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    « Rethinking Web strategy for nonprofits: The New Best Practices (1/3) | Main | Rethinking Web strategy for nonprofits: The New Best Practices (2/3) »

    January 11, 2009

    Comments

    Hana

    Hey. If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play at it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.
    I am from Argentina and also am speaking English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "Not only is our trained staff here to help you find whatever it is you."

    Thank you very much :D. Hana.

    Offshore Software Development India

    Hey Kate same with me. I always have better to write or better words to use and praise for something. But the comments have covered all the things over here.. Very good Job...

    Kim Ratcliff

    Great post. I have written about this too, at toknowbetter.wordpress.com.

    Regarding nonprofit work, were you involved in the Community Shelter Board branding process? Barb Poppe is a good friend of mine, and I implemented the brand guidelines ologie did in the form of annual report and data report for CSB.

    Cheers.

    S.D.

    The handicap of social media is the same handicap I encounter with telecommuters: there is no replacement for physical connections (i.e., eye contact, hand shakes, pats on the back, and just being THERE). Social media can be a hollow alternative that's a symptom of a society which is eloquently presented in Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone. So as I hypocritically add to this medium, I recognize that social media is good for marketers who can exploit this trend, but generally not so good for society as a whole who would do well to understand why work, television, and the Internet has usurped togetherness (I realize that word sounds a bit lame). Daniela's story may seem to contradict this theory, but wouldn't you agree it's the exception rather than the rule?

    ScottyHendo

    No doubt about it. With 1 billion on the Internet and 3.3 billion with mobile devices, the world has changed.

    The ability for each person to share many different streams of their life (via Flickr, blogs, YouTube, Facebook,etc.) can create many points of reference for us to get a better sense of the person.

    I thought you might like to see my follow-up post to the one you linked to in yours. Directly related to your main point, I found Armano and I were able to have a real conversation because of the trust engendered by our respective digital footprints.

    Here it is:
    Helping Our Neighbors: Further Thoughts on the Armano Family's Act of Charity http://tr.im/5jlr

    @scottyhendo

    Dave Allen

    Social networking is as old as time itself. The wonderful response that David Armano got to his request to help an abused woman is typical of what we can achieve when we all pull together. Technology helps us do this much quicker these days but it is wrong to think that technology makes social networking possible any more than we've always, as human animals, been social networkers.
    Anthropologists have long pointed this out. John Gray has written in Straw Dogs: Thoughts On Humans and Other Animals - "we ourselves are technological devices, invented by ancient bacterial communities as a means of genetic survival."

    For the curious here's a link to an essay I wrote on the subject -

    http://www.social-cache.com/2008/06/on-social-media-blogs-and-advertising

    Rolf

    Well, I think it depends.

    There are also examples of people in sosial networks cheering on other to take their lives, and watching them as they do.

    Trolls are not unkown to any of us, I should think.

    So I don't believe sosial networks are bliss. I think real sosial interaction is far better.

    But sosial networks add the possibility of sosial interaction to a former very lifeless media. The web was very technological and cold. It also makes the world smaller, so I can interact with people I most likely wouldn't meet otherwise. And this ability, as we have seen, makes it possible to get closer to people who need help and to those who can help.

    mark

    what *more connected* are you talking about? One week in, and what do u really know about #daniela? besides the one photo Armano posted...do u know her last name, anything at all about her? nope, all u know is what Armano tells you.
    http://twitter.com/MarkMayhew

    Kate Richardson

    Leigh great post.

    I think there will always be people weighing in on the ever contentious topic of supporting 'the individual' versus the much more amorphous 'greater cause'.

    But it is possible to do both.

    And this isn't just a story about one individual. I think it may have lit a spark under our concept of social media and its power to change lives. This is something that can be harnessed in pursuit of the 'big' and the 'small'.

    mose

    Damn I hate agreeing with people.

    Nice post.

    Gavin Heaton

    Excellent post, Leigh. I agree, the ability of many small actions to create lasting change is very powerful. Look at organisations like Kiva.

    For many of us, large gestures and donations are impossible, but many smaller actions clearly directed can really change the lives of an individual. And it gives us a chance to be engaged in an act that is much larger ...

    Now that, is a story to be proud of.

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