Many Eyes. Visualizations of Life’s Growing Data

Marty — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:53:14 -0400

I have blogged on many eyes in the past. It is a useful tool for generating visualizations of data, text and trends. There is a capacity to pull together data sets including twitter feeds or government data to tell a complex story in a single image. The world we live in becomes increasingly digital. Each activity generates a new digital shadow. The challenge to the organizers is to leverage this complex data to learn faster and make the right conclusions based on data trends. This data driven adaptation of strategy will be the key to successful organizing. (It always has been) The tools to do it well are getting cheaper and more accessible. Think about the data you have, the stories the data can tell to your organizing team, supporters, the media or your allies. What are the things you learn from your data .

Cultures get what they celebrate!

Marty — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:54:58 -0400

Clay is on fire. Cultures get what they celebrate! What does your campaign and movement celebrate? Are you setting up a movement culture that celebrates sharing, collaboration, collective action and trust? Or are you celebrating donations, staff size, media attention and individual credit? What are the metrics you celebrate in movement building? Are those different than when you focus on legislative outcomes? There are tons of good riffs in his talk and book. Ways we network the movement will directly position (or not position) civic change leaders to leverage these dynamics. It never happens by accident. In each case it took leaders to build the network, support the network and drive the network to produce. Usually, they were different leaders and each had different skills and focus.

How to lure people to your startup with analytics

Marty — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:38:19 -0400

If you are interested in that approach, here's a couple of tips. First, try to show users something as soon as possible. In an ideal world they arrive at your page and immediately see a graph that tells them something interesting about themselves or something they relate too. Typically this isn't achievable, but at the very least have a single step where they enter an email address, twitter name, etc and then within a few seconds get some information. You should also show an example of what they will get on the landing page. These techniques reduced my bounce rate massively, never overestimate people's patience, you constantly need to be convincing them to spend time navigating your site. The second key is presenting your statistics in an actionable way. If you can not only tell a user something interesting, but cause them to do something based on that information, then your chances of a repeat visit shoot way up. Feedburner has an 'Optimize' tab that guides you through ways of increasing your traffic. I found that changing from just showing your most-frequently-contacted friends to sending a report of the people you used to talk to and haven't for a while...

Oil in the Gulf Widget

Marty — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:22:57 -0400

I like these tools to help tell the story. This widget misses a few important tweaks that would make it more valuable for both the user and PBS. 1. Sign up for updates on this story. (Name recruitment for PBS). Thank you emails should have links to charities and actions in them. 2. Donate to news coverage of the gulf coast spill. (short video talking about the cost of covering the story) 3. The logo link to news hour should be all the Gulf spill coverage NOT the homepage. 4. Tell your story of the Gulf like this..link 5. Watch the Mos Def the Gulf Aid track, 'Ain't My Fault.' http://bit.ly/acApvO#mb Oil in the Gulf.

Marty — Tue, 11 May 2010 00:51:38 -0400

There are big drivers afoot shifting civic organizing again. These forces are going to be as trans formative as the web was and initial email. The forces are mobile and data. You need to be developing strategies today that: a. capture data b. position you to leverage the data you capture to deliver service to users. c. integrate this personalized information product with social and mobile media channels. There are lots of reasons "why". and even more ways "how". It is a process I am working on right now with clients and campaigns I care about. Unfortunately, very few organizations or social movements are working on serious strategies that are going to line up with the coming wave of changes in content will be delivered. I ran across this quote "Organizations should refocus their attention on personalizing content and disseminating news through mobile devices" - Eric Schmitt @ Google. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35649.html#ixzz0nanfhl4Z It is interesting to think about.

Metrics and Focus at a start up.

Marty — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:22:36 -0400

Startup Metrics 4 Pirates (Montreal, May 2010) View more presentations from Dave McClure.

Amazing summary based on the links and tweets and followers.

Marty — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:08:12 -0400

This looks like a very cool service that focuses on generating a "newspaper" from the links and stories in a twitter feed and from the feeds of those that follow a feed. It seems like it could have a great potential as a single update on a network of activitity. For groups working on issues this would work well if. a. Main source (twitter account) links to the daily clips, actions and videos on an issue. b. The main source follows all the members in the coalition and regularly retweets their news reports and actions. c. The main source only approves followers that are in the coalition. (can we even do that anymore?) The resulting "paper" would be tight and focused on the issues related to the campaign. With Google ads (grants) the calls to action and focusing on retweeting the videos the page could becomevery useful in coalition work. Just a few small tweaks (allogn others to embed sections, or adding navigation wrapping around the page and it would be a very robust hub for a coalition.

The Community Roundtable's Community Maturity Model

Marty — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:19:00 -0400

One of our missions at The Community Roundtable is to further the discipline of community management – not just in our own community but more broadly in the marketplace. Our first effort to define the discipline is our Community Maturity Model: This model does two things. First, it defines the eight competencies we think are required for successful community management. Second, it attempts – at a high level – to articulate how these competencies progress from organizations without community management that are still highly hierarchical to those that have embraced a networked business ecosystem approach to their entire organization. via community-roundtable.com This is brilliant. I like the elements and the focus on building toward a network. Building networks can be intentional and be defined in a series of steps. I am sure all networks are not "mature communities". I am also sure all functional networks are not "communities". However, the ideas and elements are good and worth looking over. There is one significant failure. The network misses "feedback mechanisms." In other stages, leaders can look at the metrics to shape the direction and learning. In the network phase of distributed leadership, those leaders need "distributed leadership tools" or universally accessible...

Job Open: Director of Internet Strategy

Marty — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:45:06 -0400

The Director of Internet Strategy will develop strategies and projects to build a strong online community across a national network of organizations working to prevent childhood obesity. The Director of Internet Strategy is responsible for facilitating the development of emerging online projects supporting the community and providing instructional technology support through online coaching and training.

The ideal candidate is experienced in internet strategy, online organizing, and online political or advocacy campaigns. She or he will excel at developing organizing strategies and empowering community leaders, be capable of translating user needs into functional specifications for online applications, and be responsible for meeting project goals and deadlines.

Social Media Campaigns are Data Driven

Marty — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:29:00 -0400

9 Tips on How To Run (And Not Run) Social Media Campaigns This is an interesting look into the role data plays in scaling social listening and being attentive to those that you are interested in sustaining the conversations. View more presentations from Rapleaf.

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