Communicable

When I got involved with co-organizing HaiHaiTO, a twitter fundraiser for Haiti, I couldn’t imagine what the actual event would be like. All we wanted was to do more to help Haiti. Turns out, there were many, many more people who wanted that, too. We got a truly awesome community here in TO.

THANK YOU | HaiHaiTO Highlights | Afterglow

• Thank you, more than 200 of you who got #HaiHaiTO tickets!
• Thank you for donating $6,585 directly to the Canadian Red Cross via our HaiHaiTO donation page
• BIG Thanks to all our sponsors! You deserve the spotlight and I am proud to be linking to you: http://www.haihaito.com/sponsors/
• Big bear hug to the people whose desire to do more inspired HaiHaiTO : Tim Yull, Dave Coleman, and Co.
• Lots of love to the GenYTO folks who partnered with HaiHaiTO and helped take it from tweets to action.
• Daphnee, Anthony Guerra Prime, Marcus Chomsky & Abbiyaahwu Asha, you did such great job and took everyone’s breath away with your dance moves and kick-ass drumming!
• Rayanne, our Queen of the Raffle, did a fabulous job with all the raffle prizes! Follow Rayanne at @rlangadon, she’ll keep that smile on your face with her tweets
• Casie, I wish I had your dancefloor energy!  And that raffled top.
• Dear DJs Nicole D’Cruz (@nicopop) and Lee Dale (@Smack416) thanks for keeping our feet move, and our heads spin. Love when that happens!
• Thanks to all the speakers, who took the stage to teach us something about Haiti: Antoine Derose from Pierspective Entraide Humanitaire  http://www.haitiaide.ca, Niraj Joshi from Toronto Haiti Action Committee www.thac.ca and John Saunders from Red Cross Canada, Disaster Management team.
• Thanks for all the tweeting action yesterday night! HaiHaiTO was a trending topic for Canada, and the Courthouse was a top location on the Foursquare. I get a geek-kick out of this.

Stay tuned for more photos and videos, and please be proud of what you have done. Together, we have raised over $10,000 for Haiti, which, when matched by the Federal government will amount to over $20,000 for the Canadan Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

What we have here in TO is very special.

We got many, many people who care. Now, how cool is that!?!

Cross-posted from the main HoHoTO page: hohoto.ca and no, I didn’t write this but I do hope to write like this one day!

Yes, we’re doing it again.

As those of you following the tweets have noticed, HoHoTO is returning this December 16th at The Mod Club in Toronto.

New to all this? Wondering what the heck a HoHoTO is and whether you need an inoculation? Check out this summary video from last year’s phenomenal event, or just… well, you know what to do. If you’re still confused, here’s my post about last year’s event.

Last year, we set the ticket prices at a starting level, then steadily increased the price as the days ticked down toward the event. This year, we’re taking a different approach – less strongarm, more faith in the natural generosity of our fellow Torontonians. I’ll get to the full explanation about ticket pricing in a minute.

First, let’s remind ourselves why we’re doing this in the first place:

HoHoTO grew organically out of a shared belief among a relatively small group of people. A belief that spread like a wildfire through the tweetstreams and blogvines and quickly turned a much, much bigger group of people on to the same core idea:

HoHoTO is about a lot of things. It’s about having an insane night of unbridled, unforgettable FUN. It’s about meeting old friends and new and spilling drinks on them. It’s about dancing like you’re 19 again. It’s about awesome raffle prizes and fantastic surprises. It’s about creating memories to last a long, long time.

But at root, it’s about something even more important. Not to get all glum and earnest on you, but HoHoTO is – and always has been – about helping feed Toronto’s hungry.

That’s why we do this thing.

• In Toronto, people just like you and me made more than a million visits to food banks last year.
• Food bank use is growing – up 18% nationally this year over last. The largest ever year-over-year increase on record.
• More than 37% of the people using food banks are children (and if that doesn’t break your heart, you need to examine your soul)
• The median monthly household income in Toronto is only $980. Hunger in the GTA is a result of lack of money, not lack of food.

Now you have a sense of why HoHoTO was created — to help the Daily Bread Food Bank with desperately needed funds and food.

So far, with our original Holiday party in 2008 and the summer spinoff (oh so wittily labeled HoHOTo) we’ve managed to raise over $38,000. This year, we’re going to try to beat that in one night. Our goal is $40,000. Yes, we’re mental.

Here’s the deal. If you’re employed, gainfully self-employed, or independently wealthy and thinking of coming to HoHoTO, the chances are you’re a hell of a lot better off financially than any of the people we’re trying to help. So we’ve got a bunch of $20 tickets available – but are you really only good for twenty bucks?

A hundred bucks to you is what you take out of the ATM on a Saturday night and find it’s all gone by Sunday morning. To a food bank user, that same $100 could be all they have left after rent and basics to feed their whole family for a month.

Please: before you say you can’t afford any more than the basic ticket, stop and think. Yes, you can.

This year, you’ll see there are blocks of tickets available at a range of price levels. There’s no difference between the $20 and the $100 tickets. Only you will ever know the size of the donation you choose to make.

If $20 really is all you can spare, that’s cool. We still want you there, and we know you’ll be spending more on the night for drinks, cabs, etc.

But please, if you can – think of paying for your ticket at one of the higher levels. It’s just the right thing to do.

OK. Enough begging. The tickets are now officially on sale, here. Hook yerself all up and get ready to have the ultimate Santastic holiday experience at the return of the original party that Twitter built.

Be there, or we’ll bauble your eggnogs.

I am looking forward to the livechat on The Agenda tonight. The topic? Limits of transparency and digital activism. I will be joining @jessebrown in the online discussion, as the incredible Steve Paikin juggles the offline and online guests and comments at 8 p.m. tonight.

Digital activism? What’s that?

It is hard to deny the benefits of the online: news spreads like wildfire, people self-organize into groups to protest and sign petitions, raise funds for charities, and even re-enlist as voters! (..and I do hope we can vote online one day, by the way.) Some issues take off better than others, just like in real life. We live in interesting times: When 4,000 teens join the Facebook group against a proposed change in the legislation, the story gets media pickup few press releases could get, and in the end our Premier notices. We live in interesting times indeed, when our small donations, our individual voices and opinions finally seem to matter. Please join the discussion tonight at 8 p.m. on The Agenda

I came across these social media guidelines and decided to collect those from now on. It’s fascinating to see the different takes various organizations have on the issue of social media engagement. Does your organization have social media policy? Please share – I would be happy to link to it.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-wapos-social-media-guidelines-paint-staff-into-virtual-corner/

Instead of finding ways to encourage engagement, it’s easy to see how these guidelines could drive it the other way. I’m not sure I would do anything in social networking with this as a framework. Steve Buttry explains why journalism orgs need conversations, not restrictions. This should be the beginning of an important conversation within the WaPo newsroom.

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The following are effective immediately:

Newsroom Guidelines for Use of Facebook, Twitter and Other Online Social Networks (emphasis added)

Social networks are communications media, and a part of our everyday lives. They can be valuable tools in gathering and disseminating news and information. They also create some potential hazards we need to recognize. When using social networking tools for reporting or for our personal lives, we must remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists.  The following guidelines apply to all Post journalists, without limitation to the subject matter of their assignments.

Using Social Networking Tools for Reporting

When using social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, My Space or Twitter for reporting, we must protect our professional integrity.  Washington Post journalists should identify themselves as such. We must be accurate in our reporting and transparent about our intentions when participating.  We must be concise yet clear when describing who we are and what information we seek.

When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment.  We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.

Our online data trails reflect on our professional reputations and those of The Washington Post.  Be sure that your pattern of use does not suggest, for example, that you are interested only in people with one particular view of a topic or issue.

Using Social Networking Tools for Personal Reasons

All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens.  Post journalists must recognize that any content associated with them in an online social network is, for practical purposes, the equivalent of what appears beneath their bylines in the newspaper or on our website.

What you do on social networks should be presumed to be publicly available to anyone, even if you have created a private account.  It is possible to use privacy controls online to limit access to sensitive information. But such controls are only a deterrent, not an absolute insulator. Reality is simple: If you don’t want something to be found online, don’t put it there.

Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility. This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online.  Post journalists should not be involved in any social networks related to advocacy or a special interest regarding topics they cover, unless specifically permitted by a supervising editor for reporting and so long as other standards of transparency are maintained while doing any such reporting.

Post journalists should not accept or place tokens, badges or virtual gifts from political or partisan causes on pages or sites, and should monitor information posted on your own personal profile sites by those with whom you are associated online for appropriateness.
Personal pages online are no place for the discussion of internal newsroom issues such as sourcing, reporting of stories, decisions to publish or not to publish, personnel matters and untoward personal or professional matters involving our colleagues. The same is true for opinions or information regarding any business activities of The Washington Post Company. Such pages and sites also should not be used to criticize competitors or those who take issue with our journalism or our journalists.

If you have questions about any of these matters, please check with your supervisor or a senior editor.

NOTE:  These guidelines apply to individual accounts on online social networks, when used for reporting and for personal use.  Separate guidelines will follow regarding other aspects of Post journalism online.

I invite you to take a minute and read the full version here:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/the-problem-with-non.html

The problem with non

Non as in non-profit.

The first issue is the way you describe yourself. I know what you’re not but what are you?

Did you start or join this non-profit because of the non part? I doubt it. It’s because you want to make change. The way the world is just isn’t right or good enough for you… there’s an emergency or an injustice or an opportunity and you want to make change.

These organizations exist solely to make change. That’s why you joined, isn’t it?

The problem facing your group, ironically, is the resistance to the very thing you are setting out to do. Non-profits, in my experience, abhor change.

Take a look at the top 100 twitter users in terms of followers. Remember, this is a free tool, one that people use to focus attention and galvanize action. What? None of them are non-profits. Not one as far as I can tell. Is the work you’re doing not important enough to follow, or is it (and I’m betting it is) paralysis in decision making in the face of change? Is there too much bureaucracy or too much fear to tell a compelling story in a transparent way?

Beth has a great post about the feeling of vertigo that non-profits get when they move from the firm ground of the tried and true to the anti-gravity that comes from leaping into change.

I watch this message getting spread on twitter and I am amazed. If you needed to see for yourself how twitter works, this is it.

#watchitspread

The anatomy of #watchitspread

hoHOTo is like Christmas in the summer. Only way more fun. Get your tickets now!

The new site is up and running, check it out! get your tickets before they are sold out, and contact us if you’d like to sponsor this amazing fundraising effort. HoHOTo is your fund-raising party for the Daily Bread Food Bank, taking place at Level Nightclub (102 Peter St), Tuesday, August 18.

Here’s a brief overview of what happened in December:
#Hohoto – The Toronto Community Gives Back
…and a video for you to watch.

Tis the season… for HOT times and good deeds! HoHOTo brings the holiday spirit to the hot summer nights with a grand party at Level on August 18. There’ll be DJs, prizes, beautiful people, interactive fun and the warm fuzzy joy of doing good on a night out.

Once again the HoHOTo crew are bringing people together to support the Daily Bread Food Bank, feeding hungry people across the GTA. Show your support by buying tickets or just making a donation, and then Tweet (we’re @hohoto, or just use the #hohoto hashtag), email, Facebook or blog about your contributions. Read more

In preparation for the workshop I’ll be leading at My Charity Connects conference, I thought it’d be a good idea to put up a short list of case studies worth looking at.

Social media case studies

• Best Job in the World – contests
• KIVA – strong values, community involved in building the organization
• Google – providing value for free. What is the return?
• Department of Culture – community mobilization
• TakingITglobal - youth engagement

Update: The video of my talk at My Charity Connects conference is now available

I Came, I Saw, I Planned: Social Media Strategies from CanadaHelps on Vimeo.

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/MyCharityConnects/elena-yunusov-i-came-i-saw-i-planned-social-media-strategies-1563823

Workshop description:

Now that you’ve got your staff and board excited about social media, what’s the next step? Like any other communications or marketing plan, it starts with a strategy, rooted in your organization’s desire to enhance your relationships with your stakeholders. What does a social media plan look like? What are the key elements? Where should you dedicate your time and how can you make most of your efforts? This session will present strategies and tactics you can employ, and will we’ll touch on how each fits into the communications plan you’ve already got.

Every time I hear the word “crisis” I could feel angry, scared and frustrated. I could decide that crisis is a bad thing, an inevitable thing. It’s doom and gloom! All run and hide. And I would feel miserable. Life is too short for that! Instead, I choose to see every crisis as an opportunity. I looove the word “opportunity” – it puts a smile on my face, excites me and stimulates my imagination.

So…how does it all relate to social media?

Whenever you come across a challenge, stop for a minute, smile and do a check. Is it an opportunity disguised as a crisis? In case of social media, is it a challenge, a hurdle or is it really the coolest thing that happened in years? Read more »