Talkstories's Blog

Ever since the 2008 election, I have wondered how President Obama used the Internet to raise half of billion dollars and motivate millions of people – most of whom who would not typically be a part of the political process – to participate in his campaign. I had no answer to this question until I read the article Online Tactics and Success – an Examination of the Obama for America New Media Campaign. This article not only provides insights into the process of building Obama’s online campaign, but also encourages its readers to learn and apply key principles from the campaign to the nonprofit sector.

One of the most valuable lessons that we can apply to the nonprofit sector is to develop a data-driven approach. This approach was critical to the success of Obama’s online campaign because there were so many elements to new media that it was difficult for campaign staff to know what would work and what wouldn’t. As a result, they developed a rigorous process to test, track, and then modify their strategies based on the results.

I think that in order for nonprofit organizations to effectively using new media, they need to spend a lot of thought and resources on developing a data-driven strategy. From the experience of the Obama campaign, it was clear that new media staff had conducted many trial and errors experiments before getting the right answers. For many international and national nonprofit organizations such as The Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, and The Boys and Girls Club of America, this recommendation is useful. These nonprofits could apply concrete strategies from Obama’s online campaign to improve their fundraising and advocacy. For example, they could create a new media department as an independent entity within their organizations, and then hire high-performing professionals to focus solely on building their online fund raising and advocacy efforts.

However, for many small or mid-sized nonprofit organizations that have a total annual budget of less than two million dollars, this data driven strategy is not directly applicable. Most small nonprofits have limited resources and would not be able to create a separate new media department or hire a team of professionals. Therefore, small and mid sized nonprofits must find an alternative strategy to develop their online fundraising and advocacy, perhaps by pooling their resources of hiring consultants.

From the article 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, I realized that small nonprofit organizations could develop incremental steps in improving their usage of new media. One of these steps is to collect data from their current websites and email lists. For example, in the article 2009 eNonprofit, the author collected email ‘open and click-through rates’ to determine the effectiveness of online fundraising and advocacy. From my experience, many small nonprofit organizations do not currently collect basic data from their email lists and websites.

I think that in order to help small nonprofit organizations improve their usage of new media, we need to establish a coalition of small nonprofits. This coalition will solely focus on helping these nonprofits to take advantage of online fundraising and advocacy. They could provide planning, training, and support.

I believe that helping small community-based organizations to use new media is critical. These organizations have a direct impact on the day-to-day livelihood of many of our children and families. We need to find new ways to help them become more effective at raising money and advocating online.

“The groundswell trend is unstoppable, and your customers are there. You may go a little slower or a little faster, but you have to move forward. There is no going back.” I agree wholeheartedly with this statement because I know that social technologies and the Internet have changed the way we live and interact with the world. As a result, we as leaders, managers, professionals, consultants, and others must learn to take advantage of new social technologies to impact positive changes in the world.

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff define “groundswell” as “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” Because of this trend, the authors provide a useful guide that illustrates how businesses are using social technologies to listen to their customers, generate buzzes, create values, and increase profits. They use real world examples to prove that social technologies can add significant value and generate profits to businesses.

Although Li and Bernoff’s target audience for Groundswell is corporations, their ideas and framework can be applied to government and nonprofit organizations as well. One of the most important questions is how government agencies and nonprofit organizations strategically use social technologies to improve their social outcomes and impact? Can they develop innovative methods to listen to their customers? Can they use the groundswell for marketing and public relations?

To answer these questions, I thought of my own experience as a former executive director of Asian American LEAD, a nonprofit organization that provides educational programs to refugee children. As I reflected on my experience, I wish I had learned how to use the then-emerging social technologies to advance the organization’s mission. I could have experimented with some of the groundswell techniques for marketing and PR. For example, I could have developed a plan using the POST method to think about all the people who interacted with the organization and  generated a social ‘technographics’ profile of our donors and volunteers to identify some characteristics of their web behaviors. If many of my donors and volunteers were collectors, joiners, and spectators, I could have established a private community on our website Where our volunteer mentors and tutors could have interacted and shared ideas on how to help their children. These volunteers would feel more connected and provide much needed support to each other. In addition, our donors would receive greater satisfaction if they could watch a one or two minute video that showed students participating in an art contest or securing a college scholarship. These updates would help donors to become more committed to provide financial support to the organization.   

From my experiences, many small nonprofit organizations have not learned how to use social technologies effectively to advance their missions. One main reason is that many nonprofit executive directors have little time to think strategically and experiment with social technologies. Furthermore, many directors fear that new technologies can create adverse consequences. As a result, nonprofit organizations may continue to fall behind and not be able to take advantage of the social technologies.

I believe that both government and nonprofit organizations need to start using groundswell and learn how to create impact. They could not afford to fall behind in shifting their ways of doing business in a rapidly changing world.

What is Web 2.0? What is the concept of open source? These are some of the questions that a lot of folks are asking themselves. Both Tim O’Reilly and Eric Raymond’s articles not only answer these questions, but also offer some exciting new ideas and thought provoking paradigms for Web 2.0 and open source.  

Tim O’Reilly provides seven core competencies of Web 2.0 and gives us countless examples of how we have changed the way we use the World Wide Web. For example, before Web 2.0 we had Britannica Online, personal websites and publishing. Now we have Wikipedia, blogging, and participation. Because of these changes, we have to find innovative approaches and strategies to fully utilize the Web.

Similarly, in his article The Cathedral and the Bazaar Raymond shares his experiments with open source. He uses the words “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” to explain the two strategies of developing software. He uses the word “Cathedral” to describe the traditional method of building software. This method resembled the process of building a Cathedral – a certain number of people worked together over a long period of time to complete a Cathedral. On the other hand, the new “Bazaar” method which was famously created by Linus Torvald allowed several thousand programmers and developers connecting with each other over the internet to contribute to open-source programs to design and develop software. Torvald made a fundamental paradigm shift and encouraged users to modify the source code of a program.

From these two articles, I realized that Web 2.0 is a powerful tool. We are still at an early stage of understanding the impact that Web 2.0 has on our lives. For example, who would think that Wikipedia would be such an authority on the Web today? I would not have dreamt that users like me would have the power to edit an entry on Wikipedia. Furthermore, Web 2.0 has changed the way we participate in our political system. Five years ago, I was not able to dream that ordinary citizens could report on presidential elections in the United States. But today citizen journalists are the norm on the Web.

In addition, I recognized that Web 2.0 has fundamentally altered some of the structures of our world. The structure that I often believe as the corner stone or frame of reference is now being rattled by the Internet. For instance, who would have thought that open source was a possible software design method. But now we know that open source works, and we begin to understand the power of harnessing collective intelligence. If there are many more innovative approaches to using Web 2.0 to alter our world – Netflix’s use of web 2.0 to do collaborative research and development for example – then I must learn how to think and dream of things outside my current reality.

Would it be possible to use the internet to communicate with people who do not speak my language? Would it be possible to harness collective intelligence of people who do not speak your language? Can I create a history of ordinary citizens on the Internet? Would it be possible to create family history on the Internet? These are some of the questions that I have. I probably still limited in my imagination as to what Web 2.0 can do. But I need to start and then continue to dream of what will be possible in the near future.

What are some of the future business models for newspapers? Should we follow Clay Shirky’s advice?  What is the role of citizen journalists in the future? Is Mark Cuban ethical? Can we apply the True Fan model to fund new forms of journalism? What can we learn from Michael Andersen at Guardian? What can I get out of these five articles? What common theme can I extract from them?

In each of these articles, the authors are revealing an innovative way of using the Web and dealing with the changes that come with it. The Web has created new ways for us to think about journalism, to get information, and to question and approach new ethical dilemmas.

One of the authors that I found myself admiring is Clay Shirky. I thought that he wrote an informative article posting an important question about journalism. I agreed with his point that “society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.” Just like Americans didn’t always need railroads, but they always need transportation. I believe that the newspaper industry should broaden their perspectives on the different roles that citizens and journalists can play in delivering news. For a long time, journalists have had the power to be the sole provider of news, opinions and even information. However, times have changed and now everyone who has access to a computer can create a blog can deliver news and opinion. As a result, how can journalists create a new role for themselves in today’s society.

In addition, I found the article written by Amanda Michel to be thought-provoking. I was intrigued by the pro-am strategy that “offTheBus” used to create quality journalism. They did train and mentor their citizen writers to conduct thorough researches and interviews. I believe that the future of citizen journalism depends on helping millions of people to improve their quality of reporting and writing. As Michel pointed out that “good writers are scarce;” therefore, we as a society must invest in helping our citizens to improve their writing skills.

Furthermore, in today’s world we all need to ask the question “who is going to pay for our journalists?” As Patricia Gray reported, owner Mark Cuban finances the website Sharesleuth because he could trade stocks on Sharesleuth’s findings. Although Cuban discloses his intension on the website, many critics find his self-interest to be unethical if not quite illegal. As I read this article, I was not quite sure how to analyze this ethical dilemma. How is this case different from the New York Times taking advertising money from Walmart to pay their journalists? I am not sure I have the answer. However, I suspect that in the future we will have more ethical issues that are related to our new forms of journalism. 

Finally, can we use the True Fan model to fund new forms of journalism? Will the long tail model work in journalism as well as it has worked for other providers of entertainment like Netflix? I thought that the True Fan model has potential to pay for journalists who provide accurate, fair, objective, and quality reporting to the public. I believe that we as a society should pay for journalists who provide an important service to our society. Therefore, I am willing to pay for journalists who have gained my trust. In the future, I believe that more journalists will use this model to pay for their reporting.  

I have been enlightened by reading these articles and sensed an urgency to learn as much as I can about the future of journalism in the digital world. As Clay Shirky said “we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.” I agreed whole heartedly because journalism is one of the foundations for a just and democratic society.

Scott Rosenberg provides a chronicle of how blogs come into existence and how they changed the way people communicate with each other and with the world at-large. He gives us countless examples of how individuals such as Dave Winer, Justin Hall, Evan Williams, Dan Gilmore, Andrew Sullivan, and Josh Marshall have used blogs as a tool to connect with audiences and develop their sphere of influence and power. These examples illustrate that blogs are relatively easy to use and can have significant impact on our lives and the world.

After reading the book, I realize that blogs can be a powerful tool reaching out to millions of people who were often invisible to mainstream media. Using a blog, I can for example reach out to minority groups who share the same interests. I regret that when I was the Executive Director of a nonprofit organization Asian American LEAD, at first there were no blogs and later I did not know how to set up a blog to further my mission.

From the stories in Say Everything, I feel empowered and excited by the possibilities of blogging as a tool for community organizing. In the past, I was intimidated by the process of setting up and writing a blog. For example, I used to believe that I would have to be an expert on Web design or a computer geek to put up a blog. In addition, I imagined that only journalists and professional writers could write a blog because they are were experts on  certain issues. In his book, Scott Rosenberg tells the story of Dave Winer who started blogging when he was a software developer and he did not consider himself as a writer or journalist. In addition, I was inspired to know that many bloggers write blogs to learn from people who visit their sites. For instance, Dan Gillmor wrote a blog on technology even though he admitted that he did not know as much as his readers.

From these stories and examples, I have generated dozens of blogging ideas to organize the Asian American community. I realize that I can start a blog to help hundreds of Asian American youth development organizations to share information, exchange “best practices,” find the latest researches, and connect with university faculty and experts in the field. When I was an ED of my non-profit, I wished there was a blog where I could communicate with other executive directors and share my challenges as well as my successes. For example, when I faced the challenge of hiring a bilingual mental health professional, I wish I could link to the Asian American Family Services on the blog and learn from their experiences in similar situations.

In addition, I know that the Asian American nonprofit organizations are facing an enormous challenge in hiring bilingual and bicultural professionals. I want to start a blog that can help Asian American organizations connect with colleges and universities where there are a large number of Asian American undergraduate, graduate, and professional students who are potential suture employees. This blog can have links to many of the Asian American national and local organizations around the country.

I believe that blogging can change the way I organize for social change. I am excited about the new possibilities of using blogs as a powerful personal publishing tool to make this world a better place.

John Battelle starts by giving his readers the history of how Google came into existence and developed into the powerhouse it has become. First, the author introduces the story of the two founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin as a way for his readers to understand the passion and drive behind this company. Like most “two-guys-in-a-garage” Valley founders, both Page and Brin experienced many challenges and had to work tirelessly to transform their ideas into reality. Later, the author provides a detailed description of a new business model on the Internet. Bill Gross, a successful entrepreneur  started this new business model, but he missed the opportunity to fully realize his dream. Essentially, Google uses this new business model to build and expand the company. Finally, the author provides an insightful account of the Google’s growth, culture, and organizational development. One important turning point in Google’s growth was the hiring of  veteran Eric Schmidt as CEO. With Shmidt at the helm, Google has expanded and developed into a gigantic company that beats most of its competitors.

Through my reading, I value the author’s description of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. I admire these two people who have the passion to do something useful for them, yes, but also for society as a whole. In his vision, Larry Page wants to be an inventor who has invented something that hundreds of millions of people can use. Because of this vision, Page and Brin has changed lives  of billions of people. Today, Google has become a verb and a household tool – a tool that I rely on to make my life easier. As long as I have access to the Internet, I can find almost any secondary information that I need .

In addition to admiring their creation of Google, I can personally relate to Page and Brin’s experiences as entrepreneurs who struggled at the start-up stage. As a founder of a nonprofit organization around the same time as Page and Brin, I shared similar experiences in starting an organization. At the early stage, Page and Brin had to borrow computers, work from their dorm room, and do what they could to make their ideas work. Their passion, a is one key element that made them successful, comes across vividly in the book.

Furthermore, I can relate to their difficulties in raising money to fund their ideas. As for Page and Brin, the author describes their struggles and the number of potential investors who politely refused to invest in them. In the book, the author does not talk about how Page and Brin managed their disappointments whenever they were turned down. I think if the author had given his readers some insights as to how Page and Brin overcame their “bad” days, we would be been even more inspired by their story.

Finally, I am glad that the author gives his readers a clear picture into Page and Brin’s struggle in hiring a CEO. I can relate to their experience of letting go of their control. As a founder, I also had a difficult of letting go of control because I was so used to do everything myself. I knew what was going on at all levels of the organization. In the case of Google, Page and Brin knew that they had to hire a CEO in order for Google to grow and become even more successful. However, their struggle in delaying the hiring process is understandable. They had to gradually let go of their internal need to control and to develop trust with the new CEO. From an outsider, it is hard to tell whether or not Eric Schmidt has total control of the company or he is a puppet CEO (he is not!). However, the fact that he has been there for more than eight years shows that he is willing to work with the founders to make Google an unbeatable company.

Just a  quick test

boris

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