Back in October, Facebook announced that they are making some changes to pages within their site, and they have recently announced that these changes will go into effect on August 23rd. If your organization has a Facebook page, you should make sure that you are setup in accordance with the new guidelines to ensure that you do not have troubles.

A main item to check out with these changes are any custom landing pages or other applications that you may be using for your nonprofit. Landing pages and any other applications are now going to be limited to 520 pixels in width. (A few months ago, I wrote a blog post with some instructions on how to develop a custom Facebook landing page.) I went through this week and adjusted the size of our new landing page to make sure that we’re all set for August 23rd, and you should too. Here are some tips:

• If your page is image based like ours, you should go into your photo editor (e.g. Photoshop) and reset the image size to have a width of 520 pixels. Then replace the hosted versions of your images with the new smaller ones. If you can give your re-sized, hosted images the same name as your old images, then you shouldn’t have to change the code in your Facebook page. Make sure to look at your page in a couple of browsers to make sure everything looks right after making your changes.
• If your page has more HTML setup, the process to resize the page will likely be a bit more involved. You will still need to resize your image(s), but you may have to edit the HTML behind your page to make sure that everything still fits into the new space.

They are also officially getting rid of “Boxes”, both as an item on your wall and as additional tabs. If your Facebook page has any items in Boxes, you will want to get those moved by next week. You can read more about these changes on Facebook’s official blog.

With the addition of a new staff member from NPower Oregon we now offer more training and consulting services in the areas of social media audits, assessment strategic planning and tools.  In addition we are excited to simply have more capacity to share tips,  tricks and resources to help your organization become more strategic in your social media efforts. If you need assistance setting up your Facebook presence, or adjusting it to the new settings, let us know how we can help.

We also have some Social Media trainings coming up that may be of help:

• FREE Social Media Community Conversation on August 30th - Get free social media resources, tips, and tools in this community conversation hosted Ash Shepherd, our Project Strategist.
• Social Media for Building Community on August 30th - Stick around after the free conversation for our popular class. Here you will develop strategies for social media communications, decide which tools are for your organization and audience, and learn about tools to help you use your time efficiently.
• Stay tuned to our class calendar to learn about our new class coming in October on Facebook.

Earlier this week our friends at Microsoft Community Affairs hosted a webinar to show nonprofit organizations What’s New in Office 2010.  Product Manager Markus Weickenmeier and TechSoup Staff Writer Elliot Harmon walked the participants through the compelling new features in Office 2010.

Through our Scheduled Support customers, we are seeing a lot of interest in Office 2010 with many having upgraded already or making plans to do so.  Before diving into the presentation and demo, a quick Live Meeting poll was conducted to see what version of Office the participants were using.  The results showed that almost 20% (out of 253 responses) have already upgraded to 2010 with 44% and 27% on 2007 (or 2008 for Mac) and 2003 (2004) respectively.  It’s interesting to see a more aggressive adoption of 2010, compared to the slower migration to 2007.  I suspect that this is being influenced by the upgrade of older Windows XP computers to newer desktops running Windows 7.

Getting back to the webinar, below are some the new features and capabilities that stood out for me:

• Online Collaboration: Office 2010 allows for online document collaboration regardless of location – across branch offices, from home, while travelling, with volunteers or board members.  This is supported in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, although the implementation varies by application.  For Word and PowerPoint, co-authoring is provided through the desktop application.  Spreadsheet collaboration is accomplished using the free Excel Web App.  OneNote supports multi-user access in both the desktop and web applications.

• Social Connector: With the Outlook Social Connector, you can synchronize Outlook contacts with social networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Windows Live, and SharePoint.  When one of your Outlook contacts updates their profile on one of these sites, this information will be available in your address book.  Beyond the social aspects, the Connector allows you to quickly view your history of email, meetings, and attachments with any contact, which can help with that needle in the haystack search for a piece of information that you desperately need to locate right now.  Some of the features are still in Beta, but the Facebook Connector is currently available and supports earlier versions of Outlook (2003/2007) as well.

• Photo/Video Editing: With the new built-in features, you can easily clean-up a picture or trim a video directly within Word and PowerPoint.  While not as robust as stand-alone photo or video editing software, this in-house capability greatly simplifies the process of doing minor touch-up to increase its effectiveness in a report or presentation.

• Presentation Broadcasts: PowerPoint Broadcast Slide Show allows you to easily share a presentation to a remote audience.  From the comfort of your desktop, you can broadcast a slide show that participants can quickly connect using their web browser or smartphone.  Using the video export feature, you can convert your presentation into a video suitable to be burned to DVD or shared online.

Thanks to Microsoft and TechSoup for putting this webinar together.  If you were not able to join the live event or would like to view it again, Microsoft has posted the presentation materials online at http://bit.ly/ngowebinar.  In addition, TechSoup has posted a blog about the webinar, including resources to learn more, at http://bit.ly/officewebinar.

Have a great weekend!

Have you wondered whether you should be writing “email” or “e-mail”? Should be “Web site” or “website”?

To help with questions like these, Yahoo has recently published “The Yahoo! Style Guide: Writing, Editing, and Creating content in the Digital World”, and hopes will be the definitive style and grammar guide for online writing. (To answer the questions above, they weigh in with “email” and “website”.)

The Yahoo Style Guide stands to serve as a convenient reference for grammatical questions and writing style for the web. While the free, online version is said to only contain excerpts from the printed book, it still contains enough content and advice to serve as a stand-alone reference for many users. Those interested in reading the full version can purchase print copies from several online book sellers. Here are a few of the rules included in the online guide to give you an idea:

• Don’t include the http:// before a website address or the slash (/) at the end when writing. For instance, when writing out a web address, use npowerseattle.org or www.npowerseattle.org instead of writing out http://www.npowerseattle.org/ . The “www” part of internet addresses is optional.
  
• File names should remain in all lower case letters (setup.exe), but extension and file types should be in all caps (JPEG, GIF).
• Use their word list to look up how to spell out or use tech-related words. In addition to preferring “email” and “website”, they also prefer “3D” over “3-D”, and they say that we are not supposed to use “Google” as a verb. (Use phrases like “search for” instead.)

More than just new spelling and grammar rules, the guide has a lot of great tips for writing content for the web. Visit their “Writing for the Web” section for a lot of good articles on topics like identifying your audience, search engine optimization, writing for mobile readers, gender-neutral language, and site accessibility.

Take a look through the Yahoo! Style Guide and let us know what you think in the comments. Are you an “e-mail” person? Do you have other style guides that you prefer for online writing?

As a continuation to Alison’s post on Working Wikily, I am moved to share my top three take-aways from attending a webinar offered today by Heather McLeod and Diana Scearce, keepers of the Working Wikily blog and consultants at the Monitor Institute.

Peg’s Take-Aways from the Working Wikily webinar on June 8, 2010:
First, I am clearer and more able to take in the advice of experts like McLeod and Scearce thanks to a couple of reminders about the true significance of terms that get tossed around a lot:

1. Social network: people connected by relationships. Note: connected primarily by relationships, not by technology tools. McLeod and Scearce echo Clay Shirky’s advice to remember that’s it’s about people assisted by technology. I can get behind that. We certainly echo that advice at NPower Seattle, where we start every website and database project by mapping the relationships and communication needs that the technology will support.
2. Working Wikily: this one I’m making up a bit based on the examples offered by McLeod and Scearce. I think it’s an emerging way of relating and communicating whose key ingredients are greater openness, transparency and decentralized decision-making. Emerging means I get to practice, learn from mistakes, and try again, right? I can get behind that.

Secondly, I’m clearer about why I am challenged by working wikily. You bet I am. Scares the daylights out of me some days because I’m used to working with defined teams and I’m used to holding decisions kind of private until they’re “fully baked.” In fact, I place a value on more controlled and private processes as being responsible. Another challenge is that it seems to take lots of time. McLeod and Scearce shared a whole list of reasons why it’s hard, including:

• Brand and message control
• Privacy concerns
• Dealing with information overload
• Learning and leveraging new technologies

Thirdly, I see the value of working wikily. If there’s value, I’m willing to try it. I desire to make the shift not only because I am newly convinced that working wikily works, but because making the shift to relating and communicating “wikily” is what will keep the organizations I’m involved with current instead of becoming irrelevant, or worse, extinct. Thanks to McLeod and Scearce , I see that working wikily has a positive side that I’m excited about, including this list of potential outcomes shared on the webinar:

• Weaving communities
• Accessing diverse perspectives
• Building and sharing knowledge
• Mobilizing people
• Coordinating resources and action

Interested in learning more? You can follow the conversation about working wikily on the Working Wikily blog, and browse a summary article at the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog . And NPower’s Social Media training is a great starting point to learn more about the technology tools and how to use them effectively.

I’d love your comments, questions and thoughts here. What do you think? Can you become a convert like me and get behind working wikily? How would you describe the role of technology in social networks – is it primary or secondary to relationships?

WithinReach is a Seattle nonprofit whose mission is to serve as the foremost catalyst for improvements in maternal, child and family health. For 22 years, WithinReach has worked to ensure optimal health for Washington State families by connecting them to the programs, resources and information they need to build healthy families. Major programs include:

• Information and Referral Services through 4 statewide hotlines and ParentHelp123.org
• Nutrition Outreach Program for Basic Food (Food Stamps), First Steps, WIC
• Statewide Coalitions including Immunization Action (IACW), Breastfeeding (BCW), Hepatitis B
• Public Health Materials placed in doctor’s offices, schools, and health clinics

From NPower’s perspective, one of the key assets at WithinReach is a team of long-term staff members who are forward thinking about technology and who have worked with the same NPower consultant for the past nine years. One of the staff referred to the NPower consultant as “my hero” and all agreed that he is a trusted partner and honorary staff member.

With NPower’s assistance, WithinReach has navigated various organizational expansions and shifts over the years, and has built out their technology infrastructure in a thoughtful way. They have a stable and secure infrastructure with planned upgrade and replacement schedules, including budgeting realistically for the total cost of ownership. As a result, they are able to provide reliable and far-reaching services statewide, including:

• Internal hosting of a call center providing statewide service.
• Managing the call center and ParentHelp123 website thanks to a consolidated database.

Looking forward, WithinReach plans to stretch into new areas with advice and assistance from NPower along the way, including learning more about social media at an upcoming NPower training, exploring mobile broadcast to support virtual attendance at their annual fundraising event, and more sophisticated use of email communications to remind clients when their public assistance benefits have expired.

Thank you WithinReach for the pleasure of serving you for the past nine years, and for your work on behalf of families!

For more examples of the impact in the community of NPower’s services for nonprofits, see our library of TechImpact profiles.

The “NPower Empowers Great Work” video that debuted at our 2010 Powerful Connections breakfast on April 30 is now available online.  If you missed the event or would like a repeat, watch the video here.

• Learn about the value of NPower Seattle’s services from a couple of our customers: Friends of the Orphans and Rainier Scholars.
• Hear from supporters about how their investment in NPower connects them to the thousands of people — children, families, seniors and artists — who ultimately benefit from the programs and services that we empower our customers to create.

Creating this video was such a joy. I relished the opportunity to tell our story through the voices of our customers, and working with Ray and Abby at Woodhouse Video was a treat. Thank you to the staff at Friends of the Orphans and at Rainer Scholars who helped make this possible.

– Peg Giffels

We liked this article from our Washington D.C. affiliate so much we’re reposting for the benefit of Seattle nonprofits:

The good folks at consulting firm Idealware have surveyed 459 nonprofit staff members about the effectiveness of certain commonly used social media tools: Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, video-sharing sites (such as YouTube), photo-sharing sites (such as Flickr), and blogs. Here is a breakdown of the survey responses as reported by Laura Quinn, Executive Director of Idealware:

• Generally, respondents felt social media channels were effective for enhancing relations with an existing audience and reaching out to new supporters, but considerably less so for raising money.
• Twitter was in the top three channels for every goal, and was considered the most effective channel for reaching potential new supporters.
• Although Facebook was the most widely used tool by a considerable margin, and the one that those not yet using were most likely to start, it was seen as the most effective only in terms of raising money—and then, only by a small margin.
• MySpace was not widely used, and ranked lowest for each of the three goals. LinkedIn was considered comparatively effective for fundraising, but lagged behind everything but MySpace for the other goals.

View survey results and analysis online at Idealware.org

What do you think, Seattle?

Last month Kivi Leroux Miller at Nonprofit Marketing Guide reported on the results of what she called her “donation experiment” where initially only 3 out of 10 nonprofits acknowledged a donation she’d made. Her report made a bit of a splash — the Chronicle of Philanthropy covered her experiment and asked her to be their guest expert on a weekly online chat, which also generated lots of comments on their site. Why the surprise? Because one of the most dearly held tenets of the fundraising world is that you thank your donors. Thank them often. Thank them repeatedly. So to turn over the rock and find such a low response rate out of 10 groups is a shocker.

What’s happening here? At NPower we do technology, but humbly acknowledge that technology alone doesn’t change the world, people do. To carry over into the thank you arena, technology doesn’t thank people, people do. A person pens the handwritten note on a donor’s birthday, a person composes the individualized thank you note to acknowledge a donation. People build connections to the mission of the organization so that donors want to invest. Yes, automation helps support the process, and our Web and Database consultants have helped organizations like Arts Corps and others to improve communication with donors, but technology doesn’t do it all. The organizations in Leroux Miller’s experiment learned that in a hard and very public way.

For a reminder about the importance of thanking donors and tips on how to do it effectively, see local fundraising luminary Susan Howlett’s slides and webinar recording from a presentation she developed in partnership with NPower and Communities Connect Network. The presentation is about a year old, but the advice from Susan is timeless.

Oh – and thank you!

Looking for free online tools to help you collaborate with teams and communicate with stakeholders?  Wish you could access those tools across different devices (home computer, smartphone, and work computer)?

Check out this free webinar from Microsoft Community Affairs: Free Online Tools for Nonprofits on March 16

This free webinar will highlight free online tools from Microsoft that help nonprofits communicate and collaborate with ease.  Attendees will learn to:

• Set up an online site for your group with a shared calendar, file- & photo-sharing (25 GB free!), and online discussions
• Create online workspaces to manage projects and facilitate Board or committee work
• Easily create blog content and publish it toWordpress, Blogger, TypePad, Windows Live and many more
• Create movies and slide shows from your photos and videos and share them with your supporters on YouTube or DVD

We’ll look at free tools available to any organization.  While we won’t have time to go into detail on each tool, you’ll get a good overview of what’s out there and how to get started.
WHEN: March 16^th, 10am - 11:30am PST
Attendance is free, but space is limited, so register today!

NOTE: Webinar is open to nonprofit staff and volunteers.  It is NOT technical in nature and there are no pre-requisites to attend.  Nonprofit organizations need not be eligible for Microsoft software donations to use the tools featured in this webinar - they are freely available online.

Thank you Microsoft, host of this webinar and Presenting Sponsor of NPower Seattle’s Powerful Connections event 

Our friends at NTEN are offering a series of trainings designed to help organizations who participate in the Google Grants program to use thier grant and AdWords more effectively.

The cost for the series is $100 for NTEN Members / $200 for Non-members

Sessions Include:

• Setting Goals and Setting Yourself Up for Success (02/25/2010)
• Evaluating Performance and Monitoring Your Google Grants Account (03/04/2010)
• Optimizing Your Google Grants Ads and Keywords (03/11/2010)
• Optimizing your Google Grants Campaign and Maximizing Your Online Initiatives with Google Nonprofit Offerings (03/18/2010)

> Register Now for Google Grants Advanced Series!

Not quite ready for the advanced series? NTEN also offers the Google Grants Beginner Series: Learning to Use and Maximize Your Google Grant.