See What’s Out There

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a party for Care2 in Washington. It was their first anniversary with a D.C. office party and probably 300 people showed up. Care2 is an online community of more than 6 million members, talking and sharing and acting together to make the world better.

They also are the best source of quick email list growth for nonprofits. For about $3 a name, you can have Care2 organize a petition or sign-up among their community members. While $3 per name might sound like a lot, it is actually the best deal around. If you were to try to drive traffic to a sign-up on your site using banner ads or blog ads or other online promotions, it will cost you more than that per name captured. The reason 250 nonprofits work with Care2 is that the names from their community perform well, even long after the original petition is done.

Nicholas Kristof has a piece in today’s Time’s (subscription required) with the headline, “Do-Gooders With Spreadsheets.” He’s talking about us!

Actually, he doesn’t mention me by name or DoGooderTV. But he is talking about many of us “social entrepreneurs,” people who are approaching the needs of our world from the framework of sustainable business. For us, this means helping nonprofits expand their support through the smart use of media. We are doing it with See3 production and consulting services, and through DoGooderTV, a kind of YouTube for nonprofits, which I will be writing a lot more about soon.

In his piece, he talks about the most interesting thing at Davos not being the billionaires and kings, but the social entrepreneurs who give him hope that the world’s problems are being addressed in a new way. He mentions Gillian Caldwell, who is the director of Witness, a Brooklyn-based organization that trains human rights workers to use video cameras to document abuses. Gillian and I are both speaking this week at the Make Your Documentary Matter conference, put on by our good friends at the Center for Social Media at American University.

I am sorry that Kristof didn’t mention Daniel Lubetzky, the consummate social entrepreneur. Daniel is the founder of PeaceWorks, a company that sells food products produced by Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine. Daniel is also founder of the OneVoice Movement, the organization that presented at Davos the voices of average Israelis and Palestinians.

As I have written before, what is interesting to me is the convergence of doing good with the profit motive. Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Prize for his micro-lending institution Grameen Bank, distinguishes between two kinds of business. He says that there are businesses who exist to maximize profit and “social enterprises,” business that are sustainable and profitable but exist to do good. The difference in reality is the lens to which management thinks about what they are doing. I am not so sure how easy it is to distinguish one from the other and whether we should even try.

Someone recently told me the story of a guy who founded a business of buying up the unused medication from American AIDS patients and then selling this medication in Africa at a deep discount. People have criticized him for making a profit. His reply, I am told, was something like, “Should the only ones making a profit be those who exploit these people?” Should he be penalized for making a living because he is doing it in a way that helps people? I think not.

On DoGooderTV we are going to have advertising and corporate sponsorship, which can sometimes rub some of the older more established organizations the wrong way. And while we are taking steps to make sure the advertising is appropriate to the content, and while we will give organizations a way to turn off the ads, we believe getting American companies to subsidize nonprofit work is a good idea.

A discussion of social entrepreneurs should give some props to Paul Newman. His food business, Newman’s Own, operates as a profitable concern that then donates those profits to charity. This structure ensures that management will make sound business decisions, even though their goal is to give the money away.

For us at See3, we want to be able to look back at our emerging nonprofit video empire and see something that is able to sustain itself while making a measurable impact on the ability of nonprofits to attract supporters and fulfill their mission.

So the SplashCast player in my previous post is working now. The company officially launched today at the Demo conference. When the video starts, it says Courtesy of YouTube, which would give me the impression that YouTube has some kind of deal with them. The SplashCast player can pull in video from other sources and can pull in photos from Flickr and audio files as well. In the video I loaded, the YouTube watermark is still there, and is clickable to the YouTube page with the original video. But the rest of the video is no longer clickable back to YouTube. I wonder if YouTube gets a cut of any advertising delivered by SplashCast on a YouTube video. Here’s the TechCrunch take on SplashCast.

There is a new video start-up called SplashCast. It looks very interesting. You can publish photos and video and audio, embed it on your site and on others, create an RSS feed, and get this media from other sources, such as Flickr and YouTube. I went on (I have a Beta account) and just picked a keyword, searched YouTube through SplashCast, and created a Channel that will randomly play from the YouTube keyword selected videos.

It will be public tomorrow… so we will see what plays here. The issue I have is how this is related to the YouTube (and any other site they pull media from) terms of service. If YouTube has ads, will this strip YouTube’s ads and put in SplashCast ads? They say they will let you syndicate and monetize content. I will write more as I know more.

Nancy Schwartz, from the Getting Attention blog, asked the question that all of our clients are thinking about. “How do we, as nonprofit communicators, engage audiences who are overloaded with marketing messages and images?”

Seth Godin has become the 24th most popular blogger (out of 57 million+ blogs) on the back of the idea that traditional advertising is a dead end. For Godin, the only thing that matters is being “remarkable” and, therefore, having people tell their friends about you. He imagines driving in the country and seeing cow after cow, how boring. When you come across the purple cow, that’s what you start talking about to everyone you meet.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Wired Magazine had an article that called the $65 billion television advertising industry “a spiraling vortex of ruin.” What they were referring to is the lack of impact that traditional top-down advertising has. The New York Times recently had an article about the proliferation of advertising in non-traditional places, such as the tray tables and barf bags on airplanes, and coffee cup sleeves. My view of this is that it is the death throws of an industry that wants to seem relevant to their clients, when in fact they have no idea what they are doing.

What replaces this traditional advertising? Word-of-mouth on steroids. This is where the web comes in. The internet has enabled information to travel faster than ever. So whether you are selling a product, or the lie that Barak Obama was raised a Muslim, it takes only a few seconds or hours or days for it to travel all over, from one in-box to the next, one blog to the next, one online forum to the next, etc. The dynamic today is that ideas travel this way first, then get picked up by the mainstream press.

In my presentations on this issue I talk about four interlocking trends that help you get your bearings in this new world:

1. The decline of traditional advertising due mostly to audience fragmentation and new technologies (such as Tivo)
2. The rise of opt-in or permission marketing (the ads you see are the ones you choose to see)
3. Broadband is really, finally, here
4. Every consumer of information is a publisher – AKA, Web 2.0 (Tools such as MyBlogLog make the simple act of reading into an act of publishing.)

In this new world, the successful nonprofit organizations are going to be the ones that do three things:

1. Document what’s remarkable about what they do - of course using lots of reusable and portable (online) video
2. Create virtual toolkits so that others can use this material to market your remarkableness to their own communities. (Think of this like you are P&G providing CVS with the cardboard stand and signs and advertising copy so CVS can promote the P&G product with little effort. Except you can save the printing costs.)
3. Expand the network of those publishing using your toolkits to include a wide range of staff, Board members and other stakeholders.

I want to say a little more on this last point. The HR strategy of nonprofit organizations needs to change to reflect the blurring of lines between “inside” and “outside” people. It used to be that the only ones who needed to communicate where the folks in a fundraising or communications job. In this world where everyone online is a publisher, every employee has the potential to be an outside person without ever leaving the office. Organizations need to begin to evaluate communications skills differently for every position. A small increase in the number of people strategically communicating the organizational message to influential communities online will have exponential impact on the spread of the organization’s message. Read that again. Hire communicators! (Buy stock in liberal arts education.)

The scary thing about this new world of friends telling friends is that you can’t fake it anymore. You really need to have things that are interesting, innovative and important. People will see through the marketing BS, and your message will be dead on arrival. On the other hand, the promise of this world is that small and under-funded organizations will be able to compete in this marketplace of remarkableness in a way they could never compete in the world of advertising. TV was unreachable to 99% of organizations. In a world where TV advertising doesn’t matter so much, nonprofits have the opportunity to play with the big guys and to get attention beyond what was ever possible before.

Peace in the Middle East is something I care a lot about and something that can be very depressing. I often hear, from the Jewish side, that there is no one to talk to, nothing to do. When moderate and reasonable people step forward and say, clearly, that they want to end the conflict in a way that works for both people, it is our duty to respond.

What enables me to write about this here is how the One Voice Movement today used video at the World Economic Forum in Davos to have ordinary Israelis and Palestinians speak directly to their leaders and the other world leaders present at the conference. With their leaders in the room in front of a large video screen, and with leaders from around the world as witness, these people stood up and said, we are telling you here today that there is a mandate from both sides for peace — make it happen. One Voice is a mainstream nonpartisan movement of realists, not a group of wishful thinkers. Their feeling is that leaders can’t make peace without the public support of their people.

Watching these people gives me hope, something that has been in short supply since September 2000, when horrible things began yet again.

Daniel Lubetzky, who founded the One Voice Movement, explained in the press release that what these leaders witnessed didn’t happen overnight: “We’ve been building this human infrastructure for five years, and, in spite of the horrible atmosphere, or perhaps because of it, we are gaining more members and more momentum. People are ready to stand up and say, ‘Enough!’”

Here is what the leaders saw:

A video-cast message from Nisreen Shaheen, the Executive Director of OneVoice Palestine — surrounded by a large crowd of hundreds of Palestinians in Al Qasaba, the largest hall in Ramallah — appeared on an oversized screen at the front of the forum. WATCH NOW

Adi Balderman, the OneVoice Israel Leadership Program Director, stated: “Each and every one of us [needs] to take action and personal responsibility in ensuring a better future. If the millions of moderate Israelis and Palestinians each take a small step, we will unleash the power of the people and reclaim our lives.” WATCH NOW

Saed Mashaal and Eran Schafferman, OneVoice Palestinian and Israeli Youth Leaders, respectively surrounded by scores of supportive Israeli and Palestinian activists, spoke in unison to condemn violent extremism & intervention from foreign militants. WATCH NOW

You can see the whole thing as it looked to the people in the room at Davos here.

Get involved with One Voice and affirm their principles. Watch their overview video here.

People love our See3 logo. We love our See3 logo.

It was designed by a New York artist named Cindy Workman. Cindy is having an art show, and if you are in New York, you should take a look. Here are the details:

art… Artist Cindy Workman has a new show called “Les Demoiselles” that features arresting, composite images of women fashioned from disparate sources including magazines, online images, even sewing pattern envelopes. The women are in varying states of dress and emotions – some engage us eye to eye, others avert their gaze. Ms. Workman used to work in traditional collage techniques but has now moved to digital imaging. The work remains as fresh and quietly fierce as ever. Opens tonight, 6-8pm, at Lennon, Weinberg, 514 W. 25th [10th/11th] 212.941.0012.

And here’s a preview.

I love GetActive, which is a company that manages the email lists and online marketing for many of this great nation’s top nonprofit organizations. They have a nice eCRM — which usually means customer relationship management (or constituent relationship management) which, in English, means they track people who interact with you online, most often by email. They have also added a CMS product — content management system — to their offering and have had some success selling that. Our client AJWS has been considering the CMS, so that their CRM and CMS will be on one platform — meaning one vendor and one training.

Now, GetActive announced last week, they are merging with Convio. So, the three majors who provide these services to the nonprofit world will become two. (The other is Kintera, which is a public company, so everyone can watch as they not-so-slowly bleed cash.)

GetActive and Convio are selling the sell-out as GetActive’s great CMS combined with Convio’s great CRM. Huh? I could be wrong, but I think the biggest part of GetActive’s business - and what everyone knows them for — is the email management, constituent management, online advocacy/fundraising management, which is all the CRM.

Here is something from the press release:

The acquisition will enable Convio to offer the most complete set of Internet solutions available that are specifically designed for nonprofits, associations and institutions of higher education. Convio plans to leverage GetActive’s strong expertise in advocacy, its highly regarded content management platform, as well as the company’s strong services operation based in Washington, D.C. The combined company will serve more than 1,400 customers.

Reading between the lines, what I hear is that Convio wants GetActive’s Washington office and connection to the advocacy organizations that are GetActive’s bread and butter. It also seems that GetActive has more customers than Convio but we can assume that GetActive’s are on average smaller and less profitable.

The CEO of GetActive sent out an email to their clients today. This kind of language makes me worry:

Client Migrations

GetActive and Convio have given a lot of thought to client migrations from the GetActive eCRM platform to the Convio eCRM platform. Efforts are already underway to identify the differences in functionality between the eCRM platforms. We have also begun discussing plans and ideas to make these as smooth as possible for our clients.

It is our explicit goal that clients will not pay fees for their migration to the Convio eCRM platform and that disruptions to their important work will be minimized. However, given the potential for unknown variables and the likelihood that clients may want to take this opportunity to implement Convio features previously unavailable from GetActive, there are some atypical scenarios that may require fees. For example, the decision to add integrated peer events or e-commerce functionality not currently offered by GetActive. An initial migration plan will be reviewed with clients by March 30, 2007.

OK… I have no idea what this really means, and they probably don’t yet either. One thing this means is, we will charge you if this whole thing turns out to be too much work. It might all work out fine in the end. But if I was deciding right now what to do, I would ask a lot of hard questions, get some guarantees in writing, and look seriously at the alternatives.

Kintera is trying to capitalize on all of this:

The proposed merger of Convio and GetActive, two niche product providers of nonprofit software, creates uncertainty regarding the integration of technology platforms, culture, and which platform survives.

“In this rapidly growing market, consolidation can be expected among technology providers. Nonprofits shouldn’t be forced onto a platform that wasn’t part of their initial analysis,” said Richard N. LaBarbera, Kintera COO.

He’s got a point, but they should be careful with their words. Given their current state at Kintera I wouldn’t be surprised if soon we were hearing all of these guys announce the newly formed GetConvioKintera.

If you are paying attention you know by now that every major announcement that someone is running for president has come with it’s own web video. You can listen to Obama, Clinton, Richardson, Dodd, Edwards, Brownback… and I just can’t keep up with who else. There was a piece on NPR this morning on this subject, but I would rather share with you Jon Stewart’s take on this and on the New York Time’s move to add more web video. Here you go:

Oy. I have been on the road a lot lately and have not written as much as I want, and I actually have what to say. For now, here are some tidbits:

In New York last week I met with the US Fund for UNICEF. These folks are doing the most important work there is – saving kids. On their website you see a simple calculation: 1 child + $17 = 1 adult. Wow. And when you know that so little money can have such a big impact, you take this very seriously. So I should not have been surprised when I saw a sign in their bathroom that said something like: “$180 could save the lives of more than 10 children. But instead, this is what we had to spend on a plumber for this bathroom. Please don’t throw things in the toilet.” You can donate right now and help them get over the guilt created by the stopped-up loo.

Porn in HD? Maybe not. The NY Times reports that the sex industry has some mixed feeling about high def porn. As all of us in technology know, porn has been a major force in pioneering and implementing new technology. High definition will probably not be an exception.

Second Life? How about a First Life. Nonprofits need to know and watch Second Life because it is becoming a significant outlet to reach people, and is therefore no different than MySpace or Facebook in that sense. But every time I talk to clients about this, they say, “Who has time?” Indeed. As if we don’t have enough to do in the real world, we need to create a fake one. The smart people at Social Signal did a good write up of Second Life for those who don’t know what it is. And once you know, check out this parody called Get a First Life.

Seth Godin writes about a contest from the International Thriller Writers (who knew?) where if you sign up for the newsletter you are entered to win a contest. The prize is signed books from thriller writers. This is worth pointing out because what makes it good is that those entering are only those you want to reach – because the prize is not an iPod, it’s related to the content of the organization.

Google just got a lot better. I use Google to follow my blogs and news by having a personalized Google home page. Yesterday they added a feature (AJAX) that allows you to click a little + next to one of the feed links and see the first paragraph of content, without leaving your Google page. It’s smart for the user and smart for Google.

There has been a lot of talk, and some new technology, that will bring online content to your TV. Because, really, isn’t a TV usually a better place to watch video than the small computer screen? There are lots of issues here, not the least of which is that short form content you need a much better way to navigate than you would have with a TV remote. I will write more about this soon. For now, I saw an ad recently that is pushing things in the other direction — improving the online viewing experience. Bose, the speaker people, have come out with a home theater type speaker product for your computer. I am not sure their products are better than much lower-priced ones, but boy these guys know something about marketing.