SocialButterfly.

Continuing my weekly “Blogger Neighborhood Series” in honor of the great Mr. Rogers, who called us to “Get to know our neighbor,” I welcome Stacey Monk from Epic Change, who continues to leave me inspired.

Stacey is an amazing writer, showing both her contagious passion and gracious, sincere personality through every word, so I’ll let her tell you about her journey, mission and how she’s gotten to where she is…

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Blog Name:

The Epic Change Blog

Blog Topics:

The Epic Change Blog is a diary of our experiment in social entrepreneurship and an organization I recently founded called Epic Change. We started it just after we received our 501c3 determination last September, and we blog whatever we’ve experienced on the journey since then, including:

• our social media and storytelling efforts,
• updates from Mama Lucy, the founder of the school we’re helping to rebuild in Tanzania,
• anecdotal stories about our trips and stories of the children at the school like Gideon & Glory,
• the inspirations for our work, and
• our feelings about the social entrepreneurship experience.

We try to give a complete, transparent picture of what we’re working on so that our supporters can feel engaged in what we’re doing, and so other folks can learn from our mistakes and successes. We also try to provide regular opportunities on our blog for folks to get involved. Last week, for instance, to celebrate National Volunteer Week, we provided daily opportunities for our readers to perform 10-minute volunteer activities.

About the Author:

I’m a nerd, a recovering military brat, a perpetual nomad and a total sap. I believe the world is what we make it. I started my career managing a performing arts series, moved into public sector consulting for Deloitte, then worked in IT strategy & change leadership at Genentech and, finally, launched a small change management consulting firm called Funken Consulting. Last year, I left for Africa, came back, stopped working for money & founded Epic Change, a nonprofit that “helps hopeful people in need tell their epic true stories to acquire the resources they need to create change in their communities.” I have a BA in Philosophy and a grad degree in performing arts management from the public policy school at Carnegie Mellon. I like to think that artsy background helps me be more creative in my approach to social change. You can check out my street cred on LinkedIn.

If you could live on any street, what would that street be named and why?

I’d live where Hope, Audacity, Authenticity, & Gratitude intersect because I know I’d like the other people who live there. [This is my favorite quote of the week!]

Who would be your dream real-life neighbor?

Any man who can sing. For today, let’s say John Mayer. His song Say is stuck on my brain. Or maybe Josh Groban. His voice makes me feel like I’m in the presence of an angel.

If you were in charge of the planning the neighborhood’s block party, what entertainment would you plan?

Ditto, previous question. Or I’d plan a performance by a dance troupe that I love like Alvin Ailey or Momix. Or we’d dance ourselves, which might be the most fun. Despite my chubbiness, I love to dance. I’m certified to teach ZUMBA and Shake Your Soul.

If you customized your own license plate, what would it say and why?

FEARNOT, URHOPE or THANKU

What would you gift to a new neighbor as the perfect welcoming gift?

Blueberry Pie. Despite 1950s connotations, pies = love.

What’s your favorite blog post and why?

I’d like to point to something brilliant by someone else, because I’ve taken so much as inspiration. Right now, today, though, I’m really wrapped up in what’s unfolding as a result of my recent, totally random, guest post on the Go Big Always blog of Jive CMO Sam Lawrence. I met him totally randomly on Twitter, and last Wednesday after midnight, when he was tweeting that he didn’t feel like posting to his uber-popular marketing blog, I offered to take his place. He, probably in jest, wrote back “Go for it ;)” and I did. That single post has led to a flurry of others, including one on ZDNet, a tweet by @Scobleizer, and a connection to social media giant Jeremiah Owyang, as well as a drastic increase in the number of people interested in our cause. So for today, the Go Big Always post is surely my fave, despite the fact that it begins with a reference to feces.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned from blogging?

Be authentic.

Past Blogger Neighbors Include:

• Osocio @ Osocio nominated by SocialButterfly
• Beth Kanter @ Beth’s Blog nominated by SocialButterfly
• Beth Dunn @ Small Dots nominated by Beth Kanter
• Len Edgerly @ LenEdgerly.com nominated by Beth Dunn
• …and now, Stacey Monk @ Epic Change nominated by the Twitter-verse

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This continuous weekly series highlights different blogs and their respective bloggers in the blogosphere neighborhood. Following the great Mr. Rogers, who tells us to ‘Get to know your neighbor,’ this series introduces us to our blogger neighbors, making for a more unified, collaborative voice for the social sector. Like to nominate someone or be featured yourself? Contact me @ socialbutterfly4change@gmail.com.

Continuing my weekly “Blogger Neighborhood Series” and in honor of the great Mr. Rogers, who called us to “Get to know our neighbor,” Beth Dunn over at Small Dots shares her wit, personality and journey as the third neighbor in our series. Dunn was nominated by previously featured blog neighbor, Beth Kanter.

Blog Name: Small Dots

Blog Topic: Social media and other useful technology tools for nonprofits and the people who love them

About the Author: I am the Director of Communications and Technology for the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College, I pursued graduate studies in geology at Syracuse University. When I was 28, I bought a nightclub, euphemistically known as a “live-musicvenue,” in upstate New York and operated that for several years before returning to Cape Cod in 2002. I then worked for several years as a freelance editor for Random House Publishing, Sterling Publishing, and several scientific academic journals, and served as the Director of Communications for the Harwich Junior Theater before joining the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod in 2006.

I’ve been in communications since 1997, nonprofit communications since 2004, and I’ve been blogging since about 2003. I started blogging on a personal blog, and quickly branched out into writing weekly columns for several humor blogs (all of which are now sadly defunct). I’m a darn good public speaker, an enthusiastic baseball fan (but not for the team you would expect), and an ex-professional chef. I am also an expert sock-knitter. Yes, expert.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned from blogging? Be yourself. You can be no other.

If you could lived on any street, which street would you live on and why? Perry Lane. It’s the dirt road on which my great-grandfather’ s house still sits — an 1840 farmhouse on Cape Cod, only a few miles from where I live now. My grandfather had to sell it a few years ago, and none of us had the scratch to buy it from him at the time. I’d love to buy it back from the (very nice) folks who bought it, and then settle there. I mean, those ghosts are MY ghosts.

Who would be your dream real-life neighbor? Annie LaMott. She’s one of my favorite writers; she writes great fiction AND great non-fiction on the subject of writing, and I think we would make terrific neighbors. We have a lot in common, including a certain level of neuroticism, and a peculiar sense of humor.

Why do you blog? I’m a compulsive blogger, and I have been since I first started in 2003. I love to write, and I love how blogging keeps my writing skills sharp. I love the community of people that I have met through writing a blog and reading blogs. Blogging makes me global.

What’s your favorite blog post and why? The one where I compared CEOs (those who are averse to social media) to the Tiv tribe in Africa: Lost in Translation - Social Media and Hamlet. I was remembering that old Intro to Anthropology essay that we all had to read, about the young anthropologist who believes that Hamlet is universal and transcends cultural differences, and she faces hysterical obstacles in her quest to translate it to the indigenous population she is working with in Africa. I like it because it’s typical of the way I think, drawing strange metaphors and parallels from seemingly unrelated disciplines. It’s what we liberal arts college graduates are best at, I think.

Look out next week to see who else has been nominated in the neighborhood!

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This continuous weekly series highlights different blogs and their respective bloggers in the blogosphere neighborhood. Following the great Mr. Rogers, who tells us to ‘Get to know your neighbor,’ this series introduces us to our blogger neighbors, making for a more unified, collaborative voice for the social sector. Like to nominate someone or be featured yourself? Contact me @ socialbutterfly4change@gmail.com.

Steve Field, over at The D-Ring, a blog about the military combined with social media, posted a great comical entry about his frustrations in receiving press releases as a blogger on behalf of various groups’ blogger outreach strategies.

Some tips Mr. Field mentions and are pretty practical:

1. Make the address personal.

The heading ‘To whom it may concern’ may be a bit un-inviting to the blogger whose name is obviously apparent on the homepage or in the about section.

2. Following the first tip, have you read the blog?

Show you have an interest or at least have a general idea about what the blog is about and its purpose.

3. Don’t assume bloggers know about what you are talking about.

If pitching a new product, service, campaign, idea, your latest invention….describe it.

4. Don’t be a link begger.

Offer something in content or service that is useful to the blogger or the blogging community.

5. Don’t contact a vegetarian blog about the latest McDonald’s big juicy burger.

Be targeted and relevant. Just like in traditional pitching, many of the same rules can apply.

Let’s see if we can extend the list (thxs Beth Kanter for the extending the list idea)!

What tips do you have regarding how people/groups contact bloggers? either what to-do or what not-to-do….

Continuing in my blogger outreach series, this post will focus on law that addresses privacy in regard to bloggers and blog content.

Privacy: Currently, privacy is not included in the bill of rights, but as technology increases, it’s developing into quite the controversy. To protect yourself as a blogger and the subjects included in your posts, it is important to understand the law surrounding online privacy issues and the increasing issues involving privacy

There are 2 ways to approach privacy:

1. Your privacy as a Blogger AND
2. the privacy of the people involved in your blog’s content

To protect your privacy as a blogger, there are some different approaches with strengths and benefits. These include:

Blog Completely Anonymously

• Create a Psuedo-name
• Do not give away identifiers in the blog’s content
• For COMPLETE anonymous blogging, try Invisiblog, Tor and Anonymizer. These are applications that help you create an anonymous blog where the creators and hosts of the blog won’t even have access to your information, can hide your IP address, and allows for anonymous editing of your blog.
• Limit Your Audience
• To avoid being found in search engines or in Google, install a ‘Robots Text File Generator’ into your blog’s architecture.
• Set-up an alternative email address.
• Update from a public computer.

Pros/Cons: Privacy protected. But, if you desire more traffic, hits or views, this could limit you. And, you don’t get credit for your hard work and time into up-keeping your blog.

Blog Anonymously, but control who knows who you are

• Create an alias…but with talking with friends, family, co-workers, or online contacts, feel free to share that it is your blog. But, you don’t have to put your name on the blog. This allows you to control who can identify the blog as yours, and allows you to control to some degree who knows you have a blog.
• This is the option this blog SocialButterfly has chosen for a variety of reasons. Eventually, I will more than likely reveal my true identify, but in the meantime, I am collecting feedback on what employers, friends, colleagues think of someone wearing a ‘blogger’ hat.

Pros/Cons: Allows you to get feedback on what others think of your blog and protects your privacy to some degree meaning that random unique visitors can’t identify you without first contacting you and YOU deciding to disclose your identity to them based on your interactions with them.

Blog Openly, but control the type of information visible

• Put a picture of yourself on the home page, along with a concise bio about your background and why you are blogging.
• Consider the blog as a way to extend your ‘personal brand.’ So, your communications about yourself need to help build and add credibility to your blog.
• Allows creator to develop long-term personal connections and relationships with readers.

Pros/Cons: This allows you take full advantage of social media at its best. As a small business owner, it allows to you communicate with possible consumers and to extend your business’ message and purpose and connects consumers to you on a more personal level. Cons include that you are personally identifiable on the web. Anyone can find your blog, know its yours, and may judge you on your blog before meeting you or making a personal connection with you. This could also affect potential employers or current employers.

Blog Completely Openly

• This is an open, anything goes approach to blogging.

Pros/Cons: Your belief in free speech is rightly communicated and your views are open, honest and shared. However, you may have to provide evidence and reasons why you say what you say. Basically, be prepared to back yourself up. Cons could include potential employers shying away from you, or wanting to fire you because of your blog.

Some more points to remember as a blogger are found here including laws on political speech, unionizing, whistleblowing, blogging when you work for the government, and legal off-duty activities. Blogging about work activities when you work for the government is actually protected under the First Amendment according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Lessons from Privacy for people involved in the blog’s content:

• If you plan on posting images, videos, or audio of subjects you interview or interact with, gain their consent before posting this material - especially if the material contains minors.
• Get parental consent if the content relates to minors, and blur the minors face or voice if possible since laws pertaining to minors are much more strict.
• If you shoot film or take photographs, to be safe, make sure it is done on public property unless you have the participants consent. This will avoid trespassing and invasion of privacy issues.

As blogging increases, it is important to note that many people have different feelings about anonymous-related blogging and the laws continue to change as the technology matures. And as a disclaimer, I reiterate, I am not a lawyer.

For more information on electronic privacy issues, see EPIC, the electronic privacy information center.

**If you are an expert in this area, please contact me as I’d be curious on your thoughts and feedback on this post. Thanks! **

On my Twitter feed, I recently asked the question:

What are people’s experience with their clients and organizations about incorporating blogs and/or blogger outreach to their interactive marketing plans?

I ask this because as social media knowledge expands, more organizations are looking at the concept of blogging, including government agencies. Thus, this next series of posts will revolve around questions organizations must ask themselves when wrestling with the ‘blogging dilemma.’ Or, to change the outlook and attitude, the blogging opportunity.

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Question 1: To blog, or not to blog, that is the question.

The first response I usually receive when discussing blogging is a question relating to regulation. Thus, to start-off this series, this post will focus on regulation. Not all organizations desire to blog. In fact, many fear blogging because of a popular notion that it is an unregulated mode of communications…a public relations disaster waiting to unfold. These fears inspire numerous questions.

1. What if someone leaves a bad comment?
2. What if the blogosphere doesn’t approve or doesn’t view us as transparent?
3. How will we manage this logistical mess?
4. How do we even evaluate if we make any progress?
5. What can a blog even achieve?
6. What is a blog?
7. What will a blog cost us?
8. How do we control a blog?

and the list continues. These questions cover a lot of topics. In my experience, this concept of regulation most often appears with government clients. Here is a common statement:

“We can’t do blogging. It’s unregulated and you have no idea what people will say or how they’ll say it. We are a government agency, and we can’t take that sort of risk.”

This fear is understandable. For those not infiltrated in the blog arena, it appears messy - and at times, honestly, it is. However, the blogosphere doesn’t have to be completely viewed as ‘unregulated.’

Here are two examples on how organizations have approached blogging:

1. Regulate Blog Access. One organization I’m working with loves the idea of blogs, so much…(possibly a bit too much in my opinion…but hey, it’s also going to be a trial and error basis)…that their site will have 5-8 blogs. Logistically, this will be interesting. But in theory, the idea is to regulate who has blog access. The site will be set-up as an online community, so only members will see all the topical blogs. Whereas, the public will only see the one main blog. This way we can regulate what non-members have access to.

• Allow comments or don’t allow comments.
• Organizational, internal blogs only. The CIA has over 1,000 internal blogs!
• Blog Policies
• Which members get access to which blogs.
• With government agencies, due to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), children under 13 cannot leave comments.

2. Trial and Error. One consulting client I worked with loved the idea of a blog, but wasn’t sold on having the blog content being created and written by the organization. They wanted to use a blog as an outreach to their non-profit’s community as another tool of engagement. So, they started the blog, regulate it, but let their community members write the content by having the blog’s perspective be: Share Your Story. So, those wrestling with the non-profit’s illness shared their stories, could build online community and support one another.

• Event blogging
• Live Blogging
• Topical Blogging

Now, if you are working with a federal or state agency, the notion of blogging ruffles some feathers. Here is a critical case to make: blogging has been done. and can be done. Here eare some helpful sites to note:

1. Public Officials’ Blogs. Just do a quick environmental scan of the presidential candidates’ websites! This site even offers a full listing of current blogs held by public officials across the United States.

2. Increasing Government Agencies’ Blogs. Now the list may be small, especially when considering just how many agencies exist, but it’s a starting point.

3. Government Blog Resource. A great outline of what blogs are, issues to consider, blog statistics, viewpoints, etc…a great resource!

4. Research Study. “The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0,” a report by the IBM Center for the Business of Government which lists congressional, state, and local blogs.

(pic from www.masternewmedia.org)

After my last post, I received an email asking how other non-profits or social causes could also use blogging technology for its purposes. Below, I list someways blogging can be used by non-profits as well as some strengths and limitations of the technology.

First Things First

I come with the view that like in the commercial sector, finding an umbrella term to put all non-profit marketing and advertising under is difficult. Research studies have been explored, textbooks written, debates held and still universal definitions are lacking. Some used to think a few years back the IMC, Integrated Marketing Communications would be the end-all classification system for advertising. Yet, this debate still continues. Do we put public relations under this? Why the term marketing? Where does viral belong? etc.

Therefore, just like the commercial advertising arena suffers from an identity crisis, so does the community of non-profit/health communications/social causes/etc. Though, I might classify many of these as social marketing. But then, where do we put corporate social responsibility or cause marketing? (These both have profit aims…) So, yikes! Is there overlap? Is overlap the right word? What are we to do? The questions and debates continue. In discussing these terms and looking at definitions, I am going to offer up that is depends largely on your end objective. I agree there’s more to this debate, but for practical considerations (and when looking to use blogging technology) I say, first determine your end objective to decide if, and what type, of blogging is right for you.

Examples of Blogging Being Used by Non-Profits:

Citizen’s League in Minnesota. They have two blogs. One that is updated with public policy news, trends and updates. The other who is from the point of view of a person which has similar content, but the first person point of view adds relevance and personalizes the stories.

Children Matter. A Christian non-profit ministry who uses a blog for its message.

Strengths of Blogging

1. A blog can provide an outlet for stories to be told regarding the issue or project. This can also be created as a way to get more involved and to increase participation. It can also make the message for personal and relevant. Interplast has their volunteers upload information and share stories about their experiences regarding their work site.

2. Helps build an online community. This includes expanding your traditional media lists to include other bloggers, online social networks, websites and more.

3. Blogging has no geographic limitations unlike a lot of traditional media (tv, radio, magazine, newspapers).

4. Requires small tangible finances. But, may require more employee/volunteer hours and time to manage.

5. Can boost media coverage by expanding your traditional media list to include fellow bloggers, social networks, online communities, websites and more.

6. Put your already-drafted press releases to good work by setting up an RSS feed on your blog to provide up-to-date news about your organization. this allows others to know what the organization is up to, gives those interested more information to talk about and can increase your media coverage.

7. Provide information and resources via a blog. A blog is one way to provide the same information you could on a website or brochure, but in an interactive, fun, and personal manner. For example, instead of telling what the participants do throughout the year. Have the voice of your blog be told through the ‘Volunteer Sarah’ and give it a diary feel.

8. From your blog, you can also provide information on how to get involved, donate, volunteer, and participate. This could include a sign-up page for the weekly email blasts.

9. Blogs also are a way to track, organize and build a resource for an organization/cause. If it comes time to write a report, you can search your blog for all relevant information regarding ‘XYZ’ and poof- you have all the information you need already written.

10. Use a blog as your organization’s website.

11. For good feedback, use your blog as a sounding board or discussion forum. Also, blog stats and analytics could help you find more target audiences interested in your cause.

12. Add your blog to the Nonprofit Blog Exchange using this form to automatically get plugged into an online community and to increase traffic.

Limits of Blogging

1. If you use a free service (blogger, wordpress, etc.), sometimes you are limited with the type of content you can post. Examples including: limitations for customizing options including how you organize content or the design unless you have someone with the expertise to do so, or upgrade your blog service.

2. The domain name can be tricky. Unless you want to purchase a domain, your domain name will (usually) include the blog service you are using. However, domains can be purchased for something like $10/year. This blog also provide many helpful tips and resources for creating your own domain.

3. Must provide quality information at a consistent rate.

More Sources

Should Your Non-Profit Launch a Blog?

10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use blogging

Have Fun * Do Good

Blogs for Non-Profit Orgs

5 Tips to Starting a New Blog