I confess. I don’t Digg and I have no idea what to use it for. In fact, just the other day I submitted my first article. And it doesn’t even really count since it’s one of my own blog posts. I just wanted to test the process. Sadly, as of today, 6 days after posting, I still only have 1 digg (my own). I’m sure it’s because it was my own content and I have no idea what I’m doing. However, I wanted to see if I could make sense out of this tool everyone else seems to be using but me. Maybe I’m not really at the cool kids lunch table?...
In case you need an intro to Digg like I do, here’s an overview of the website:
- Digg is a place for people to share with others their favorite content they find anywhere on the internet.
- Once you post, others vote on your submissions. The more diggs, the better.
- People, collectively, determine the value of content.
- Most content people submit are news articles, videos, and images.
- If your content really rocks - people will submit your content, you’ll get digg’d a lot, and then you’ll get published on their front page. And published on the front page means you are really awesome and will get a lot more publicity.
- They make it pretty easy to comment and share the stuff you find on Digg.
- And, you can even make friends because you might trust their opinion on good or bad content and want to follow what they digg. And if not, you can always digg for content by topic category (technology, science, gaming, entertainment, etc).
So what do you think? Should I Digg it and how should I use this site?
It’s day two and so far, in my biased opinion, it’s been the best conference ever. Part of the reason I’m biased? I’ve had some wonderful conversations with our clients and listened in on some sessions that expanded and challenged my mind. We all have a lot of challenges facing us in the future but we’ve got some smart people on board and the heart to get it done. One nice thing I was telling one of my twitter friends (who I finally met *in person*) is that even though I’ve been
pushed gently nudged onto the public spotlight of the Blackbaud blogs is that I still get to operate day to day under the radar. Being the regular
Joe Jane allows me to still interact as my regular role, technical writer on Documentation team, and not in any kind of spotlight.
My conference highlights thus far:
- Volunteering with Baud Squad! I had so much fun helping out Sunday and Monday night. Best of all, meeting and interacting with our clients. My favorites had to be conversations with Operation Smile and Spring Hill College! It always makes my day when I can share my passion for philanthropy and meet new, friendly people. I look forward to more conversations!
- Sam Davidson from Cool People Care’s presentation on Communicating with the the Next Generation – He was entertaining, informative, and enthusiastic. I took two pages worth of notes (an upcoming blog post for sure)!
- Andrew Mosawi’s session on Global Philanthropy – wow, the potential for global philanthropy growth is exponential and mind-blowing. Of course, I sat there thinking about how that will affect social media, documentation, and communication.
- Shaun Sullivan’s session on the emerging technology at Blackbaud - Sure I knew a lot of it but there was some I didn’t and it was explained in new terms with some cool graphics and demos.
- Working at the Service to Others booth – I always feel blessed to participate in so many philanthropic and service opportunities at Blackbaud. Just as fun, participating in a service project where we encourage our conference attendees to help out too. We’re making craft kits to deliver to the local children’s hospital so children will have something to do while they wait in the hospital. Giving back feels awesome!
I’m sure before it’s over I’ll have even more conference memories. If I could, I’d hang out and eat dessert with conference attendees all day long. The chocolate cake one was d’lish!
And, let me end by saying thanks to all the people I’ve met and the conversations we’ve started. I look forward to continuing our talks online with social media. In the meantime, it’s back under the radar to absorb all my new knowledge like a sponge.
I noticed this week that Causes in Facebook seem to have improved their ease of recruiting. I was recruited to a couple of my favorite local nonprofits and in return could invite others all without much effort. The other nice part about Causes in Facebook? Once you invite someone and they join, you can thank them! We all like thank you’s and it shows that you appreciated someone supporting your causes. The value of social networking – shared philanthropy and hope of making the world a better place.
Other Causes features I love:
- Easy to Feature the cause on your profile (on your wall, info, and boxes tabs)
- When you thank or recruit someone, it can show up in yours and their news feed. From the news feed, people can click to join, view, or invite people to the cause.
- Hall of Fame for top recruiters – recognition!
- Media Board to share links, photos, and videos
- Discussion Board and Wall to spark conversations.
- Easy to Donate!
- And lots more, check out http://apps.facebook.com/causes for more information and to see how you too can make an impact. Halos and Fields to Families are great examples of two small nonprofits jumping into social meda!
Sometimes keeping up with the amount of information, news,
and blogs on the Internet can be time-consuming, unproductive, and frustrating.
I know for the longest time I had a routine down where I'd visit my list of
sites every morning looking for new content. I still have no clue why I spent
all that time searching for content instead of having it come to me.
Enter Google Reader into my life amidst glorious heavenly
music. It might seem like I'm being a bit dramatic but I'm not. Now, in
the morning (or often throughout the
day), I go to Google Reader and read up on news, information, social network
updates, blogs, and more all aggregated on one page. How?
Well it's easy. You just take advantage of, the ever growing
in popularity, RSS.
RSS, or really simple syndication, is not new. However, I
hardly ever hear people talking about RSS aggregators and what it can do for
self-education. When you use RSS or atom feeds, you can collect them like links/favorites/bookmarks
and add them to a website like Google Reader who collects and displays them all
in one location. I also use folders on Google Reader so I can categorize types
of feeds. This lets me keep friends' updates separate from Blackbaud updates,
Technical Communication updates, my "Geek Feeds," and more.
Using an aggregator helps you collect all your feeds and
have information come to you. The aggregator lets you know when something is
new instead of having to stumble upon it yourself. I'm sure there are many
excellent feed aggregators on the market; I just choose to perpetuate the
Google empire.
If you're in Firefox, if a page has a feed, you'll see an
icon like the one in this post in the website address field. When you click on
it, it helps you "subscribe" to a website. On other sites, they will display
that logo, something similar, or even a link to the RSS feeds. ***Hint, this page has a link in the Blog Info section.*** Once you start
looking on websites, I'm sure you'll see them everywhere.
Either way, using feed aggregators not only makes sense from
a time perspective but it really empowers you to take advantage of the wealth
of information online. Because you can organize your feeds, you can start
handling more feeds, discover new sites, and then be able to share what you
find with others.
Another reason why I love Google Reader? When I find
something good, they make it easy for me to share by email with people or add
it my personal website of Shared Items. And don't get me started on how easy it
is to integrate these features with Facebook! I'll save that for another time.
Anyone have any really cool ways they are using RSS, feed
aggregators, or Google Reader?