I haven’t done much thinking about Twitter lists yet, but I did stumble upon this very elegant and smart way to use them.   I like that the lists are completely relevant to the profile and answer questions you would like the answer to.

While we are highlighting the smartness of Work [at] Play…you must check out their site.

I love how the background (image of them working) is supporting and standing behind the work (it pops over the background)  nice little metaphor.  I’m also really into the horizontal movement when you navigate.

You often see this done with a nice set of buttons that range from approval to disapproval depending on the social environment of the application. Facebook for example only allows you to “Like” something, which is perfectly appropriate, as there is  no sense in giving people tools to be mean spirited with. A person can do plenty of damage with the current set of features.  Although, it would be nice to have a range of “nice” or constructive” opinions you could register via a simple button.

One thing to remember when designing this type of User Generated Opinion (UGO) functionality is that you must have a scalable plan.

The plan needs to consider the effect of these opinions at project launch and a year later.
It needs to envision how will they impact the experience when you have 100 participates, 1000 participates or tens of thousands.

How can these ratings establish and maintain value, usefulness and creditability over time?

Consider:

TIME: Are the responses permanently attached to the content or only available for a limited amount of time?
REACH: Where are they visible? Who will be able to see them and is this a good thing?
INTENDED INFLUENCE: Are they meant to influence a user’s decision making process or just promote conversation between a small group of people?

The effect of this UGO can be quite ugly if you fail develop rules for displaying it. Take Honk.com . It just launched and on my visit to the site this morning I found an unfortunate display of UGO right on the home page

.

It maybe true that Matt Hermann dislikes many cars but is this The Matt Hermann Personal Rant website?  Is this the brand experience Honk would like to project in the first months of the project being live?

It’s ok to manage and curate your site

Just because you ask users to participate doesn’t mean you have to allow this participation to rule your site.  It’s also more than likely that your users are trusting you to manage the participation in a way that is benifitcial for everyone. I doubt Matt realize he was going to be presented in such a way on the site. He is an early participate and was “rewarded” for this by being plastered on the front page in all his critical glory. He’ll probalby think twice about participating again.  I know I would.

Just as for-profit companies are trying to figure out how to exist, persist and grow in this world of new communication so are the not-for-profit organizations. It’s time to use our power for good and put some creative energy around this. Many have started and there is room for more.

I’ve worked with a hand full of non-profits over the past few years that I’ve noticed that there are some things that are the same across the board. The biggest “same” is the need to raise funds.  Each time I engage with a nonprofit client the bulk of the discussions and energy are spent working on ways to optimize the effectiveness of  the “support us message” and the process of making a donation.  But you know what? Optimization can only go so far.  At some point we need to design new ways to draw people into donate.  We need to design ways to cultivate the donor/organization relationship and take it to the next level.

My best ideas have revolved around the idea of creating an army of evangelists and giving them the tools to go out and raise the money for you. I believe this is the the most powerful way an organization can raise their participation level. I also believe that for-profit companies have known this for years and continue to use the tactic no matter how distasteful it feels coming from a corporation, so it’s bound to work for the for-good organizations of the world.

So here are my top 5 things to consider when thinking about redefining and revitalizing the ways you raise funds.

The 5 rules for succeeding in the new world of fundraising:

1. Harness the energy of current supporters, this isn’t about acquisition of new supporters (at least not right away).
2. Put your old rules and goals away. People will give money more freely if the cause is endorsed by their peers. So put the old rules away and see how you can redefine your expectations and set a plan to support them.
4.  Let us tell the story in our own words.  You can’t and shouldn’t want to control the message. Let your supporters talk to their people in their own words. You will learn something and maybe even see your organization in a whole new light.
5. Let us have fun. It’s nice to be serious and there will always be the set that wants a straightedge giving experience, but there’s a whole crop of people who will be attracted to a good time, especially if this good time results in something good.

There are a few companies working in this space, designing products for individuals and organizations to use for fund raising. I recently came across BeExtraodinary, they are right in there with what I’m talking about.

There’s a lot of room for good thinking, design and problem solving in this arena. I would challenge you to think about it a bit. I’d love to hear your ideas.

PS

Hey NIKE!  I would like to talk with you about using NIKE+ as a fundraising tool.  Call me.

photo credit: group cookery

I read Josh Bernoff’s article How to create a social application for life sciences without getting fired a while back and I found myself thinking about it again this weekend. I think the above chart is excellent and the perfect tool for illustrating how social media tools may or may not be appropriate, beneficial or wanted by different users.

You know that point in a project where you have the big list of ideas and have to start slimming them down.  I think this chart is an excellent piece to start the meeting with, it kinda greases the mind into thinking in a critical way about real people, their needs and current habits.

Yes, those with Cancer have a lot to gain by connecting with other Cancer suffers but it’s easy to see why they don’t currently spend a lot of time online in these communities.  Cancer treatments take a lot out of you and many people still have to continue their normal lives while under treatment.  So, if we wanted to give them social tools, they would have to have high, immediate value and would need to be embedded into a process they already participate in or really really easy with a low barrier of entry.

Josh actually created this chart to help understand whether the risks involved with implementing social tools in the health care industry had strong enough value to the users to pursue. He says, “I decided to focus on who has the most to gain from social applications. Because if you don’t have a lot to gain, the regulatory issues mean you may have a lot at risk, and it’s not worth it”

He’s right on and really asking the right questions that will ultimately protect his clients.  There is also a much broader lesson in this statement that we can and should apply when working on our own projects. What risks will your brand or campaign be taking by implementing particular social tools? There may not be a large regulatory body like the FDA watching you but there is risk involved with implementing these tools.

Is this something your target users even want, will use or, find benefit in?  If no, why would you expose the company to the obvious complications, risks, and at very least management responsibliites of emplimenting a social media tool? How will your users react to the new functionality?  Will they backlash and decided to go somewhere else? Will they be irritated and loose trust in the brand? or will you fullfill all thier dreams?   I will hope it’s the later but I know doing research and analisys such as this will get you a lot closer than you might have been.

I tweeted about this new project a few weeks back but wanted to mention it here.  One because it’s a wonderful idea and I’m really excited to follow it’s progress and two because one of the organizations you can volunteer for is the Brooklyn Museum. I wrote about their innovative community tagging program and it seems they are taking it further by soliciting tags from The Exraordinaries volunteers.  Love it.

As for this whole idea of getting people to use their phones and little free time to do something good…..I also love it.   I think if they can capture the spirit of playing a game it will really take off. Tons of people spend tons of hours playing little games on their phones, if you could play a “game” and do good, wouldn’t that be great. It isn’t really into the game realm yet but the potential is there.

Few screenshots:

There are quit a few community tagging/cataloging projects. What do you librarians think of this?

This one is pretty neat. Building a catalog of places for kids to play.

Art is the perfect candidate for this type of cataloging. Imagine all the many descriptive words you could come up with for this this photograph.

Carrie Mae Weems

Now think of the words your father or grandfather might use to describe it, today or 30 years ago. The potential value of a cataloging public perception of art over time is extremely exciting too me.

Here’s how they are doing it and using it.

Lynn Hyman Butler

Logged in “Posse” members can add tags to the full catalog of images. Tags can be added and removed. This removal function moves the tag into a state of limbo where the community can “play the game to decide the tag’s fate”

“Here’s how this works: you’ll be presented with tags that have been flagged for removal by other posse members and your job is to provide a second opinion about the relevance of the tag. Consider these examples as guides:
What I think is really successful about this is the tone, it’s positive and productive. It empowers the users without creating a climate of competition or negativity.

Users also receive points for participating and are rewarded with special views of art not available to everyone else. I love these very appropriate awards, organization and companies should take a look at why their users are participating and find ways to strength this reason. In the case of the museum rewarding with more exposure to what the users love is brilliant. Although it may seem obvious many site might have given a t-shirt or points towards partner products instead of what the users really want.

In addition to viewing all of the tags associated with a piece you can also see who contributed to the tags. Great for helping you explore other pieces that are related by a particular users taste.

The museum also does a bit of curating, as you would expect. It pulls out a few specific tags and links to other works tagged the same. It appears that these tags aren’t necessarily included in the community tags and are more similar to a standard controlled vocabulary system.

Users can also comment and indicate that a piece is a favorite.

There’s a lot going on here, I think I’ll explore some more and continue to come back to see the growth of the community and the health of this community tagging program over time. Over all you guys at the Brooklyn Museum are doing a really nice job:) and are an example for other organizations to watch.

Commenting.

There is much to say about it but I’m only making one observation today.

Commenting can be a great way to open up 2, 3 and 4 way communication between the content providers and the content receivers.  It can be a valuable tool for the creation of movements and the exchange of new ideas.   But we all know that that isn’t always the case.  These days anyone can join the “conversation” and for many reasons this conversation can degraded.

The quality of the comments not the quantity creates the value, that’s why I like what CNN is doing.  Instead of open commenting on the articles,  they are aggregating instances that the article has been blogged about.

What this does is create a barrier of entry to the conversation. You need to care enough to read the article, go to your blog, write about it and publish to your own community, in your own name. I imagine this raises the level of value in the “conversation” surrounding articles. Although it doesn’t fill the same self-help function some other sites provide though*.  You think?

*no disrespect to the old HP. I’m a good Huffington Post loving liberal.

I just watched this really wonderful presentation from last years UX Week. It’s given by Katherine Jones and Randall Macon from Milkshake, on the subject of Brands that are appropriate platforms for fostering community.

They walk us through how they think about Brands and how they uncover if community building/expanding/supporting is a viable or useful endeavor for a specific orgainization.

Livestrong and the Blanton Museum are used as casestudies. These stories are both perfect and very different illustrations, both completely engaging and enlighting.

Milkshake uses a process of identifing three distinct pieces of the community picture. Belonging. Connecting. Enduring. I’ll let you watch the video for the details, but I will say that I am excited to try this process out.

My big take aways are:

• External Influences can’t be ignored and are extremly powerful, effecting the way in which your Brand is being perceived. This is especially true when your Brand is carried and shaped by a community.
• You can’t just flip a switch if the switch doesn’t exist.
• Find out who they trust.
• I would love to work at Milkshake. Smart. Thoughtful people.

I hear these words in my head often and what I think is at the heart of this statement for me is that we aren’t always going to have the most perfectly written contract that allows lots of time and money to perform exhaustive research or set up week long usability tests but that doesn’t mean that we can’t find anyway possible to to bring the perspective of the users into the conversation and have this perspective influence the project.

The other night I was asked by a younger practitioner how she could best use the one day she had been given to perform research. This one day was to be the following day and the audience was specific enough that using her coworkers or friends wouldn’t be much of a help.

This is what I told her.

“What you really need to do is find a way to bring the user perspective into the conversation. This is can be done in a lot of ways, many of which you don’t have time or resources for.

The two things I would do tomorrow is.

1. Define the users. You have to state out loud and clearly who the project is attempting to serve. Use all of the materials from the client, review the RFP and SOW, talk to anyone you know who has knowledge of the industry, do some online research, get on the phone with the people at the buisness who are closest to the users (customer service, human resources, sales people, etc.)

Then write it up, create a chart, draw a picture. This document will bring the user into the design and strategy conversation, allowing everyone to refer to each group when defining functions and needs. This document may also be super contaversal. This is great. If people get up in arms and start arguing about who the users are and what thier needs and motivations are then you’ve done your job. You might actually get some money and time to do real research!

2. Do a competitive review and heuristic evaluation of the competitors and other players in the user’s ecosystem. Understanding how other companies are communicating to the same users can leverage the work already done in this particular industry. Taking the time to mapout and review all the other places the users are participating in and what these environments are like can tell you a lot about the expectations of the users.

You can also use this work to start conversations about the structure and functionality of the site, by showing examples from competitors sites.”

What advice would you have given?

One last thing, I can’t mention Ecosystem without pointing you toward this:

from Web Social Architecture article: A Conceptual Map of the Social Web

This does a great job of opening your mind to all of the influences and exfluences* a user may have. This is focused on social media, but is there anything else anymore?

*yes. i made this word up. it means all the things the user spends time putting out in the world. this probably warrents a blog post of it’s own.