Bay Area CIO/IT Executives Meetups: Blog

This is just an example on how Google Wave could be used for pre, during and after event. And also gives you a feel on how Google Wave functions within a blog.

We have very good discussions on event management wave best practices within this wave.

Your comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Tatyana (@glfceo)

Moderator: Alan Silberberg, CEO You2Gov, His business focus is to address the need for everyday people to get in touch with their legislative officials in all 50 States.

Panel: Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State, Beth Kanter, Fellow at Packard Foundation, Gwyneth Gailbraith, Director of Development and Evaluation, Opportunity Fund

Initial thoughts on social media use in their respective areas:

Debra Bowen commented on the need to engage people in the process.  The voter outreach program, as one example, showed the need to work collaboratively and leverage networks to effectively stay in touch by using Social Media.

Beth Kanter highlighted that by taking advantage of the social cultures out there and encouraging conversation through social media that when you do need to “rally” an effort, you already have a passionate audience engaged.

Gwyneth Gailbraith is focused on small business lending, match savings programs for education and small business ventures.  Social media helps them build a field for the U.S.  There are taking small steps to integrate social media into their outreach programs.

Non-profits and how they intersect with the government.  How to use these tools to effectively?

Alan - fear of change - some feel that their livelihoods may disappear because they will be replaced by these tools.

Debra brought up a great point that with this new media, you increase communication, which is great.  However, you still have the same number of staff to respond.  You need to come up with a process to encourage people to seek first for the information on the web-site and if it’s not on the web-site - then send in a question.  This is still a work in process.  Biggest hurdle for adoption - government officials are not tech experts and that due to 140 characters - subtleties can be lost.  Once you hit enter - it’s out there.

Beth introduced the idea of network weaving.  She has developed a way to get her network to become self-organized and she acts more as a project manager.  She will start conversations and let the network takeover the discussion.  Some monitoring and input from her will keep the conversation flowing.

Beth used the Michael Vick story as an example.  When he decided to come back and volunteer with the humane society - their social media person -raised the visibility of this activity, people were allowed to vent their opinions, have a conversation and then eventually the situation was diffused.

Gwyneth reminded that due to her audience it is necessary to take baby steps right now.  Have found volunteers to help them by tweeting and giving them guidance on where they should be focused.  One problem they would like to solve is the immense reporting requirements for CDFI funds, as an example.  They are exploring how to use social media to make this process easier.

Alan revisited his idea of fear of change.  If he was able to build a web-site in 41 days, but when you take this conversation to a government agency - there is a six month bid and longer decision making process.  Is there fear of change or people losing their livelihoods?

Debra - you need to involve people in the formative part of the project.  This allows for people to be part of the process and gain their buy-in.

Beth - most of the fear is from within.  If a non-profit does not have a social internal culture, you need to create this before you can go external.  Common concerns she has heard from non-profits include: “It will make us look more human”, “opens us up to public criticism and we prefer it does not exist”, etc., etc.  It will open the floodgates of information and that will overload us.

Alan asked Gwyneth:  “Are small business adopting these tools?”

Gwyneth’s response:  Not all businesses need a social media strategy.  A child care business in a home does not need a web-site, etc.   Really need to have a social media plan to understand what you are trying to achieve and not necessarily try to do everything.    Need to show clients how their information will be used and the good results and potential pitfalls.  Most are really excited to know that people all over the world are inspired by their story.

Some general trends discussed included:

1.      Alan spoke about the most recent Iran election and the tools were used to help promote  an information forum to help with the election process.

2.      How do you bring a social media strategy into an organization - Beth mentioned that have a group of people model the behavior you want them to adopt.

3.      Non-profits that need help with starting their social media projects - Beth said on her twitter site there is a list of non-profit twitters and chose the non-profit tech twitters.

4.      Debra brought up using social media, once you are established and familiar,can take as little as 10 minutes a day.

I thoroughly enjoyed this event.  There was a great group of non-profits in the audience who were impressed with the valuable information they received.  Good networking exchange before and after the event.  The group was large enough for broad conversations, but small enough that you got a chance to meet and exchange ideas with several people.

Karen Kay
karenlee.kay@gmail.com

First “all female” Panel bringing together the best of Government 2.0, Social Media and the Intersection with Non Profits.

Showcasing how “smart deployment’ and adoption of new tools are already revolutionizing how these three areas function individually, and how new tools allow cross integration like never before.

What success stories are in place now?

How can the marrying of technology, Government and Non Profits help to bring a better and more secure society?

Moderator: Alan W. Silberberg
Alan is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Political and Social Advocacy website, You2Gov.org. You2Gov created an innovative and ground breaking Government 2.0 platform that connects regular people to their Elected Officials at the White House, Congress, All 50 Legislatures and State Capitols. The platform is also a private label social network that marries four major technologies into one completely customizable platform, Advocacy, Social Networking, CRM and CMS. You2Gov currently serves clients in the Federal Government, Private Companies and Several State Governments in the US. Alan is a frequent speaker on Government 2.0 issues surrounding development and implementation of innovative and trans-formative technologies. He was a panelist at the Open Government and Innovations Conference, and Sponsor and Speaker at CongressCamp among others.
Panelists:
Beth Kanter
Beth is the author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media (http://beth.typepad.c…, one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits. A frequent contributor to many nonprofit technology web sites,blogs, and magazines, Beth has authored chapters in several books, including “Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders,” edited by NTEN both published in 2009. A much in demand speaker and trainer, she was the keynote speaker for the Cambodian Bloggers Conference in Phnom Penh, The Connecting Up Conference in Brisbane, Australia, Minnesota Council on Nonprofits, Making Media Conference in Chicago and others. She has presented about nonprofits and social media at some of the leading social media industry conferences including O’Reilly’s Graphing Social Patterns, Gnomedex, SWSX, Blogher, and Podcamp. She is curating NTEN’s “We Are Media: Nonprofit Social Media Starter Kit,” an online community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world. In 2009, she was named by Fast Company Magazine as one of the most influential women in technology and one of Business Week’s “Voices of Innovation for Social Media.” She is the 2009 Visting Scholar for Social Media and Nonprofits for the Packard Foundation. Her book, The Networked Nonprofit, co-authored with Allison Fine, will be published by Wiley in 2010.

Gwyneth Galbraith
Opportunity Fund is one of the largest microlenders in California. Previously, she was a strategic development consultant focused on major gifts fundraising, strategic planning, communications, and financial analysis for a variety of nonprofits, including Opportunity Fund, The Rockridge Institute, and the Arthur Ross Gallery. Gwyneth spent five years as a development director at the University of California, Berkeley, and has also worked at the University of Chicago and The New Yorker magazine. Gwyneth holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from UC Berkeley. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Since its founding in 1995, Opportunity Fund has originated $9.8 million in loans to small businesses and has invested more than $130 million into needy communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Opportunity Fund’s leadership team has received the Skoll Award for Innovation in Silicon Valley, the Wachovia Impact award, the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award and the SBA Financial Services Advocate of the Year. In addition to the Small Business Loan Program, Opportunity Fund operates one of the largest matched-savings account programs in the country and is a leader in providing innovative financing to community real estate projects in the Bay Area.

Debra Bowen
A pioneer in open government reform, election integrity, and personal privacy rights, Debra Bowen became only the sixth woman in California history elected to a statewide constitutional office when she was elected as Secretary of State in November 2006.

As the chief elections officer for the largest state in the nation, Secretary Bowen is responsible for overseeing state and federal elections, a role that also requires her to test and certify the voting equipment used in California. Her goal is to ensure that voting machines certified for use in Californians elections are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible, and every voter’s ballot is counted exactly as it was cast. In her first year in office, Secretary Bowen commissioned an independent, top-to-bottom review of voting technology, as well as a comprehensive review of the state’s decades-old election auditing standards. Following the top-to-bottom review, Bowen strictly limited the use of direct recording electronic voting machines, and imposed significant security and auditing requirements on systems used in California elections. Secretary Bowen was recognized for her national leadership in election integrity with the 2008 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage AwardTM, the nation’s most prestigious honor for elected public servants who choose principles over partisanship.