The 2008 Presidential Election is the most digitally advanced election cycle in our history. Where else can you find such a rich example of how to use digital media in leadership, change management, recruiting, and fundraising? This is a watershed moment worthy of your attention. Whether you are running an aspiring non-profit, starting an organization-wide initiative, looking for talented students, or reaching out to potential donors, these campaign websites have tangible examples of how to use digital media properly.Here are a few highlights:

• Use What’s There - Barack Obama’s use of YouTube, blogs, Flickr, and other existing web platforms is ensuring that his message is getting out without dilution.
• Make It Easy to Join the Movement - Ron Paul continues his insurgency campaign because of a strong grassroots movement he’s built through his website.
• Be Clear and Direct on What You Want - Hillary Clinton’s main page has a great call to action that gives you “Five Things You Can Do”. 
• Involve Others in Your Story -  John Edwards’ campaign team ran a contest that gave their supporters the opportunity to produce an ad that would run in a major campaign market.
• Talking With, Not To - Mitt Romney’s five sons’ blog and other related blogs are entertaining and engaging, because they allow you to talk directly with those in the inner circle.
• Appeal to the Heart – Check out the emotional video that runs while you fill out Barack Obama’s donation form.

With the presidential primaries racing into Super Tuesday, I encourage everyone to take the time to visit the candidates’ websites while they are still fresh.  Not only those who remain, but those who have folded their tents.(Here are links for many, but not all: Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, John Edwards, and Rudy Giuliani)Once you look them over, come back and post your thoughts. Which candidate do you think is doing the best job to rally their cause?

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The old adage of academia, “Publish or Perish”, applies to your organization when it comes to its digital presence.  

As I visit with leaders from various industries, I am sensing a growing anxiety they have about their digital shortcomings. Many are frustrated that their “real” story is not getting through and most are not aware of how simple it is to change that.

At the root of Publish or Perish (version 2.0) is the opportunity/challenge to tell your organization’s story. Instead of waiting at the mercy of publications, television channels, and radio stations to broadcast it, you can start sharing it right now with anyone connected to the internet. 

With the amount of dialogue happening on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and a myriad of other continuous conversations, someone out there is telling a story about your organization. Are you making it easy for them to tell it?  Or are you afraid of what they might be saying?

Rise to the challenge and choose to publish.  It’s more fun than the alternative – whether you live in a 1.0 or a 2.0 world. 

What’s the best starting point for someone who wants to beginning telling their story?  Send me your thoughts.

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Why are today’s kids voracious users of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, text messages, etc.? Because they are so easy to use! If you randomly select ten 18-year-olds and ask them to spit out the code to create Facebook, only about 1 or 2 could do it.

[Editorial note: Remember that 52% of statistics are made up on the spot. However, check out the freshly released Pew study on internet usage to confirm if I'm in the ballpark]

My wife and I have to be careful about leaving our cell phones unguarded from our six-year-old.  It’s not that he’s going to break them, it’s that he’s so good at using them.  We found out the hard way when the monthly bill came with a hefty video game download fee.

And, let’s review his forays onto the internet.  We had to curtail the Webkinz usage and have set firm limits with espn.com. It only took once or twice of walking into the room and seeing him hunched over the laptop reviewing last night’s NBA scores and highlights, before we realized we had a fearless internet user. [For the record, my wife and I are vigilant about his internet exposure, so hold off on the calls to local law enforcement.]

Some might say, “Aren’t kids amazing on how much they know about computers!”  I have a different take on the matter.  I don’t think that age is the true barrier to today’s technology.  Instead, it’s our perception caused by our previous experiences that creates the barrier. 

That might sound like I’m splitting hairs, but I think it is a very important difference.  Of course, the older you are, the more experience you have.  But, not all experience is created equal.

The Millenials and Echo-boomers never had to trudge through learning BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, MS DOS, etc. just to get their computer to spew out some calculations or make a reasonable approximation of a fireworks display.  They just turn on their devices and start navigating their intuitive interfaces.

If you are among the crowd that’s been sitting on the sideline during this Web 2.0 boom, get off the bench and into the game.  You’re missing out on some fun, worthwhile stuff. You can gain a lot by erasing your painful memories of technology frustration.

Just realize that the past 30 years have brought tremendous leaps forward on how humans and computers interact.  (For some fun, trace the evolution of social networking and you’ll see that these sites are nothing but a rearrangement of how we’ve been socializing via computers.  Even better, watch this YouTube video sharing a 1994 glimpse at the Internet that John Paczkowski at All Things Digital shared on 1/27.)  

So, take on a six-year-old’s fearlessness and a teenager’s appetite for digital communications!  Otherwise, you risk missing out on the greatest thing since the Guttenberg press.

What do you think – are kids destined to rule the digital world? Or can the savvy veterans rally?

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On my first day as executive director of a small, aspiring foundation office, I sat at my desk and surveyed the situation.  For the four years previous to that I was part of a 70-person university foundation operation that completed a $770 million capital campaign.  Those rich, heady times were gone and so were all the resources.  

Now, I was the chief executive, major gift officer, planned giving expert, research department, communication department, annual giving guru, and, often, the administrative assistant.  My only employee was a part-time bookkeeper, who helped take care of the gift processing and donor acknowledgements.  Armed with my freshly inked MBA and an entreprenurial mindset, I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  

I don’t think the challenges I faced were much different than what most non-profits still face today.  We were doing great things with our donors’ gifts, but we were frustrated with how little most of our prospective donors knew about it.  It certainly wasn’t because of a lack of effort.  

After spending weeks writing and editing our quarterly magazines or putting the final polishes on the fall mail campaign, I often wondered how many of our prospective donors were even reading the well crafted messages we so diligently prepared.  Did they realize how much blood, sweat, and tears we invested?

My main feedback was the gift envelopes that came back, letters containing updates from our alumni, and the personal visits and phone calls we made as we travelled to different areas of the country to meet with donors and prospects.  In all, those contacts represented feedback from less than 2% of the alumni base.  Even so, we quadrupled our annual income after three years.

We had a basic website and used a monthly e-newsletter, but for the most part relied on our magazines and mailings to communicate our message.  Sound fairly similar to what you’re doing?  Unfortunately, that’s not too far off from the majority of higher education and non-profit group’s current communication strategy.  So why is that cause for concern?

In economic terms – opportunity cost. Yes, we’re raising money but we’re doing it in a way that costs more and raises less than if we take a different approach.  This is even more relevant as digital media’s cost goes down and more people are using digital media in more aspects of their lives.

Let me put it in very simple terms.  We are cooking a pasta dinner one noodle at time, instead of inviting our guests to help us cook pots full of pasta.

The world is shifting.  More and more, we are moving away from the one-way communication approach.  Your organization is no longer on stage deciding what will be announced over the loudspeakers.  Instead, your donors and constituents want to be invited to a cocktail party, where they can contribute their thoughts and mingle with other supporters.

Digital media is that party.  As the host, you can roam from conversation to conversation adding your thoughts and hearing what others have to say (good and bad).  You can also, from time-to-time, clink your glass and make an announcement to the whole crowd. 

I know this – my biggest accomplishments have come when I was able to gather a group of key prospects in the same room and get them to rally around a vision for the future.  They took ownership of the idea and made it better with their insight and ideas.  I wasn’t the genius locked in a room making decisions in a vacuum.  I was the party host, who posed the question, listened intently, and then asked for their support to bring their ideas to fruition.

Do you think one-way communication creates lost opportunities?  How are you using digital media to raise awareness and increase support?

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Pat Coyle, the online marketing director for the Colts, has started a social networking site for creative types in Indiana. It’s a fun place full of fun people and a great place to connect to like-minded Hoosiers. Go check it out!

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Growing up, I loved spending the weekend at my grandparent’s house.  One of my favorite things to do was to explore my grandfather’s vast storehouse of gadgets, tools, and gizmos.  

Between the fencing gear, biofeedback machine, tree pruning tools, and other assorted curiosities, I dominated show-and-tell at my grade school.  Unfortunately, my grandfather wasn’t any better off because of them. In fact, he was worse off – he drained his bank account buying the magic bullet to whatever problem he had.

An interesting trend I am noticing within the higher education world is eerily similar to my grandfather’s situation.  Some groups have bought the latest database software service, others launched a private social networking site, and still others have invested in a robust email solicitation campaign.  However, many aren’t getting the results they expected. 

Why?  Amazing tools, little or no strategy behind them.

Without a doubt, digital communication tools are all around us and many are FREE. There has to be a better way, right?

Look at the latest J.J. Abram movie, Cloverfield.  Take out the 25% of the movie that was filled with CGI wizardry (my estimate wrought with self-serving calculations) and you’re left with a movie shot entirely from one digital video camera’s viewpoint.  That’s a tool you and I most likely have somewhere around the house. 

In addition to telling a great love story (not kidding), their marketing strategy was genius.  How genius?  $46 million in its first weekend genius.  

Their strategy in a nutshell – pique interest, fuel speculation by dropping delicious, engaging morsels of information, let everyone’s imagination run wild, and channel that energy thru the internet to allow people like you and me create more buzz for the movie – like this blog entry.  (For more about Abram’s storytelling philosophy, watch his 20-minute talk at last year’s TED conference).

With profiles on Facebook and MySpace, desktop widgets, and a simple website housing the movie trailer that anyone could embed into their own site, the Cloverfield team implemented their marketing strategy beautifully.  (Just ask anyone who gutted out the motion sickness and vertigo to get to the ending and still raved about the movie – like me.) 

I’m curious about your organization’s experiences with digital communications – more like my grandfather’s or Cloverfield’s?  Was it the strategy or the tools that drove your results?

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The recent economic news/outlook has forced many of us to think thru the potential impact on our businesses for the next 12 – 18 months. Balancing how do I cut back but not retreat, watch expenses while continue making great investments or analyze all we do but remain open minded to alternatives. Will this finally force the digital world upon us? In its full force?

It will surely require us to think smarter. And when I say digital media I’m not referring to PDFs or online brochures but rather truly impactful digital media (the intersection of ubiquitous broadband, advanced web applications and great storytelling). Here you will find efficiency, engagement, shelf-life, extended reach, and a much better environment to differentiate you from your competition.

It will be harder to grow revenue in a downturn, yet some will do so. Those who succeed will understand that 70% of the selling process will occur on-line and realize that an outdated on-line presence won’t do it. Broadband keeps us from having to read – and even the printing industry will tell you that most people read only because they have to. Most choose to engage – watching, listening, reaching back, exploring, contributing, learning and then inviting in the finalists.

For those that truly embrace the digital future – they will out-sell and out-maneuver their competitors who choose to go down the path of static, costly and wastefulness of the “old school” way of trying to prospect.

Now is the time, and these times call for something different – are you ready?

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Web 2.0, Second Life, blogs, wikis, APIs, social networks, SEO, SEM, SMS, widgets, microblogs…if you find any of these confusing or think that if you hear another geeky-acronym that your head will explode know that you’re not alone. For those of us in the tech industry this is all shop talk. It’s easy for someone like me, an expert on emerging technologies and an uber-nerd, to think that everyone knows what all of these technologies are. But the bottom line is that the great majority of folks don’t. So how does a company who believes that these technologies are the future of communication, human interaction, marketing and advertising, and entertainment ensure that the groups we talk to understand our message?

Education.

Now, this is not education in the whole “We will tell you what to think” vein. This is “We know about this great exciting thing and we want to tell you all about it so you’ll know about it too! And then we can talk about it!” This is education that is more about evangelism than dogmatism. I break the approach down to Magicians and Jugglers.

Magicians:

As per tradition, a magician’s living is reliant on mystery, on the audience wondering “How’d he do that?” To give away his secrets is to give away his livelihood. He can’t afford to let you in how it’s all done and he doesn’t want to.

Too many people in the technology world treat their know-how as a trick, a world of proprietary knowledge that would be diminished if shared.

Jugglers:

If you know a juggler you’ll no doubt chuckle at the next line. Jugglers have an undeniable impulse to teach the whole world to juggle. Compliment a juggler on their skills and you’ll immediately get a “Come here! I’ll teach you. It’s easy” in response. A good juggler finds satisfaction and pride in teaching others to toss things about. Now, he may not teach you to juggle as well as he does (he does have to make a living after all) but he’ll teach you enough to feel that you’re part of his world and certainly enough to know how much work goes into juggling as well as he does.

This is the approach that I believe in. I’m a technology juggler. I find my greatest enjoyment in teaching someone else to use a form of media that I find exciting, seeing how they put it to use, how it changes their lives, and watching them teach others. I can take comfort in knowing that they’ll probably come back to me the next time they need to understand a technology and thus I’m secure in my position in this whole geeky circus.

So ask yourself. Are you a juggler or a magician? Would you rather sit back and let others work their magic or do you want to take a chance and learn something new for yourself?

I know which one I am. Where are my bowling pins?

**special thanks to my friend Eric Ballenger, who years ago taught me to juggle**

Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins is the Director of Emerging Technologies for MediaSauce.com

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There have been numerous studies over the years about the direct and indirect cost to society from either unhealthy habits or wasting time – from smoking, fast food, lack of sleep or even watching YouTube videos at work.  You name it, and there’s been an impact study.

I’m not sure how it would be done or if its been done, but it would be very enlightening and certainly eye-opening if effort were put to determine the costs paid for guessing, assuming – or just what we pay for lack of clarity.  Knowing that clarity equals better decisions, understood expectations and a more harmonious work environment.

The price paid for no clarity is friction causing, time wasting (via excessive effort in the wrong direction) and the opportunity cost is big – spending too much time in the wrong direction vs. that same time used toward progress.

Why does this happen, many reasons – While it’s true that all growth begins with telling the truth, the moment we want better outcomes will be the time we will not settle for guessing and assumptions. Clarity now become your responsibility.  Because you are the one seeking better outcomes, you will be the one asking for specifics and seeking clarity.

Would people really want to be unclear? Yes

Commitments create responsibilities and the truth my make someone come across as “mean” – who wants to be known as “mean” – think of sales – virtually all sales calls end with the prospect saying something positive, squishy and non-committal (yet most won’t end up purchasing), the responsibility to eliminate guessing and assumptions is the salesperson’s.  Think about a less devious example – an office meeting transpires with not very clear expectations and we then play to each other’s interpretations and inferences of what each thought the other was going to do.

Getting to a point of clarity thru the elimination of guesses and assumptions requires more than one blogpost.  I look forward to exploring further – if you have any thoughts, or know of a study based around the costs from guessing and assuming, please let me know

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The waitress had just set my bowl of matzah ball soup in front of me, as I was preparing my thoughts for a strategic planning retreat that I was about to facilitate for three related non-profit boards.  

The question that someone almost always asks/states in these settings came immediately to mind - ”Which came first – the chicken or the egg?”  

Of course, it is not a scientific answer they want (check out the news release from a scientific study that has that answer).  Rather, they want to know how can they make a major change within their business or non-profit. 

Lightning struck and the answer came to me: both (and neither). The chicken wasn’t sitting around one day trying to figure out a better way to reproduce.  The egg certainly wasn’t contemplating a better way to travel and see the 7 Wonders of the World.

The chicken and the egg grew from the same origin.  They represent a new way of doing things.  They are a great example of the power of specialized knowledge.  

With all the change happening in the world today, do you feel like you’re stuck with your own chicken or egg dilemma?   The key is to realize you’re in need of transformational change.  The Broadband Revolution is not an optional activity for you.  

What can you do to evolve and adapt?  If it is an incremental change, find a few vendors and lead the change with confidence.  

If you want to accomplish great things, find a trusted partner who can help you match the clarity and ambition of your goals with the power of digital media.

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