Local Social Media Savvy: #ChiUptown
February 20, 2010 § Leave a comment
I live in a “transitional” neighborhood in Chicago, diverse in just about every way. Many different types of families, ethnicities, generations, and classes live withing close proximity. This poses many challenges as differences bump up against each other. So while I admittedly have not gotten to know many of my neighbors in the two years since we moved in, and none of them well, the community around me is important to me and I want to do what I can to support its improvement.
This involves having a general awareness of local politics and current events, supporting local business, attending arts events, and civic participation in general.
Since moving here, much of this has been facilitated for me by social media. There are many neighborhood blogs in and around Chicago, and The Uptown Update happens to be one of the best in Chicago. This blog has established itself as a primary source of information for residents.
I would really like to see more social media take off locally. I have been able to connect with a handful of people on Twitter and Facebook who live nearby, but I haven’t seen community members take full advantage of the tools with the intention of connecting with neighbors and community organizing. It seems to me that Twitter could be especially beneficial in terms of communicating up-to-the minute happenings to neighbors, whether it is a quickly developing situation like the riots that were happening here last summer, or people getting the word out about a town hall meeting.
So I have begun a lone one-woman effort (for the moment) to use a Twitter hash tag for my neighborhood: #ChiUptown. I use it when I’m out and about, patronizing local businesses, walking the dog, or when ever I have anything to say about goings-on in the ‘hood. I would love to connect with other locals this way. Hopefully it will catch on.
Stemming Annoying Twitter Trends
December 5, 2009 § 2 Comments
Spammers are nothing if not creative. And the ways they invent to invade social media tools like Twitter threaten to ruin the party for those of us who are trying organically to build community there. Over the last few weeks, I have noticed a trend among spammers that I find particularly disconcerting: unsolicited @ replies.
I have received a several of these in the last week. Sure, I can block them, and that will prevent me from seeing their replies in my reply feed. But if this becomes a trend among spammers, I can see blocking becoming unsustainable. I’m afraid I will be forced at some point to protect my tweets, which is something I’d rather not do.
I don’t know what the solution is. I assume that people wouldn’t spam if it didn’t pay off in some way, so it seems that they get enough of a positive response that they keep on doing it. What worries me now is that people might start spamming malware with @ replies. The trend of accounts getting hacked and by proliferating malware through direct tweets is bad enough.
I know that Twitter is trying to proactively deal with spammers, but spammers are elusive and slippery. While I hope that Twitter can lock it down more, I hope that more end users get smart about protecting themselves and their friends. I mean seriously, I never cease to be amazed when I receive a direct tweet with a phishing link to an IQ test from someone who should know better.
There are resources, folks. Educate yourselves and be a good Twittizen.
Walking the Walk
December 3, 2009 § 1 Comment
In a recent blog post, Seth Godin challenged nonprofit professionals to put their money where their mouth is. If you work for a charitable organization, if you don’t give, why are you in that line of work?
Whether it’s a charitable gift or a volunteer shift, those of us who work in nonprofits, especially those of us who have more administrative duties keeping us away from the front lines, should get in the trenches on occasion. It is a matter of responsibility, as well as staying in touch with why we do the work that we do.
NaBloPoMo
December 1, 2009 § 1 Comment
It is December 1, and though this promises to be a busy month, I am going to attempt to write one blog post per day. In December, the theme for NaBloPoMo is Mitzvah. While one doesn’t have to use the theme in order to participate, I like to think that this blog is about Mitzvah, or doing good deeds. Seems to be a good fit for me.
Let’s see if I will actually have the time, and more importantly, the discipline, to write at least one post every day.
Clean Your Plate: People Are Hungry
November 30, 2009 § Leave a comment
New USDA published the latest statistics on food insecurity on November 16, reporting that 49 million people are struggling with hunger in the United States. At Feeding America where I work, we were expecting the numbers to be bad, but we found them shocking.
Since then, there have been numerous articles about how people are coping with the recession, including an article in today’s New York Times about food stamps.
Many have observed the paradox of hunger and obesity in this country, and a recent study shows that as much as 40% of the food produced in this country is thrown out.
When I was growing up, I remember making fun of my elders saying that we needed to clean our plates because there were children starving in Africa. Now I find myself overcome with guilt if I don’t finish everything on my plate, or if I throw anything away in my refrigerator.
This issue touches every facet of my life, personally, professionally, and spiritually. My spouse, Gillian, talks about being a good garde manger in the kitchen, the person who stocks the pantry and makes sure that the food is rotated and used efficiently and economically, making sure not to waste anything.
As I approach my work in philanthropy supporting hunger relief, and as I make my own personal choices about food and sustainability, I’m going to strive to be a better garde manger at home, and do my part to help get food to my hungry neighbors.
Beat Cancer! #beatcancer
October 17, 2009 § Leave a comment
I found out about this campaign a little late, but not too late to join in. eBay, PayPal and Miller Lite are all c0ntributing $.01 for every blog post, Facebook update, and tweet with the #beatcancer hash tag. You can find out more about it at the Beat Cancer Everywhere site.
I have also adopted the hash tag for the Blame Cancer campaign, which started as #blamdrewscancer. For my brother, David, who is currently fighting (and winning) cancer, when I have a bad day, I #blamedavidscancer.
More and more people are impacted by cancer. Either they get it or someone close to them does. And all of us could get it in some form or another.
For that reason I feel compelled to join the social media campaign to help raise money, and encourage others to do so as well.
National Coming Out Day
October 12, 2009 § Leave a comment
Musings on being a “professional homosexual”
Since delving into the world of social networking, I have observed people separate their accounts into personal, professional, or political. I have been a little self conscious about my choice of keeping my accounts somewhat integrated. I worry that I’m posting things that my online community won’t be interested in, won’t agree with, or will find inappropriate. Personally, I like to see people in three dimensions, and I prefer to represent myself in that light too.
This weekend, as I was watching the coverage of the National Equality March in Washington DC, I was inspired by the speeches and tweeting my favorite quotes as I watched. For those who follow me because of our professional connection, I wonder if I am perceived as crossing a boundary that they might think is at best a little annoying, and at worst offensive.
My wife and I were were the second couple to be married in 2004 in the Winter of Love. For a while we were quite literally poster children for marriage equality. A very romantic photo of us by the Golden Gate Bridge was blown up and plastered on bus stop billboards across San Francisco that year. We often joked that year that we were “professional homosexuals,” representing the movement for marriage equality.
While we were caught up in an extraordinary historical moment five years ago, my wife and I are very ordinary people. We struggle to make ends meet and face life’s challenges like any other couple. We love each other and we are privileged to have what many other couples take for granted; a family who loves and embraces us, an employer who respects my relationship with my wife, and a life of relative safety and stability.
There are many same-sex couples who do not have such privilege, so I see it as a personal responsibility to be as out as I possibly can in order to help foster the social change to make the world a safe, nurturing, respectful place for everyone. I may push the boundaries of my professional relationships a bit by putting my whole self out there, but that is the purpose of Coming Out Day.
Moments like this are opportunities for those of us working for equality and civil rights to challenge people in every facet of our lives to recognize the very real ways that we are impacted by discrimination. While I respect some people’s need to draw boundaries between the personal and the professional, I hope that others respect my choice to integrate all of my selves and be entirely me.
Ma.gnolia Is Back!
September 26, 2009 § Leave a comment
I’m thrilled, I tell you, thrilled! My favorite social bookmarking site is back! After a catastrophic data corruption last year, like a phoenix rising from the flames, Ma.gnolia has relaunched to much fan fare. At least by me.
Okay, perhaps that is a little melodramatic, however, I don’t feel that I can understate just how cool this site is. Ma.gnolia was the equivalent of my gateway drug, if you will, into the world of social networking. I made my earliest connections with, at the time, complete strangers, people who I have kept up with on Twitter and Facebook in places like Florida, Texas, New York, Vancouver and Australia. It all started for me on Ma.gnolia.
Oversharer that I am, life just hasn’t been the same since Ma.gnolia died. I missed the efficient information sharing, the groups where people with shared interests could jointly create a useful reference point. I have already uploaded all of my old bookmarks that I have been tracking in Delicious, connected with a few of my old followers there, and joined some groups that are underway there. I was pleased to see that someone already had created a group for Chicago links.
Interesting thing now is that there is an opportunity to keep the spammers out more efficiently. In order to join, you must jump through a few more hoops to prove that you’re human. Hopefully, this will keep the quality and caliber of the users high. It bodes well.
Ma.gnolia is useful, facilitates new relationships, and is pleasing to the eye. I have high hopes that the vibrant community will rebuild again.
Well done, Larry!
Professional Evolution: A Eureka Moment
August 2, 2009 § Leave a comment
I just completed my fourth week on the job as the director of philanthropy operations at Feeding America. This is a new job for the organization, so, while they have clearly defined the parameters of my role there, I have a wonderful operation to build something new.
As an information professional in fundraising, I have always been clear about how my work supports the front line for greater success. I find and track information about relationships between the organization and it’s donors. This information and knowledge management provides a history and context for current relationship cultivation. I always thought that my the focus of my job was content and technology to manage it.
My perspective on knowledge management in the context of nonprofit organizations has been evolving, and I have come to understand that it is not about information and technology, but how people interact with technology, and how they use technology to interact with each other.
Whether it is relationships between individuals within the organization, between donors and executives, or between people and technology, my job is to help people use tools and procedures to have better overall organizational success. What I do helps information flow through the proper channels and get to the right people and get recorded in the right way for posterity’s sake.
I often refer to my job being helping the left hand to know what the right is doing, and that is still pretty apt. But when I thought about it in terms of relationships and institutional success, it contextualized knowledge management in a whole new way for me.
Crisis and Opportunity: Making Media Connections Conference
June 12, 2009 § Leave a comment
#mmc2009
I had a fantastic day volunteering at the Making Media Connections conference. Chicago is the epicenter of civically engaged journalists, techies, and media activists. The world of journalism is experiencing tectonic shifts, being impacted by the recession and trends in technology and social media, and the presentations at the conference was all about how this professional community is responding to those shifts. It is truly at a crisis moment. I have heard that the Japanese word for crisis also means opportunity, which in this case is a very apt translation.
One of the exciting things that came out of this conference was the intersection of different professional worlds coming together that had never had the occasion to do so before. Particularly, I am excited about the non-profit and media community coming together. It makes sense that in this time of crisis and opportunity the worlds of philanthropy, advocacy, and media would connect. Out of this intersection, a creative response is growing in terms of the creation of new tools and innovative ways to use them to create social change.
There is no doubt that social media tools have the potential of being co-opted by corporate conglomerates, and to a certain degree we can only expect that to happen. The panel on media policy that I attended emphasized that we still need to focus on accessibility issues for existing and established technologies (public TV, radio, and print media), and make sure that the public maintains the ability to produce their own content and keep access to a variety of information resources.
However, there was so much optimism about the potential to use social media tools to do good and not evil, it is easy to believe that out of this convergence of activists, community organizers, policy wonks, non-profit leaders, journalists, bloggers, and many others that something really exciting and good is being born. People were able to share their challenges and successes, building collaborative solutions to complex problems.
Community activists of all persuasions need to be vigilant in participating in the process of developing media policy. The issues of net neutrality, low power FM radio, and public access TV should be in sharp focus for all of us.
These are indeed exciting times. Darkness certainly looms as people are being laid off and companies are going into bankruptcy. But hope and inspiration abound as people build their own companies, become consultants, or create innovative jobs in response to the shifting economy. I was thrilled to meet so many optimistic activists and learn about the incredible work they are all doing.
InFomentation 