Social Media Tools for Work & Learning helps organizations build stronger relationships with the people and groups that matter to them, their supporters, consumers and donors.

My work involves helping organizations with: developing their social media strategy; facilitating the web site design & development process; training staff so they can use the content management features of their web site; supporting staff as they measure results and adapt or refine their site to meet business goals.

I’ve served as an Executive Director of non profits and continue to provide leadership on local Boards of Directors. Non Profit groups choose me to work with them because I understand their unique challenges and I am experienced in utilizing social web thinking and tools to build stronger more resilient organizations.

My background and consulting services can be viewed on my Social Media Services page.

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I am very pleased to report that I’ve struck a business alliance with a friend and colleague from Edmonton Alberta.

Mark Holmgren and I met quite a few years ago in Edmonton Alberta. I had taken on the challenge of launching and managing Edmonton’s first inner city street youth program and Mark was an Executive Director at a inner city housing project that served homeless and hard to house inner city residents.

Mark is a highly sought after consultant (Mark Holmgren Consulting – MHC) serving the non profit sector throughout Alberta and for a time in southern Florida. Over this past year, Mark and I resumed our relationship thanks to the wonders of the social web. It didn’t take us long to recognize how aligned we are in our desire to help non profit groups adopt social web strategies for strengthening their services and deepening their relationships with stakeholders.

Mark and I will focus our business alliance on helping non profit organizations develop and execute their online communications strategies to engage their supporters, donors, users and partners. Our collaborative work will include the design & development of websites, and the deployment of social media tools to engage stakeholders and meet organizational business goals.

Our first contract together is delivering a social media strategic plan to a collaborative, rural-based organization, Return to Rural.

Return to Rural is an exciting project aimed at attracting and retaining early and mid- career families to the rural remote communities of the Special Areas and MD of Acadia No.34 region (Southeastern Alberta).

The return to rural philosophy is built on the idea that by blending technology and community, it is possible to create an environment where anyone can live their dream life in a rural community.

MHC has also been contracted to deliver two learning workshops related to social media in the late summer and fall by another client.

If your organization needs help understanding social media and developing strategies to reach and engage your stakeholders, give Mark a call at 780.244.8686 or email him at mark@markholmgren.com

You can reach me by calling (905) 751-6075 or emailing me at brent at socialmediatools dot ca

I am in the final stages of designing a new web site for Social Media Tools for Work & Learning.

My blog has served me well but my new Drupal powered web site will enable me to showcase more of the work I’m doing with organizations and still offer all the benefits of a full blogging platform. Stay tuned!

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I grew up in the 60’s. The values we aspired to back then are closely aligned with the values and philosophy expressed by many social media practitioners and leaders in business, non profit, education and other sectors across the spectrum of society and around the world.

This is post originating from Louise Suarez a Knowledge Manager, Community Builder & Social Computing Evangelist in the IBM Software Group division has stirred me up like no other post. He puts forth a personal insight that others around the world have being hinting at and writing about for some  time.

Maybe it was just the way he shared his story or the fact that he connected the best of what was happening in the 60’s and 70’s with how the social web is enabling creativity and innovation in people who who care about our future.

The post is a heartfelt revelation from someone immersed in the social media world within IBM. The accompanying video interview with Alexandra Wheeler (Starbucks’ Director of Digital Strategies) on the topic of social strategy and social philosophy underscores Luis’s contention that adopting a social philosophy is an integral ingredient to any social media strategy.

We need some fresh thinking; we need to break the barriers of how business has been conducted in the last few years; we finally need to break free from that financial yoke and eventually strike for that sustainable economy that everyone keeps talking about, but that doesn’t seem to come along as quickly as we thought. It keeps slipping away from our fingers, when we know it’s just so close to us! We need to stop thinking about social strategy and push more along the lines of social philosophy.

Because, after all, who wants to live in a world like today’s, yes, like today’s (With the current financial crisis and all) in say 30 to 50 years from now? Would you be willing to make the same mistakes we have made in the recent past and go through the same painful experiences again? And again! And again!! Would you? Would you like your children to inherit such unsustainable world? I am not sure about you, but I wouldn’t, and somehow something tells me that I will be around, like most of you folks out there, to witness what it would be like. And, for sure, I would want to see a better picture than what we have today! Otherwise, why bother altogether, don’t you think?

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SCRM stands for social constituent relationship management. In the business world, the C usually stands for customer.

This is new territory for me but as I delve deeper into this area, I am coming to believe that SCRM will soon be a very sought after tool (and skill set) in the non profit sector. I believe this because like business organizations, non profits will need to become more efficient at raising money, delivering services, partnering, collaborating and strengthening their staff’s skills using social tech tools. The default organizing software for doing this well is and will increasingly be Social CRM.

Social CRM is about engaging your constituents, not managing them. A Customer Relationship Management software platform (CRM) is a standard tool for segmenting, tracking, monitoring and managing customers in the sales industry. With Social CRM you are able to integrate your social media strategy with the core communication and knowledge management functions of your organization.

As more and more people are conducting their business and personal lives online, companies and non profits are learning that pushing their content to them with the aid of their CRM is not good enough. They are learning the value of giving up control (which doesn’t really apply any more) and inviting people and groups into their operational and innovation theatre.

Watch Paul Greenberg (follow him on Twitter @pgreenbe), one of the early adopter who mapped out the CRM space gives a succinct overview of what’s happening in the Social CRM space. He points out the two converging forces ’social’ and ‘CRM’ spaces that are coming together, yet the third force, ‘companies’ themselves aren’t yet ready for the internal changes that are coming. I picked this video and post up at Jeremiah Owyang’s blog, one of my favourite mentors in the web strategy world.

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I created this map as part of my community development work with a School Board committee. We wanted to look at what groups were participating within the York Region School Board system.

I know the details of this map are not relevant to many readers but as I reflected on on these clusters I started to think of questions that could help our committee make sense of what’s going on.

If anything, I  think mapping is such a cool social media tool  that just compels you to start making sense of of data and asking relevant questions.

Read more…

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Here is a short and crisp video about online fundraising in Canada. Non profit organizations will be turning more and more to social media strategies to financially support their Mission. This video captures the key data and the trends – well worth a few minutes viewing.

Did You Know CH.O from CanadaHelps on Vimeo.

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My colleague Mark Holmgren (Anticipate) has written an insightful post about his experience attending an Imagine Canada Forum held in Edmonton. Imagine Canada is doing a series of Provincial forums and Edmonton was their first stop.

Here  is how Imagine Canada describe it’s cross country mission.

First, in its role as convener of a national dialogue on how to strengthen the collective voice of the sector and develop a common agenda for action, Imagine Canada will use this draft framework to facilitate a nation-wide conversation about what is driving change in the sector and what actions must be taken to maximize the contributions of the sector to Canada and the world over the next decade.

I haven’t being following Imagine Canada’s work but after reading Mark’s post, and the Framework for Action document, I’m going to delve deeper into their resources and cross Canada campaign.

Read more…

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Net Change Week 2010 – Robert Egger keynote from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.

My charity rocks, it’s a rooting tooting, awesome, knock em dead, rock and roll, sweet baby James of a charity. Maybe not his exact words, but Robert’s genuine passion, sincerity, pride, anger and commitment flowed through every word he uttered in his keynote.

I was guest blogging at the Net Change Week and was lucky enough to sit in on a speech that altered my view of the social benefit sector and has re-stocked my own passion for change in my community.

Robert Egger is the Founder and President of the DC Central Kitchen, the nation’s first “community kitchen”, where unemployed men and women learn marketable culinary skills while donated food is converted into balanced meals. Since opening in 1989, the DCCK has distributed over 20 million meals and helped 700 men and women gain full-time employment.

I think his message was a bit like the Matrix movie. Take the blue pill and continue believing that the non profit (he hates that term – as I do) sector is just fine. Take the red pill and see how the non profit sector has being convinced into believing that’s all it can be and should be, as after all, it’s the business world that really counts.

Read more…

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One of the reasons I embrace social media is that it enables conversations to continue. Indeed, I am of the opinion that a community is a continuous conversation.

The Planning Forum for York Region sponsored the first Community – Funder Roundtable. The goal was to begin an ongoing dialogue with funder and policy makers about building our York Region community. Michael Johnny, Manager of the Knowledge Mobilization Unit at York University welcomed everyone and explained what we hoped to accomplish.

To help participants understand the challenges and envision a future where funder groups and community groups work in sync with eachother, the planning group brought in Liz Weaver from the Tamarack Vibrant Communities organization. Liz is also the lead spokesperson for the Hamilton Round-table on Poverty. The Hamilton Round-table has done incredible successful work combining support from the grass roots, government, corporate and community service sectors. The collaboration amongst stakeholders in Hamilton is a success and we (the planning group) felt that we could emulate their process or  at least learn from their experience.

Read more…

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It was an exciting morning for students, staff and members of the Multimedia Film Festival Council of York Region. Films that were submitted to the inaugural year for the Festival were viewed by students at 3 different locations. A lively discussion, facilitated by Hillary Van Welter (Waste Films) had students offering their impressions and opinions about the films. This is a short overview of the discussions that took place amongst the schools.

I’m using the term social learning as I’ve just discovered an interesting discussion on this term at Bud the Teacher’s blog. It should be of interest to schools and community groups involved in student & civic engagement.

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Beth Kanter is one incredible lady. I learn so much from her blog and her numerous social media channels. In this interview you can see her eyes sparkling and the electric energy that flows out of her with every question asked. The video is long but you can cherry pick which sections you like.

I was interested in hearing about her new book “The Networked Nonprofit“. I am using this term in my posts about social benefit groups becoming a networked organization.

Beth Kanter says, “Go Slow, But Go!” from Communications Network on Vimeo.

Running time of this episode is 27 minutes. To view selected sections, use the guide below to forward to the time indicated:

• Beth Kanter may not be human (or what 100,000 Twitter followers get you.) (00:27-3:30)
• Disciplined use of Twitter and what you can expect to get 3:30-8:00)
• Why incremental approaches make sense for your social media experiments (8:00-14:44)
• What about the skeptics in our midst? (4:44-17:04)
• How program and communications staff are partnering for greater impact (17:04-20:00)
• What does the future hold for foundations and social media? (20:00-23:50)
• What is Beth’s new book about? (23:50-2625)

Related Posts:

From the Balcony to the Dance Floor – incremental changes over time

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