State of Digital Leadership in the UK non-profit sector

This report will be coming out in September on www.digitalleaders.org.uk

Report covers following areas

• Why this report 
• Digital Leaders and why we need them now 
• The State of Digital Leadership (survey findings) 
• What is needed to develop Digital (Leadership) 
• Implications for Digital Leads 
• Implications for Senior Management

If you have only 5 minutes, have a look at this Buzzfeed-like summary of the report and conclusions.

Facebook on Google Plus > a step towards social search?

Many people have been wondering how is Google+ going to go down with mainstream audience. Seeing that Wave failed abysmally I reserve my judgment until I see how this story develops over the next few months.

I am a great admirer of Google. I think it has best usability, design and brand... I even like it's improving ethics. So I have a lot of time for Google+.

However, for many people Facebook is not just a website, it's a destination - people spend hours there talking to their friends, updating their info, stalking other people... So it's hard to see why they would change their daily habit and switch.

It seems that Facebook on Google + (currently only available for Chrome and Firefox and doesn't yet work on mobile) might be a solution to this conundrum. If you install this application you can view your FB content in your Google+ stream. The down-side in terms of usability is that as soon as you click on any links in your FB stream, you are taken to your Facebook profile.

Now is this really a down side as Read Write Web says in this article or could it be that this app is the first step towards enabling Google to become a leader in social search? In order to enable the viewing of your FB feed in your Google+ stream, you need to allow Google access to all your FB data (as per any other FB app).

Which is exactly what Google needs to be able to mix up the info about yours and your friends preferences with it's already superior (to Facebook) search results. So let's say you are searching for a pub in a certain area - you will get paid and organic search results as well as results based on your fiends FB Places check-ins or comments about a location in their status.

Obviously if I figured this one out, so will FB and they might feel that this is too much of a threat to their plan for world domination. For instance, they would lose views on their advertising which doesn't get pulled through into Google+ through this app. At the same time, the technology used to develop these apps seems to be straight-forward FB open platform, so I am not sure how FB will justify shutting this one as they did before according to the same article on Read Write Web.

Greenpeace rocks my (digital) world - again!

In July Greenpeace's been dominating my digital world with their two brilliantly executed campaigns - Barbie the rainforest destroyer ergo chainsaw Barbie and VW - Dark Side.

The Barbie campaign has launched with a video of Ken musing about the nice life he has with Barbie only to learn that she has a nasty habit - destroying rainforests. This is how Greenpeace launched their campaign to stop Mattel using paper from rainforests for toy packaging.

The next day Ken dumps Barbie via a huge banner on the HQ of Mattel. Naturally, Greenpeace supporters visit Barbie fan pages on Facebook and start asking difficult questions. Mattel closes the page. So far, familiar Greenpeace work.

The Barbie-hunt begins - find a hidden Barbie doll, report it, unlock the next task which will help spread the word, get an exclusive t-shirt. Everyone - from volunteers to campaigners taking part - were having a great time.

Then, few weeks later, Twitter tells me that storm-troupers are in Old Street, climbers are putting down banners. A video is being released:

Greenpeace is asking me to join the rebellion against the Dark Side embodied in VW fighting CO2 emission cuts. I join in alongside almost all my Twitter friends. Frenzy begins, we are all clicking on each other's pages to earn points and get to the next level of Jedi training. And all that to win a t-shirt!

I scream across the office:"I'm a wookiee!" and I don't even know what a wookiee is. [I didn't get most of the Star Wars references in VW Dark Side emails to the shock of my geeky friend. I am not ashamed to admit it - I liked star wars because I was in love with Luke and then Solo and then I wanted to be princess Leia and the I liked Luke again]

Having fun with it

What's common to both of these campaigns is the playfulness of campaigning asks which makes participation fun and cool. And Greenpeace went all the way, they are not compromising. The campaigning message is underlying everything I read, but it isn't in my face, the priority is to provide me with a fantastic experience which I want to shout about.

The tactic paid off - a couple of weeks into the Barbie campaign Mattel (and other toy companies in case they were Greenpeace's target too) begun to see Greenpeace's point of view.

Sorry, didn't get it

The challenge of prioritising fun experience over message is that the message can suffer at the early stages of the campaign. I found it difficult to see the connection between mainstream characters of Barbie and Star Wars and environmental campaigning.

The Barbie campaign launch film played an important educational role - it introduced the issue so the final message about stopping 'Mattel packaging toys with destroyed forests' kind of made sense....

With VW this wasn't the case - after watching the launch film I wasn't sure what the campaign was about - how can one car company oppose cuts in carbon emissions in Europe?

The campaign message is a bit more complicated which probably means that for a majority of people it won't go further than Star Wars enjoying a game.

And there is nothing wrong in that.

The theory goes that these are campaign leads and a small percentage of them will be converted into 'real' campaigners. If the volume is high, this strategy can work really well. So if Greenpeace gains 10,000 campaigners from their 200,000 Jedi gamers - that's a good deal.

Marketing is OK

Looking at Twitter feed during the first day of VW campaign, some Londoners were clearly confused - commenting that VW has done a good job on George Lucas to get the permission to use Star Wars characters. Even the leaflets looked too much like VW and, for all the skim readers out there, the message could have be easily seen as VW promo.

Greenpeace has been shy with promoting their brand (although I hear that this might have something to do with legalities of doing spoof campaigns) and reluctant in asking for money for campaigning (although a shy donate link on the Dark Side microsite is much more than they ever did before).

While most NGOs have a very prominent donate button on their homepage/emails Grenpeace hasn't. I am sure that campaigners who are passionate about Greenpeace would be passionate enough to donate as well. So, once Greenpeace recruits new campaigners of the back of VW Dark Side, I would expect them to design a journey which will ask for money as well as actions, both at the right time for a supporter.

Lessons for the rest of us: Don't get depressed

I know for a fact that a number of NGO digi teams looked at VW dark side campaign and got depressed because 'we'd never be able to do something like this'.

Bur let's not get depressed and let's draw some lessons that can apply to all of us:

- Be fun, give people an excellent experience, take them on a fun/enjoyable journey. People will then be more likely to give you some time and engage with the complexities of the message. I always remember e-campaigning forum 2004 when Prof Stephan Coleman of Oxford Internet Institute said something along the lines of - The problem with charities is that they are no fun, why would I engage to be made feel guilty.

-At a start of a campaign, providing an excellent experience to your supporters is more important that drilling into the depths of policy supporting your campaigning message. Once you attract people's attention to your proposition and brand, you can move to the next level of explaining. For example VW Dark side emails were a good example of this - they were revealing the detail of their campaign as I was going up the Jedi training scale.

- These two campaigns show that we can be playful within our resources - Greenpeace didn't develop an expensive game which is trying to compete within the gaming market. Both campaigns are actually technically/visually very simple but very funny in a clever way.

- Do not launch two big campaigns in the scope of few weeks - it might work for Greenpeace as they get companies to crumble under their pressure pretty quick. But as a Barbie hunter, I am a bit upset that I am being told to switch to Star Wars geekery so quickly. Although I admit that there is a gender divide on this one - a friend was saying that he got a lot of flack for 'liking' Barbie FB page.

It will be interesting to see the recruitment results of the Greenpeace campaign in 6 months time and see if the assumptions I made are correct.

Charity apps - to do or not to do

In the past few days I had a number of discussions with colleagues about smartphone apps - should charities do them or not?

We ended up with two schools of thought:

1) you build an app which people will find genuinely useful and will fire it up every now and then. Example of such apps are - Water Aid's toilet finder, Marie Curie's tea app, MacMillan app that helps you find an independent coffee shop where you are, St John's ambulance first aid app.
2) you build an app which will serve up your content in a simple, clear, easy to navigate way, much neater than your website - such as the latest one.org app (US only), Amnesty International app (AI candle) or Red Nose Day.

Plus in both scenarios if the app is new, cool and everyone is talking about it - you get PR. Think Ihobo app.

I personally favour the first school of thought and see the logic in the PR argument although would think twice before investing a lot of money.

Just optimise for mobile

And here's why - there are three main barriers with apps:

1) people need to download them
2) they need to actively open them
3) and sometimes, they need to actively update them to get new content

This assumes a good amount of enthusiasm and some kind of need at user end.
And this is where I usually have a reality check......

We know that most of website content comes through our own marketing push through email, online advertising, PPC, media stories and now more and more through social media. With apps, at the moment, we don't have this mechanism unless people allow push notifications (and I am not sure how many people really keep them on).

So the user journey you have is:
User receives email, they pick it up on their mobile phone, they click on the link and...... they end up on your website... Which is ok, but not that easy to use as links are tiny and you can't press the link easily etc etc... User needs to be really keen to go and fire up the app in order to access that content...

Much better investment of time and money is to just optimise your emails and websites for mobile.

Apps graveyard

There is a graveyard of apps out there - most popular and used are games, and even only few of those catch on. In summary - really really difficult market.

Saying this, I think Red Nose Day app worked really well, but it had a clear ambition to serve a specific audience that they know they have access to for a limited period of time.

Also, there is no doubt that some charities have a very committed supporter base who will happily use their favourite charity app because it does something they need.

All in all it does come down to the basics of developing any digital/comms product - you need to clarify what your objectives are, what does success look like, how you'll measure it, who is the audience you are aiming the app at and what's their profile, how will you promote your app to that audience, etc etc..

Costs

From my experience prices of app development vary wildly and it's all dependant on how much of new design and technical wizardry you need for an app. I think it's best to keep it simple, use features that are well established, tried and tested because if app doesn't work once, that's it - it's unlikely users will try it out again.

Also, my tech colleague has been playing with Iphone app platform and has built some really simple apps. So if this is of interest, it's good to get internal teams to experiment. You just need to register with Apple.

Plus, there is an opportunity to partner an agency who want to do an innovative new thing in this space. As a result, a charity gets a free app and PR and the agency attracts new business :)

There are couple of other articles on this topc from the US which offer some additional insight along these lines:
http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2010/11/26/are-nonprofits-wasting-time-developing-mobile-apps.html

And in this article they give some more examples and advice
http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2010/8/31/nonprofits-take-a-dive-into-mobile-apps.html

And what about Android?

Keep a watching brief. Android market is not growing as the predictions have you believe and it's mostly because the app market is not managed and it's like Wild West. So a lot of rubbish

out there. Android adoption is on the up no doubt, but if you want to test app market, starting with Apple is probably the best first step. Both developer and consumer markets are more mature and if your apps works in this environment, it will work with Android too.

Final ECF2011 reflections and Presentations

ECF is coming to a close shortly with few more presentations.
It was a good forum as ever...
Loads of good energy and good discussions.

It is interesting to note how the change in the profile of participants has changed the discussion a bit...
Before the forum was full of digital comms people working with Campaigns teams sharing their experience and ongoing issues we had to deal with (mostly about feeling misunderstood :).

Now, the forum is a mix of campaigners who want to know more about digital, digital comms people who also do marketing comms people who started working recently in digital, agencies... Consequentially we moved on from very geeky very digital discussions and moans towards professional discussions sprinkled with a little bit of fear - fear of social media, fear of negative campaigning, fear for our privacy... I suppose it's good that we are feeling more confident and can focus on addressing the issues people are concerned about.
I do miss the geekiness and naivety of the early days of ecf though.. Don't get me wrong, change is good and we moved a long way. I am just allowing myself a bit of nostalgia... I think @hackofalltrades (Liam) the author of dismantling professionalism presentation will understand me here.

So two presentations I managed to write-up...

Change.org

Theory of a campaign - chop up a big issue into a number of small ones and win them one by one. Great idea - it does make sense..
Example: Issues around prejudice against gay and lesbian people in South Africa - too big. Needed chopping up into smaller specific issues, more tangible, achievable.

Websites

Brilliant presentation on how we use websites as a library rather than for funelling people to do what we want them to do. Too much focus on the home page while actually Google is our homepage..

It is kind of true but what people type into google is the brand name anyway which will land people on the home page. So it is still important.. But I agree, homepage needs to be more focussed. Some websites still have the structure which nicely shows the structure of the organisation rather than what we want people to do.

the next big thing

Facebook 0 - east africa - free internet but you can access FB. Issues with net neutrality - because some stuff is free some isn't.

beluga - messaging service for a group of people- bought up by FB

Lots of new internet domains

Facebook places winning over fousquare

micropayment apps - PayPal, FB credits, Itunes - when you can donate a small amount

Blue calypso - getting payed to advertise to your friends yourself - backlash - spotting astroturfing, churnalism. com - shows difference btw journalism and PR - a lot of articles are re-worked press release

klout.com -influencers on Twitter

honestly.com - mixing your online and offline influence

backlash next big thing - more investment in getting info from social media

Browsers become a social web -
Passport to use the web which has all your info on it - and that means that websites interact with you based on what's on your pasport. Web standard - Fb wants to offer an ID for you - web standard - something that will allow all this data to be put together.
Servers hold encrypted data and personalisation happens locally.

Enables push notifications - like on iphone

Social search - content so personalised that people's views will not be challenged.

There is a value in curating content for people - an this could be the space charities occupy? Not sure - is this what we are there for?

Video storytelling in campaigning

How can we better use video in story-telling?

What length video works for orgs?
Defining what you want the video to achieve

How do you promote your video?
Best practices using comedy
People include themselves into a video and pay to show up in the TV ad
in-house video teams or making a video cheaply
subtitling
video-hosting service
seeding videos in blogs or into websites
interactive videos - personalised

Storytelling - how do we actually tell the story using video

everygadget.com - showing people new inventions and showing people how to use it.
videoviolunteers.org - People reporting human rights abues

youtube video volunteers - people make videos on a topic when you ask them cos they are keen
episodes - done on Twitter with photos by Save the Children

charitywater.org

Guides for volunteers telling stories - raisingvoices

Hardest bit of the video is editing bit

Advice to people was to stop video after 1 min because people won;t watch more.

Amnesty's Invisibles - 4 x 10 min films - 500k views

Need to think why you are making a video - who is the audience?

Audio slideshows - can be more engaging than a video.

vimeo pro channel - you can see where people drop off - as well on youtube

Example of Comic relief slums package as an innovative, different way of telling a story that people can identify with.
rather than telling the story in the usual way charities do them.

Dismantling 'professionalism' to enable people-powered change

@hackofalltrades

Organisational use of social media is like introducing an agenda and a minute-taker into a pub situation.
Social media is the 'smoke break' of organisational campaigns and comms
Orgs are finding it hard to accept this.

While we are doing comm and campaigning professionally, that is not the case for people we are targeting/working with.

Social media is not professional space -
issues with professionalism is that there is a pressure to always be right. It's garder to have open/frank dialogues
There is an inclination to centralise everything
forgetting how to write as we speak - using short-hand making what we talk about more
leads to time-consuming process
makes it harder to get things done

www.concretesolutions.org.uk
Presentation to come.....

Digital campaigning in the South

How do we use the online campaigning that already exists in the SOuth.
How can we support local organisations..

1) We can serve one of two roles10 draw the world's attention to what's happening locally
2) Take the local campaigns and push them further

But int. charity can help when there is a threat to local activists.

Relationship building and fundraising

Tom Latchford, Raising IT- works with charities of all sizes helping them use web and social media..

three things:

1) taking collective action, tapping into existing communities

Leveraging people's close connections. The growth of Facebook was successful because they tapped into existing (university) networks.
St Paul's hostel/soup kitchens - asked for help to get people signing up to help them, volunteer.
They've put together a website before Christmas - asking people to take collection boxes into their churches - they collected 4,000 tins of soups. 400 signed up to be volunteers. Then next week collected 40,000 tins of soup.

MacMillan - same model of tapping into communities. There was none, so they set out to develop a community. But if the target is 1,000 in order to raise a million.
People signed up and immediatly were asked to be a team captain - so they saw this challenge as a challenge ot for themselves but for their network as well.

Introducing justgiving pages. They have just launched teams which taps into this potential.


2) segmentation

Seeing how well other sectors are using it - for example TESCO -
Using an example of online gambling - it went really big because technology gives them a lot if information about the people around the table.

By knowing people you can get them to do what you want.

Obama campaign is a good example - it was top-down coordination but it empowered people to spread it to their networks.

Pyramid:

raw data
customer insight
value levers (comms channels)
effect on segmented groups

[hm, not sure what this is - I think it's over-complicated the idea/process of segmentation]
CRM looking at individuals as well as their networks so that the networks can be take on a journey

Also mobile apps for fundraisers - so people can give by mobile - going through the roof
Raising IT have a CRM which seems to do similar stuff as justgiving (worth checking out if they are better than JG or Aartez)

3) taking people in a journey from taking action to become social advocates using social media - creating

Introduced he Seth Godin funnel:
“A new set of online tools makes this approach not just a possibility, but also an imperative for any organization hoping to grow. Give your fan club a megaphone and get out of the way.”

Looked at Twitter followers for the dyslexia charity and analysed their reach. And based on that targeted people with big reach and getting them to recruit more people..

Looking at Groupon model and see how charities can use it.
Used this for WWF - end result is face to face fundriaising... UNICEF uses the same tool.

Would be interesting how this model would work with campaigning??

From strategy to practice in the last 12 months

My presentation from ECF2011

Takes some time to load...

With thanks to Bryan Miller of Strategy refresh who has come up with this brilliant planning model for digital and who I worked with to develop and implement this digital framework for Save the Children. And he's can definitely find a lolcat for every occasion.

Clicktivism vs Activism - another discussion

For those of us who were not here yesterday for the clicktivism vs activism debate, we are taking it away for another spin..
The man conclusion of last nights debate is that online and offline activism can not work one without the other. Also

/more notes coming from @shrinkydinky http://ecflive.fairsay.com/22/19-clicktivism//

Building lists - powerful fundraising tool.
Don't we do the same with campaigns? We are inventing campaigns to engage people - is this ethical? There is a responsibility of what we do. Focus on numbers is damaging the quality of campaigns. Where you are letting numbers come into the way of the issue.

If you build the list in order to use it for engagement once we need them.
We shouldn't idealise what we had before.

Clay Shirky challeneged charity's idea of engagement in the network for good webinar:

Your users are not like you. activists are active, hence the name.
And if everybody outside of your organization cared as much about your subject as you do inside your
organization, your organization would be a thousand times larger than it actually is.

It’s not a matter of turning everyone into an activist, but rather a matter of saying, “We’re going to reach
people where they are. We’re going to reach people at the level that they care about this.”

If I go to Wikipedia, I don’t have to care about Wikipedia as a whole, I can edit one article. I can edit an article on the US highway system and never care that there are articles on both the Crimean War and Britney Spears. It doesn’t matter to me.
The smallest job I can do on Wikipedia is a tiny edit. I can fix a comma splice. I can change a typo.
And so, Wikipedia is able to integrate the work of literally millions of people because those people don’t
have to be activists, they don’t have to be passionate. In fact, they can be, just a little bit annoyed that
there’s a comma splice on a page they happen to care about, fix that comma splice, never be seen from
again, and still have added some value to the system.

If people see that they are part of a big group - it will help building a momentum around the issue.
Where are we actually powerful - in the polling booth really.
Difference in corporate campaigning and political campaigning. Corporations are bothered about how many people have seen your message and they will care about their potential and current customers.

We need to invest more in building up people to become more and more engaged

Erick Lee in the session yesterday - we are all on the same side. What about the right using these same techniques? british Gas buit a website for schools saying tat they are one of the greenest companies in the UK.

Another year another e-campaigning forum Plus Greenpeace presentation on mobile

Yes, it's that time of the year and here I am again sitting in the lecture hall of the St Anne's college in Oxford.
Many familiar faces here - a but surprised to hear that majority have come to ECF for the first time! That means a lot of new, fresh discussions and challenges - I am really looking forward to all that.

The first presentation is by Greenpeace International. When you think innovation – look at Greenpeace. When are they going to stop being so cool? It's so annoying (this is pure jealousy speaking obviously).

So Jusi Kivipuro leads on mobile innovation in Greenpeace International and he will tell us how GP is using it in their campaigns.

Mobiles now outnumber PC worldwide by 5 to 1. However they are used in different ways than we do:)

Some stats I have that confirm this but are also encouraging in terms ...
“By 2013 mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide.”*Gartner ‘Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2010 and Beyond: A New Balance’. Jan 2010

“For the first time, there will be over 1 billion mobile devices accessing internet by year-end , gaining quickly on the 1.3 billion PCs accessing the internet – as the former is growing at 2.5 times the rate of the latter”
Frank Gens Senior. VP & Chief Analyst, IDC. Speaking in 2010

Mobile is a bridge btw the real world and the internet. People get in touch when it suits them.
This bridge is Augmented reality – it doesn’t have to be this literally – it could be an SMS service which gives you info based on your location (I know of an example I think in Finland where you can get the appropriate bus schedule based on your location)

Case study - China

Looking at comm and campaigning.
Will look at fundraising in the future.
Wanted to run a number of pilot campaigns

Held three different campaigns to reach the new tipping point in mobile campaigning
300k subscriber to comms from Greenpeace - recruited over 18 months.
10 different mobile channels tested and created KPIs for engagement. [WOW]

Campaign - banned pesticides are used in the production by millions of farmers in China. Tried to improve regulation by getting supermarkets to change their sourcing policies and consumers buying habits.

Service for women who do all the shopping - which helps them in shopping and recommend produce for their favourite dishes.
Apps, mobile site, MMS, MMS
SMS - is the unifying platform that everyone can use while Apps are more exclusive - different operating systems, smartphones. But people who are using them are the heavy consumers. So they might be most active/most influential, although not the highest in numbers.
MMS - ads in MMS magazines. In China people read a lot over mobile. When you click on the ad you find the subscription service for GP info.
SMS push campaign - bought the list of people and asked them if they want to receive info about safe food.

Subscriptions followed by a serious of messages with info about sfae food and produce. Then they would have a link to a mobile website. Plus offline events and radip
Also paper ads promoting iphone apps. Had iphone ads as well as s60 - difficult to find developers for the former.
Took time to think about different channels they can use.

Marketing web to mobile - so people can sign up and get GP mobile guide to use it when they need it - so not trying to move them from web to mobile... Show how important it is to think the journeys through. Cos on the face of it, you wouldn't push people from online where you already g=have people one step away form a conversion....

Mobile was cost-effective for Greenpeace.
They could send messages that people wanted to receive. And they didn't kill and trees!

Audience questions

Good comment from the audience - in order to do mobile correctly, charities need to sort out their mobile websites first. Totally agree with that - so often we need to do the shiny stuff rather than sort out the basics, while basics bring better results...

Another question - Greenpeace focussed on reaching out to middle classes. They didn't try to reach farmers as they were not their primary audience.

Interactive service where people could reply to SMS' from GP? They did contemplate Ask Greenpeace type of service... Google developed a service where a farmer can ask a question and Google generates answers from the search and then they get pushed to human being if answers can not be found...

This sounds like that project in Nigeria 'Learning about living' for children is schools to ask questions about reproductive health. They could do it via web, phone and mobile. Mobile performed best - 10,000 text in the first month, hardly any questions through the web form, and there were pre-set answers that would be played back to the user... (stats from 2008)

Activate 2010 - summary thoughts

I went to the Guardian Activate conference on July 1 and below is the summary of my thoughts on what I heard there.

The line-up of speakers was really brilliant – from Clay Shirky, writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies, Internet pioneers from the South representing Global Voices and Ushahidi to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

The main take-away, which transpired from speakers from both North and South, is that the next big thing are mobile devices.

Eric Schmidt’s speech and subsequent interview by Guardian’s editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger summarised the day well.

“When you plan, start with the Internet and mobile. … Clever developers build mobile devices first, it used to be…..for Mac and PC platforms…. Mobile web is growing 8 times faster than the PC web”

According to Mr Schmidt, mobile devices will introduce new revenue generation models both for advertising and subscription: the world of downloadable content (like newspapers) opens up a whole new world of advertising.

The news will become more personal, i.e. served up based on your previous behaviour. So you won’t be served up information that you already know – just what you showed interest in over time. Is there a risk of making our world-view too narrow? Very possible, when I think about Clay Shirky’s figures on billions of hours humanity spends slumped in front of the telly in comparison to tiny amount we spend in creative process - i.e. using our brains.

The new technology is about “nowness” – this isn’t only about the rapid response and spread of information, but also about the technology – so called cloud computing – which enables different bits of software to talk to each other in real time. The example Mr Schmidt gave is what Google wants to make happen on mobile phones: Two people talking to each other in two different languages real-time using voice2text2translation algorithm. This is a mix of Google Voice (transfers voice to text messages, not available in the UK yet), Google Translate (one of the best online translation systems I’ve seen) and Google Wave (collaboration system which was one of the biggest disappointments after a major hype around its launch). Google Wave struggled mostly because it needs a lot of computers to work and the system was painfully slow. But adding computer power is no big feat and is plausible that this technology will actually be used widely in the near future.

So mobile devices are the stars of the future.

For the South smartphones and mobile devices mean being able to buy a computer and access the internet and other downloadable information. Iphones and Ipads are the current fad in developed countries, but they are too proprietary to become massive in the emerging markets where open standards allow for the development of applications which are accessible through any mobile device. Simple easy to use technology is what really helps the poor – to quote one of the speakers – The poor are too poor to tolerate bad design.

The other examples of use of technologies overseas were what we already know. However, it is good to see that this area of technologies for development is still going strong and growing.

The presentation from the founder of etsy.com – the online community shop where people sell their crafts - was really interesting and had some inspirational ideas. For example, their basket cross-sell is not based on “people who bought this also bought” but on “your friends liked/would like this”.

One of the scariest presentations was from Sharon Biggar, COO & co-founder, Path Intelligence. They tried to enable offline retailers to know as much about shoppers as online retailers do. So while online you can now pretty much everything about how people interact with your shop, when they drop-off, etc, offline this is all based on surveys and interviews which isn’t as reliable as people under or over-claim and there it doesn’t contain as much data. So Path Intelligence collects data of human behavior in real-life shops (via infra-red I assume), which is then crunched to get the results and then they decide how to design shops. I suppose the never heard of Mary Portas ☺

Charitable World Cup mania

The number of World-Cup related websites, widgets and geeky things created by charities is growing by the day.

It started off with Shelter:

http://worldcup.housebling.org.uk/

You can decorate your house for the World Cup they launched it on Thursday 10th June.

I like the geekiness of it but, even though I am the last person to talk about privacy, this app freaked me out a bit. As it seamlessly links with your FB. And I thought I opted out of that.

Many people have done it though... Would be interesting to know if they raised any money (not that this was the main point).

Then Amnesty International launched this FB app
http://apps.facebook.com/standupunited/

A bit complicated - I lost interest and then when I realised that I was meant to find photos of my friends to make them team members I gave up.
But apparently, there are many apps like this on FB, so I suppose there is an audience for it.
And again - by accepting the terms of this app you give out access to all your friends, photos, etc... I find this scary but I know that young generations just don't care.

Then Oxfam's
http://dontdropaid.org/

This is using the idea of Eternal Moonwalk a tribute to Michael Jackson which was then used for Stop Climate Chaos' The Wave - sadly this website is now re-directing to SCC website so you can't see how successful it's been.

Book review: SMS - mobile uprising in Africa

The request by BOND to review this book couldn’t have come at a better time. I was preparing for a trip to Nigeria to help the local Save the Children create a digital strategy for our child survival campaign. Mobile penetration in Nigeria is high. The country pioneered the use of SMS in their last elections in 2007 when they used Frontline SMS to report election violations. It is obvious that mobile should be the core of any digital strategy. But how has the technology developed recently and how is mobile now being used for social change on the continent?

“SMS uprising – Mobile activism in Africa” was exactly the book I needed to read. Opinion pieces from leaders in the use of SMS for development, from Ken Banks of Frontline SMS to Becky Faith of TacticalTech, combine examples which excite and enthuse with the harsh realities of the digital divide and the political and community contexts that have kept SMS from becoming a significant tool for mobilizing masses in taking action for change.

Yet technology is changing by the day and there is a lot of optimism about the lowering costs and accessibility of mobile phones. This will enable access to mobile internet and open up the benefits of the world wide web to more people in developing countries.

There are also examples of amazing innovation that people in Africa enjoy which we could only envy. Paying your electricity bill by SMS? Sending money to someone via text? Kenyans have been doing this for some time through M-PESA.

And then think about Kubatana in Zimbabwe. Operating in the atmosphere of total information black-out and censorship, this courageous organisation provided essential information and a space where people could voice their opinions and vent their frustration about the chaos caused by the last elections.

Following the 2007 elections in Kenya, Ushahidi – a mash-up of Google maps and SMS used as a reporting tool, enabled ordinary citizens to put violence hotspots on a map for everyone to see. This genius technology has seen wider use recently like in Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake.

The book also has a significant focus on the issues of women’s access to technology. While women are the main actors of development, their access to technology is often through their male head of family. Also access to technology can change their status within a family – by using mobile phones to earn small amounts of money, women can reach positions of power which then can lead to increase in violence against them.

In summary, a fantastic book which provides a window into current and future (mobile) technology in Africa and, by extension, a lot of the developing world. As it shows a plethora of SMS uses in development projects, this book is a must-read and a guaranteed inspiration for NGO professionals.

The book published by Hivos and Pambazuka press.

UK elections 2010: Vote matching apps

Knowing that UK elections are around the corner, I have been looking out for different vote matching websites. The websites take you through a number of questions and then give you your own personalised short-list of political parties to vote for.


Votematch.co.uk

The first votematch.co.uk website I ever saw was for the London mayor elections in 2008. Apparently it was used by over 40,000 Londoners . It was a neat little website produced by Unlockdemocracy - you choose whether you agree or disagree with statements which in turn produces your shortlist plus you can sign-up to get an SMS reminder how to vote on the day. The website was easy and quick to use although the statements were bias - all the non-lefty statements were leaning towards right-wing so I would be surprised if UKIP and Conservatives made anyone's shortlist.

For this elections, Votematch.co.uk has been seriously vamped up - in addition to the website, there is also a votematch application on Facebook. 30 questions, user indicates if they agree or disagree and then at the end of the process they indicate which are the most important policy areas for them. Thirty questions did feel like too much at one point, but because statements were written in normal language and were fairly distinct, it managed to keep my attention and get me to the end of the process.

MyVoteAdvisor

Few days ago I came across this website.

It's a really nicely done website very usable in its use of design and layout. However, the mechanics of it are really complex - users are asked to chose the parties they are interested in, then chose between 11 areas of policy (from environment, health and defence to immigration and education) and then rate party responses to 5 questions within each area.

If, like me, a user chooses 3 parties - that is over 100 policy statements to read and judge. In addition, a user can rate how important each of the 5 questions within a policy area is... Phew! It gave me a headache.

Also, the party statements were probably taken out of policy documents and as such, most are impenetrable or can be understood in a number of different ways. So just skimming through won't do.

Although the website creators instruct the visitors many times that they can skip some of the 11 policy areas, I found it easier to drop out of the process altogether than rationalise and grade how much I care about different issues.

My short-list
And in case you are interested, this is what my voting shortlist looks like in the order of preference:
My voteadvisor - greens, Libdems, Conservative, Labour.
Votematch - Lib-dems, Labour, UKIP, Conservative.

Yes, there is a little Hitler in all of us ;)

Vote power

Just today my Twitter friends all told me how powerless their vote is thanks to this neat website. I was confused by their tweets "The power of my vote is 0.12" - I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. But the assumption is that democracy = 1 person, one vote. So 1 is ideal. And then there is the whole explanation on how this index was devised which was super interesting (if you like stats).

Slapometer.com

This one doesn't really help you chose who to vote for. It's more of a light relief after you've been diligently researching party manifestos, listening to leaders and others debates, etc...

Vote with the back of your hand. Surprising how much fun it is to be violent.

Election challenge/

I love this website!
Ideas are user generated - some are odd, some just plain stupid, others are very good. Every user can say if they think other people's idea are good or bad as well as add their own idea. The varied ways of describing good and bad ideas keeps user attention for a long time - this is the only of the elections websites which kept me going for some time. People's ideas are published on Twitter as hot - if they are voted for by people or New - as new ideas come up.

CountMyVote
A website that shows you what the "real" situation is in marginal seats and therefore who you should vote for if you want to vote tactically. Who are the main two parties going head to head. In my constituency the fight is between LibDems and Labour apparently. If only! Then I realise that the stats are based on the votes by website visitors.

ecampaigning open space: 38 degrees & chatroulette

38 degrees
Monitoring the stats in order to understand what works what doesn't.

They had a sign-up in the header - this was confusing - people thought that by signing up they were signing the petitions. When they removed the signup form the header they saw an increase in people signing a petition.

On thank you page - they added counter + Share and Tweet. This increased the engagement. They used Google optimizer for these tests and it confirmed all these changes.

Counter increased conversions by 20%. When they added feed of people's comments activity increased 40%.


Tom - Torchbox

chatroulette- you can choose who to chat to. Press F9 to move to the next person.
Talking from one machine to another machine via Flash 10.

Exposure to the humanity in it's full "beauty". Some lovely and fun people but you have to see a lot of masturbating in order to get through to someone normal.

However the technology can be used for ecampaigning.
- peer to peer support - for people who are less able to be out in society (MS patients)
- activists linking with supporters - people who won't get arrested or go out on the streets but will be excited to meet thos who would.
- ask an expert

ecampaigning open space: MyDavidCameron

Clifford Singer
Sparkly web agency director

3 spoof websites

- bubblewrapped - spoof website around the banking crisis
- The other tax payer's alliance

Taking on the tax payer's alliance who are anti-public service. Tax payer alliance quotes generator, guide for the media.

- mydavidcameron.com - had a go with different messages and then released a template to people. Genuinely viral, peer to peer.
It started off as a single web page with few spoof posters. Other people contributed functionality. After few weeks a web developer provided a poster generator.

- it went viral witout the tools to easily share in social networks. It didn't matter initially but it was important to sustain the interest a bit later.
100,000 visitors within a week.

- spoof of Tory's RIP campaign, then "I didn't vote Tory before...."

Most of contributions were rude and not that funny. But other were brilliant.

Analysis:
- most of traffic came from Twitter. Minority of people but a small surge on Twitter causes peaks in traffic - people tell others about it through other online media.

Facebook and Twitter highest referals. 35% direct traffic - people emailing URL to people, 16% of traffic Facebook, 7% andybarefoot (poster generator)

Celebrity promotion
Bill Baily tweeted the URL - 10 times more visitors within an hour.
Other people took up the idea of poster generator - for example for calling for the referendum.

Media coverage - Daily Mail - first to cover the story. Traffic came from that too.

ecampaigning open space: Semantic web

Bunch of notes - will try to tidy up later...


RDF - resource description framework
Microformats -
my brother - example of formatting
foaf= friend fo a friend

Drupal 7 will have this installed by default. BBC has all the info already available in this format.

Ontology which lists all the relationships - not standardised. But can be reconcilled between different parties.

The opportunity is for all the info about projects to be put into one place. LIke here
www.wolframalpha.com/
or
http://www.aiddata.org/home/index

OpenCalais.com - can tag a document with a lot of semantic context based on what's in the doc.

Example

A number of websites talk about a same project - describing it with title, description, people, budget.
if we agreed the list of tags then we can share this project data accross websites.
Also, update the info about the project in one place and it spreads everywhere.

Possible application - link the data so you can find the information such as water expert close to you in a place in Africa.

Privacy statement

Privacy commons - we all sign up to the same set of rules. Same principle as Creative Commons.

You confirm identity in one place - open ID principle. You can confirm which of your data you are happy to be shared via semantic web.
Or you can have a token which allows you to login anywehere else - which means access to your data is time-limited.

Data portability pledge - organisation state that they want to release their data under.
It's about making supporters life easier in finding data. It's not focussed on benefitting NGOs.

Semantic web tries to make sense of data sets that you can get in search at the moment. So in summary it's a glorified search. Search with "intelligence".