Klout Kollapse

Klout claims they are a way of measuring your influence on-line. My Klout score sits at 56-57 which is considered to be a very high score.

I recently took a three week vacation. While I did answer some emails, I enjoyed eating, drinking, exploring and visiting friends in Europe. My Facebook usage dropper right back and I almost completely stopped tweeting.

The effect on my Klout score has been dramatic. By the end of week one of my vacation, my klout score was 55. End of week two it had fallen to 54 and then 52 at the end of my vacation. It had a slight bounce in my first days back but after a week back at work, it is now 50.

I am interested to know whether it has any more room to fall or if this is it. Now to see if I can become influential again. Will people have missed me? (By the way 50 is still considered to be a very good score!)

Volunteer Managers- Thoughtful on Thursdays.

A group of people involved in the management of volunteers have kicked off a movement called "Thoughtful Thursdays". These people are using Twitter to to share ideas on topics related to the  volunteer engagement.

Last week's theme was tools and ideas to measure impact with a blog post written by Emma_C_Shelter on measuring volunteer impact as the kick off..

Comments can be left on the blog or by adding the hashtag #ttvolmgrs, people can join the conversation viaTwitter.

To help measure Thoughtful Thursday, the organisers are asking if people to  spend a minute filling in what they hope is the world's shortest Survey Monkey as well.

See you at #ttvolmgrs!

Using Facebook's New Timeline [Updated]

Timeline or not to timeline has been the question on many fingertips recently as Facebook unveiled its newest update: Timeline. This has been "opt-in" but is now starting to be rolled out for everyone. It will soon not be optional. Some users have loved it- and some have hated it - as many hate every Facebook change. Timeline, however, looks like it is here to stay, despite what some scammers have been suggesting. Don't believe any emails or messages suggesting Timeline will be rolled back. There has also been some hysteria about the changes and impact on privacy...see below.

This video shows how the timeline sequence works. One fears what will be unrolled at people's 18th and 21st Birthday parties in the futureTimeline is being steadily added to Facebook profiles. When you are selected, a drop-down will appear asking you to upgrade to the new profile. There is a set of easy instructions. Follow them and you’ll be switched to the timeline.

Facebook then gives you seven days to check your Timeline before others can view it.  There are four things to consider.

1. Choose a Cover ( the large photo at the top of your timeline, above your profile picture. NB Your profile picture and Cover are Public which means everyone visiting your profile can see them. To add a cover, follow these Facebook instructions. 
2. There may be major life events you want to feature prominently on your Timeline eg new jobs or promotions, relationships, kids etc. Scroll back up to the top of the Timeline and look at the field where you’d type a new status update. Just above it, you’ll see the “Life event” button. This opens a menu of life event options.
3. There may be posts, you don’t want anyone to see anymore. Move your mouse pointer over the story in the Timeline; two icons will appear in the right hand top corner of that story. Click the one on the one on the right that is pencil shaped and you will be given an option to delete that story.
4. Adjust your privacy settings.  Go to "Home" (Right hand side of facebook next to your name) and choose "Privacy Settings". You can then choose your default setting. When you post from now on, Facebook will follow your default setting. 

There are three choices as illustrated here:

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• Public- use this for messages you want anyone to see e.g "Yankees to win"
• Friends- I recommend that you change your default settings to this-  only your friends will see your posts wherever they are posted (see below)
• Custom -which gives you more choices:-

1. "Only Me" (spoils the point of Facebook) but you could post "I have won a million dollars" or "Remember to buy groceries"
2. "Friends of Friends" -use this for messages you want your friends's networks to see eg: "I am engaged"
3. or you can set your posts so that certain people do not a post e.g. "I am too drunk to come into work today"- you may want your friends to see this but not your workmates

You can also change your settings for every post as you post it. 

With every Facebook change, comes myth and fear. One of which is this message which has been circulating: 

"With the new 'FB timeline' on its way next week for EVERYONE...please do both of us a favour: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you'll see a box that says "Subscribed." Hover over that, then go to "Comments and Likes" and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar(ticker) for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You'll know I've acknowledged you because if you tell me that you've done it I'll 'like' it :) Thanks!"

This is a myth. All that will happen is YOU wont see your friend's events. If your friend has checked friends only, then only their friends including you will see their posts anyway. If they are very nervous about the general public knowing they are eating a sandwich or their mother has tonsillitis, they need to set their privacy settings to friends NOT 'friends of Friends" or "Public" (as mentioned above). Think about this, if you have 400 friends, would you really want to change the settings for all of them. And if you do, you wont see anyone's post.

One more thing on this scam. Every time you see a panicked messgae with CAPS, it is usually a scam. Please do not post this message. If someone does, please correct them and feel free to give them this link: http://cowlingreport.blogspot.com/2012/01/facebook-timeline.html. 

Facebook is NOT as evil and scary as you think!

There is a lot of paranoia and fear about Facebook. I accept that Facebook makes some dumb mistakes but Facebook has been blamed for so much and given so much more power than it has.

I see people who get  get angry at things that Facebook has shared that they themselves have inputted into the site!

 The one that amuses me is when people say "Facebook stole my password ..that is why I have sent junkmail, spam or viruses".

How about you clicked on a link that took you OUT of Facebook and you entered your own password on that link.

What also amuses me about the paranoia is that I can find out lots of information about you OUTSIDE Facebook.

You are not invisible anywhere..

Join a Yahoo group- then you have an online presence
Post a complaint on Trip Adviser?
Post your pic on your family web page?
Be interviewed by your local TV/Radio station/newspaper?

All of those things will put you online.

Protect yourself:

• Don't share anything online, you dont want to see repeated. Anything, anywhere.
• Be real
• Don't post when angry, drunk or frustrated
• Don't share your password
• If you are ever asked for your Facebook password by any other program, page or individual, check it is legitimate.
• Log out of your Facebook account when on shared computers

Tuesday Tech: An average Facebook user

In their quest for cool infographics, the people at mashable.com have produced a really cool info graphic of an average Facebook user. Check it out at: http://mashable.com/2011/11/18/facebook-stats/

Image is below:


A few interesting things. The average user has 229 Facebook friends:

•  22% of those friends are from high school,
•  12% are co-workers
•  9% are from college 

3% of people'  who are  friends on Facebook have  only met once. The average user has never met 7% of their friends on Facebook. So 10% total belong in the rarely connected category.

For nor fot profits, what is interesting is that 7% of friends have been met through voluntary groups.

In 2008, the average user is 38 years old. Two years ago, it was 33 indicating that the number of "older" people on Facebook has been growing fast. Further, the median age of the planet is 28.4 years of age. In the USA the median age is 36.8. This indicates Facebook population is actually skewed toward an older demographic than the general population. Thats fascinating. So much for a "young person's tool". (Australia's median age is 37.5 years so Australia and Facebook's populations are closely aligned!)

56% of users update their status weekly and only 18% daily.

Tuesday Tech: Twitter Tricks re Thursdays & Fridays

Each Thursday, various folks are using the tag #ttvolmgrs on Twitter  for questions, comments & tips regarding volunteer management. Thanks to Jayne Cravens for that information. She notes that it's surprising how much information can be squeezed into 140 characters!


On Fridays, you may see people using the hashtag #FF. FF means Follow Friday. For example:

#FF for ments, RTs & convos@yacwa@ausnonprofits@AEMGartmann@strategicgrants@shaicoggins@giftgetter@martinjcowling@ginanmand @TenFM

28 Oct via HootSuite Favorite Retweet Reply

This Tweet is saying follow the Youth Affairs Council of WA, Australian Non Profits, Alexandra Gartmann, Strategic Grants, Shai Coggins and Martin J Cowling, etc etc for mentions, Retweets and conversations.  You can see how much they have packed into 140 characters!


The person sending this #FF Tweet, is recommending the people mentioned in it (including me- thank you!). This example has quite a long list. Some people may allow recommend one or two people-and always say why you are recommending people. This example has done that very well.   If you have been recommended it is good form to reply with a thank you. 


The idea is you can then follow none, each or all of the people some recommends in a #ff tweet. A simple way to do this. In Twitter or Tweetdeck (or other Twitter management tool) or  Hootsuite, is to click on the date stamp at the bottom of the message. 
Eg 28 Oct via HootSuite


The Tweet will open up on a new page and underneath the Tweet will be the list of people mentioned in the Tweet (see below) Just click "Follow" next to the person's name and hey presto!


You will see that because I am using Google Chrome with the Klout extension, the person's Klout score is next to their details. The higher the score,  the more influential that person is on Social Media (see last week's post). If you use Follow Friday to recommend others, make sure you do follow them yourself! 

Mentioned in this Tweet

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  16ausnonprofits AusNonProfits · Unfollow

  A list for Australian non-profit organizations and their employees. If you want to have your non-profit added to the list, please tweet me.
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  36strategicgrants Jo Garner · Unfollow

  Grants advisory, mentoring, research, writing and strategic project matching services
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  15ginanmand Gina Anderson · Follow

  philanthropy, NFP and corporates, charity law (sadly) and corporate affairs
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  26AEMGartmann Alexandra Gartmann · Follow

  Passionate about agriculture and rural communities.
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  56shaicoggins Shai Coggins · Follow

  geek-ish & artsy. content & community. chocolates & spices. media & life. nonprofit tweets are @connectingup . views here are personal.
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  38TenFM Ten FM 89.7 and 98.7 · Follow

  Tenterfield, Texas & Stanthorpe Ten FM Non-profit organisationhttp://www.facebook.com/tenfm with tweets here updated by@Music_IsPower or as noted.
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  15giftgetter Mark Quigley · Follow

  Giftgetter runs a fundraising and philanthropy consultancy. He is a multi-award winning consultant, sought after writer and speaker on the Third Sector.
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  30yacwa YACWA · Follow

  YACWA is the peak non-government youth organisation in Western Australia. We operate primarily as a human rights organisation.

51martinjcowling Martin J Cowling 

CEO of People First-Total Solutions, hiker, runner, traveller

http://www.facebook.com/martinjcowling