the presenting company

5. RE-ENVISIONING YOUR PRIMARY WEB SITE

We need to overhaul our web site, but we only have limited resources.
How should we work at relaunching our primary web site, working within those limited resources?
How do we re-envision our current site?
e.g. http://www.nightwood.net
how do we make it more user friendly?
how do we increase sales?
how can it work with our mission/mandate?
how can it support our brand?
how can we speak to different audiences/stakeholders?
IDEAS:
set up outbound RSS feed so users/audience can subscribe to news & event updates
set up outbound ical feed to post events on upcoming.org and eventful
use facebook to notify people about new events
do some sort of needs assessment/survey to invite people to a focus group; find out what they want from your web site
encourage group sales via flickr (photos of groups attending shows visual testimonial) or podcasts (audio clips with reviews) or facebook (invite 10 friends and you come to the show free)
get your partners to link to your sites
place ads on facebook (ideally through alumni)
if you buy a ticket on the site, theres an incentive to invite a friend

• A communications tool
• A public diary
• Weblog
• Verbal diarrhoea
• Podium
• Some guy wanting to keep track of his day-to-day
• Dynamic content
• Stuff you’re putting on every day
• Soapbox
• Opinion
• Sitting around the campfire
• For people who have time
• Publishing content so the newest content is on the top of page

• how is it free?
• if nobody comments, that’s worse than negative comments
• this organization is NOT a democracy – we know what decisions we want to make
• do we have the time and energy for startup & upkeep?
• what if they criticize our work
• checks and balances – how do we manage volume/opportunities for participation? how do we get the right info to the right people?
• once we start, can we start?
• what if we get digged and our site crashes?
• what about the loons & hijackers? what about front groups/people trying to manipulate the conversation?
• do we become vulnerable to viruses? spamming?
• how do we protect the privacy of our users, especially children?
• do we open ourselves to hate mail/hate speech?
• how do we avoid sinking to the lowest common denominator?
• what if the City won’t let us access Facebook?
• how do we keep track of the community? how do we manage/track relationships?
• how do we ensure we’re choosing the most relevant media formats? how do we avoid becoming obsolete?
• what kind of voice should we be using to avoid sounding like a sales pitch?

• it’s free
• access youth
• expand your resources – let your supporters help you do your work
• help run a virtual organization:
• you don’t need an office; you can have virtual project management
• demonstrates transparency
• hear about things you didn’t know were out there, e.g. ideas you may not have come across; issues you didn’t know about; things that may be important down the road
• better search engine placement – more visibility
• hearing stories from different people about their own experiences
• make your site more interesting & compelling
• expand your reach nationally
• stronger brand recognition
• more revenue
• share knowledge immediately – in real time
• collaborate more effectively with your team
• hearing “negative” feedback allows you to hear things so you can respond & change in time
• gives people a reason to come back to your site on a regular/repeat basis – keep yourself on their mind
• people feel valuable b/c they are contributing
• increases sense of empowerment
• they love you more
• build better understanding of your demographic/supporters/public
• negative comments bring out positive defenders

6:00
Introductions

• Welcome, overview of workshop
• Who are we?
• Who are you? Why are you here? Participative intention setting, getting to know each other and your questions

6:30
Web 2.0:
• What’s it all about?
• Why is it happening?
• Why should we in the social sector pay attention?

7:30
Break

7:45
What are the Key Ingredients of Web 2.0? An overview of the purpose of, language around, and relevance to your organizational challenges of the following categories of tools:
For each tool we’re going to cover:

* what is it?
* why use it?
* who is using it? (examples)
* what makes a great strategy?
* how do we get started? (organizational issues and tactical tools)

Getting started with…blogging

• Examples of nonprofit blogging
• Blogging quickstart
• Featured tool: WordPress.com

9:00 End Tuesday Night

9:00
Welcome Back. Let’s look at the rest of the Ingredients of 2.0.

Getting started with…rich media

• Introduction to rich media
• Flickr (photo sharing) quickstart
• Gabcast (podcasting) quickstart
• Featured tools:Flickr, Gabcast

Getting started with..social bookmarking

• Introduction to social bookmarking
• del.icio.us (social bookmarking) quickstart
• Featured tool: del.icio.us

Getting started with…RSS feeds

• Introduction to RSS
• Google Homepage and Google Reader (RSS) quickstart
• Featured tools:Google homepage, Google Reader

Getting started with…wikis

• Introduction to wikis
• Wiki quickstart
• Featured tool: PBWiki

Getting started with…social networking

• Introduction to social networking
• Social networking quickstart
• Featured tools:Linked In, Facebook, MySpace

Getting started with…building an online community

• Introduction to building online community
• Change Everything quickstart

12:00
Lunch

1:00
Now it’s time to Solve Your Challenges (with our help)
• “Workshop Your Issue” with small groups
• Problem statement, brainstorm solutions
• Share what you learned

2:00
Open Session: Set Your Own Agenda:
Join any group that will discuss what you want to focus on, or come up with your own topic
a) Going deeper with technology and specific tools (led by Alex)
b) Campaign 2.0: how our campaign plans need to change in order to build more participation into the core (led by Jason)
c) Open Topic A:
d) Open Topic B:

3:00
Bringing this Back Home:
• Organizational development and change management issues around implementation
• How to be an Agent for Change: Selling these tools back in your organization
• Your personal “Bring it Home” plan

4:00
Open Discussion and Questions
• What was the most exciting thing you learned? What was the scariest thing? What is still unclear? How will your organization change as a result of this?

4:15
Web 2.0 Resolutions
• What’s the one word you are taking away about Web 2.0?

5:00

Please register for Facebook and join our Facebook group.

Gabcast! Our first podcasts #2

1. Welcome & introductions (6:30)

* Welcome
* Overview of next two days
* Introductions

2. Web 2.0: What’s it all about? (7:20)

* What is it?
* Are you ready for Web 2.0?
* Why should the social sector pay attention?

Break (8:00-8:15)

3. What are the key ingredients of Web 2.0? (8:15)

For each tool we’re going to cover:

* what is it?
* why use it?
* who is using it? (examples)
* what makes a great strategy?
* how do we get started? (organizational issues and tactical tools)

4. Getting started with…blogging

• Examples of nonprofit blogging
• Blogging quickstart
• Featured tool: WordPress.com

9:30 break for day