March, 2011

Social Media — 4 Comments
31
Mar 11

Social Media Guidelines, One Year Later

by Flickr user kmiller799

A year ago, we pulled together a team at EDF to create our social media guidelines. The all-time most popular post on this blog tells how and why we did it, so I thought I’d share an update.

The best news is that it they seem to be working. They’re part of our new employee and intern orientation materials. Since we released them, we have not had any social media disasters big enough that I’ve heard about them!

Last week, spurred by conversations at the NTEN conference, we revisited the guidelines. Continue reading →

Online Content — 2 Comments
24
Mar 11

Key Takeaways: Data Don’t Have to Be Boring 2011 NTC Session

This session covered a lot of ground through back-and-forth with both the panel and the attendees, which was great. Felicity Simmons of the Lucile Packard Foundation did a nice job keeping the conversation flowing.

I was most interested in the conversation about how to extract the most powerful, portable visualizations from a complex set of data. Kurt Voelker of Forum One raised the issue, flagging the problem that so much great data lives only in text-heavy PDF files. Some tips that got tossed out: Continue reading →

Metrics & Measurement — No Comments
23
Mar 11

Key Takeaways: 2011 NTC Segmenting Session

This session was called “A Scientist in Your Communications Department,” and  Jeff Shuck, the presenter, had a ton of energy and insights to share. (It looks like the whole video is posted so you can see for yourself!)

Sally Heaven over at Convio posted her takeaways from this session, too. All the points she listed were ones I had written down, too, but I had somewhat different top takeaways: Continue reading →

Management / Metrics & Measurement — No Comments
21
Mar 11

Key Takeaways: NTC Session “What Does the Data Say?”

I’m going to highlight some of the insights I starred in my notes at last weekend’s conference here in D.C.  First up is a session called “What Does the Data Say? Converting Analytics to Action,” moderated by George Weiner of DoSomething.org.

The underlying premise is that we should use data to drive decisions within our organizations. With that in mind, here are my takeaways: Continue reading →

Management — 1 Comment
9
Mar 11

RFPs: My 3 Requests For Vendors Responding to Them

To follow up from my earlier post giving three lessons for people issuing RFPs, here are three requests I’d like to make of the people answering them. Continue reading →

Management — 3 Comments
8
Mar 11

RFPs: 3 Lessons for Organizations Issuing Them

Sign posted on a fence

By Flickr user supertobor

We’re outsourcing more work these days, so we’re putting more thought into how to best match vendors with projects. Recent RFPs include the full range of big and small — from a complete re-thinking of our web site (still in progress) to a fast-turnaround WordPress theme.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far about issuing successful RFPs. Stay tuned for the next post, which will be about my requests for the firms and contractors who respond. [Updated to add link.] Continue reading →

Research & Usability — 1 Comment
1
Mar 11

Highlights: Nielsen Norman Usability Study of Non-Profit Sites

Nielsen Norman Group just released the second edition of its study on how potential donors use nonprofit web sites. EDF’s site was once again included in the study, and I thought I’d share my reactions to it. Continue reading →