Network technology
MixedInk: a new tool that provides genuinely new options
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 | Network technology | No Comments
Even in the fast-changing world of Web 2.0 tools it’s not often that we hear about a tool that’s entirely new. Yet that’s the case for MixedInk, a free service which launched in January and is now starting to be used for a number of high-profile projects. MixedInk allows a group to write text collectively, like a wiki, but can be used in a far wider range of situations thanks to an intelligent mechanism for resolving disagreement. Instead of asking the group to edit the same page, it asks individuals to express their own opinions, remix pieces of what others write together, and vote on the best language and ideas to arrive at a consensus position. › Continue reading
The social sector charges ahead in social media
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 | Network technology, Networks in action, News | 1 Comment
The common perception is that social sector organizations lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to the use of technology. Many nonprofits have little money to spend on overhead, after all, and IT is easier to squeeze than personnel. But the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released a longitudinal study that found nonprofits to be outpacing the business world and academia in the use of social media. This study was a follow-up to a study conducted by the Center in 2007 and compares organizational adoption of social media by the 200 largest charities in the United States. The headline from the results is clear: when it comes to fundraising, marketing, and organizing, social-sector organizations are using social media more frequently. › Continue reading
Clay Shirky: How Twitter Can Make History
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | Network technology, News | No Comments
Now that the media is increasingly social, innovation can happen anywhere, says Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and a member of Monitor Talent.
As part of a series of lectures organized by TED Conferences, Shirky discussed the changing media landscape and choices facing organizations looking to communicate with an empowered audience.
“In a world where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap, in a world of media where the former audience is increasingly full participants,” Shirky said that communicating “is less about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals” and more about “creating an environment of convening and supporting groups.”
Below is a video of Shirky, who also is an adjunct professor in New York University’s graduate interactive telecommunications program.
Will Twollars Take Off?
Monday, June 29th, 2009 | Network technology, Synthesis | No Comments
The advent of Twollars earlier this year offers the social sector another reason to take note of social media.
Twollars is a Twitter-based currency that combines two key trends shaping the social sector: the power of social media and the economy of micropayments. Conceived by two social media users (who, in true Working Wikily fashion, met via Twitter), Twollars, called the “currency of appreciation”, was designed as a way of rewarding positive action—a “thank you” that “could last beyond the brief act of saying thanks.” Twitter users, who are each allocated 50 Twollars, can award the virtual currency to other Twitterites—as a way of acknowledging them for posting helpful information, sharing a funny video, or writing something inspiring. › Continue reading
Esther Dyson on the big picture of social media
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | Network technology, Networks in action, Synthesis | No Comments
Several of the tools that kickstarted the revolution we now call “social media” were angel-funded by veteran venture capitalist and technology critic Esther Dyson: flickr, del.icio.us, and MeetUp. In a recent interview with strategy+business she shared her vision of the big picture: a fundamental shift toward more transparent institutions and a more relationship-driven economy. In other words, a world of working wikily. Here is what she has to say on topics relevant to our conversation, and four questions that her points raise for nonprofits: › Continue reading
Working wikily on mobiles
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | Network technology, Synthesis | 1 Comment
Mobile is one of the fastest growing and most talked about areas of technology. We wrote about it a year ago for our Packard team, and wanted to add more thoughts here. Given the pace of change and the incredible potential that mobile holds, it is worth stepping back and looking at some of the macro trends as well as implications for the social sector. Though we could write an entire post around any one of these trends, this post will focus on broad descriptions:
A “Twitter revolution” in Moldova?
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 | Network technology, Networks in action, News | No Comments
Long before Oprah’s first tweet, WorkingWikily has been covering the Twitter phenomenon.
In previous posts we described how Congress is using Twitter and how TweetsGiving raised a substantial amount of money for charity. Recently, Twitter was featured prominently in international news after it was reportedly used to bring together a “smart mob” of protestors in Moldova. More than 10,000 protestors were brought together using Twitter in combination with other social network tools such as Facebook (see our earlier post on Facebook’s use in Egypt) and Live Journal.
Social media is growing fast, going global, and growing up
Monday, March 30th, 2009 | Network technology, News, Synthesis | 1 Comment
Looking over the numbers from this month’s new Nielsen report, social media has clearly hit the global mainstream in the developed world, providing reason to believe that designing engagement around social media is becoming an increasingly normal path. Here are the three key points: › Continue reading
[SYNTHESIS] Social networking: it’s not just for millennials anymore
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 | Network technology, Network tradecraft, Synthesis | 2 Comments
The argument for foundations and nonprofits to get savvy with social networking sites just got better: the teen and twentysomething early-adopters are now rapidly being joined by their Baby Boomer parents and Generation X. For the past few years, social networking sites were the place to go to attract next generation donors–now they’re rapidly becoming the place to interact with existing donors. › Continue reading
New links from the holiday break
Thursday, January 8th, 2009 | Network technology, Network theory, Network tradecraft, Networks in action, News | No Comments
Thanks for your patience over the holidays. To make up for the break in content, here’s an extensive list of worthwhile links from the past few weeks, broken up by category: collaborative practices, serious tweeting, and technology/tools: › Continue reading
[SYNTHESIS] What online giving marketplaces might mean for philanthropy…
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 | Network technology, Networks in action, Synthesis | 4 Comments
Emerging “online giving marketplaces” like GlobalGiving , Kiva, DonorsChoose, and GiveIndia represent one of the most interesting intersections between philanthropy and social media that we’ve come across in our last two years of studying this space. These Web 2.0 start-ups are using online tools to connect donors to local issues, organizations, entrepreneurs, and social programs around the world. › Continue reading
Cracking open the gates to social networks’ walled gardens
Monday, December 15th, 2008 | Network technology, News | 1 Comment
With the release of MySpaceID, it’s looking like the social network is starting to break out of the “walled garden”–a development that could benefit the social sector. Using MySpaceID, any website can now outsource its login function MySpace, saving time and gaining access to information about that person’s friend connections to other users. › Continue reading
Making the case for change with Google Earth
Thursday, October 30th, 2008 | Network technology, News | No Comments
I doubt anyone forgets their first experience using Google Earth. You can zip from an astronaut’s-eye view of the entire blue-green marble down to a ground-level flight through the Grand Canyon, and then spin your way over to Istanbul to see pictures of the Blue Mosque with the flick of a wrist. › Continue reading
Online giving marketplaces: insights from the SSIR conference
Thursday, October 30th, 2008 | Network technology, Networks in action, News | No Comments
Lucy Bernholz kindly shared her notes from the SSIR conference on online giving marketplaces that happened on October 8th, which are insightful and well worth reading in spite of being raw. I was particularly struck by following three points: › Continue reading
SYNTHESIS (ARCHIVE): Technology-Enabled Activism in the Developing World
Thursday, June 5th, 2008 | Network technology, Networks in action, Synthesis | No Comments
There are increasing innovations in tech-enabled activism in the developing world as mobile phone usage reaches new heights, Internet penetration continues to climb, and the social media technologies of Web 2.0 have matured. Here we will briefly discuss (1) basic data on infrastructure, (2) the use of mobile technology as a tool for social change, and (3) the use of Web 2.0 for the same.
SYNTHESIS (ARCHIVE): Membership Organizations and Today’s “Social Citizens”
Monday, May 12th, 2008 | Network technology, Networks in action, Synthesis | No Comments
Web 2.0 tools are now being used to organize ad-hoc activism, without the need for creating new organizations or involving existing nonprofits. The rise in this ad-hoc activism is happening at the same time as many traditional membership-based nonprofits are having trouble maintaining their membership rolls and even the total number of nonprofits had registered a rare year on year decline (as recorded by the National Center of Charitable Statistics). What follows is a set of information we’ve gathered that informs how membership organizations philanthropies could respond to these changes.
SYNTHESIS (ARCHIVE): Prediction Markets: an Uncertain but Powerful Tool
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 | Network technology, Synthesis | No Comments
Prediction markets are increasingly being used to predict outcomes in sports, politics, and a number of other areas. Beyond these uses, Lucy Bernholz thinks that prediction markets could also be of great benefit to philanthropy more broadly (http://philanthropy.blogspot.com/2007/07/predicting-success.html). In this monitoring and scanning, we explore the usefulness of prediction markets and their relevance to philanthropy.
SYNTHESIS (ARCHIVE): Youth Engagement and the Social Web
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 | Network technology, Networks in action, Synthesis | No Comments
This monitoring and scanning report focuses on the range of ways with which the social web is being used to promote youth leadership, advocacy, and engagement.
A recent article in Slate described how young people are increasingly using social networks and instant messaging instead of E-mail, which posted an 8% decline last year in this age group (http://www.slate.com/id/2177969/pagenum/all/#page_start). E-mail has a number of shortcomings, and other platforms allow young people to communicate in a less time-consuming manner. For example, while an e-mail sent between users can only be read by the two parties involved, a message posted on a social network can be read by many more. As the web usage patterns of youth continue to change, organizations will also need to change the ways with which they reach out to youth.
SYNTHESIS (ARCHIVE): The Future of Social Networks: Customization and Passive Mapping?
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 | Network technology, Synthesis | 1 Comment
Although the news dominating headline has been Microsoft’s investment in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation, there have been several other important signs that point to social networking’s limitations as a business model. Unlike search engines, social networking platforms have not been able to generate significant advertising revenues. On social networking sites, ads are simply an annoyance that most users ignore. Despite its sky-high valuation, Facebook’s 2007 revenues were a paltry $100 million, and Rupert Murdoch recently lowered revenue forecasts for MySpace by 6% (http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/10/murdoch-cuts-my.html).
SYNTHESIS (ARCHIVE): Web 2.0′s coming of age
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 | Network technology, Synthesis | No Comments
In March, Chris DeCardy wrote a blog entry that pondered the existence of a “wiki bubble.” While it is yet to be seen whether such a bubble is a reality, the last couple of weeks in the media suggests that Web 2.0 is most definitely coming of age. We see this in the social sphere with NPR’s Talk of the Nation saying “If you haven’t heard about it [online social networking] you must be living off planet somewhere!” (http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2007/10/look_at_me_1.html)
