I’ve barely returned the keys to the office when calls and messages started coming through. People asking if there’s anything that they can do to help me find my new direction. People wishing me well. And people offering new opportunities.

Thanks to these people, I felt more grateful than sad to leave a job that I loved dearly. My only regret was not getting the chance to reach out to everyone in the community that I helped to build and say goodbye properly.

But, at least there’s this wonderful web where I am able to reach out to let people know that I’d love to stay in touch.

And, this same wonderful web is enabling people to reach out to me to let me know that they’d love to stay in touch too. In fact, some of those people reached out by saying they actually would like the opportunity to work with me.

So, that’s why in less than a week, I managed to set up Vervely. It’s a company that I’m establishing to help Not-for-Profit organisations, charities, associations, foundations, and social enterprises, as well as small and medium sized businesses. Through Vervely, I would be offering programs and services that specifically target ogranisations’ use of digital media and community engagement.

As part of this new move, I’m restructuring how I use Enkindlers as a blog. Originally, my plan was to put all my relevant articles and posts here on digital media, community, content, etc. as they do not fit my personal blog, Studio Notes. But, I believe those types of posts now fit Vervely a lot better.

With that in mind, I had two options: 1) Just completely abandon Enkindlers and move on; or 2) Keep Enkindlers for now as a place to note some of my interests that do not really fit Studio Notes or Vervely. Most likely, thoughts about building a business, career planning, job hunting, management, leadership, start-ups, and the like. Perhaps, even general thoughts and resources on NFPs and social innovation. These are topics that I enjoy reading about and learning from. So, to build my own body of knowledge, I would like the opportunity to write about them here.

As a content strategist, these are the sort of things I think about, you see.

So yes, I still plan on keeping Enkindlers for now. But, if you’re here to look for ideas on digital media, social networking, web development, especially as they affect NFPs, SocEnts, and SMEs, please head on over to Vervely.

And, if there’s anything I can do to help you there, please let me know.

Content and Community in the Social Web: A CU12 Presentation

Now, other than being one of the three committee members of the conference, I also facilitated a couple of the breakout sessions, helped out during the networking session, and presented during one of the social media power sessions with my colleague, Ben Teoh.

It was a totally new talk that I put together exclusively for the Connecting Up 2012 delegates. Last year, when I did one of the keynotes, I focused on the state of social media as it was being used in Australia and the not-for-profit sector. This year, I wanted to focus more on answering the question that I seem to be getting a lot nowadays: “We know that social media can play a vital role in not-for-profit organisations, so what’s next? How can we take this further?”

Also, as part of the conference committee, I knew that I wanted the following topics to be covered in the social media/web stream:

• Strategy and Policies
• Research/Best Practice/Case Studies
• Content and Community
• Metrics/Measurement

So, the committee used these topics as a guide on which presenters we would like to have in our conference this year. With most of the submissions covering the other topics, I ended up with the topics I really love: Content and Community.

And, here’s the slide deck that I used to share with about 80+ people (based on a quick count!) who attended Ben and I’s talk on content and community in the social web:

[View the story "Create, Curate, and Connect Online: #CU12 Session Summary" on Storify]

It has been a wonderful session and I was really pleased with the feedback that Ben and I have received. In fact, I heard that some of the participants even voted for me as a “favourite” that I nearly joined Allen Gunn, Nancy Schwartz, and Mich Sheldrick (we tied). And, if you’re one of them who voted, I just wanted to say a big and heartfelt THANK YOU. The support has been amazing and I hope to continue being able to share my knowledge and experience in social media, web, content, and community online.

I’m hoping to write an overall summary of the conference at Connecting Up in the next few days. So, I will update this post with a link to that as soon as it’s up.

This year, when I was invited to do the International Nonprofit Organisations “Birds of a Feather” networking session at the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, California (Apr 2012), I wanted to see if the same issues would arise during our group discussions. The 50+ attendees this year discussed the following topics:

• Culture & Technology / Global Fundraising / Transparency & Open Data
• Platforms for Communication
• Impact Measurement
• Global Advocacy

Even though there were less participants this year, there were actually a few more discussions that led to fruitful sharing between the delegates. The notes from the discussion groups may be found in this #12NTCIntNPO document.

Some of the main takeaways from the International Nonprofit discussions include:

1. There is a huge interest in communication platforms. With several organisations operating with virtual teams and separate locations, finding out the most effective ways to share, collaborate, and communicate with team members and stakeholders is top on the list. This goes for both online and offline solutions. Some of the resources that were recommended include:

• Microsoft 2012
• Google apps (Docs, email, chat, etc)
• Skype
• Facebook groups
• Office 365
• Basecamp

2. Measurement has become increasingly important for stakeholders. Therefore, organisations need to find different ways to show impact. Metrics need to align with overall organisational goals and there should be high levels of transparency with reporting, especially for donors. Qualitative data collection, including storytelling, plays a part on showing impact. Some suggested ideas in the topic of impact measurement include:

• Education without Borders (based in Canada) works with communities in South Africa. And, according to some of the session participants, they publish “failure reports” that can be useful models and sources of learning for other nonprofit organisations.
• Global Giving Stories has a database of searchable stories that would be an interesting resource when it comes to qualitative data/storytelling.

3. Global advocacy efforts are challenging when it comes to finding the right access to the right people. Many of the session participants were wondering about international databases. This challenge may be overcome by finding partnerships within countries and regions that people wish to work with. Some of the suggested resources include:

• Global Scale Wikispaces
• Connecting Up Directory – for contacting other nonprofits in Australia
• GuideStar India – Directory of nonprofits in India.

On developing a global nonprofit practitioners communities of practice

With many nonprofit organisations working across different countries and cultures nowadays, a few of the delegates reached out and said that it looks like there is a need for a “international nonprofit practitioners communities of practice”. Organisations that offer services to other nonprofits worldwide (like TechSoup Global and its partners*) would be the best place to provide a platform for such communities.

If you’re from a nonprofit with an international reach, I’m curious to know what would you like to learn more about? Is there something you can share with others in the same field?

My slide deck from #12NTCIntNPO and #12NTC Storify summary

Although I didn’t do any full presentations for the session, I did put together a small slide deck for this event. So, if you’re interested, here’s the deck from #12NTC:

Also, if you’re keen to see an overview of my #12NTC experience, I’ve shared this on my Storify account, Shai’s #12NTC Summary.

Photo by: Ben Teoh

*Note: The organisation I work for, Connecting Up, is a TechSoup partner.

• The rate of individuals being open to finding new jobs even though they are still employed. Granted, 61% isn’t extremely high, but this number shows that retention of staff members can be quite tricky in this current environment.
• Long term career planning is no longer a major goal for both employers and employees. People don’t seem to rely on job security, so it’s increasingly important to develop flexible and adaptable skills that may be moved from job to job.
• Social media is playing an increasing role in job search. With 22 million Americans claiming to have found their jobs through LinkedIn (42%), Twitter (32%), and Facebook (25%), employees who do not utilise these avenues as part of their career development may be missing out on job opportunities. Also, employers may also need to develop strategies to use social media as a way to attract potential employees.
• The use of on-site coaching and other professional development as a way to encourage, empower, attract, and retain employees. With people becoming more mobile with employment, continuous skills development has become an important part of the workplace.
• Self employment is seen to be more stable than a full-time job by more than half of new college graduates. This means that employers now should find different ways to attract and retain fresh graduates in their organisations. Perhaps, looking at offering different aspects of self employment that may seem attractive in a full time job (eg, flexible hours, mobile offices, etc).

It would be interesting to find out if a similar trend is apparent across all sectors and in different countries.

Over to you

Do you find that staff retention is a challenge in your organisation? What’s your management doing to encourage a more monogamous employment relationship?

Some time last week, I gave a brief talk for Associations Forum members in Adelaide as part of a presentation by my current CEO, Doug Jacquier. The session was all about networking and I talked about how social media can be used to network and build communities online.

In this talk, I focussed on three major tools that I use for networking and community building:

• Facebook – Which is one of the most popular social networking sites in the world, and definitely top one in Australia. This may be used for both personal and professional networking.
• Twitter – Another popular networking site, best used to track conversations, popular trends and topics, as well as any interesting people that you may want to meet but haven’t had the opportunity to connect with.
• LinkedIn – With 2 million users in Australia, this is also a social networking platform that’s worth some attention, especially from a professional perspective. However, most people would only wish to connect with others with whom they’ve already met or heard of. Having said that, the concept of joining Groups was also touched, as a way of meeting others in similar areas of interest/industry.

Some reasons to use social networks:

• Social networks are great ways to keep in touch with people we meet in conferences, business meetings, social functions and other events.
• Keeping an active professional profile online enables us to highlight our special abilities and activities. This may be especially useful for finding collaborators, potential employers, and team mates.
• Having an online presence gives you better control of how you are portrayed online. Regardless of whether you deliberately choose to be online or not, chances are, you will have an online presence. It will just depend on whether or not that presence is available based on what you share, or what other people may share about you.

If you wish to see the slide deck I used with some notes on the tips, you can check it out below or via Slideshare:

One of the great things about being part of Connecting Up is its international reach, especially through its partnership with TechSoup Global (TSG), a nonprofit organisation based in San Francisco, USA. Having had the opportunity to meet and work with the folks from TSG had been an overall fantastic experience for me. Of course, there are the usual challenges that go along with timezone differences (Hello, webinars conducted at 10:30pm ADL time!) and cultural adaptations (I say to-mah-to, they say to-may-to?:)). But, I always find it refreshing to work with a global view.

Anyway, the good folks from TSG had been nice enough to feature me in their March 2012 Community Spotlight as such:

Here’s the text:

Shai Coggins is the Manager of Communications & Web Content at Connecting Up, the TechSoup Global donation partner in Australia and New Zealand. Because of her key role with Connecting Up, Shai is an active participant and key connector between TSG, Techsoup.org and within the partner network.

Her TSGN activities included speaking at Microsoft NGO Connection Days in the Phillippines, engaging with the Techsoup.org content team on global campaigns and spearheading the Australian and New Zealand TSDigs challenge!

Visit her blog to catch up with her (many!) activities.

Thank you for your contribution and keep up the great work Shai!

So, now you see why I really, really like my TechSoup family!

Thanks, guys.

This post has now been moved to: What is the Ideal Content Ratio? (at Vervely)

Sometimes, I get a very enthusiastic list of things that relate to getting more visitors, gaining more fans, and expressing creative ideas on how to engage with their respective communities. Often, I get a shrug and a confused response.

Content strategy is one of the things that a lot of people don’t seem to think about too readily. People often think that just setting up a blog, Facebook page, website, or Twitter account is good enough. Everything will flow once the accounts are up and running. While many accounts do succeed just going with the flow, there are many more that fizzle out when there are no firm plans in place.

So, what is content strategy?

In a nutshell: “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.” (via Kristina Halvorson). Basically, it defines why you or your organisations wish to develop content in any form, how you plan to develop and maintain the content, and what are the ways that you are going to measure the success of your content.

How well do you know your content?

To read the rest of this article, please visit: Content Strategy at Vervely.com.

If you haven’t read the interview yet, please do head on over to Mitch’s Interview Post with Me.

A trip down memory lane...

Anyway, I always feel a bit strange reading interviews about me, and I can’t tell you exactly why. But, other than feeling slightly bashful, this interview made me feel like I was going to a trip down memory lane. It’s because Mitch and I ended up talking about my early blogging experiences, my work at About.com (a NY Times company), and my other early projects. It always makes me seem ancient online when I talk about Geocities and hand-coding my blog using FrontPage.

But, it’s great to have these memories. It reminds me just how far I’ve gone and how much I’ve loved this online world that we’re building. It has definitely changed so much over the years. And, I’m still thrilled to be witnessing the whole thing.

In any case, if you found me through Mitch’s blog, I just want to say WELCOME! This is a new space on the web for me, as I move towards separating my “work-related” blog posts here on Enkindlers from my more personal posts via Studio Notes (my personal blog).

If you’re keen to read more about blogging, social media, content, and community, then please stay put and subscribe to Enkindlers.

If, however, you’re just a tad more keen to hear about some of my day-to-day interests, then do head on over to Studio Notes.

Wherever you might find yourself reading about the things I write about, I hope you enjoy it and please say hello.

Building Online Communities: Social Media Club Adelaide

In this talk, I focused on my 5 favourite ideas for building communities.

To read all about it, visit: Favourite Ideas for Building Communities (at Vervely).