We already have physical social networks. Many people in a movement amplify each other’s voices. Online, people self-organize networks for their own purposes, they don’t need or want marching orders from nonprofits.
Five aspects of effective networks:

• Strong social ties
• Common story
• Dense communication grid
• Sharing culture
• Network awareness

Different network structures facilitate different communication styles. Is your organization hierarchical? Do you all have one contact point? A few main contact points? Do you work without a leader? Does everyone talk to everyone else?

Your network structure affects what happens when people leave your organization or when your communication strategy changes.

Example

Fellowship of Reconciliation uses Flickr, Change.org, Change.org on Facebook, Causes on Facebook, Facebook “page”.

LouisianaRebuilds.info
How do we get information out about the city? Rather than each creating their own site, they brought everyone together to build one big site. Some people had come back and were looking for information about groceries, hospitals, utilities, and other basic needs. Some people were still displaced and were looking for information about whether they could move back. They were the registration site for state assistance programs. The information needed to be easy to find and easy to read. The information had to be at a seventh grade reading level and accessible within three clicks maximum. At their high point, they got 20,000 visitors per week. Now they get about 10,000 visitors per week. Traffic has dropped off from the displaced community and increased from the local community as people decided whether or not they were coming back.

API is an interface between two pieces of software, traditionally on one machine, but now across the cloud. API’s are a doorway to a room that is a library of services or functions. They keys are given away for free by the people who maintain the library.

Why is an API helpful?

These are the basic concepts:

• API’s give you the ability to take your idea and plug it into the conversation that’s happening out on the internet.
• API’s enable your technologists to do more because they don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
• You can take your data, services, and content, and set it loose for other people to play with.

Examples:

• NARAL uses Convio and Mobile Commons to allow people to sign up for two campaigns through one form.
• Care USA allows individuals to add their name, it gets added to their database, and it goes into a flash-based spinny globe.
• Humane Society has launched a campaign to protect seals. They made a map of restaurants who agreed not to serve seal using the Google maps API.
• American Jewish World Services uses Google Earth to describe their efforts in each place they are working worldwide.

Speakers:
Kira Marchenese / Environmental Defense
Sarah Hauge / Sea Change Strategies
Dottie Hodges / Northridge Interactive
Susan Finkelperl / FreeRange Studios

Usability = A Website That Doesn’t Suck
Check out www.webpagesthatsuck.com for a “mean” view of how not to make your website.
Sucess = timing + content + usability

User testing is a key tool and is often overlooked. Take a small number of users and get rich information from them. Some results are predictable, but there are always surprises. Get people to talk about their expectations, what they’re seeing, and what conclusions they draw from what they see. If management doesn’t believe that anything is wrong, testing can give you evidence that things need to be fixed. Get people to tell you what they think at first glance. Sometimes elements on your page can look like ads, instructions, or other elements that people consistently skip over visually. People will assume information is not on the site if they can’t find it after a few minutes. Ask the users what terms they would search for or what visual elements they are scanning for to find certain pieces of information. Read “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug

Three primary criteria for usability:

• Does the homepage effectively introduce your organization?
• Does the homepage have a compelling call to donate?
• Does the site use effective layout – both content allocation and design?

YouthNoise

Does the homepage effectively introduce the organization?
No, the eye isn’t drawn anywhere

Compelling call to donate?

No, it’s in light gray at the bottom of the page. The average donor is 50 years old, and wouldn’t see that.

Effective layout?

No, search is below the scroll line and categorized. No contact information at bottom of page.

American Friends Service Committee

Good branding, clear logo and tagline. They often set “user pathways” through the site. When it comes to donations, there are two types. Some people want to donate right now, but some people need more encouragement. For people who need more encouragement, they use a “contextual ask” using images and stories.

There are too many links on the navigation bar. 5-7 links is an appropriate number for a user to digest.

Small chunks of text are good. People don’t read long passages.

Donate Now button doesn’t point to a donation form. Never do this. You will lose donors.

Using flyout menus requires fine motor skills, and in this case, they are covering up the best part of the website. Use pulldown menus instead.

Headlines should be more compelling. People tend to read only headlines and linked text. Organizations can tend to develop a lexicon, and we should make sure that we are testing so that we know what words users are looking for.

DARTS

Clearly states what services they provide.
Clearly states phone number.
Rollover menus are too far away from the main menu. Users may not realize that they caused a menu to appear.
The cursor doesn’t change to a hand when you rollover the link. Users may not realize it’s a link.
No flyout menues are better than confusing flyout menus.
Current Happenings button looks like a heading. Donation links are not emphasized.
Blue underlined type is universally recognized as a link. Always link the keywords.
Bulleted lists are good for emphasizing information, but don’t put more than three items in a list.

mobileactive.org

Donate link is very low on the page.
Main headline isn’t clickable.
Donation page lacks a logo and an ask, makes user wonder whether they went to the wrong page.
The layout and design are clean.
People don’t generally understand or recognize site-specific icons.
User login will be dismissed unless you tell people why they should register, and that’s a very high engagement step for your average user. It’s generally used by people who go to your site a lot, so there’s no reason to have it in the upper left, they will find it elsewhere.
Search should be in upper right.
The page is way way too long. No one will ever get to the bottom. Site is even longer in IE6.
“Join” is an ambiguous term. Users don’t know what they will get. Be specific.
Users may not describe themselves as members or activists. Ask them during testing how they self identify.

National Wildlife Foundation

Unclear what exactly they do.
Page has a chaotic feel.
Great content is stuck in links at the bottom of the page.
There should be a balance between content and asks.
Newsletter sign-up is good.
Donate page shows how money is used – that’s great!
Good inspirational call to action on donation page.
Slideshows should always be tested. Controls should be standardized. Use corporate sites as a model because users are familiar with those.
Be clear about what things mean rather than cute.

Question: What should the giving page look like?
Answer:Keep the form elements front and center, keep the other information to the side. Remove any fields you don’t need. Keep it clean and simple. It should look like it won’t take a long time. Field length should match expected input or users will be confused. Campaign language should be used. Contact information should be available. In-kind donations if possible should be mentioned.

Question: How do I do testing on the cheap?
Answer: Find people who have never been to your site before. Give them tasks to do, or things to find and have them speak out loud as they are trying to find things. Camtasia lets you record voices and clicks. Have an effective script and test plan. Screen flow will also track the clicks and faces.

Question: What about Flash?
Answer: Think about whether flash is the best way to convey your message. We usually use flash elements in html pages. Test your flash to make sure it behaves they way they expect. Make sure anything important in the flash element is in the code so that it can be crawled by search engine spiders.

Question: How do people scan pages?
Answer: People scan in the shape of an F, going from headline to headline.

Cellphones + Internet = Awesome

Voice Over IP (VOIP) on Cellphones
Since cellphone companies want consumers to use minutes, they generally haven’t implemented VOIP. T-Mobile has offered phones with wifi with free calls as long as you’re using the wifi and not cell towers. The phone can also switch from cell to wifi without dropping the call. The phone costs $20 more per month, but the wifi minutes don’t count so you can use fewer minutes. T-Mobile has done this because they are the only cell company who doesn’t own landlines, so they want people to cancel their landline service.

GrandCentral

GrandCentral can make all your phones ring at once through one phone number that is routed over the internet. You can leave different voicemail greetings for different numbers. You can listen to messages as their being left and decide whether or not to pick up. There is a telemarketer spam filter. You can set a disconnected message to play if certain numbers call. All your voicemails are in one box on the web.

Google 411

Send a text message to GOOGL (46645) and it will send you back addresses, phone numbers, weather, flight info, stock prices, movie showtimes, definitions, driving directions, unit conversions, and currency conversions. You can also call 800-GOOG-411 and just say what you’re looking for. It will connect you for free.

Voice to text

Services like Spinbox and Callwave convert your messages to text and email or text message them to you. David suspects that these services are transcribed by real people. Callwave even claims to be able to transcribe only “the gist” of the message, except that they often make no sense at all. They also attach the actual recording to the email they send you.

A La Carte Video

iTunes Store
Millions of videos sold online.

hulu

NBC and Fox teamed up to provide free ad-supported tv online, with 15 second ad breaks at hulu.com

On-Demand Movie Downloads Won’t Work

Only 50% of households have high-speed internet.
Terrible selection since clearing rights on older movies is really difficult
Terrible quality because it’s been compressed to go over the internet
DRM makes movies on many services self-destruct.
Editor’s note: Would someone please tell David Pogue that BitTorrent exists???

Audience Created Video

YouTube sold for 1.7 billion dollars 12 months after launch.

Editor’s note: Now David’s going off on blogs and I’m not sure where he’s going with this… and now he’s going off on web 2.0 businesses. I had such a nice indentation structure going, and I have no idea how this stuff fits in!

Challenges

Where will all the features go?
Devices are getting smaller but fingers are staying the same size.
Copyright challenges.
Teaching ethics.
Teaching privacy.
Teaching permanence.

Then David sang and we clapped and all was happy.

We went around the room and talked about why we are interested in open source, including:

• community participation
• financial cost
• ease of use
• scalability
• customization
• ethical benefits toward community
• use in academia
• sustainability
• better crm and cms tools

Question:
If someone distributes open source software, who does the support?

Answer:
That’s one of the problems with open source, there is no way to ensure support for every product. However, large products have huge support communities, and there are companies popping up recently to provide support for open source at a charge.

Question:
What is Drupal?

Answer:
Drupal is a content management system with a huge community around it. More information is available at drupal.org.

Question:
Is there a site that compares open source cms tools?

Answer:
Yes! Social Source Commons, Opensourcecms.com and cmsmatrix.org

Question:
Why do people feel that choosing open source software is a philosophical decision?

Answer:
Support for community. Open standards. Global community. Best practices come from a multitude of voices.

Question:
Is there an open source solution to targeted email advocacy?

Answer:
Not yet. Most proprietary solutions are using CapWiz, which is also proprietary.

Question:
Is there an open source solution to virtualization?

Answer:
Virtual Box

Question:
Why does open source have such poor documentation?

Answer:
There is a misconception that in order to contribute to the open source movement, you have to be a developer, but in fact, they need writers, marketers, and especially people who can translate between geek and English.

Question:
Is the Asterisk phone system time consuming?

Answer:
Yes it is, but once you’ve got it up and running, it works very well for call centers or automated phone systems. And there are companies that provide paid support, so you have a backup if something goes wrong.

Question:
Is there an open source version of Skype?

Answer:
There is OpenWengo, but it’s not very stable yet.

Question:
How do you pick an open source solution?

Answer:
Play with it, read the NOSI Primer, and get to know the community and make sure you like them.

Question: Can I customize the administrative screens to give me the data I need?
Answer: Yes, it’s open source, so everything is customizable. The screens are built on templates written in “smarty” which is very similar to html so it’s fairly easy to customize. Also, anyone with admin capability can do some customization without knowing how to code.

Question: Does CiviCRM support households?
Answer: Yes! The organization using CiviCRM has to be careful to input data into the household record rather than the individual record.

Gregory Heller of CivicActions presents on case studies:

• Montana Conservation Voters uses CiviContribute and PayPal to manage payments. They also use SSL certification to keep the transaction secure. They use CiviMail as well.
• Reality Sandwich uses CiviMail for a list of roughly 6,000 emails per week. All messages in CiviMail conform to the CAN-SPAM act. People do not have to create a Drupal contact in order to subscribe to the email list. They must opt-in twice in order to join the email list and create a Drupal account.
• Creative Commons uses CiviCRM to manage thousands of international constituents.

Many CRMs have an incremental charge for the number of contacts you have in your database, which creates a disincentive to put contacts into the system. CiviCRM runs on the organization’s own servers so there’s no incremental charge for new contacts. CiviCRM does not support advocacy currently. They are working on a Drupal module called “sign it” that will support signing petitions and targeted email delivery to elected officials. A Washington State organization called Knowledge As Power is working with them on advocacy products.

Now You Have a Lot of User Generated Content: Tracking and Using It?
Thursday, March 20 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Program Track – Bayside B
I will talk about my experiences with ACLU student clubs. This year two of our college advocacy clubs started social networking sites to help them advocate and organize. Social networking has become so integral to their communication style that it didn’t occur to them to tell us they had started these sites, and our management was not happy when they found out. I’ll be talking about how I smoothed things out between the students and management so that we could use social networking as a positive tool without sacrificing the consistency of our communication.

Generation Y Meets Printing Press Law: Copyright Questions in the Digital Age
Friday, March 21 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Communications Track – Evergreen Room
I will talk about growing up in the Napster generation. To us, copyright law is seen as the only thing standing in the way of a library of Alexandria of music and movies and books on every computer in the world. It would cost literally nothing to create that utopia. And what better inspiration for artists to create more work? What better motivation for people to pay artists to create work? The only thing we would lose is corporate profits and huge estates that have passed down copyright royalties for generations. I’ll talk about ideas for obtaining this utopia without even losing those.

I’ll also be attending the rest of the conference. I’ll probably stick to the program track and the IT Staff track, although I may stray if I see other interesting presentations. I’ll be twittering at http://twitter.com/sarahdavies and liveblogging here as much as I can.

See you in New Orleans!