Web 2.0 Expo and Us

So we were selected to have a table at the expo. The problem was, we had to "man" the table for the course of the conference, thus defeating any purpose to going and learning, and we really were unsure what we were trying to get out of it, given the audience. In addition, being from a completely different coast, we had to fly out any presentational matrials and a back drop. So the moral of the story is: just because it's free, doesn't mean it's helpful. We ultimately had to pay people to sit there, as well as recruit volunteers.

Adapt or Die : The Future of Volunteers Video : Rocking SXSW


Our panel at SXSW. Brought to you by the American Cancer Society. They're cool

Now We're Talkin' Viral!

We launched custom ecards for fundraising on March for Babies. Check it out. Who says nonprofits can't have a little fun while we're fun-draising?!

Be Careful What You Wish For

So we submitted March of Dimes in a contest for the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, which is a great conference that I sent a group to last year. There we met our new friends at Goto media and Scrapblog, who helped us pull togethere Every Baby has a Story. We submitted that project as a model for a mashup of 2.0 technologies and they give us, as well as 10 other non-profits a table at the conference.

We are so psyched!

However, now we have to man this table for three days, which means not attending the sessions of the conference. So we are stuck in a dilemma. We have asked for volunteers but it's a pretty big time commitment and someone would have to be pretty familiar with our web projects. Do we fly someone out the SF (from NY) to sit there for three days? Isn't that counter to what a nonprofit should do? And what should be our goals?

Non Profits on YouTube

I was on a panel called Social Media: Expanding the Nonprofit Reach with Maryrose Dunton, head of User Experience from YouTube. She has been one of the main champions for their Non Profit channel. She made a great point about what's "useful" on YouTube when it comes to Non Profits. Seems that most of us are limiting our videos to PSAs primarily, where in fact we should be posting more YouTube-ish videos - personal stories, experiences, etc. She pointed out One.org, who does a great job with their channel. And the theory is true with us at March of Dimes. our most visited videos are stories and archival celeb spots, rather than current PSAs.

The question is: what is the best way for a cause engage an audience looking for entertainment?

Bearing Down on non-profits

I have a friend who works for Bear Stearns. He doesn't know if he'll have a job on Monday and gave me tales of many employees who are personally over-leveraged. With my non-profit hat on, I can't help but think how important the banking industry is to all of us. These are our donors.

My friend actually participates in an activity for another non-profit (in addition to supporting my walk) and last year he had raised over $30,000 just from his colleagues at Bear. He isn't getting that this year. He anticipates receiving next to nothing from co-workers, if in fact, any of them are even there to ask.

So how is a non-profit supposed to cover the bases to protect from industry collapses - or a recession for that matter? Are people still going to pay for "red"phones? Show up for walks?

We are faulted for keeping "reserves" at too high a rate, but what are we to do in times of crisis?

Beth Mobilizes her Network

I'm at SXSW watching Beth Kanter, who is a non profit blogger. She entered the Global Giving contest sponsored by Steve Case to mobilize for a cause and she used every aspect of networking possible. She persisted and she won. She was relentless and passionate and personal with her story and it's a great example of what we all need to do. Hopefully I can add the case study here soon.

Ok, massive hiatus. new job has me distracted. but I'll be back

Every Baby Has a Story Launches

So, it's been a while and this thing is why. Check out my story page. Ok , it's not quite a story yet, but I'll spruce it up.

This project was a mashup of people and technologies that was nail biting. We worked with Goto Media in SanFrancisco on the front end, and scrapblog.com on the back end. Try it out. It's super cool

Penguins, meet Mickey

Disney is buying Club Penguin for $700m. of course!

So who gets Webkins?

PSA Contest Comes Alive

Here we are in PR Week

Health NewsDigest

Yahoo News

and bloggers are startin'

and Digg!! Yey, we have arrived!

Our Badges!

We've have them up since May, but I am debuting my own personal badge now. We created these as part of the WalkAmerica assets and they are totally personalized. People are scooping them up like crazy and we have other widgets and badges on the way.

Our PSA Video Contest is Live

Ok, so when we had the brilliant idea, it was a little newer - more unique, but of course now, everyone has a contest.

Here it is: our very own March of Dimes video PSA contest. The theme is Every Baby has a Story. Complete with cash prize. So there's submissions to YouTube, voting, the whole thing. Plus Tom Bergeron did a submission call to action video for us which is also on YouTube.

BLOG HIATUS?!

Okay so i took a big one - a huge one. Not that nothing has been going on. In fact, it's just the opposite, starting with the next post!

Idol Give Back - Some lessons for all of us

I've always been fascinated by American Idol's marketing genius. At the core is a great family values TV show. The whole family can watch - it cuts across the races, the sexes, and music genres. Around this strong core is the integrated marketing and extension of the product. (very Disney-esqe) - the magazine, the singles, the PR, the web site, the advertisers, and the concerts. But layering on the "Idol Gives Back" theme made their concentric circles fan out even further. They had MySpace in the mix, Disney/ABC, new sponsors, itunes downloads, and it went on and on. The team was fast and furious putting all of it together.

While I agree with Marc Sirkin that the tide may raise all boats - in fact, we had our WalkAmerica weekend right after the broadcast, I do question the charity approach that they took. So they raised all this money on behalf of an entertainment foundation, who is dividing it up between many charities. They are all worthwhile organizations, but it's interesting how they state that your money "could" go to one thing or another but it's actually not specifically designated. And where does one.org fit into the whole thing? Isn't the American public confused by the various URLs? And wasn't Bono pushing Red not White?

We can all learn from the integrated approach - and hopefully more media companies will want to look like heroes. But I'm not sure whether the American public knows exactly where they gave their money - would be fascinating to do a follow up survey....

Long Time No Post

It's true. It's been a little while. Not that I don't have anything to say, in fact I'm in information overload. I'm at the Digital Now Conference. Just heard a speaker, Susan Scott, the author of Fierce Conversations who said a few kernels of gold that are obvious but still need to be stated:

1. The conversation is the relationship. If the conversation stops, so does the relationship. Of course, this is why we need CRM and more specifically a CRM strategy. Because we lose relationships ALL the time. There are just too many to maintain in the way that we know how to maintain them. And a handshake or a nod won't cut it anymore.

2. People make decisions for emotional reasons, rather than economical ones. Good thing to note as a health-related charity - or any charity for that reason.

3. "Master the courage to interrogate reality". How many of us do this at work - this is also known as the brutal facts. Well fine, examine them, but don't ignore them.

4. What conversation are we avoiding that we need to have? Good answer from the audience to this one: what are we doing that has no value. Ah. This is the best one. If we really took this approach - examining how we spend our day based on the value of what we are doing - wouldn't we be so much more productive?

Dispatch from the Conference: Social Responsibility

Disclaimer: Loud Punk music playing so not sure if this will make sense - I can multi-task but there's a difference between music and noise.

It's a common theme it seems - this idea of companies needing to be aligned with social responsibility. In the same presentation, by a Baby Boomer, of course, there was a reference to the Gap. Sales have declined because the clothes are too "homogeneous". The same presenter made a reference to Bono as the poster child of this century for social responsibility. Bono - who became an icon well before the Millenial Generation was even born. But the dots weren't connected. We are all well aware that Gap was on board - heavily - with the Red Campaign, so why are they still in decline - shouldn't that be enough reason to shop there?

This notion was flipped by the Millenial generation speaker - Gideon yago of MTV (a "recovering VeeJay"). According to him, their youth/MTV audience doesn't accept celebs as the poster children for causes and they don't want to be told "what they should do". Instead, they want to see themselves - people like them, and what their are doing to contribute to society. They view participation as empowerment - their ability to have an effect. They see Bill Gates as a method for change rather than George Bush.

So sure, there is a big trend in social responsibility, but why is it so hard for us to get corporations on board? At he end of the day it's still about sales, right? Campbells soup saw the uptick last October. But where are the rest of the companies and why aren't they beating down our doors?

Youth Marketing Conference

Well, it looked realy cool - had a good logo, nice vibe, but very expensive. The conference is not quite living up to its promise - same old paper-thing bag - limited refreshments, and, maybe to seem cool, sour patch kids as a snack. Or is that just to be ironic? Some good people and I ALWAYS learn something but this year everyone seems to be talking about the same things. Except here, social networks have been shortened to "socnets" and Google doesn't get mentioned in any presentations. At the end of the day, it circles back to user generated content, ultra customization, and actually, social responsibility.

The good news in all of this is that marketers are realizing that causes can really help support a brand - that young people will value cause associations and it will effect choice. I saw the pink Campbell's soup label up on screen, heard (again) about Relay for Life in SL, and the Boy Scouts of America presented research. This "millenial generation", which seems to be the phrase winning out here, is very brand conscious and they are willing to pay more for what they want.

As a parent I want to croak.

As a nonprofit employee, I see enormous opportunity with this segment. More or less untapped. As long as we make it fun and add a customizable experience. In fact, that dovetails nicely into the basis for the Skoll Foundation for instance. This idea of "social entrepreneurs". Kids can come up with better ways of fundraising, so why don't we just let them go. Do it whatever way they know how and just bring it back when you're done. Maybe there's an Eppybird out there for us, but are we stiffling the geyser?

Marketing and Relationships

I keep coming back to what Stengel said in his address to AAAA (my previous post). Marketing is all about relationships - particularly for charities. Why do I give to one and not the other? Invariably it's my personal connection.

David Weinberger, the author of the Cluetrain Manifesto (among many other things)is going to further confirm the importance of "relationships" in his keynote at the next Womma conference, where he will:
"unravel the ways in which the Internet and Web 2.0 technology are changing the way companies market themselves. Hint: It's all about relationships".

Ah - what a concept. Not selling, selling, selling but saying "let's hang out together". At MOD we are trying to figure this out: how do you establish and manage millions of relationships that will last a lifetime? How do you attract people at every demographic and psychographic stage? And then how do we turn them into customer evangelists - which is the only way to make this possible?

P&G marketer tells the agencies what's up

I love this keynote address by Jim Stengel of P&G. It's all about customer relationships, which I think is the key to .Org 2.0. We're all behind the CRM eightball and still talking at people instead of with them. It's a big shift for the sector, but once we can enable constiuents to join the conversation - what a conversation we will have.