Tuesday Tech: Social Media Training for Communities

This cartoon seems to sum up our world right now!

Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you are comfortable Social Media user. Many agencies and individuals aren't. Over the last two years, I have been presenting two Social Media workshops. One is an introduction to the key Social Media tools and how to use them. The other is looking at strategy.

Reactions to it have been overwhelmingly positive:

"I am a regular Facebook user and you have taught me so much more."

I have had one woman, however, attack me for recommending agencies look at Facebook: "I hate Facebook and all it represents. I don't understand why you would tell anyone to use it"

I also often get "why would anyone want to use social media?"  when the reality is 1000 million people+ are on it! I dont aim to convert people to Social Media but I do get people to an understanding of something that they may know a little or a lot about and get agencies realistically looking at the pros and cons of the Social Media space.

I am starting to work on my 2012 Calendar and I would love to be sharing more Social Media workshops. If you are looking for Social Media Training, I would love to be involved. If you are not, I heartily recommend you consider arranging some! Check out more at: http://www.pfts.com.au/training.htm

Monday Motivation: Goals

It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.


Arnold Toynbee (1889 - 1975)

Friday Facts: Behind the US Volunteering numbers

The 2010 volunteering statistics for the US were released this week. Accompanying them came glowing press releases celebrating the estimated 62.8 million US adults who provided almost 8.1 billion hours through organizations in 2010. This is exciting and commendable.

I have, however,  a few points of concern/interest which may not appear widely in the media which has been awed by the big numbers.

Volunteering Rates in the USA are continuing to fall
Volunteering rates dropped from 26.8 percent in 2009 to 26.3 percent in 2010.

Excuse me?

In the greatest recession the USAhas known for two generations, volunteering dropped? Yup-Its the continuation (with a couple of small rises) of an eight year downward trend. In 2003 28.3% volunteered.

Consider the following in the decade:

1. We have never seen so much marketing of volunteering from the President of the USA to corporate to the media...that should produce an increase?
2. We are told that the need for volunteers across the USA is greater than ever. 
3. The number of available unemployed is up and the number of people being told to volunteer to build resumes is up. If half of the unemployed were volunteering that should have resulted in 3 million more volunteers.
4. There are 17 million people more in the USA than there were a decade ago. That means there should have been an increase of 4.25 million volunteers in a decade? 
5. There has been a huge number of resources put into supporting volunteering

Yet 600 000 less people volunteered in 2010 compared to 2009 and 3 million less compared to 2005.  

Can we have some research as to why people are disconnecting?
Are the volunteering opportunities available too dull?
Is the USA not actually needing more volunteers?
Are people not finding it easy to find opportunities?
Is volunteering too hard to access?
What needs to happen to reverse these declines?

Fewer Baby Boomers are volunteering and they are doing it for less time

The number of US Baby Boomers volunteering has now fallen by 4.3 million people in 8 years. And I still hear people saying: "the baby boomers are coming..when they retire they will flood our agencies with help." Hello!  The number of hours given annually by Baby Boomers has fallen by almost 20 per cent in that time.  So where are these retirees??? Mmmm.

Other Generations

• 100 000 more seniors over 65 volunteered in 2010 compared to 2009. The percentage of volunteers from this generation has remained constant however which indicates that volunteering is only keeping pace with population- volunteer marketing and targeted senior volunteering programs are not successfully engaging increased number of seniors 
• 300 000 more Gen  X volunteers (born 1965-1968) volunteered in 2010 - most of their volunteering is linked to issues closely connected to their families. eg church, education and sport but not arts, civic volunteering or hospitals
• 800 000 more Gen Yers volunteered- the number of volunteers from this generation has almost doubled in eight years- a staggering increase. The question, of course, is how much of this increase is linked to compulsory programs in schools and colleges

Volunteer time still undervalued

The research values the 8 billion hours of volunteer time at $173 billion using Independent Sector’s estimate of the dollar value of volunteer time. We of course know that some of that time is worth far far more. I was talking to a woman today who donated her time to lead a committee that raised $300 000 for a charity. Is her time worth just $20 an hour?

Comments?

World Changers: Mr Squiggle

In the early 1970s, I along with tens of thousands of Australian kids would wait for a rocket ship to make a trip between the Moon and the Earth. The rocket would land in Melbourne, Australia and much to the dleight of myself and my siblings out would pop a puppet with a pencil for a nose.

The rocket ship of course was another  puppet character on what was Australia's longest running TV show: Mr Squiggle. The show ran for 40 years from 1959 to 1999 and apart from the news must be one of the longest running TV shows in the world.

It was a very simple formula. No hype, no marketing, no violence, no negative twists. Kids would send in doodles and Mr Squiggle would turn them into pictures. We were engrossed. Mr Squiggle was backed up by Miss Pat, Miss Jane, a Snail character, the grumpy blackboard and Bill the steam shovel with his terrible jokes. Anyone else remember Mr Squiggle? Did anyone get their squiggle on the show? Miss Pat of course was Patricia Lovell who became an amazing Australian film producer producing Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli, (see below for an interview with Pat Lovell from a 2004 tribute).

Norman Frederick Hetherington (pictured) who was the creator of Mr Squiggle died last December aged 89. He dedicated his life to the Mr Squiggle show. I don't think he got rich out of it but it seems to me that he epitomises some good lessons for life:

1. use your talents  and gifts
2. commit yourself for the long haul (40 years to one thing!)
3. be professional

An unusual world changer: a man who created a puppet with a pencil for a nose but doesn't that tell us that  any one of us can make a difference?  Vale Mr Squiggle

Stop trying to reach your Facebook fans

Your Facebook fans like you. They would not have become a fan of you, your not for profit, cause or issue if they didnt like you*

This is a learning I have recently had based on some research from Fast Company who suggest that we need to target the friends of our fans..."through messages that are shareable, and promotions that require voting, checking in, or other interactivity"


"Friends of fans represent about the most untapped potential in Facebook marketing," says ComScore VP of Marketing Solutions, Graham Mudd. 

Now I need to work out how to implement this on our People First Facebook. Creative hat on!




*There is of course an exception to this. When you make people so angry they friend/like your page in order to find a place to vent!

Getting Your Stuff done! Monday Motivation

Ever had one of those Monday Mornings? When is it procrastination and when is it getting lots of other things finished?
Take 1 minute 19 seconds to watch this video- see if you can relate and a further 1 minute 19 seconds to make a comment on "how do you get your stuff done ie how do you overcome procastination? Thanks and enjoy!

I Am on video!

"In June, when  I was at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service, I got interviewed by What  Gives on the role Managers of Volunteers need to play in convincing their boards to support volunteerism.

Me at a serious moment in the video!

They have done a great job. Apart from the annoying way I wrinkle my nose, I like this video.

I also like the quote they drew from it:

For a board that’s trying to find the money to keep an organization afloat, the fact that a volunteer goes home with a cookie at the end of the day isn’t really relevant.  At the end of the day the board doesn’t actually care if the volunteers are having fun.  It’s the responsibility of the board to make sure they have enough resources to keep the organization going." – Martin J. Cowling, People First – Total Solutions

What do you think?

Ten Questions about Volunteer Management

DJ Cronin on his blog has asked ten questions about volunteering to the sector:


1.In 20 words or less describe/define Volunteer Management

2.What are the 3 main differences between Volunteer Management and Human Resource Management?

3.Where is the current leadership evident in Volunteer Management?

4.Finish this sentence in less than 50 words… An association in Volunteer Management should…

5.There have been many debates on the definition of volunteering itself. How would you define volunteering?

6.If you weren’t doing this what other profession would you have been interested in?

7.Who do you believe has been the most inspiring volunteer in history?

8.Where do you think social media can take volunteerism and Volunteer Management?

9.Does Government "get" (understand) volunteering? If not why not?

10.What would you like to achieve personally in the volunteerism world?



Check out my answers on his blog. 

What do you sleep with?

I initially banned all electronics from my bedroom in my new house- no laptop, no phone, no TV, no computer, no digital alarm clock. Its a rule I have tried to keep in most of my houses.

Until my Iphone!

Because of its function as an alarm clock it now sleeps next to me when I sleep. This is the same phone I now check email on before I get out of bed, the same one that I use to pace me when I run, the same one I use to text, skype, check in to flights, buy things, do my banking, take photos and listen to music.

You get the picture.


Associated Press reports that "Psychologists and others are concerned about another equally troubling issue: the growing obsession among people who would much rather interact with their smartphones than with other human beings."


Have a look around you. On the subway/commuter train/bus/streetcar/ferry, in coffeeshops, offices, lectures and family dinner tables. I used to have another rule: "no phones on the table at a meal". Last week, I went out to dinner with five friends. We all had our phones out! We were comparing apps, showing each other photos

We also use phones to avoid others. There is even a Facebook page Pretending-To-Be-On-The-Phone-To-Avoid-Someone!

Associated Press refers to "Michelle Hackman, a recent high school graduate in Long Island, New York, won a $US75,000 prize in this year's Intel Science Talent Search with a research project investigating teens' attachment to their mobile phones. She found that students separated from their phones were under-stimulated — a low heart rate was an indicator — and lacked the ability to entertain themselves."


My third rule is an electronics Sabbath - no electronics one day a week. At times, even this gets stretched. Going to the footy and not getting the commentary and scores via the phone from friends and media outlets is too hard!

These phones are new.

What rules do you have/need to have to manage the ubiquitous nature of these phones:

•  for yourself? 
• your workplace (amazed at how many train drivers I have seen looking at their phones as they travel along)
• your home?

Monday Motivation

“Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working.”