#Interview: Allison Fine, Author & Analyst — Examines Intersection of Social Media & Social Change
Allison Fine researches and writes about the intersection of social media and social change. She is the co-author (with Beth Kanter) of the bestselling book, The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change
MKC: You’ve researched and written about social media and how it could impact democracy in the 21st century. Is the Occupy Wall Street movement along the lines of what you were envisioning?
ALLISON: Occupy Wall Street is absolutely part of the same DNA of social protests that we’ve seen for about the last ten years or so. They are widely distributed – meaning there’s no centralized organizing person or organization. They are fueled, but not caused, by social media – the ability to share messages, share photos, share videos, which are very powerful, is part of what’s stirring the pot and helping to organize the events. Occupy Wall Street has some of the drawbacks of this kind of mobilizing as well: the lack of a centralized message and the lack of goals. Whether or not those ultimately stop the momentum for these self-organized efforts locally will be interesting to watch.
Popularity: 1% | Category Blogs, Book Review, Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Crowdfunding, Development, Direct Mail, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, Grants, Grants and Funding, Interview, Major Gifts, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Resource, Reviews, Social Media, Sponsorship, Strategic Marketing, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits, Tools, Twitter | | 1 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#Communications: Fine Tune Twitter Use To Enrich Outreach
The idea of using Twitter can overwhelm some, and how to use it as a smart tool for strategic engagement seems downright contradictory to many. Yet as the social-networking platform matures – Rather, as the people who use it explore that myriad ways to make it work for them – an ever growing number of provable strategies are being developed. A significant part of what can bring success to your nonprofit or small business is not simply the adoption of the platform, but the honing of the strategy that makes that makes it work for you.
One of the leaders of the use of social media in the business and nonprofit world is Brian Solis, whose most recent book is Engage! Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web. Brian has also shared some of his most successful tactics in a recent article in FastCompany magazine – and we want you to be aware of some of them.
Popularity: 38% | Category Advice, Book Review, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Community, Fundraising, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Public Relations, Publications, Reviews, SEO, Social Media, Technology, Tweets, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Interview: Nedra Kline Weinreich, Social Marketer, Author, and Owner of the “Spare Change” Blog
Nedra Kline Weinreich is a widely recognized expert on social marketing (not to be confused with social media marketing). Her book Hands-On Social Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide is considered a classic, and she blogs about social marketing issues at the Spare Change blog. Her consulting clients include federal, state, local and international organizations. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: How do you define social marketing?
NEDRA: Basically it’s using the tools and techniques of commercial marketing and applying them to health and social issues. It’s focused on changing behavior. We’re not as interested in just raising awareness or changing attitudes, we have to stay focused on behavior change. That’s our ultimate goal, our bottom line.
(more…)
Popularity: 3% | Category Advice, Blogs, Book Review, Branding, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Cross-Post, Development, Donor Acquisition, Fundraising, How-to, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Perspectives, Resource, Reviews, Social Media | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#BookReview: Ten Steps On The Road To ‘Presentation Zen’
This is a repost of an article that originally appeared on the MKCREATIVE blog in May, 2010.
The business/education/PR presentation got a boost in the ’90s when Microsoft PowerPoint gave us the opportunity to turn the staid lecture (from Lectio, ‘to read’) into a multi-media extravaganza of bullet points and pie charts and popping 15-point stars. And many of us have been suffering through them ever since. Perhaps the greatest problem with Powerpoint or Apple’s Keynote is just how easy it is to bring something together that seems pretty catchy to the person who has to give the presentation. Ease-of-use is hardly a drawback to software, but it can be a drawback to those in your audience 15 rows back who does not share the same enthusiasm for the small yellow print on the blue background.
To be sure, some presenters are masters of the technology – which is to say, masters as presenting their materials, with Keynote or Powerpoint adding enough to keep the mind focused, not flogged. And watching some great presenters is a wonderful way to pick up the skills required to prepare your own materials (Please Note: I have yet to say ‘prepare your Powerpoint/Keynote’). Though, as at least one cheeky academic posted, sometimes seeing the greats present their materials makes us mere mortals too ‘stupid’ to deal with the less-than-stellar business report or academic paper.
Popularity: 7% | Category Book Review, Education: General, Marketing, Reviews, Technology, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Tech: New Book Argues For New Education To Prepare New Economy
Technology IS the classroom
Yesterday we talked about how America’s ‘GI-Generation’ (those 73 and older) were embracing internet and social-media technologies faster than any other segment of the population as a way to stay engaged with family and the larger world. Today want to introduce a new book that argues we are educating our youngest Americans for the nineteenth century, rather than for the twenty first. The book is Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn and the author is Cathy Davidson of Duke University’s English Department.
Her thesis is that we have had the internet for a generation now, and it’s time teach toward its paradigm: interactivity, creative interruption, flexibility of ‘work time’ and ‘play time’, and a stress on collaboration rather than individual hoop-jumping. The response from the tech-minded press is universally favorable. Response from the academic press? So far, the mute button is pressed (which might be relevant as I suggest below).
Popularity: 3% | Category Book Review, Communications, Community, Education: General, Interview, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics, Publications, Reviews, Technology, Technology for Education, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Interview: Sarah Durham, Nonprofit Communications Strategist & Author of “Brandraising”
This interview series is produced with the generous support of the Nonprofit Marketing and Fundraising Zone.
Sarah Durham left the world of corporate communications and marketing in 1994 to launch Big Duck, an agency that works exclusively with nonprofit organizations to help them communicate effectively so they can fulfill their missions. She is the author of Brandraising: How Nonprofits Increase Visibility and Raise Money through Smart Communications (Jossey-Bass, 2010). The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: First of all, as Chico Marx once asked, “Why a Duck?”
Sarah: I think the true answer is deep and Freudian and subliminal, but the conscious answer is, when I was starting Big Duck, I was leaving Disney Consumer Products, where I had worked on some of the branding issues around Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto, and I think I had the mice, the ducks and the dogs in my head. I wanted to come up with something that had the personality I was going for – creative, playful and sort of open-ended and flexible. (more…)
Popularity: 4% | Category Advertising, Advice, Blogs, Book Review, Branding, Campaigns, Case Study, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Direct Mail, Facebook, Facebook, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Public Relations, Publications, Research, Resource, Reviews, Social Media, Twitter, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#PublicPolicy: Consumer Protection Agency Drifts From Public Discourse
The media (with good reason) have concentrated recently on the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the pseudo-grilling Goldman Sachs got by Congresspeople desperate to look tough to their constituents, and the British election that has resulted in a hung Parliament. Discussion of the formation of a Consumer Protection Agency has drifted off the radar, which we believe is unfortunate. Indeed, yesterday’s plunge-and-slight-recovery on Wall Street surely argues for the need of such an agency because so much of our economy runs on our faith in trades done in traders’ computers on our behalf. The notion of such an agency is hardly foreign to our economy. Every state has has one form or another of a CPA ready to hear appeals and offer services. But will the states lead the way to the federal level, as California did for car emissions?
Popularity: 1% | Category Book Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics, Sustainability | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Opinion: Like Rome Before the Fall? Not Yet (According to the New York Times)
Article by Piers Brendon. Originally published in the New York Times.
Vice President Joe Biden complains that he is being driven crazy because so many people are betting on America’s demise. Reports of it are not just exaggerated; they are, he insists, ridiculous. Like President Obama, he will not accept “second place” for the United States. Despite the present crippling budget deficit and the crushing burden of projected debt, he denies that the country is destined to fulfill a “prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended.” (more…)
Popularity: 2% | Category Book Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics, Reviews | | Comments Off
Written by: Marco Kathuria
How New Media is Encouraging Social Change
The Hatcher Group have just released a great report on how non-profits have been using social media to build support and to call to action their supporters. The report is based on surveys and interviews held with thirty non-profits to see how they are using such new media as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. (more…)
Popularity: 1% | Category Book Review, Grants and Funding, Marketing, Nonprofit | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner
Graphic Design : Visual Comparisons
Graphic Design : Visual Comparisons (by Pentagram founders, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, and Bob Gill) is used at the MKCREATIVE Design studio to remind ourselves what great design is about and why we strive to create it. This collection of designs, logos, headlines, and conceptual pieces is a reminder that sometimes “less is more” and that the most effective solution is not always the most obvious.
From the introduction (1963 paperback edition), “…The vast majority of advertisements, posters, television commercials, booklets and other printed matter clutter our environment and insult our intelligence.
And besides, they are so monumentally boring.
There are, however, some designers and even clients who insist that the public deserve and will respond to much higher standards in graphics. They are convinced, as Charlie Chaplin was convinced, that the best way to entertain the public is to first entertain oneself.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Popularity: 42% | Category Book Review | | Comments Off
Written by: Marco Kathuria
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