Stories, software and strategies to help nonprofits do the social web
I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from...
October, 21 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Sure, today’s unprecedented technology allows us to reach new audiences, or connect advocates to share their stories, but the call to action must be clear, it must be actionable, and it must show impact. Today’s volunteers may be savvier when it comes to finding volunteer opportunities on their iPhone, but they expect an experience that matches the ease to which they found it. via socialcitizens.org My colleague Kari Saratovsky on iPhone volunteering. While the technology holds so much promise, it's not clear...
October, 17 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Paul Lamb writes: So how we can innovate the sector as a whole so any nonprofit can do better regardless of the prevailing economic winds? One radical idea is to adjust the nonprofit model and begin to let communities engage directly with causes and people in need. Taking a page from the playbook of peer-to-peer services such as eBay, charity "buyers" and "sellers" could engage directly without the need for a middleman. Instead of giving money to the United Way to support food banks, why not give the money...
October, 7 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
U.S. credit cards lack a special chip, now commonly used in many foreign countries, causing them to be rejected by some merchants and kiosks. via nytimes.com Whoa there, isolation.
October, 2 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
AlpacaDirect.com, always offered a page full of cherry-picked customer comments raving about the site's alpaca sweaters, socks and yarn. But recently Hobart, [the owner,] decided to take the idea a step further: He hired PowerReviews, whose software lets shoppers write their own product reviews directly on the retailer's Web site. It was a risky move for the four-year-old company, based in Brentwood, Calif. Hobart was effectively paying to host bad press -- such as posts by customers who described AlpacaDirect's...
September, 30 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
August, 22 2009 • 3 Comments • 0 Faves
Michael H. Goldhaber writes on the emerging attention economy. Now, the pursuit of attention "more and more fully comes to occupy most people’s efforts." Contrast traditional economics' preoccupation with industrial manufacture of standardized goods: One of the first such standardized manufactured goods was money itself (in the form of coins). Now, increasingly, money tracks attention. Those with a great deal of attention can easily obtain money, should they want it. Those with little attention will have a much...
August, 21 2009 • 0 Comments • 2 Faves
Andy Kessler's editiorial in today's Wall Street Journal says it's time for telecom policy that encourages innovation -- We need a national data policy, and here are four suggestions: • End phone exclusivity. Any device should work on any network. Data flows freely. • Transition away from "owning" airwaves. As we've seen with license-free bandwidth via Wi-Fi networking, we can share the airwaves without interfering with each other. Let new carriers emerge based on quality of service rather than spectrum owned...
August, 19 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Startup thinking for the social sector. Code to help nonprofits do the social web. Plus photography.
(And reading aloud.)
More about Eric Johnson.
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