Most of you know that my company helps non profits and social enterprises develop effective communication strategies.  We also help with the implementation of those strategies.  So I was pretty excited when the organizers of Cultivate 2011 reached out and asked me to be a part of their very unique conference.

Rather than just getting experts to talk up front, they are bringing in a panel after each short talk to discuss implementation and contextualization. This is really a passion of mine and I am excited to help lead those discussions. Many friends and folks I really respect will be either speaking or a part of various panels including Charles Lee and Mark Horvath.

The line up appears to be geared towards the faith based sector but it is being marketed heavily towards the general non profit market as well.  Regardless of which camp you fit into, if you are looking to better communicate, market, fund raise, etc I am quite certain that this will be a rewarding experience.

If you will be there, please let me know so we can be sure to grab a cup of coffee or some tequila.

Related events

• : Cultivate Conference
• Date: Wednesday, May 4th 2011 - Thursday, May 5th 2011
• Time: 8:00am
• City: Cultivate Conference in Huntington Beach
• Venue: First Christian Church
• Address: 1207 Main St, Huntington Beach, CA 92648
• Country: United States
• Admission: $129-$159
• Age restrictions: All Ages
• Notes: I will be joining with some great folks to talk about implementing new communications strategies in non profit and faith based settings.
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

Every time I thumb through a catalog I wonder why I’m not looking up the item on the Internet. Then I realize: Catalogs create need by suggesting items you weren’t thinking about. The Internet is better at fulfilling the need once it’s identified.  ~ Alan Weiss

During the holiday season and going into the New Year, many of you will be considering where to make your year end gifts.  Inspired by my friend Dan (who I often think is inside my brain), I thought I would share with you a few organizations I have worked with in one capacity or another, either through my consulting work, or as a volunteer.  I have seen that these organizations have a commitment to excellence, to being good stewards of the resources so generously invested in them and truly make an impact in the lives of those they serve.  In the interest of full disclosure, some of the organizations have paid me at one time or another, but I am not currently under contract with them and all thoughts here come from my observations of them first hand.

Project Hope School Foundation

The foundation supports the school (go figure).  They have a different model than many programs but having had the chance to spend time with the kids, heard from graduates and hang out with the staff, I can say, the model is strong.  Homeless and at risk kids get an education from people who understand the unique struggles that they go through.  Families get support and advice.  They were recently featured in a documentary on kids living in motels that was aired all summer on HBO that I would strongly suggest you take a look at.

Renewing Hearts

With focus on the hurting, abandoned, broken, addicted and an innovative model, this small local (in Orlando, Florida) to rally therapists and other mental health professionals around the country to help just one pro bono or reduced fee client.  They hope to serve as a clearing house to make sure that clients receive top notch care and service providers don’t have to take non stop calls from people looking for free services.  They are in the early planning stages of how this system will be implemented but continue to provide reduced fee and free services at their center in Orlando as well as through a network of other non profits and churches in the region.

Laundry Love Santa Ana

They work with the homeless and at risk community throughout Santa Ana.  They provide laundry services, but more importantly, they provide an fun and friendly environment where those dealing with the crushing emotional toll of poverty can enjoy themselves for a little while and can connect with people from various Orange County businesses, non profits and the faith community.  In doing so they provide many opportunities that arise organically from job offerings to service connections to new found friendships.

Salem Christian Homes

They provide residential care facilities to those with disabilities.  While this is cause generally only supported by families of those affected and government agencies, this organization really impressed me.  The focus on empowering an often written off and forgotten community.  The idea that no matter ones background they should be pushed to reach their full potential.  The level of passion viewed as I worked with the staff.  I was floored by this organization in a way I really was not expecting.  I think that with the right budget invested in the advocacy and awareness side of their organization they can dramatically impact how the world views people who have disabilities.

Give well. Give often.

Giving is good for the soul.  It is good for society.  The organizations here are a great start.  I believe they have a ton of potential and that they operate at a high standard of integrity.  Who are your favorite organizations?  Anyone we should have on radar?

Here is a slide show of pics taken at the Freedom and Fashion show.  Working on a full write up for Intersection (one of the partners for the event is a client) but in the meantime I wanted to get these pics up…

Working on a new, still undercover, initiative.  It has the potential to be one of the biggest things I have ever pulled off.  By the same token, it has the potential to be the most colossal failure.

The interesting thing, though, to me, is the ease at which the early stage things are going.  I am crazy.  I have crazy ideas, like, at least, once a week.  Realistically, this one is far crazier than many of the other ones that have never made it past the “google to make sure I didn’t read about it and then think it was my idea because I was up way past my bedtime when I read it” stage, or the “tell my wife I think it would be cool if someone did (insert crazy idea here) and have her tell me I need to focus on the last 4 ideas that she didn’t think were WAY TOO crazy to consider pursuing, prior to even thinking about this one” stage.

So here is my theory.  I think people won’t invest time or resources in something small.  If they think it could be done alone, then they have no reason to get involved.  They wonder why I don’t just make it happen.  They wonder why someone else hasn’t already done it, if it is truly valuable and truly simple.

So lots of (I think) good ideas get cast aside simply because I:

• cannot focus
• do not have much capital
• am fearful of being too far outside the box
• am more and more risk averse
• cannot find partners willing to tackle small side projects

Hmmm.  I guess I need to fix that.

Now, the really big take away is this.  People want to bite off more than they can chew.  They want to be inspired.  They want to tackle audacious problems with never before thought of creative solutions.  They want to go IPO in a year.  They want to stop wars, eradicate hunger and provide water to a continent. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something paradigm shifting, something dangerous, something beautiful.

Small thinking does not seem to get people on the phone.  But shoot someone a huge audacious vision, prove you have a plan to accomplish that vision and you never know who you might end up on the phone with next week.

What are you working on?  Is it big?  Do you need partners?

My company started a simple branding project last week.  Fully anticipated being done before I went to !deation.  Five rejected mock ups later, today I am sending over revision eight of the logo and getting ready to start on some print collateral, a website and some social media integration.

While at !deation my friend Dan Portnoy showed me this incredible post from the Oatmeal on web design and how it can go south.

It makes me feel just a little bit better to know that I am not alone.  No it doesn’t.

Below is a presentation I gave at the Unleashing Beauty Conference in Irvine, Ca this last week.  I have embedded my slide show and put my notes, expanded and with links to various websites and webapps mentioned through out.  If your organization would like to talk about a more personalized solution lets set up a time to talk.

Unleashing Beauty Online: the power of social media for social justice

1. Welcome

A. Who Am I?

a. freelance marketer and social web developer for the last year and a                      half

b. in process of launching intersection creative strategies

c. site lead for laundry love santa ana

d. husband, father of 2 kids under 3

B. What we are not discussing

a. philosophical or theological implications of social media

b. philosophical or theological implications of social justice

c. politics

C. Presuppositions I am starting with

a. Social Justice is a good

b. Social Media is ok (moral, legal, ethical, permissible, etc.) for                                    churches, NPO’s and NGO’s to use

c. Social Media is a powerful tool for influence

d. You are here to learn HOW to use social media for social justice (ie:                       not to debate these other items)

2. Format

A. Not So Great Examples

B. Great Examples

C. Practical Steps

D. The Vision

E. Q&A

3. Not so great examples

A. Motrin

B. Social Media Gurus

C. Ning communities (w/ some exceptions)

4. Great examples

A. Invisible People

a. Mark Horvath

b. Invisible People

c. Road Trip

d. Impact

B. Twestival

C. Laundry Love Santa Ana

a. a quick mention

b. a simple website

c. a few well placed mentions

d. press, npo’s and gov’t notice

5. Practical

A. The Right Platforms

a. Website/Blog

b. Facebook

c. Twitter

d. Other

B. The Right Tools

1. Ping.FM

a. Status updates to 30+ sites

2. Posterous

a. blogs, pics, links to 10+ sites

3. TubeMogul

a. video to 40+ video sharing sites

4. Twitterfeed

a. posting of rss feeds through twitter or ping.fm

5. TweetDeck

a. multiple saved twitter searches

b. keep track of conversations on twitter, facebook, even myspace

c. multi account posting and listening

d. columns for keeping track of friends, family, best donors, etc

6. Other

a. niche sites, geographic specific sites, etc

C. The Right Content

1. relevant

a. to your topic

b. to your demographic

c. to YOU

2. funny

a. funny spreads fast

b. funny gets people talking

c. funny keeps people coming back even when the big picture is bleak                      (ie sex trafficking, gang violence, etc)

3. personal

4. unique

a. not found elsewhere

5. shared

a. point people towards orgs, links, articles that are interesting or                               useful in your space.

6. universal

a. low cost of entry. if you want to get people to rally around                                         something, make sure it is something they can rally around.  don’t                         ask them to agree to a set of theological or philosophical                                             propositions to join your movement.  Don’t make it cost too much.  6. Vision

A. Worldwide Scope

B. Little Regulation

C. Little Cost of Entry

D. Viral Potential

I recently added Facebook Connect to this site.   I have heard many arguments for and against this move so I thought I would take a few minutes to discuss my thought process.

First the negatives:  Facebook has made it very clear that they own the data that sits on their servers.  This is a HUGE negative for a lot of people.

Beyond that it also encourages people to pick up conversations off of your site.  For ad driven or ecommerce sites this means, in some folks eyes (though not mine), less revenue for site owners.

The positives:  Facebook is growing like a weed.  Its at around 200 million users world wide and one of its fastest growing segments is women in their 30′s and 40′s, who are the primary decision makers in almost ALL household purchasing decisions.

Thats a lot of eyes.

It encourages people to keep talking about your content, to share your content with their friends, many of whom may have never heard about or seen your site otherwise.  Not all will click through to your site, but some will.

Armed with this information, I decided to implement Facebook Connect.  Have you?  Why or why not?  Feel free to plug your site if you have it.  I would love to see how you integrated it.

As I play with things on my site occasionally I actually do have a purpose and goal. It may seem random, but I am trying out new things to see what works best for small businesses, non profits and other organizations who I write this site to help as well as those who I advise in a consulting role.

With that I unveil my brand new commenting system. What follows are a few thoughts as to why I am making this switch.

This site had Backtype Connect implemented to pull in Diggs, FriendFeed comments, and any Tweets containing links to a given post. It worked very well, and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a quick and easy social media integration to your comments section.

That being said, when it came time to add Facebook Connect and Twitter OAuth, I have to add TWO MORE plugins. By swapping out WordPress‘ default comment system with Disqus I was able to get Comments, Social Media Comments, Facebook Connect, Twitter OAuth all in one relatively simple plugin.

The transfer process is in the works and we will see how smoothly the previous comments transition over, but for now it looks like I may just be a Disqus man.

So what does this mean for you and your organization?  Well, it seems like Disqus could be a good way to go if you want to encourage social interaction around your content off site.  If your primary goal is to drive traffic to your site only, Backtype Connect may be the way to go.  It really boils down to your objectives for your site.  It seems like both work incredibly well at intregating social media and your site.  

First and foremost I would like to apologize for being fairly absent around here lately.  Between the site build, some client work, a conference and two rambunctious little boys I have been neglecting my writing, and that is bad, as I tell my clients all the time.  I don’t have a good excuse, just exhausted and busy.

I was asked some advice on Twitter recently regarding a fairly specific situation.  The person was not able to bring me on as a consultant at the time, but since talking to her I have been thinking about the scenario quite a bit.  So, I thought I would share some insights into what I would do if I were in her situation.  With her permission, some of our email correspondence is below.  Think about a big dream you have and see what insight you can glean from her experience.  

…For obvious reasons, [my small town] doesn’t allow for many bands to tour [in] the area. I am…a fan and devoted show goer when it comes to music…I’m willing to go to nearly any lengths to be present at shows, [though] i find that the general population of [people] my age don’t share the same drive that i do.

However, in recent months, there has been minor shifts to the music scene in my area. Most notably a sometimes venue, that’s all ages and cheap for the bands that are coming through, run by the university’s student body located on campus here in [town].  I was overjoyed at this development. But it seems that others were not as overjoyed as I.

Attendance is poor at best. I don’t want this place to go down in flames. I am not a student at the university so i can’t join the group. I’ve only briefly spoken with the guys who run the group, and i was kinda told to piss off. [This] isn’t a town that i have roots in, so I’m running into social road blocks. And since I’m kinda going at this on my own, i don’t know where to start.

Though i have been thinking of starting my own mini promoter job. But i don’t know how to go about that either…

So here is what I would do, if I was in that situation.