A few weeks ago, David Wilcox contacted me to discuss our two wikis. His is Social Media A-Z, which I've mentioned earlier and mine is Best Practices in Using Web 2.0 in Nonprofits. Since then, via Skype and Google Docs, we've cobbled together an idea that we want to share and get feedback on before we start it up. (I should add that it was the always helpful and brilliant Beth Kanter who made this suggestion).
Our Goals
David and I are really interested in further building the resources available to nonprofits that are using or considering using social media/Web 2.0 tools. We also want to expand the community of practice on this topic. We've both been working to develop our wikis toward this end, but we are now trying to collaborate more closely on what we're creating so that we don't duplicate each other's efforts. We want to create a library of useful materials for practitioners that is easily accessible to everyone.
Our Plan
Borrowing from Kivi Leroux Miller's Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants we'd like to run a Wiki Carnival to gather materials and information. Our plan is this:
From March 5-11, we'll be putting out a call for participants to:
- Send links to David or me of any of your blog items that you believe should be linked in the wiki. Even better write a new item!
- Send us a video or podcast or link related to using Web 2.0/social media tools that might be helpful. We're particularly interested in real-world examples, case studies, etc.
- Let us know what del.icio.us tags you use ... maybe socialmedia, collaboration ... then we can look for stuff you have bookmarked
- Recommend other blogs, books, articles that you think will be useful.
- Send us questions you'd like answered or ideas you have for resources that would be helpful to you in using social media with nonprofits.
You can either e-mail us the information or you will be able to post in either of our wikis on special pages that David and I will set up specifically for the Carnival.
Once the Carnival week ends, David and I will sort through everything, organize it and post into the appropriate locations in our wikis. We'll also share with you a write-up of what we got, as well as identify any gaps in information that we have, unanswered questions, etc.
Depending on what we get back, we anticipate that we'll run a Round 2 (or possibly a few more rounds) to fill in the gaps that we identify.
Right now we're running this idea up the flagpole to see if you have any ideas or suggestions for how we could run this most effectively. We want this to be a collaborative, community-building process and we definitely need your input to get it going.
So what do you think? Drop me an e-mail or leave me a note in comments. You can also check out David's post on the idea.
I can't join in, yet, but I'm following ...
Posted by: Beverly Trayner | February 25, 2007 at 07:48 AM