Raised Eyebrow Blog

Ok, so that might be a bit of a misleading headline, but it’s not totally false. In fact, in about a week it just might be true. You see one of our retainer clients, Covenant House Vancouver, are making use of their award winning blog, their Facebook Page, Twitter account and their email newsletter system to reach out to their existing supports in a bid to win a content currently being run by Pepsi Canada to award a Canadian non-profit organization, business or idea $100,000. The prize will go to the group with the most votes, which is where Covenant House’s existing toolbox of supporter connections comes in. They’ve been, respectfully contacting their supporters through all the channels they have at their disposal to get folks to vote for them. Currently they’re in third place. This is how the social web works.

Today week they produced the simple but to the point video below, that is making its rounds on the web through people’s Facebook and Twitter feeds as well, in support of the cause.

Will all of this win them $100,000? Hard to say, but the great thing is they had the tools ready to go when an opportunity like this arose. Applying for this $100K was not in their communications or fundraising plan for 2010, but when the Pepsi program was launched they were well positioned to take advantage of it and activate their supporters to boost their chances.

So much of effective communications and capacity building work is about seizing moments that are often not of your organization’s making. Whether it’s an online contest that might boost your profile or land you some serious donation funds, a change in government policy you didn’t see coming, or any other unforeseen event that requires immediate mobilization of your supporter base. Yes, we can all be over saturated with social media and it can be hard to figure out how your organization can really make the best use of the various tools available on a day to day basis, but building up a group of meaningful supporters, and ensuring you have access to channels to communicate effectively with them, can allow an organization to really capitalize on an opportune moment when it comes knocking.

Will Covenant House win $100,000? We’ll find out next week, but if you want to help you can vote here.

I recently redesigned a website for a personal friend and although it wasn’t done under the official umbrella of Raised Eyebrow, I found that the project offered some interesting challenges I’d like to reflect upon briefly.

The friend in question is David Eaves, who has more trouble answering the question, “What do you do?” than just about anyone I know. He’s a prolific writer, public speaker and consultant who works in three areas of interest: public policy, open source, and negotiation. I never imagined those three things could overlap in such interesting ways until I met David & heard him wax poetic on subjects like open-source community management (bringing negotiation skills to online communities) and Government 2.0.

So there you go: You already know what David’s biggest communication challenge on his website is. It’s demonstrating what he does in a way that makes intuitive sense to people reading his popular blog. The previous iteration of his site was a pretty typical personal blog, with a long sidebar filled with links to this & that, and hardly a self-promotional word to be seen. It was a great demonstration of his brilliant mind at work, but a poor sales tool. (It didn’t even have a Contact page. I’m serious.)

Now, David isn’t really a sales-y kind of guy (in case the lack of a Contact page wasn’t your first clue), and he didn’t want his blog to transform overnight into the website equivalent of a flashing “Buy! Buy! Buy!” sign. He simply wanted to pare down the visual clutter, and make it easier for people who might want to hire him to know how to do that.

I took a simple approach: I interviewed David about the kind of work he does & organized it into three categories: public speaking, writing & consulting. The first two merited their own pages, and the third got folded into the About page (since his consulting services are a bit more amorphous & his consulting clients generally come to him via word of mouth). And the rest of the menu bar was filled out with a page of media appearances (since David appears frequently on television & radio as a commentator on current events) and a “What I’m Reading” page that lists some of the writing that’s inspiring his free-flowing pen (or rather, keyboard). (We hooked up the latter with his LibraryThing and Delicious accounts so that they can be kept up to date automatically, saving him the hassle of updating the page by hand.)

The design process posed an interesting challenge: David really liked his old minimalist, low-key blog design and didn’t want too radical a change. He also didn’t want the site to look too “designed,” because he feels that part of his brand is a kind of approachable, do-it-yourself style that doesn’t jive with anything too flashy or trendy. So I had to really rein myself in and keep it quiet, monochromatic, and simple. (I love simple design, but I didn’t allow myself any indulgences on this one.)

The header is very similar to what he had before, but the menu bar was a new addition, making his “sales” pages more prominent. The sidebar got hugely simplified, to focus the visitor’s attention on what’s relevant & important rather than cluttering up the space with superfluous content.

But where I pushed David to be bold was in two areas:

1. The home page now features a single, complete post. This is rather unusual (though not unheard-of) for a blog, but it really allows the visitor to fully absorb one piece of content before moving on to the next. The previous post is highlighted in a box directly below the most recent post, to encourage further exploration of the site.
2. The pre-footer area is large & prominent, and directs traffic to recent posts, popular posts, the “sales” pages and to David’s various social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, etc. etc.).

These two design decisions go hand in hand. If the home page housed five or ten posts, the pre-footer area would be virtually invisible, so it wouldn’t merit special attention. But in this case, once a reader has absorbed the content on the page they are reminded of the various options they have to read further. A lot of websites ignore the footer area, but when your site attracts voracious readers (as David’s does), it pays to reward them by allowing them to navigate the site from the bottom of the page as well as the top.

A lot of bloggers wear multiple hats and have little time to build stand-alone websites for each of their endeavours, and I think David’s site is a good example of a middle ground: he shares information about how to hire him without presuming that’s the goal (or desire) of every visitor, while maintaining a familiar blog interface to those who simply want to read his latest post. If a highly promotional website is outside your comfort zone, this site may hold some lessons for you. In particular, I think I managed to convince David to:

• Stop withholding information about your services from people who want to hire you.
• Always, always, always have a Contact page.
• Consider that bringing in a designer can be helpful even if you don’t want anything “designed.”

This month, our clients at Covenant House Vancouver were recognized for their exceptional blog, On the House, receiving an award from The Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS). Covenant House shelters and counsels street youth, and over the past 10 years they’ve helped 10,000 young people with shelter, food, clothing, counseling and other support. Their blog launched on August 24th, 2009, and since then they’ve contributed over 150 posts. The blog is innovative as content is often contributed by the kids that come through Covenant House, telling of their journeys, their achievements, and even showcasing their art.

The CPRS award is a well-deserved honour. Covenant House’s blog is a great model for nonprofits who are looking to create more compelling blog content. Here are a few of the secrets of their success, as we see them:

1. Stories, stories, stories: On the House personalizes youth homelessness and the challenges that contribute to it.  By telling youth stories, for example the story of 13-year John, On the House helps helps educate prospective donors and volunteers as well as building stronger community among existing constituents.
2. Gratitude is infections: Covenant House posts letters they receive from donors (with permission) to their Donor Stories.  In the story Thank You, a donor wrote to give thanks for the call they received during Covenant House’s “thank-a-thon.”  In Feel Good Friday, Joanne wrote to explain how much it meant to her to be able to teach her children about giving to Covenant House Vancouver.
3. Self-promotion is more palatable when it’s surrounded with great content: On the House has a few asks and some promotion mixed in, such as Christmas is Coming.  Coupled with youth stories, it seems only natural that Covenant House should be asking for support to help these kids.
4. Show, don’t tell: Some of the most powerful posts are contributed by the youth Covenant House Vancouver serves: poetry, artwork, and prose tell the reader more than a third-person story ever could.  For example Gratitude for Donated Hockey Sticks, in which two youth thank you letters are reprinted.
5. Share your challenges: The blog content stays interesting because there’s lots of variety. Posts, like Youth Privacy Versus Good Communication, explore internal challenges Covenant House staff face every day, lending a human face to the organization and breaking down barriers between the staffer who’s writing and the reader.

Congratulations to Michelle Clausius and Kristy Hayter who have done an amazing job of bringing On the House to life. If you have minute, check out On the House.  The posts are often funny, informative, inspiring, and/or heartbreaking.  They’re compelling and worth the read.  Kudos to Covenant House for helping to give these talented young writers a voice.  Also, thanks for the important insights on the issues of youth and homelessness.

Vertical Response, an online newsletter software, recently released an update to their editor.  WOW!  What an improvement.

The old editor, used for editing custom HTML templates was pretty picky.  It reminded me of Microsoft Word, in that you might press return once and get a huge gaping hole in your layout. Or press backspace once and the entire design would disappear. Undo was a most used feature.  And often the remedy was to extract the source and fix things up in Dreamweaver, combing through line by line.

That said, I’ve always liked Vertical Response because I like the management interface, including the list manager, and after gaining enormous popularity, they are still offering their service FREE to nonprofits, which is awesome for many of our clients.

So recently I logged into Vertical Response and made a copy of a campaign and got the prompt “NEW: Copy to New Canvas Editor.”  I ticked the box and this opened the newsletter in the new editor and it was a beautiful transformation.

My favourite improvement is the Format drop-down, which allows you to apply paragraph styles defined in the CSS by simply highlighting text and choosing a style from the drop-down.  Prior to this you would have to copy a few characters from a paragraph with the formatting you wanted, paste it in the desired location, and then edit it.  So this was a big improvement.

Another plus is the tick box that allows you to automatically generate a text-based version of the email.  This prevents the need to carry content changes in two versions of the email.

If you are still using the old editor, give the new one a try.

I spoke today at WordCamp Vancouver – a one-day conference for people who work with WordPress (including developers, designers and users). It was a great event, thanks to the hard work of the organizers. The presenters shared lots of very useful information on design and coding as well as about social media and web culture.

I chose to focus my 25-minute talk on what I think lies below the surface of the work we do as web designers and developers, and that’s a more consultative and strategic role that we can play if we choose to (and if our clients let us).

The session was recorded on video, and I’ll post that video when I get the link that video is posted below, but for now I thought I would at least share my slide deck – particularly for those in attendance who requested it.

Video from the event:

(Many thanks to Justin Carlson for recording & sharing the video.)

Two years ago, Emira & I went to South by Southwest (AKA SXSW) for the first time, and presented a panel called “Boss Lady” that featured tips for online business owners from several of the savviest women entrepreneurs we know: Vickie Howell, Jenny Hart & Alex Beauchamp, all of whom appear in the pages of our book, The Boss of You. We had such a good time that we knew we wanted to go back as soon as humanly possible, though last year we were too busy getting our book out the door to attend the conference.

But this year we’re back, this time with a panel that we hope will prove helpful to geeks of both the design and techie varieties – both camps are in full force at SXSW’s Interactive conference, which is a pure, 24/7, all-out geekfest – who are looking to bring their values into their paid work, whether it’s by learning to work with clients in the nonprofit sector, creating apps that help mission-driven organizations work more effectively, or infusing some environmental or social-justice savvy into their workplaces. The panel’s called “Socially Conscious Geek: Makin’ Money While Doin’ Good”, and it takes place Saturday, March 13^th.

The topic was inspired by a topic our friend Noah Scalin (of Skull-A-Day and Another Limited Rebellion fame) spoke about at the 2009 HOW Conference. His focus was more on graphic design, since that’s his area of expertise, but when I asked him about riffing on his ideas for an interactive design audience, he shared his materials with me with typical generosity. (This is a guy who lives and breathes a DIY, share-and-share-alike mentality that a lot of designers could learn from. But that’s a topic for another day.)

This time I’ll be attending the conference solo, while Emira spends some time with her new baby; my co-facilitator for the session is Leif Utne, a friend and colleague who works for Zanby, a software company that specializes in supporting online social communities for change. Leif’s background includes a stint as the publisher of Worldchanging.org, and lots of experience building online communities; he’s also a journalist, activist and social entrepreneur.  Zanby is used to support The UpTake, a web video community that among other things was heavily involved in documenting the RNC and DNC prior to the 2008 election, and was also engaged in citizen vote monitoring during the election. He brings both amazing facilitation skills as well as a solid understanding of how businesses and nonprofits can work together in mutually beneficial ways.

We’ll be conducting our session in a highly interactive, inclusive format called a Core Conversation: Leif and I will be kick-starting the discussion and planting some seeds, but the idea is that whoever shows up will have a chance to step forward and contribute questions and ideas – so I’m really excited to see how it develops.

We’re hoping to address questions like:

• What is a socially conscious geek?
• How can I specialize in socially conscious work and earn a living wage?
• What are some of the unique opportunities and challenges of specializing in socially conscious work?
• What is the difference between non-profit and no-profit clients?
• How do I make the transition from corporate work to working with non-profit and/or mission-driven clients?
• What is the “triple bottom line” approach to business?
• What are some examples of alternative business models that are emerging among socially conscious geeks?
• How is socially conscious work different than “green” work?
• What are some examples of clients I might be able to work with as a socially conscious geek?
• How should I market myself to values-driven clients? Is it different from marketing to corporate clients?

Ultimately, though, the decisions about what we cover will rest with whoever shows up. So please help us spread the word – and if you’ll be at SXSW, we’d love to see you there!

Is there a better term for “nonprofit”? A recent article by Dan Pallotta at Harvard Business blogs begins, “Anyone who has thought about it for more than a nanosecond agrees that ‘nonprofit’ is about the worst possible summary we could give of ourselves and our work.” He goes on to argue that the nonprofit sector could stand to define itself in terms of what it is, rather than what it is not. (It’s a great post, and well worth reading, as are the unusually thoughtful comments that accompany it.) Pallotta’s suggestion is we move to using the term “Humanity Sector.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across the idea of renaming the nonprofit sector. Tom Suddes makes a compelling case in favour of using “for impact” instead — though personally, I’m not sure that distinguishes this sector from the business & government sectors in any useful way. Surely we all want to make an impact? (That being said, if you ever get to hear him talk about fundraising, do yourself a favour and go — he has some amazing insights and a great deal of charm.)

I’m also not convinced of the “humanity” moniker, because the nonprofit sector includes a lot of organizations that really don’t focus on humanity — there are astronomy educators and environmental justice warriors and all kinds of other groups for whom “humanity” isn’t the emphasis. I’ve heard “third sector” (which feels awkward & low-priority), “non-governmental” (okay, but uninspiring), “community profit” (can’t the community profit from corporate & governmental work as well?), and “public benefit” (see “community profit”) — but none of those work for me either.

Although I love the idea of moving away from “nonprofit,” I’d really like us to find an option that is both broadly inclusive of the wide variety of organizations within the sector, and clearly distinct from the focus of for-profit and governmental actors. Because the key differences that mark nonprofits are legal in nature, perhaps “nonprofit” is the simplest option.

But there is one other suggestion I quite like, with a couple of reservations: “the delta sector,” as proposed by Robert K. Ross in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Yes, it sounds a bit like a Star Trek reference. But here’s his pitch:

Robert K. Ross, president of the California Endowment, a health foundation in Los Angeles, says he’s got just the word: “delta,” the Greek letter that signifies change. So, no more talk about the “nonprofit sector,” he said at the closing session of the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.

It’s now the “delta sector.”

“We need to be more intentionally about change and transformation,” he said. “Business as usual is leaving too many families broken and too many families and folks with hopelessness and despair.”

I’m not a hundred percent sold on “delta sector” — I’m not sure it works for arts organizations (or many conservative groups that actively resist change), and I’m also not convinced that change is a worthwhile motive in and of itself — but I like the sentiment behind it, and indeed behind all these ideas. It warms my former-English-major heart that so many good people are putting so much brain power towards thinking about the importance of language, and I’d love to see the nonprofit / for impact / humanity / delta sector wrestle with this some more and see if we can’t come up with a better name.

We are very proud to unveil a project we’ve been working on for several months now: a redesign of policyalternatives.ca, the online home of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Canada’s leading progressive research institute, the CCPA is a prolific publisher of reports and studies, books, articles, commentary and fact sheets on issues ranging from income equality to environmental policy, privatization of public services, and beyond.

They are highly respected, but like many organizations working towards policy change, they don’t always reach as broad an audience as they might hope; not many people have the time and inclination to read an in-depth research report, so in recent years they have been creating more bite-sized, easy-to-digest content in both written and multimedia formats. As the range of content has grown, though, so has the need to cross-reference related materials — so the CCPA’s website needed to both invite visitors to browse through an extensive library in an intuitive and approachable way, but also allow people seeking more in-depth content to locate related materials quickly and easily. (One of our developers describes the complex interrelationships between the CCPA’s publications as “like Facebook for documents.”)

Their five year-old website, although rich in content and highly trafficked, didn’t offer visitors any way to easily share the CCPA’s content with their social networks, whether through Facebook or Twitter, or even through their own publications, blogs or presentations. Exchange of ideas is the CCPA’s raison d’etre, so it stands to reason that above and beyond extending the website’s “share this” features, the organization would benefit from encouraging online visitors to use and share its content — and they do, using a Creative Commons license.

This project was a complex one on several fronts, as we wrestled with improving navigation through the site (both via menus and site links as well as with improved search tools); updating the site’s look and feel; and migrating the extensive site content (along with the aforementioned relationships between content items) from a commercial CMS platform into Drupal.

Oh, and we also set up a shopping cart (for books, memberships, donations and journal subscriptions).

There’s a real sense of accomplishment here at Raised Eyebrow when we look at the final result, but of course on the web, there’s no such thing as a final edit. Our best hope, in fact, is that we’ve helped to create a solid platform upon which the CCPA can continue to build and extend over the coming years. So while right now we are celebrating the grand opening, the real fun in some ways is still to come. I’m sure we’ll see the CCPA continue to play a leadership role when it comes to presenting research online in accessible and innovative ways.

I’ve written before about the cost of websites, which is really hard thing to nail down. Like building a house, it depends how big/how fancy that house/website needs to be before a price tag can be attached. That said, we’ve been doing this a long time now, and recently we’ve been talking about rethinking our development model at Raised Eyebrow, which has some ramifications for our pricing and would allow us to answer the “what does a website cost anyway?” question a bit more directly.

On the development model side, we’re moving towards more of an Agile Development framework, which aligns really nicely with our company approach and philosophy quite nicely. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Agile development I do recommend following that link, but in a nutshell I can tell you that it means a more nimble process, more responsive to needs (in our case our clients’ needs), and generally means slower growth over time all of which fits really nicely with our vision of the web, community building and organizational/business sustainability.

I’ve written before, and waxed poetic over many a cocktail about new shiny features in the world of the interwebs taking priority over actual use value. Often we have clients coming to us, enticed by the latest cool new web tricks, and wanting to implement them — an understandable impulse. Often, we talk our clients down a notch when we know that they don’t have the internal resources to support said cool trick, or that their (let’s face it often limited) funds could be better spent elsewhere. In an Agile development model we’d be helping our clients focus on a smaller and defined set of features, rolling those out initially and then working with them to monitor the value and strategic impact of those features before we undertake further development. We already pride ourselves on having long term relationships with our clients where we’re happy to act as their trusted advisors when it comes to all things web, so tying that consulting relationship to a plan for a phased feature rollout is not a big new step to take. The new part, is the scaling back of initial specifications.

You may ask, why would a business (that is looking to make some money afterall) want to scale back specifications and features off the top? For us, it’s about doing our best work and supporting our clients to do their best work. It’s about making sure that clients are spending funds wisely so that they have something left over for features and consulting they’ll want in the future. Websites are fantastic in their ability to evolve and change, making sure our clients approach the work we do with them as a starting ground for a longer conversation, rather than a race to the finish line is one way that we feel we can better serve our clients and the non-profit sector we work in.

So what does a website cost under this model anyway?

For the first time ever we feel like we really truly have an answer to this question. In our case $15,000 (plus GST if you’re in Canada). And what do you get for that?

• You get a website. Not just any old website though. A website designed and birthed by a team of experts with many, many years of experience in this field.
• You do get an original design process.
• You get a rock solid Content Management System (Drupal), with an integrated search, that can be extended to add all kinds of cool features in the future.
• You get a site that is optimized for SEO both in its overall structure and its technical framework.
• You also get Information Architecture/Interaction Design consulting and ongoing strategic advice throughout the project.

You also get two features, things like:

• A basic events calendar, kind of like the one you see here at the Chan Centre.
• A standard publications/resources catalogue like this one at Pivot Legal.
• A news listing like this one for the Ending Violence Association of BC.
• A customized blog.
• An image gallery.
• A video carousel like the one on CaroleJames.ca.
• Something else that your organization needs specifically (that can be defined within a basic scope) like the integrated custom Job Applications form we did for Covenant House.

Why only two features? Well two features fits within our budget limit of $15,000 (obviously if you have more budget, we can expand the features), and two features is a great place to start. With two features up and running on a website we can work with you to make sure that they’re actually being used by the organization and users (through statistics monitoring), and we can then create a roadmap for building out new features or further customizing the existing ones to do even more for you.

The idea is, that we start with $15,000, get you an excellent and useful website that helps to meet your short term needs and helps you build on your long term communications goals. And then, ideally, we set up a retainer contract with you to have regular check-ins (quarterly, bi-annually, etc whatever works for you), and we help you plan out future feature roll-outs, strategies for enhancing the website and your online communications in general. We play an ongoing role in your communications strategy by regularly monitoring your website statistics and usage patterns, and we help make sure your budgets are being wisely spent over time.

But what about Social Media, is that a feature?

Yes, and no. Adding a link to your Twitter profile or integrating your latest Twitter posts into the website is easily done, and would be included in the project price. Ditto for adding Facebook links or integrating an RSS feed from the site into your Facebook Page/Group/Profile. By default (where applicable) we can include a Social Bookmarking widget that allows people to bookmark, repost, or email your site to a friend/social networks. Ditto for adding an existing email list signup box. Actual online strategic planning is another story. If you need help with creating a strategy for online communications, we’ll do that with you as well, but that would be a separate project.

Last week I blogged about Vancouver arts groups who are using Twitter to deepen their relationships with new and existing audiences, and I’d like to point to a couple more intriguing examples of social media tools finding new and wildly creative uses in the hands of arts organizations.

The first is an iPhone application I discovered recently, called The Extraordinaries. The Extraordinaries is a micro-volunteering application that enables iPhone users like myself to spend a couple of minutes here and there (I use it when I’m waiting at bus stops, or standing in line at the sandwich shop) tagging images for art galleries and libraries. (The current list of organizations who are benefiting from the service includes the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as groups from New Zealand, France, Portugal, Australia and Holland.)

Tagging — which is all I’ve been able to do via the app so far — is actually only the tip of the iceberg. The Extraordinaries’ website lists the following possibilities for future development:

• Translating a nonprofit’s Website into a foreign language
• Recording the GPS location of potholes and city infrastructure issues for municipalities
• Identifying birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Tagging images for the Smithsonian
• Transcribing ancient texts for ReCaptcha
• Reviewing congressional bills for hidden pork
• Fact checking for reporters

I’m really excited about where this could go. I encourage my fellow iPhone users to check it out — and if your organization could benefit from this kind of micro-volunteering, why not apply to be a pilot partner?

The second story I want to share may already be familiar to those of you in the classical music community, but for the rest of you: Did you know there’s an opera being composed on Twitter?

Yes, you read that right. So far there are 7 acts, and the entire libretto has been written in 140-character bursts by Twitter users. From what I can make out, the plot is rather serpentine, but holy heck is this a fun project! Talk about crowdsourcing your content! Anyone can tweet a line of the opera by using the hashtag #youropera, or sending their tweet to @youropera.

The whole thing is a project of the Royal Opera House in London, rather a grande dame of the classical scene, known as a fancy-pants venue for ballet & opera. The Twitter opera is part of their Deloitte Ignite series, a 3-day festival that’s a smidge more avant-garde than the Opera House’s usual fare — but still, I have to give them props for going out on a limb. A Twitter opera might seem a risky venture for far smaller, edgier companies, and I applaud the ROH for stepping up and giving it a shot.

And you know, even if your company isn’t ready to let your Twitter followers write your next show, you can always follow the example of Next to Normal, the Broadway musical whose rise to success seems to have been at least partially fuelled by its clever use of Twitter.

What’s next? All I know is that the arts community is sure to keep uncovering innovative ways to use social media to create, connect and inspire. More news as it happens…