See What’s Out There

Today is Beth Kanter’s birthday. If you have anything to do with nonprofits, social media, fundraising, Twitter, Cambodia, foundations, NTEN, and haven’t been living under a rock, you know Beth. Beth is the single most important source of information for the nonprofit sector on web and social media — hands down. In fact, no one is even close.

If you haven’t read Beth’s blog, you should.

Beth has been getting some accolades from the NTEN community and others. And she deserves them all. She’s an amazing giver, someone who shares everything she knows and knows a whole lot. She constantly experiements with social media and then tells it like it is. She has no hidden agenda, she isn’t selling a product and all of us, the whole world really, is richer for it. We have been blessed with Beth in our community and we want to take this opportunity to wish her a very very happy birthday.

Thank you Beth!!!!! To support Beth on her birthday, give to her favorite cause, The Sharing Foundation.

At See3 we have worked for organizations that have it in their mission to be accessible. For example, See3 client Easter Seals is all about helping people with disabilities. They need to model being accessible in their physical spaces as well as on their website.

See3 Director of Interactive Marketing and Fundraising, Shirley Sexton was the VP Interactive at Easter Seals for 8 years. She couldn’t do everything she wanted to do with video because videos playing in a Flash player — like those on YouTube — are not accessible. If you can’t see and hear it, it won’t work.

We have created workarounds for this within our own projects. And when asked about broader-based captioning what we have always said is that it’s a value, but it’s expensive. Someone has to create good captions before they can be added to the video.

We have been watching carefully the advances in speech recognition online with interest. People such as David Pogue are big believers in speaking into their PCs instead of typing. It didn’t seem a huge leap to us that someone would take this technology — which is amazing — and apply it to video. [Here’s a review from Pogue of this software from 3 years ago, and it is much better today than it was then.]

So it came as no surprise to us that Google is the one to step up. They have been leading advancements in all kinds of translation and other technologies, and oh, they also happen to own the biggest video site on the web, YouTube.

Here’s the lead from today’s NYTimes:

In the first major step toward making millions of videos on YouTube accessible to deaf and hearing-impaired people, Google unveiled new technologies on Thursday that will automatically bring text captions to many videos on the site.

While the technology can only insert captions on English language speech, Google is giving users the choice to use its automatic translation system to read the captions in 51 languages. That could broaden the appeal of YouTube videos to millions of other people who do not speak English but could use the captioning technology to read subtitles in their native language.

The speech recognition technology that Google uses to turn speech into text is not new; Google currently uses it to transcribe voice mail messages for users of its Google Voice service. But Ken Harrenstien, a deaf engineer who helped develop the automatic captioning system, said the technology had never been applied on such a large scale.

“This is some thing that I have dreamt of for many years,” Mr. Harrenstien said speaking through an interpreter. “To see it happen, is amazing.”

You can read the whole article here.

We are having a great time at the Convio Summit 2009 in Austin. Today at lunch Vinay Bhagat, Convio’s founder and an expert in nonprofit web marketing spoke about trends online.

One thing he talked about was video and social media and how these new online tools have become more important to nonprofits. He was kind enough to give a shout-out to See3, telling the crowd to come and meet us. (If you aren’t at the Convio Summit you can still meet us, just call the office 773-784-7333)

Here’s the video:

We are here in Austin at the 2009 Convio Summit! We are speakers, exhibitors and sponsors and are really excited to now be a Convio Authorized Solution Provider.

Here’s what our booth set up looks like.

America’s Giving Challenge is an amazing program from The Case Foundation that See3 had the opportunity to support this year. It is a program that encourages nonprofits, large and small, to use the web to engage people in their work, and to encourage small donations. They make this happen through a competition that rewards nonprofits daily during the contest period and overall at the end. Today they just announced that the W.K. Kellogg Foundation added another $75,000 to the pot to give away.

Check it out right now at America’s Giving Challenge

Here’s the press release:

W.K. Kellogg Foundation Grant to America’s Giving Challenge Significantly Increases Number of Overall and Daily Awards Offered to Nonprofit Causes

Challenge Has Already Raised $1.1 million from More Than 50K Donations in Three Weeks;
Runs through November 6

WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 30, 2009) – America’s Giving Challenge, a 30-day, national online competition that encourages people to leverage their social networks to recruit supporters and win cash awards for nonprofit organizations, today announced that it has received a $75,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan to help mobilize participation in the last week of the Challenge.

The grant increases the total amount of award dollars in the Challenge to $245,000 for nonprofit causes that net the highest number of donations. America’s Giving Challenge, presented by the Case Foundation, Causes and PARADE Publications, launched on October 7, 2009. To date more than 50,000 donations have raised $1.1 million for nonprofit causes.

“America’s Giving Challenge offers a tremendous opportunity to raise funds and awareness for nonprofit organizations at a time when the communities we care about, including children and families, have never been in greater need of their services,” said Anne Mosle, vice president for programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “We hope that collaborating with our colleagues in these efforts will not only encourage more innovation by all the participants in their fundraising efforts, but ultimately spark a larger movement of nonprofits leveraging technology to reach new audiences and inspire civic action.”

The $75,000 contribution from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will enable the creation of five additional overall awards, including one $25,000 and four $10,000 prizes for the causes that garner the most unique daily donations over the 30 days of the Challenge. In addition, a $1,500 daily prize will be added for the last seven days of the Challenge beginning at 3 p.m. ET today. With the additional contribution, America’s Giving Challenge now offers 12 overall awards: one $50,000 prize, two $25,000 prizes and nine $10,000 prizes, and three daily awards of $1,500, $1,000 and $500.

Individuals and nonprofits can still get involved in America’s Giving Challenge. From now until November 6 at 3 p.m. ET, participants can compete for daily and overall awards – ranging from $500 to $50,000 – based on the number of donations to their cause using the Causes application on Facebook. Those who wish to participate in the Challenge can get involved in one of two ways:
• Champion a cause – Individuals can become “cause champions,” who are passionate about a specific cause and will compete to obtain the most donations for their cause through the Causes application on Facebook.
• Promote, donate or join a cause – all individuals are encouraged to take part in America’s Giving Challenge by joining, promoting and donating to the causes they care about. Facebook membership is not required to donate to a Giving Challenge cause.

Participants can register to compete in the Giving Challenge, view details and donate to a cause they care about at www.americasgivingchallenge.com.

About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Established in 1930, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin American and the Caribbean, and southern Africa.

About the Presenting Partners:

The Case Foundation
The Case Foundation, created by Steve and Jean Case in 1997, invests in people and ideas that can change the world. The Foundation champions initiatives that connect people, increase giving, and catalyze civic action. For more information, visit www.casefoundation.org.

Causes
Causes empowers anyone with a good idea or passion for change to impact the world. Using our platform, individuals mobilize their network of friends to grow lasting social and political movements. To date, over 85 million Facebook users have installed the application and created and joined more than 300,000 grassroots causes that benefit more than 60,000 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and Canada. For more information, visit the Causes Application (www.causes.com) and Causes Exchange (www.exchange.causes.com).

PARADE
PARADE, the most widely read magazine in America, is distributed in more than 500 of the nation’s top newspapers. The magazine, which launched in 1941, now has a circulation of 32 million and a readership of 73 million. Each Sunday in PARADE and every day at Parade.com, our mission is to entertain, inspire and inform Americans about the issues they care most about and move them to action. For more information, visit www.parade.com.

YouTube is doing some cool things for nonprofits. One of those things is to leverage the YouTube community to make videos for nonprofits. They have a program called Video Volunteers, which encourages YouTube video makers to make videos about nonprofit issues.

They launched the program and I didn’t see much activity. It was all kind of vague. But they just started to pick issues and create contests to encourage people to make videos on that issue. The first issue was animal welfare. The next issue is hunger.

Seems to be working. Over 100 users made animal welfare videos and they have the results sitting on YouTube’s home page today, driving traffic to the videos and raising awareness for the issues. Way to go YouTube!

Here you can read YouTube’s blog post on the subject.

And go to Video Volunteers page and see if you can get YouTube video makers talking about your issues.

Yesterday, we hosted a packed webinar about nonprofit video strategy. We were excited to see so much interest in the topic, and there were some great questions about video sharing sites, live streaming, legal issues, and more.

For those of you who missed it—and those who attended but want to reference it or share with others in your organization—we’ve combined the recorded audio from the webinar and matched it up with our slidedeck below.

One of the most common questions we get is about which video sharing sites are useful besides YouTube. A few that we recommend: Vimeo, Revver, Viddler, Blip.tv, Veoh, DoGooderTV.

If you want to be notified of upcoming webinars and tips, visit our site homepage and sign up for updates.

This afternoon we gave a free webinar showcasing our nonprofit video solution, an open-source video platform that integrates into your organizational and campaign-oriented websites.

We wanted to share our slidedeck below.

There were some good questions on the call about its integration with various CMS platforms, and we’re happy to take any other questions from the community. Just email us at info [at] see3 . net and we’ll make sure to get you an answer.

We’ll also be hosting another webinar next month, which will focus less on video technology and more on video strategy. It’s completely free, and you can sign up here.

Tomorrow at 4:00pm ET, 14,000 people worldwide will test their blood sugar simultaneously and share their results online.

The organizer is TuDiabetes.com.com, the niche social networking site for people affected by diabetes.

“People with diabetes have to test their blood sugar as part of their daily routine: it’s like drinking water or brushing your teeth,” said Manny Hernandez, co-founder of TuDiabetes.com and a person with diabetes himself. “When Kelly [Rawlings] mentioned having a collective test-in, I thought it would be a great way for thousands of us to connect and raise awareness about diabetes.”

TuDiabetes.com is built on the white-label social networking platform Ning, and Manny wrote the book on it.

That’s not just an expression. He really wrote the book on Ning.

Participating in this initiative to raise diabetes awareness is easy:

1. If you are a member of TuDiabetes or EsTuDiabetes (the sister site for Spanish speakers), click on the home page banner and share your reading.

2. If you have a Twitter account, post your reading on Twitter (use the #14KPWD hashtag) and link back to: http://14kPWD.org .

3. If you prefer, update your status on Facebook or your preferred social network, linking back to: http://14kPWD.org .

4. If you don’t have diabetes, just tell someone who does to test and share on July 14.

Now that you’re back home from the Nonprofit Technology Conference, it’s time to start putting some of those great ideas into practice. Here is some help with links to all of our sessions and workshops at NTC09.

You Made a Video, Now What?
Michael Hoffman, See3 CEO, talked about redefining “viral”, hosting options, and distributing your video content online. Folks from YouTube and Flip Video Spotlight were in attendance for Michael’s session, and added to an engaging discussion around these issues.

New Video Platform for Nonprofits
We unveiled our partnership with Kaltura, the first open-source video platform, to provide exceptional video solutions to nonprofits. It was exciting to share this platform with the community and listen to the real needs of the sector. We’re looking into some of the questions posed in this session and will update ASAP.

Blogging for Nonprofits
Shirley Sexton, See3 Director of Interactive Marketing & Fundraising, led this workshop which helped nonprofit staff determine if a blog is a worthwhile addition to their particular organization’s online communications mix. If so, she guided them how to determine the key elements of topic, tone, frequency, layout, and more.

Introduction to Video
Stacy Laiderman, See3 Producer, led two hands-on video trainings as part of the WeAreMedia workshops on the first day of the training. Participants learned the ins-and-outs of pre-production, storytelling, and shooting. Next time we’ll make sure there’s time for editing!