My organization is currently working on a major web relaunch: we are moving our public facing website and our two extranets to a CMS and will give them a new, similar look and feel. In a series of articles I will describe what I have learned during the process. This is the first part. Lesson learned: Don’t split the contracts for the design-part and the technical implementation! If I could go back in time and do one thing differently, this would[...]
Archive for September, 2009
Seth Godin recently wrote a post titled “The problem with non” in which he claims that non-profit organizations fail at social media adoption and that the reason for that is fear of change. Here are six reasons why I disagree: 1. There is a difference Oprah and an NGO „Take a look at the top 100 twitter users in terms of followers. (…)None of them are non-profits. (…) Is the work you’re doing not important enough to follow, or is it[...]
A few days ago I came across a remarkable TED talk that gives some interesting insights into why non-profit organizations might be the best employers you can find. It also got me thinking about whether we are asking the wrong people for advice, if we are inviting the McKinsey’s and KMPG’s of this world to assist us with our problems. I highly recommend you watch the video before you read on: What I find most interesting about this presentation is[...]
I’ve just been reading Ken Burbary’s blog and came across an excellent story from Scott Monty. I think it’s a beauty in itself and doesn’t need any additional commentary: “A friend sent me a PDF of an article from a business journal in which a company expressed reservations about this new technology over which everyone seemed to be abuzz. They decided that they would restrict employees’ use of it, because of the fear of corporate secrets getting out, of insider[...]
As mentioned in an earlier post about the Germany will have general elections at the end of September. As a result some interesting web applications are appearing on the web, geared at trying to help voters with their decision. Germany’s most respected political magazine, “Der Spiegel”, is trying to make abstract political platforms tangible through a “web soap-opera” called ”Zeit der Entscheidung” (Decision Time). Each webisodes lasts for 15 minutes before the viewer is asked for his party preference. Then, the[...]
As I grabbed my passport this morning, 20 Euros fell out. For a second, I had this weird mental image of a customs official secretly giving money back to travelers as compensation for all his colleagues who expect their palms to be greased. It was a fun thought.
The Swedish International Development Agency has launched “The World Log” a new catalogue for web content related to aid and development content. It lists blogs, videos and photos by geography and topic – and it looks really pretty! Great chance for high level exposure The site is still a bit buggy (sometimes the user interface switches to Swedish so you have “Läs mer” instead of “Read more”) but if you have anything to do with aid or development, then you should definitely[...]
Last week the IFRC launched a global H1N1 mini-campaign (www.bestdefence.org). What’s new for us is that in addition to making a number of the campaign products social media ready, we are also offering all the production files through our extranet to National Societies as a toolkit in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. Customizable campaign Because, even though all National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are part of the IFRC, they do want to have the logo of their National Society[...]
