Responses
to December 08 - January 2009 Hot Topic
Exploring
Online Social Networking
Response posted by Cindy
Carmichael (Centre Coordinator and Health Worker),
Women's Health Information Centre, Christchurch, New
Zealand
Hi
to all at ozvpm. Here are my responses to the December
Hot Topic.
1.
This year we created a facebook page for our organisation.
Facebook pages are designed for organisations etc
not individuals so our facebook presense is for the
organisation.
2.
Benefits so far have mainly been the ability to meet
and communicate with other workers in not for profit
women's health organisations. Benefit we were originally
looking for was to create a space where Volunteers
who did not work in at our centre could keep up with
the latest happenings in the centre. However many
of our volunteers have limited computer literacy so
it hasn't really worked.
3.
At this stage we have not used our page for the purposes
of recruiting volunteers or inviting them to events.
We currently have 20 fans of our organisation on our
facebook page many of whom would not have accessed
or found the service otherwise.
4.
There has been discussion at Committee level about
how we might use the page. We are currently trying
to use it to garner opinion on various health issues.
We are also thinking of using it to recruit committee
members.
5.
At this stage we have not been looking at the OSN
profiles for clients, volunteers etc. I think it is
because most of the women who work here are not digital
natives and so we don't automatically think to use
OSN in this way. It will be interesting to see if
this changes.
6.
No problems at this stage keeping personal stuff separate.
I administer the page and so my profile is available
to some people who I say can look at it. I have put
minimal information about myself as I am trying to
maintain a professional presence for myself and our
organisation online.
7.
No ideas really about where OSN may head in the future.
At the moment the web feels like a huge online experiment
but I think that's exciting. I feel it is important
to try new things as it can be hard to judge the potential
of new technologies unless you have a go.
8.
The whole experience of having a facebook page has
been fun. So far ours has been up and running 6 months
and it is only now that we are starting to see results.
I think we will need to do this for a year at least
to really get a sense of how worthwhile it could be.
Also it currently takes me around half an hour a week
to update and check in with the page. If you want
to use this technology to its full potential I think
you would need to put in at least an hour a week and
probably more.
Response
posted by Judith Taylor, Head of Members’ Groups,
British Computer Society, UK
The
British Computer Society (BCS) which has over 100
branches throughout the world set up and coordinated
by volunteers, we encourage collaboration by our volunteers
through some social networking sites, in particular
Linked in, (where we have our own BCS group)
I
do have an entry on Facebook, but see this far more
informal network, as opposed to Linkedin, which I
feel is my professional network, and which I am far
more protective of.
At
least one of our branches uses Second Life to hold
their committee meetings in, which has resulted in
greater attendance and early indication is that greater
engagement of its members too.
No,
I haven’t seen a direct impact on the recruitment
of volunteers through my presence on Linked in; however,
I do feel that it is good for maintaining the contacts
I make through my work, which certainly has a very
positive effect on my work.
Yes,
BCS is continuing to expand throughout the world and
are keen to continue to develop the number of groups
it supports. A major element of this will be to develop
methods by which members can meet and participate
remotely through on line social networks, this will
still rely on BCS volunteers playing a major part
in their set up and continued development.
No,
I tend not to immediately look volunteers up on either
network, as we have a very comprehensive database
of our members, however I may do subsequently to gain
a greater knowledge of them.
Does
OSN create any problems for you in keeping your personal
online activities and your professional activities
separate? Personally, no I don’t think it does,
as different sites provide great opportunity for individuals
to separate the two, if they wish to.
As for ideas where OSN may head in the future?
I
think they will continue to be developed and used
by volunteer involving organisations to improve cost
effective and timely communications from the volunteer
to the organisation as well as to the volunteer, but
most importantly between the volunteers themselves
to increase their feeling of comradeship and loyalty
.
Response
posted by Jayne Cravens, Coyote Communications, Bonn,
Germany
Thanks,
Hillary, for a very honest response. I hope we can
get more direct responses to our questions!
Response
posted by Hillary Roberts, President, Project Linus
NJ, Inc. USA
We
often discuss OSN at meetings. 100% volunteer non
profits rely heavily on OSN and other virtual/online
tools to recruit and expand their mission.
Hesitation
in OSN has several hindrances at its core:
* You can set up an agency forum and wind up spending
hours keeping it free of hackers and spammers.
* A group forum can be well moderated or poorly run
and members often don't know who to bring concerns
to. Moderators should be apparent to members.
* Group Moderators, while asking for participation
from members, should do a better job themselves of
adding to the discussion and bringing topics to the
forum.
* You don't know who will come into the online discussion
and if your professional comfort level will be compromised.
* Some employers forbid OSN participation from their
employees; including external email.
* Some professions avoid establishing an online history
associated with their name/personal life.
* Some individuals job hunting don't want OSN to be
viewed by potential employers.
* Some individuals do not trust chat and discussion
forums.
* Some agencies prefer a website over other OSN tools.
* Some agencies do not have the hardware/software
budget or manpower to support OSN.
* Some OSN's are poorly publicized.
* Some agencies are unwilling to participate in sites
that publicize ALL charities.
* Some individuals do not have a comfort level for
"faceless" discourse.
* Some national and international conferences don't
take the time to explain what OSN is in planning their
workshop lineups & conference discussions.
* Is anyone approaching this topic at a DOVIA, AVRM
or ALIVE meeting?
* Is POL/Hands On Network explaining what OSN is?
Do Volunteer Centers? United Ways?
* OSN and OSN tools are not widely understood and
more could be done at the leadership and professional
continuing education level in order to best support
the use of OSN in npo/ngo environs.
Also,
I have had the pleasure of knowing dozens of people
who volunteer for non profits at the leadership/managerial
level while holding a full time job. One consistent
"concern" among this group revolves around
keeping volunteering and work separate and in the
online community cross referencing an individual by
name or other search "tags" is quite simple.
Sometimes that issue alone keeps pros off OSN sites.
I
hope you and other pros I greatly admire will expand
the discussion and encourage/engage volunteer resource
managers in less hesitation and more solidarity regarding
OSN.
Response
posted by Susan J Ellis, President, Energize Inc,
Philadelphia, USA
Excellent
thought provoker, Andy and Jayne! In recent workshops
I’ve done in the US on this very topic, I heard
of two real-life uses by volunteer programs of FaceBook
and MySpace that are worth sharing. They illustrate
the potential of the medium for the right situations.
First, there’s an animal shelter in Oregon that
is posting pages for dogs and cats that need adoption!
They open an account in each animal’s name,
with a photo, and volunteers “speak” for
the potential pet online. Apparently, it’s been
successful in generating rescues. The second is an
organ donor program in Pennsylvania. They created
a sort of mascot, “Heartman,” who speaks
for them in the social network places. It’s
also gotten a lot of attention and new leads.
While
this may be special cases, I think they demonstrate
that creative ideas will find a home online.
Response
posted by Liz Scarfe, Villa Maria, Kew, Victoria,
Australia
Great
topic as usual. I was a long time cynic of OSN but
recently signed onto facebook so I could keep up with
a friend’s house-building progress as he is
putting lots of effort into uploading pictures and
commentary and that is how he has chosen to keep his
friends updated. Now that I’m signed up though
(as an individual member), I love it. In terms of
its application for volunteering, those lucky enough
to attend the recent National Volunteering Conference
would have heard all about V2V.
For
those who didn’t, it is an OSN using a similar
platform to facebook that enables employees in an
organization to start their own volunteering projects
and recruit others in their organization to be part
of it. It started in Brazil, in for-profits, where
there were hundreds of thousands of people wanting
to volunteer but no infrastructure to enable that
(no VRCs or peak bodies). Starbucks in the US now
have one which is also open to customers. I won’t
go into all the detail, people can check it out at
http://www.v2v.net/ and http://www.v2v.net/starbucks
. I am going to be campaigning in my own organization
to establish something similar that will include all
our staff and volunteers, aiming to enable a more
organic emergence of volunteering effort and will
also attract younger people to our organization. Now
that I’ve shared that wonderful idea though,
the race will be on for who sets up the first Aus
V2V
Let's
hear what you think!
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