Collaboaration tools for non profit agencies

IBM centennial hashtag: #IBM100

Open Doors: Expand how you collaborate

A Presentation by Jennifer Nolan

May 19 2011

© 2011 IBM Corporation2 hashtag: #IBM100

Collaboration is achievement of results impossible to accomplish independently

– Rex Lee, RIM LotusSphere 2011

“”


A fundamentally different way people collaborate, how people work, how to establish trust.

– Sandy Carter, Vice President, IBM Social Business, Collaboration, and Lotus Sales and Evangelism

“”


Objective

1. Learn about ways you can leverage collaboration tools to help you achieve the vision of your organization.

2. Explore some of the free and low-cost on-line tools that are available to help you collaborate between your employees, partners, investors, and volunteers.

3. Learn about custom collaboration approaches


Agenda

How do you collaborate today?

What are some free/low cost tools for expanded collaboration?

What are some custom examples of collaboration?

Ok, now what?


What tools do you use to collaborate today?

Phone

Meetings

Hallway conversations

Events

Postal mail

Teleconference

Emails

Web meetings

Video Conferencing

Mass email newsletters

What happens to the conversations?

Conversations are limited in reach, and limited lifespan

Buried in emails / handwritten notes / recycle bin

Messages tend to be one way

Documents emailed back and forth


General Public

Participants / Audience / Members / Patrons

Volunteers

Who do you want to collaborate with?

StaffOthernon

profits

InvestorsBoard ofdirectors

Partners

Vendors


Internally

You collaborate together to achieve specific goals, utilizing each person’s skills and talents

You know each other, trust each other, know what each other can do

You share the workload


How do you take that model “outside” your organization?

Establish trust over time through open and sincere communications

– Making friends at school – something in common

Give external participants the feeling of participation / belonging / buy-in

Encourage your external participants to share the workload

Keep posting, keep it fresh

Keep it different – give & take

What is the culture that you want to set?

Who is your social business champion?


Tools for collaboration

We are going to cover tools in 4 basic areas:

– Establish an online community

– Collaboration on Social media

– Team spaces

– Volunteer hubs


Establish an online community

Establish a web site where the groups you want to collaborate with can easily interact with you and with each other.

There are many online sites that will let you build a web-site for free. However you may want to pay a small fee for the additional features that make the web site more unique (such as your own domain name).

It can be a simple blog where you let users comment, or it could be a group blog with multiple authors, or a true community site where everyone can post.

Assign a community manager, become a part of the conversation

Adding “widgets” expands the functionality of the site:

– forums, surveys, polls, contact us, user generated content, integration with Facebook, integration with twitter.

There are many “free web site” sites available. For example:

– Word Press http://wordpress.com/

– Drupal Gardens https://www.drupalgardens.com/pricing


Establish a custom online community

You can take the next step and contact a hosting provider that provides hosting as well as services to help you make your site look and function in a specific way.

Many graphic design, web site development, and hosting companies provide discounts for non profit organizations (and if they don’t, ask).

Or host it yourself. Multiple packages available.


Collaboration on Social Media: Facebook

Award winning Canadian Science Fiction Author, Robert J. Sawyer, has asked his friends:

– To provide feedback for two possible titles for his next book

– To provide feedback on whether having two characters whose names start with the same letter is a problem for readers

– To share which "classic" sci-fi books they would most like to see be made into a movie

– To find medical experts to vet portions of his upcoming novel

– To provide a good one-liner joke in a particular scene

A new orienteering club has asked members to comment on which logo they prefer

– VO2 Orienteering added 2 new photos to the album Choose your favourite VO2 logo!!!

https://www.facebook.com/robertjsawyer

https://www.facebook.com/pages/VO2-Orienteering/162943340408967


Collaboration on Social Media: Facebook

Ontario Science Center expert is answering specific questions about black holes

– Q: Kepler mission has found many extra solar planets. How will this change research, if at all?

– A: Because Kepler collects far more data (and collects it much faster) than earlier planet-finding efforts, the Kepler mission allows astronomers compare our solar system to other solar systems in ways never before possible.

Toronto Public Library will recommend a book for you

– “Today and next Tuesday (next Monday the library is closed for Easter Monday) are your last opportunities to participate in our Keep Toronto Reading book recommendations. You share with us three titles you loved -- a librarian from Readers' Services Committee will suggest another we think you'll love too. So, what are your favs?

https://www.facebook.com/ontariosciencecentre

https://www.facebook.com/torontopubliclibrary


Collaboration on Social Media: Twitter

Dissemination of Publications and Materials- I have used Twitter to post links to our grant deliverables as soon as they are published online. Twitter

friends with more followers then post the link and it is quickly spread to hundreds of people.Jennifer D. Jones, injenuity

Using twitter to get feedback throughout a conference- We set up a twitter account for a recent young people/youth work practitioners conference and asked

twitter to turn on auto-following. We got over 1/2 the delegates to follow our conference account so we could ask questions throughout the day, and we encouraged them to text in feedback, ideas, comments, inspirations. We were projecting their tweets onto the wall in the main room, and showing them on scrolling rss-tickers on all the other presentation projectors. It gave us a really useful 'gut reaction' form of feedback, that massively complements the evaluation form feedback - and allowed us to adapt parts of the event on the basis of instant feedback. Blog post reflecting on the process

Using twitter as a virtual water cooler.- I work from home, and my colleagues are my collaboration buddies, clients, colleagues. Twitter is a

great way to keep up with what is happening, so face-to-face meetings get up to speed much quicker. Blogs work the same way, though they tend to contain a different set of content.

From http://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/Twitter+Collaboration+Stories


Collaboration on Social Media: Twitter

Fostering Professional Connections - The principal of my children's school was considering using a blog as a communication tool for the school. He wanted to see some examples of other elementary principals who were already doing this. I tweeted a request for links to exemplary elementary principal blogs. Got a list of 4 excellent ones in minutes. I emailed him the results.Darren Kuropatwa, blog: A Difference, twitter: http://twitter.com/dkuropatwa

Informal Research - On several occasions, I have used TwitterPolls to get instant feedback about issues facing educators. After asking whether specific web sites were blocked by schools, over 30 people responded in about an hour. Perfect for getting some authentic results in a very short time, to either verify other research or letting you know if you're on the right track.Steve Dembo, Teach42

Using Twitter as a people-powered search - Courtesy from Web Worker Daily: "Try Twitter Instead of Mahalo for People-Powered Search". Luis Suarez

From http://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/Twitter+Collaboration+Stories


Collaboration on Social Media: YouTube

Customizable: Allows you to establish a channel

- “Your channel is your home for broadcasting on YouTube. It's the place to house the videos you make ("Uploads"), the videos you love ("Favorites"), and the videos you've organized ("Playlists"). Personalize your channel by selecting the background color, formatting and module options.”

Can embed on your own website without technical hassles

It is not just about posting “your” videos, but asking for responses

- Example: video wedding best wishes to William and Kate

- Example: Old Spice commercials

• “Subsequent to the release of the "Questions" Old Spice commercial, a YouTube campaign featured Mustafa reprising the same character and responding to over 100 YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Reddit comments in a series of brief videos. The short ads used the same humor as the TV spots.”

- Tell us your stories

- Fan art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Your_Man_Could_Smell_Like


Collaboration on Social Media: YouTube

Sharing work load:

“Well now the Real Academia Española (Spanish Language Academy) has created a channel on Youtube which allows everyone to share their particular “readings” of one of the most popular novels of all times, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

The idea is simple and unique for collaboration: the channel encourages you to record yourself on a video reading a passage of the novel and share it, so it will turn out to be an Universal Reading where thousands of voices get together to revive the daydreaming Spaniard Knight-errant.”

Recycling a bottle, flashmob style

http://www.collaborationideas.com/2010/09/a-good-example-of-collaboration-quixote-2-0-channel-on-youtube/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYnd5JRu86E


Collaboration on Social Media: SlideShare.net

http://www.slideshare.net/wildapricot/apricot


Collaboration on Social Media: Flickr & photo sharing

US State - asked public to post photos of problems with waterways

Chinese Government - asked people to post photos of “pot holes” and other problems before olympics

Sharing photos from an event – use the tag!


Microvolunteering: Sparked.com


Macro volunteering:VolunteerToronto.ca CharityVillage.ca


Team Spaces

Volunteers

internallyOthernon

profits

InvestorsBoard ofdirectors

Partners

Vendors

Teams are often not working in the same office


Team Spaces: Google Apps

http://services.google.com/apps/site/overview/index.html


Team Spaces: Real-time collaboration

http://docs.google.com


Team Spaces: Real-time collaboration

Multiple people editing the same document – at the same time


Team Spaces: Shared Calendars

Have multiple calendars, all in one view, each with their own settings. Share what you want, keep other calendar’s private.

Use for Team Calendars and for public event Calendars


Team Spaces: PBWorks.com


Team Spaces: Dropbox.com

Document repository - Access to uploaded files anywhere

Establish timelines / tasks

Discussions

Control who you share with

Looks like a folder in windows

Easy to start using

No feature overload

Mobile app


Team Spaces: BaseCamp

Online project planning

Online document sharing

Shared tasks

Shared milestones

http://basecamphq.com/


Custom collaboration applications: Toronto Community Foundation – Community Knowledge Centre http://ckc.tcf.ca/


Custom collaboration applications: MBRT.org


Ok, now what?

What are we trying to achieve ?

What makes us different ?

How will we measure our progress toward our goals ?

Who is our social business champion ?

What are similar organizations doing ?

What are un-related organizations doing ?

How can we apply these tools / approaches to our own goals ?

How can we apply other tools / approaches?

Raise awareness

More use of our programs

More investors

More volunteers

Specific goal


Exercise

Share a specific goal that your organization is working on

-What are you trying to achieve ?

-What makes you different ?

-How will you measure the progress toward this goal ?

Everyone else

-What are similar organizations doing ?

-What are un-related organizations doing ?

-How can they apply these tools / approaches to the goal ?

-How can they apply other tools / approaches ?


Collaboaration tools for non profit agencies

Technology

collaboration tools

online community collaboration

expanded collaboration

web site development

free web site sites

free https

true community site

custom online community