Mobilizing Youth

Google Earth/Ocean/Mars Tours

These tours are phenomenal. You must check them out:

http://earth.google.com/plugin/tours/#appalachian

Such fantastic uses for telling the story of a cause.

The YouTube Presidency

Good article that sums up Obama's approach to online video and its tremendous significance in politics to come:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1

Quote:

Since Obama was elected, the White House new-media-operations team has supplied YouTube with Obama’s “Your Weekly Address” videos, among other clips. The channel is regularly among YouTube’s most viewed and most subscribed. Beginning on Jan. 24, the president has appeared in various gilded White House parlors, speaking mostly about the economy. He eschews preamble, “God bless America” and other stock presidential rhetoric. In these clips, Obama usually starts with brisk optimism and then falls into a somber acknowledgment of the nation’s straits. Other times he runs the bad-good news in reverse....

When past politicians have been praised for their “use” of media, they’re often seen as having deftly orchestrated an advantageous relationship with the press — having somehow won them over, as democratic politicians might generally aim to do. Obama’s team, in producing and distributing more video (by far) than any past administration, has not so much won over political journalists as led the pack to become the new media on the White House beat. Does that strike anyone as unsettling?

Nonprofit GIS

Thanks to Spike for posting a link to this org in a comment on the GIS page.

Non Profit GIS:  http://www.nonprofitgis.org

So glad to see a resource like this come out - as I find mapping one of the most convincing ways to use the Web to involve, connect, and organize supporters... in addition to telling the narrative of a cause. Excited to dive into the site and see what's there.

Twitter Visualization Shows Who Influences Who

Now here's a visualization with real practical data that *anyone* can use - by inputing their own data or the data of people they know. It's a great example of a single-purpose visualization that has broad applicability. The scary thing is that it makes implicit personal connections very very explicit. This is the world into which we are already in... for better or for worse. 

Article:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_inner_circles_of_10_geek_heroes_on_twitter.php

Visualization Tool:

http://twitter.mailana.com/

Example:

http://twitter.mailana.com/profile.php?person=timoreilly&

Image of Tim O'Rielly's influencers:

 

ROI and HSUS

Here's a great post by Beth Kanter about ROI, detailing the experiences of the Humane Society. I profiled the Sunny the Seal MySpace experience in my book - and this post fills out more about how the HSUS is circling around developing ROI metrics. So glad to have some followup. Thanks Beth. 

Value of Twitter

A lot of people have been asking me about Twitter recently... including my mom who called it "Tweeter" which made me laugh. Here's the chapter on it that got cut from my book:

http://blog.mobilevoter.org/microblogging.html

(although an interview with Evan Williams is still in there)

I found this great presentation recently which does a nice job of explaining (below) and also a bunch of recent links. So I can now send people to this blog post to explain. Hooray.

Pogue from the New York Times on Twitter:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/twittering-tips-for-beginners/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue.html

The Wall Street Journal on Twitter:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123638550095558381.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

A great review of Twitter add-ons and resources:

http://www.typepadhacks.org/2008/03/twitter-tools-t.html

Political Tweeting:
http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/political-twitter-what-it-good-edition

Facebook faces off against Twitter: http://ow.ly/DJX
7-Twitter-Business-Applications

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work Business social media

History of computing

Nice animated video about history of computing with great audio track and closing titles are great!:

http://blog.picol.org/history-internet/

Genocide Intervention Network: One of the best social media case studies

This is a great example of a successful social media campaign. Be sure to read about it:

http://rootwork.org/blog/2008/10/using-social-networks-social-change-facebook-myspace-more

Using Social Networks for Social Change: Facebook, MySpace and More

View more presentations from Ivan Boothe. (tags: sns networks)

8 Benefits of Having a Nonprofit Blog

Good summary of top reasons to have a nonprofit blog by Britt Bravo. Find it here:

http://havefundogood.blogspot.com/2009/02/8-benefits-of-having-nonprofit-blog.html

Presentation for CAHHS

Hello to everyone from the CAHHS conference. It was great to meet you and to chat about hospital volunteerism. My PowerPoint presentation is embedded below - feel free to comment with questions or further thoughts. And remember that the slides near the end are very rough ideas at this point.

Ben Rigby's presentation for California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (CAHHS)

View more presentations from benrigby. (tags: cahhs)