Chad Norman's Webby Things : NTEN

15 Clay Shirky Quotes That Blew My Mind at NTC

Chad Norman — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:23:00 GMT

I had been looking forward to Clay Shirky's plenary at the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference for a while, and he did not let me down. Keeping in theme with his almost dead-on resemblance to Tom Hanks, his words/message/thoughts resonated around the room like Forest Gump on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Had the WiFi in the room not gone down, I am almost certain Twitter would have collapsed under the weight of our collective epiphanies.

If you haven't read Clay's book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, be sure to take a look. It's required reading for anyone working with online communities and social capital, and his talk today took the book's concepts to a new level. I mean, after the debut of NTEN executive director Holly Ross's Beyonce tribute video, I thought it couldn't get any better. It did.

There were a few people Qiking the talk, and I'm pretty sure NTEN recorded it as well, so hopefully you'll have a chance to check out the whole thing soon. In the mean time, here are 15 quotes from this morning that absolutely blew my mind. I realize they are totally out of context, but like a fortune cookie they may bring you valuable insight. Enjoy!

"The loss of control you fear is already in the past."

"We're not good at thinking fast. We are good at feeling fast."

"Tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring."

"Once one person solves the problem once, the problem stays solved for everybody."

"The intention of users has more impact than the intention of the designers."

"Each of us is simultaneously an individual person and a global publisher."

"Start small and good, then make it bigger."

"We spend more time figuring out whether something is a good idea than we would have just trying it."

"Don't hire consultants. Hire your own 23-year-olds."

"Just take our organization and add some Internet."

"It's not just about delivering content to members, it's about the convening power to help members discover each other."

"Fail informatively - Fail like crazy."

"My guess is that the high water mark of Facebook's universality has passed."

"Nothing says dictatorship like arresting people for eating ice cream. The problem wasn't the ice cream, it was the group."

"I was just making things up."

7 Webby Things I Have a Crush On

Chad Norman — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:31:00 GMT

If you're a web geek like me, you probably spend every day getting inundated with new tools, services, products, processes, posts, feeds, people, etc - it's mind bending! Finding a useful tool in all that noise sometimes comes down to luck - some weeks nothing will stick, while other weeks it's like having breakthrough after breakthrough. Here are a few helpful webby things that have crossed my screen over the last couple weeks.

BackTweets.com
If your organization is using Twitter to measure engagement, two of the main components worth tracking are retweeting and incoming links to your website. With all the Twitter-friendly URLs being used (tinyurl.com, SnipURL.com, is.gd, etc), search.twitter.com does a poor job of finding people linking to your site. BackTweets solves that by digging into all those short URLs, and returning results showing exactly who is linking to your website. Very cool! www.backtweets.com

Blackbaud iPhone Browser Simulator
A couple weeks ago, Blackbaud CTO Shaun Sullivan released iBBDemo - a demo and test platform for iPhone web content that runs from within Windows. Initially developed to demo iPhone content during presentations, this app is a great tool for any developer working on the platform. Check out Blackbaud Labs for a free download.

The Social Media Elevator Pitch
Whether you're in the nonprofit or for profit world, selling your social media strategy to your internal stakeholders can be a common source of pain. Beth Kanter wrote a great blog post featuring Wendy Harman, the "professional listener" for The American Red Cross, discussing her social media elevator pitch. Social media is still very new, and many executives want to learn why it's important, but need the message to be clear and concise. Check out the post for some great ideas you can use to get your pitch ready.

monitter.com
I'm a huge fan of the real-time social web, and so you can imagine my excitement when a friend turned me onto monitter.com (Thanks, Lindsey!). Monitter is a Twitter aggregator that displays keyword-based tweets in a real-time stream. www.monitter.com

Gmail fixes attachment annoyance
Oh my, some times it's the simple things. Gmail will finally allow you to select and add multiple attachments at one time. Oh yes, that's right. This is one of those features that was painfully missing, and it should make anyone's Gmailing a little more efficient.

N2Y4 Mobile Challenge
Mobile technology is becoming a common partner to social action, and organizations like NetSquared are doing amazing work to see that innovation thrives. The N2Y4 Mobile Challenge brings together mobile tech junkies and social activists for collaboration and competition. And with a target audience of 2.2 billion, a little innovation can go a long way...

Change the Web Challenge
The work Social Actions is doing is changing the way the world acts. The Change the Web Challenge reaches out to the development community to create innovative tools that help people share opportunities with those ready to act. Check out the stuff that's already running on the Social Actions API. If you're interested in the $10,000 prize, you've got until April 3rd to submit your entry.

Interact with NTEN Office Hours

Chad Norman — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:39:00 GMT

Yesterday I participated in the NTEN Office Hours program by hosting a session in the Communication Track...which we all know these days means webby things. I was a bit nervous going into the session, but I have to say it was a lot of fun - and a great example of using web technology to provide real-time results (on of my favorite things.)

Basically, NTEN reached out to its members seeking volunteers to host hour-long chat sessions once a week in their area of expertise. Using freely available tools like Google Calendar and meebo, the office hours program provides a conduit for sharing knowledge. Cheers to Anna, Holly, and the rest of the NTEN crew for setting up such a useful program!

Participating is easy. First, check out the calender to see which experts are signed up and when. Second, visit the chat room at the scheduled time for the expertise area of that volunteer: IT Staff, Communications, Fundraising, Program, or Leadership. And third, ask away!

I'll be hosting a session every Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET in the Communication room...stop by and chat!