Nonprofit Radio, November 18, 2011: Your IT Plan & The Goods on Google+ Pages

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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My Guests:

Jason Hutchins

Jason Hutchins: Your IT Plan

Jason Hutchins, president of Nonprofit Solutions, tells you why you need an IT plan and what belongs in it. He’ll get you thinking about budget, equipment, outsourcing, the cloud and a lot more, so you avoid an IT crisis.

Please take a moment to take the survey for this week’s segment with Jason! You’ll find it here at the end of the guest and segment descriptions. Thanks!
 

Scott Koegler
Scott Koegler: Your Mobile Website

Our tech contributor, Scott Koegler, the editor of Nonprofit Technology News, kicks the tires on the recently released Google+ Pages for organizations. Should you take one for a test drive? How are they different than Facebook pages? How do you interact with supporters? What’s the mileage on these babies?
 

 


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Here is a link to the podcast: 068: Your IT Plan & Google+ Pages.
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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio we’re always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host november eighteenth, two thousand eleventh i hope you were with me on november eleventh, two thousand eleven. It was the work life balance, rachel and the silverman reporter for the wall street journal and contributed to their blogged the juggle shared what she’s learned about managing your personal and professional lives when both of those scream out for your limited time and it was volunteered his ability, our prospect, research contributor regular contributor maria simple, the prospect finder, talked about the new volunteers section on linkedin profiles to help your research and increase your visibility, and also with me with joe ferraro from the westchester association of fund-raising professionals talk about their national philanthropy day conference this week. Your plan? Jason hutchins, president of non-profit solutions, tells you why you need a night plan and what belongs in it. We’ll get you thinking about budget equipment, outsourcing the cloud and more to help you avoid a night crisis, and then scott koegler our regular tech contributor, the goods on google plus pages, of course we know. That scott is the editor of non-profit technology news. He kicks the tires on google plus pages recently released, should you take one for a test drive, how are they different than facebook pages? How do you interact with supporters? What’s the mileage on these babies google plus pages on tony’s, take two in between the guests. The only true job security is working for yourself. That’s, my block post this week. Plus, we were at two conferences this week doing interviews for the show, and i’ll tell you about those. We’re live tweeting the show as we do every week. Use hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation on twitter. Right now, i have some messages for you, and then, after those, i’ll be joined by jason hutchins. We’ll talk about your plan to stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police crawl. Offset. Two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five, zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com durney welcome back to the show where we’re always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m with jason hutchins now and he’s with me in the studio. He’s, the president of non-profit solutions, which was founded in nineteen ninety eight to help non-profits boost their productivity, lower costs and improve operation through the use of technology. His work has included the non-profits, the brooklyn bridge park conservancy and the very institute of justice jason hutchins. Welcome to the studio. I thank you for having me today. Pleasure to have you let’s talk about the plan. Why is an i t plan important? So non-profits organizations they’re really familiar with doing strategic planning, strategic thinking, that’s a real part of most, you know, non-profit cultures, they there’s a kind of an army of consultants in there. You know, they do a lot of work within organizations coming up with some really, you know, close looks of what management is doing and all the other aspect of what the organization is doing. But a lot of times it is not not really part of that or not made part of that. So non-profit might might say that we what we don’t have the resources to do it work or we don’t have the resources to do what we want to do next in it. But if you if you really had the time to look at it, you’ll see that they are spending the resource is they’re putting resources into into systems, they’re just not doing it in a maybe a strategic way or thought away because things are going things going to break, right, whether you have a plan or not, you’re going to have to replace things over time. You’d rather do it in a coordinated way. So so what happens is a lot of purchasing has done on that emerged agency basis they, you know, one morning something’s not working hard drive can’t boot up the hard drive is dead, things locked up, the network isn’t working the server’s down, right? Sure, even even larger decisions like, you know, putting in a new database, you know, maybe they’ll they’ll go through a period where there’s an advocate for a particular system and and so that that system has put in, but that might not really connect or work well with the other systems the organization has or if that advocate that moves on to another organization in there, they’re not sure really what to do with that asset come the other thing that happens to a lot of times, the way the funding streams work in the nonprofit world, you know, either you might have a particular grant or particular funder, so there’s an opportunity to get a certain amount of money to do something, and then that just kind of stays there, you know, there’s, no there’s, nothing set aside for maintenance so there’s nothing set aside to, you know, to say, how does this fit in to all the other things we’re doing here? And so so eventually you might have an environment where you have a multitude of systems, and not really any resource is to to maintain it, or or or make sure it’s interconnected and what you wanted to do, that they’re not buy-in are coordinated systems that i mean, in the worst case against it wouldn’t talk to each other like your finance system isn’t talking properly to another administrative system that it ought to be, and they haven’t been a coordinated plan. All right, so let’s talk about taking a little bit of time to kind of look at all of these different aspects, and we can almost throw them into into different buckets and there’s some that are, you know, maybe unique buckets that an organization might look at, but there’s many of these have, you know, they’re similar things that an organization could do, you know, on their own or with it with a consultant to help them. Okay, so let’s czar way into the plan. So as we’re developing this plan, who were the people that should be contributing to our information technology plan? So you want you want to talk to as many people as possible because you see, the users of an organization are really, really important to get you. The advocates tohave a plan implement, so if i were to come out with some some new tool or new recommendation or a new way of working or let’s, say, nuit policies, but you haven’t involved the leaders of the departments or kind of some key staff, then you’re not really not really going tohave the adoption and and the usage that you really want. So if you’re able to to include those people right from the get go and spent time interviewing them, your program officers, your project coordinators in addition to senior management, you know that you’re head of finance, the organization’s executive director, other other high powered people within the organization you’re then able to get, you know what you would consider advocates to go back to their teams and say, hey, we’re about to roll this new system out, and so they’re they’re advocating for that tool to be used out in the field. Okay, so you really do want the users because all the people you named are sitting in front of computers day after day. You really want users at all different levels. This is not just a senior management project that there was a project that senior management is solely contributing to clearly not writing a lot of times. This has come a kind of a top down a top down approach where either consultants come in or new edicts come in or a new state rule, right? So new system comes down, so by talking to the users, you really find out what their day to day is like, and you’re also able to understand the culture of an organisation, because every organization is different, some solutions that might work at one organization, maybe might not be the best fit at another organization. We have maybe different type of staff staff, that or maybe mohr, you know, just using different tools, just familiar with different things. So and then you’ll really get a sense of what those, what those struggles are, and you’ll find that those those staff, those team members, they’re actually really excited that senior management is interested in collecting that from them. Okay, excellent. We’re going to take a break. I’m with jason hutchins is the president of non-profit solutions network, which you’ll find it non-profit solutions dot net. And after this break, we’ll get into the details of your plan to stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com elearning all right, welcome back with jason hutchins talking about your information technology plan, jason let’s start to get into some of the details of what should be included in a in a proper plan what’s the first section that you’d like to see. Well, we’d like to look at the overall the overall, maybe footprint of the organization, like, is the organization operating from multiple locations because there’s some unique challenges that come in a place with that? So they there there’s like network infrastructure and just how does that play into what they’re doing and there’s lots of questions the organization has about the cloud because they’ve been hearing so much about it, or they have received so many sales calls related to the cloudgood wondering, let’s define that first before we go any further, because there might be some people who may even be using the cloud and don’t even know it. So what? What do you mean when you say the cloud? Sure, we’re talking about, you know, servers that are outside of their network, that aaron the public space. So, you know, google using google mail that’s, that’s cloud using a online hosted application like a sales force or something like this that’s in the cloud or sugar serum that’s in the cloud. So what was that last one? Sugar cr m sugar sierra. Okay, so, you know, a lot of these kind of individual applications cos they’re using a lot of amazon, amazon hosted servers and things of this nature. Where were your requisitioning space in the cloud? They’re all probably really using the cloud in some some fashion. For instance, their website is in the cloud where they’re they’re paying a hosting provider a monthly fee for space on a server. Okay, excellent. Just liketo jargon jail we have on the show. We have judge and jailer. Night it’s. Good. I don’t want you to tread too closely to your little taser. If i get to town. Also up to this point, i only have to use handcuffs. But taser, if you know if you prefer that we can, we can do taser. All right. So talking about the the database is going? No. You talked about the locations multiple, possibly of multiple locations, and how that impacts your plan. Right? So? So normally the trend really is, you know, are there aspects of your infrastructure that could be in the cloud and reduce your costs and and work effectively. And then are there certain assets and usually there are where you need on an internal network. So, you know, there’s there’s different strategies because everyone is unique and how they’re functioning and and what needs to be internal on what can be what can be external? Ok, let’s, talk a little about that. Since the cloud is so common and growing in popularity um, what are the you mentioned cost? First, before we get into what could or maybe shouldn’t be in the cloud? Why is the why is cloud computing cost effective? Well, not only not only is it is it a very low cost, often often a very low cost solution? Sometimes sometimes we can get into scenarios where it’s, not if we’re paying a licensing fee per user, but but there’s certain products where non-profits get just tremendous discounts on so okay, you know, you take you take google apse. Where where non-profit not only could have their email in the cloud, but but could be storing, storing enormous amounts of documents. And this is essentially free to non-profits so that that’s google doc you’re referring, teo? Yeah, because that’s, you know, that’s a attached rate rate to the google email system, you know, so it’s just a tremendous, tremendous product where, you know, non-profits are able to get it through a grant from google for if they have up to three thousand users and they’re certain restrictions, you know, maybe religious organizations or things of that nature, but but, you know, it’s just a fantastic, amazing, amazing product for them, and again, their all their emails than in the cloud is being backed up. They can integrate it, they can connect it with their local microsoft outlook. They want to how would you as a non-profit take advantage of this dahna offering you saying if you have three thousand or fewer users, which is probably all of our listeners, how do they connect? How did they get access to this there’s there’s a there’s, an online tool where you’re able to essentially apply for this for this grant at at google? Google is not great. It may be let’s say, answering the phone to service request because of their size and because the nature of the program so so you know, there’s an online step where they can go through and do this themselves or they could, you know, ask whatever it provider there working with to help them to complete this task, ok, do you know, do you know the name of the program? Call google non-profit something know they’d be looking to apply it’s essentially, like it’s, google, it’s, the google academic or google education? They’re trying to apply for a grant, essentially. So what? They’re going to going to a page that google has, they don’t have the link right in front of me, and they’re they’re filling out this application there, miguel, you’re you’re you’re handy crew has brought this up so so google for non-profits so right here in the studio, just talking about it, doing a quick search on google was able to bring it up on and there’s a process to fill it out, there’s online trainings and how to use it. Okay, so considerable savings because this is a grants all free. Is there anything else? Just give us another example of something that could be in the cloud, like email and documents. What else might be? Well, many of the many of the databases that non-profits we’re looking at now are are in the cloud or they’re done on what could be termed, like an internal cloud. So for instance, let’s say you had a non-profit and you have twelve locations. If you had a network that connected those sites together, you could have a database running at one of your locations and servicing out like an internal cloud to your twelve locations within your network. So it’s sort of like this hybrid model it’s, really? And you don’t hear much a discussion about it. Usually people just talk about the cloud or should we take everything to the cloud are nothing to the cloud, but really there’s some certain certain things that are like low hanging fruit. But you can take advantage of whether it’s the google, whether it’s microsoft’s alternative is thie office three, sixty five product which is a very low cost for non-profits and not not free but low cost. Yeah, hello coca yeah, and and then there’s internal internal internal opportunities where you know there’s there’s sugar serum, for instance, that guy and cr m is what it’s like a it’s like a it’s a database tool, it will be similar to sales force. But there’s a version where you’re allowed to, i think cr emma’s customer relationship management in this case. Yes. Okay. Okay. Sometimes. Yeah. So so so? So an organization could could download this, install it on a server, customize it to their needs and shared out within within their network. Okay, so as part of our plan, we’re going tow. Decide what of our applications belong in the cloud and what need to be stored locally. Right? That’s part of the important decision making, right? Okay, okay, other things that don’t belong offsite on dh really should be. Not if they’re not in the cloud. I know they’re on the ground, but there should be internally maintained and not off site. Are there things like that? A lot of this comes down to an organization’s policies. So if you were to talkto large organizations let’s say, a hospital or someone dealing with patient records, there’s certain requirements they really want to follow for for their own, their own compliance, their own hipaa compliance, their own, their own internal kind of process. So, you know, does it doesn’t meet those requirements, and so so even in a process like this, if you were to come up with potential solutions, most organizations of that size or in that in that field have an internal compliance officer, they have a compliance committee, you’re able to just kind of say, okay, because here’s, the solution does this meet the requirement and go through and again, you’re including everyone within within the organization, okay, what’s, another section that should be part of our plan, so so so databases just to finish that off for a second, a lot of times organisations they’re not really looking at what is the database built on. So it’s it’s sort of like down to that maintenance level, how are they connecting? So unorganised ation overtime might end up with five or six on unconnected databases, so here they have client records all over the place, and then they’re trying to come up with a solution. How they how did they merge them all together to do data analysis? So just kind of looking at that and saying, like, each one of those solutions might have been perfectly fine, but they really might not work all together again. So that’s just part of, you know, a road map on telecom non-profits just because they’re there, you know, there’s, an aggressive kind of sales push in the telecom space, you know, where we’re folks are calling them and their reselling these thes services, so a lot of times they end up on plans that me may not be really benefiting them, you know? And so that’s really no way to make decisions is by a on aggressive sales person calling and prompting you into a different telecom plan or voy data plan or certain hardware that’s not the way to make a decision, and usually the approach is that it xavi things you’re going to save a lot of money and and net and truth be told, the savings aren’t aren’t necessarily there and the performances and isn’t really there for what they want. So it’s it’s sometimes ah struggle, so they want to look at that you might be looking at, you know, a multitude of locations with different phone systems that don’t connect to each other and all of these kind of challenges. So again, we’re back to this fact that the spend is there like the non-profit is thinking they don’t have the reason we’re gonna have to spend the money anyway. They’re they’re pouring if if they were to really look at the numbers, they’re pouring money into maintenance of these systems. I’m with jason hutchins he’s, president of non-profit solutions network, which you’ll find it non-profit solutions dot net, we’re talking about your plan. We are live tweeting the show reminder use hashtag non-profit radio teo join the conversation on twitter khun small non-profits negotiate telecommunications plans and rates do they have any leverage? Well, um, it’s a good question and you can always you can always ask, you can always ask and non-profit really isn’t shy asking for a better deal, you know, because because the non-profit manager, you know, seizes that that’s that’s part of their part of their roles, they’re always there always kind asked that now now the sometimes they’re not sure of what to ask for, and i think that might be, you know, sometimes that’s the hurdle. So, you know, a very expensive product you know with with features that they may never utilize is put down and they’ll ask and they’ll get a discount on that, but there might be. Another product that that really could could do better for them that’s already at that lower price point that’s right there that they just don’t hear about. So you know, whether it’s whether it’s, you know, right now, for instance, you know, verizon will give you a seven meg dear cell for fifty eight dollars time warner would put in a fifteen by two meg internet line. Okay, whoa jargon jail hold on. E-giving taser taser thinking bull i’m thinking live bullets. Okay, fifteen by two what was what was all that? This is the data rate speeds or something. So, you know, you can get you can get just enormous amounts of band with at a very low cost and so normally non-profits now, because they’re already moving so many of their their items into the cloud and they’re getting familiar with doing it. They’re they’re attending webinars. They want that internets alright, alright, but so what’s fifteen by two what did that mean? It’s a it’s. A pretty fast internet line. That’s a fifteen meg download speed and to make upload speed. Okay, that’s first. All right, so the speed at which you get stuff to you is your download speed and writes the speed at which you send stuff up is your upload speed that’s, right? Is upload always going to be that much slower than download is a film? Lee is yeah, they’re not encouraging you to act in that capacity. So so usually that’s where the costs incurred. Okay, so that’s, the data calm and telecom part of the plan. Yeah. And so usually that that that again, if you when you when you look at that there’s there’s tremendous kind of confusion around around those those aspects, ok, okay? And i guess just around that section out, i mean, it wouldn’t only be the plans. And but also the hardware, right? You have to have telecom hard, we have phones. So is that is that? Is that hardware a piece of our plan also? Yeah, because we’ve seen we’ve really seen everything. We did some work with the three one one program and we saw organizations, you know, paying for lisa’s on equipment that they already owned. Because the least bill will just keep coming. You know, organisations are told to just buy a new phone system every time the lease is up. When in reality, the system is probably working fine. And so this, you know, all comes into this, you know, you know, like, what do we really need to do and where we going as an agency? How about staffing? That should be a part of our plan, whether we’re goingto be with a consultant or whether we handle this in house staffing and staff training that part of our plan? Yeah, i think so. So, so so, again, normally the hybrid solution, i think, i think, works well for organizations. They they you take it organization. Once they get past a certain number of a certain number of employees, they really do want it in house capacity, as faras on, you know, on sight presents so so so again, they they often want that person to be working for the organization that they can. They can interact with a consultant to help them bring in the kind of viewpoint of what’s going on in the field what’s happening out in the marketplace, how can we benefit? And then? And then if if you’re able to get an environment where that internal staff is able to collaborate with the consultant and you’re able to get a lot done, okay, so there’s, your hybrid and the and what about training, training, non staff? I mean, most of this, most of the users, if the reason it could be a small shop where there isn’t even a night staff, but most of the users or not tech people, what should be rethinking about around training. So a lot of times, it’s not done, and you’ll alaskan organization, have you ever done any training? And they’ll say, really, really know, you know, it’s, a line item that’s just removed, so, you know, if you don’t have the resource is there, you can go to kind of a trainer train the trainer modality, you know, if you have a lot of a lot of staff, a high account, you could go back to that kind of advocate model where those advocates are really, you know, getting to know the system, so so they’re involved in the process, their understanding, how it works, and they’re able to then spend time with their group, their team, their coworkers. You could also really use some simple tools to control your cost there if you were to do a one on one training, you know, just tape it, do a webinar, archive it, have it for new staff that air coming in how to use the organization’s database. So a lot of times you hear issues like a complicated system might be in place, but there’s a high staff turnover. So how do they keep training new staff route of they? How did they do that? And we’re talking about training just quickly. What? What are a couple of things that we should be training about? What are we training people on? Just how to again, like once once you’ve defined what those company policies are and how they’re using it. So if you were to roll out google aps, how you want to use her to be using the google aps within the organization, the way documents or shared or put in folders in this type of thing on dh while we’re talking about the users of the system, what about their own personal devices? Just and we only have about two minutes left, and i want to get to one other area in the plan so labbate well, everything about whether people can connect with their personal devices to the to the to the network, right? It goes back to the policies. So some organizations we work with there’s a strict policy where they can’t use personal devices, other organizations, you know, again, it’s a it’s it’s really made its way in the marketplace, people, especially with iphones and ipads, that it does reduce the cost of the organization. And depending again on that company culture, the type of data they’re dealing with, you know, it’s acceptable in other place is sort of like, just what are our rules as an organization? Why are we making these rules? And if we’re changing the rules, what are the repercussions there? And and then what happened? So if if someone has email on their personal device and they leave us to work in another organization, it’s just really a simple process to say that emails part of the organization and i’m not a ceo and not your sneering what’s one final area we just have about a minute left what’s, another final area that should be in our plan. We have not talked about finance and again, you might want to take a quick look at just, you know where’s, the organization headed, you know, does the finance system work now? And if we’re looking at a new financial system, what type of work are we doing? What new contracts are we going to get over the next few years to go into place and that? How should are? How should our staff be trained on using that system? Okay, that’s so finance would include accounting and all the receivables and things like that, the finance bank that goes back office and then just in thirty seconds, what about our social media policy? Our social media presence? Does that belong in the plan? Well, i mean, again, it’s, you have what you know, it would fall under kind of, i guess, you know, social communications, the communications department in social media, so so again, we’re then looking at how how is that information cause? A lot of times we’re looking at online databases we were really talking about is online databases or a website that then connex over to facebook and how is that information collected? So if you have an external consultant doing all of your online work and one platform well, your internal consultant doing all of your database work and another platform well, then you’re going to have to do extra work to connect that information because you’re dealing with the same users, we have to leave it there. Jason hutchins, thank you very much for being a good keeper. Having me, jason is the president of non-profit solutions network. You’ll find out non-profit solutions dot net. We have some messages. Then, after those tony’s take two and then scott koegler joins us to talk about the goods on google plus pages, so stay with me e-giving living, tooting, getting, thinking things, you’re listening to the talking, alternate network, things get anything. Good. 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A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics. The express buy-in montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m leslie goldman with the us fund for unicef, and i’m casey rotter with us one for unison. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Durney welcome back, it’s, time for tony’s. Take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour, and the two is spelled out in tony’s. Take, too. We had a question in the studio. It’s, of course, it’s spelled out. My block post this week is the only true job security is working for yourself that’s pretty self explanatory, but i’m interested in your opinion of my conclusion that the only true job security’s working for yourself and you’ll find that on my blogged at m p g a d v dot com. I was at two conferences this week, the westchester county chapter of the association of fund-raising professionals hosted national philanthropy day that was up in briarcliff manor in new york and interviewed they’re about eight people interviews for upcoming shows on things like building a culture of philanthropy within and around your non-profit themed events monthly e-giving strategies. Those were a couple of those are three of the eight interviews that i did in westchester, and i was also at the next-gen charity conference duitz that was just yesterday, and we were in lower manhattan. Regina walton, a social media manager, was there, and we also took shot some video and some of my interviews. They’re included craig newmark, the founder of craigslist. You know, i talked about consistent messaging for your non-profit mark echo of eco enterprises talk about collaboration, and i also talk teo peter. Thumb, the founder of ethos water, he and i talked about perseverance in the face of rejection, and there were many more interviews from both of those conferences this week, and i’ll be playing those oncoming shows, and that is tony’s take two for friday, november eighteenth with me now is our regular tech contributor, scott koegler how you doing out there? Scott? I’m doing great, tony, how you i’m well, where you’re calling from today, you’ve been all over the country recently. I was in phoenix this week, i got home yesterday afternoon and now i am back in north carolina, okay, back home, we’re talking about the goods on google plus pages. Scott koegler is the editor of non-profit technology news, which you’ll find at n p tech news. Dot com scott, we have facebook pages. What what what’s the difference? What? Why? Why do we need google pages? Yeah, you know that’s a good question. Facebook pages certainly are a big deal. Um facebook with eight hundred million users, and i think that that’s pretty much they’ve got the market stumped, but as google plus came along, one of the things that was obviously missing was any kind of ability to put a day a page foreign entity for a corporation for a group, for non-profits none of those things were available. You actually had to actually be a person and prove that you are a person that was a little unusual, and it caused google some issues and some criticism what beginning, but not too long ago, i think a week or so ago they introduced their google plus pages, and that is, as you kind of indicated there roughly equivalent to the facebook pages or canvases or whatever component they want to call them at this point. Okay? And, uh, s so is this something that non-profits should be paying attention to? Should they be jumping in at this point? I would say it’s probably better to jump in then not because the cost of entry is pretty much xero all right, and there is an audience in google, plus one of the things that’s not there yet that i really believed will be coming along shortly is any kind of advertising and promotions. Google plus just doesn’t have advertisement in there right now. It’s very clean. It is it is set up specifically for users to connect with users and not really a commercial venture yet. All right, so well, i just wantto interrupt you. Sorry, that’s, an important distinction between facebook and facebook pages and google page is because way all know we all see on facebook pages that over on the right side there’s lots of ads and they’re targeted to you based on where you live, where you went to school, things like that. But you’re saying google plus is void of all that at the moment. Yes, google pages is probably make no doubt that google is all about advertising and money, but at the moment it’s pretty clean, okay what’s the what’s the plus one that i see on ah, google plus and how does that relate to the facebook google page is the plus one. The plus one is roughly equivalent to facebook’s like function, so when you see the plus one, you click that, and it indicates that you are a supporter of that particular comment of that person. Foreign pages of that particular page, and there’s there’s something the difference is now with plus ing, or liking or following just to bring twitter into it, okay. That what happens, what happens in group a process is what i would call a synchronous liking. In other words, if i like the tony martignetti show and i click the plus one on your google plus page, then you get the benefit of my life, you know, plus ing your page, which it was you certainly would do when we create the twenty martignetti print non-profit that’s not an if it’s okay, otherwise you’re off were out, you’re out, you don’t plus one me, i’ll be nonplussed if you don’t want it all yeah, there you go. Um, that also allows you to put me into a circle and at the same time, i could put you into the circle. So it’s, you know, it’s a mutual admiration, admiration if you’re okay now, we’ve talked aboutthe circles when when you and i first talked about google plus, but why don’t we just remind people what those circles are in google? Plus circles are categorizations in other words, i have you in my in my work circle, not in my family circle, and so you can set these things up on facebook had has just recently introduced the same kind of thing. So when you add a friend in facebook, it’ll what what group do you want to put that in? It seems like they’re they’re certainly doing that in response to the google plus circles, right? Absolutely playing catch up there. But the difference here is that with google plus, when when we like each other, it’s a it’s, a conditional like in other words, it only lasts for a long as i like you for you like me. One of the tactics with twitter was to gain twitter followers, of course, right, right, so if you if you connect with someone on twitter, the idea is that that person will then connect back to you and that what has worked pretty well. What happened next, though, if you’re using one of the strategies, is that i would say, i like you, you know, i’d add you to my twitter, i follow you, right? Follow me back and then i would just follow you leaving me, you know, leaving you still following me. So i got the benefit of basically pulling you into following. So you look better because you’ve you’ve still got me following you, but you’re not. Following me so you look like you have more followers and and that’s ah, devious strategy right there people have been using on twitter exactly, and how come you can’t do that with google pages? Google pages doesn’t just doesn’t support that if you like my google page and, uh and i then like, you know, plus one you back or add you to a circle, all right? And then you take me out of the circle, then you will disappear from my circle, okay, so it doesn’t automatically automatically, okay, i think it’s a good way of doing it, none of that shit that we see on twitter, yeah, what they’re saying is there their strategy is to make this a more balanced way for brands and non-profits brands be able to interact with people that are actually general, that are actually supportive of them? I’m not just because they’re following because they’re being followed right by the way i have in google. Plus, i have ewing, dear close friends circle, and i’m a little disappointed that i’m only i’m liking your work circle is that? What do you say? People? I hardly know work, circle or something, you’re in my dear close friend circle, i will change. I will change you immediately, and i don’t care just create that and just make me the only one in there it doesn’t matter to me i’ll stand by it. I’ll stand alone in your circle. Okay now the good part about google circles is that one never knows what circles exactly where we go have said reading one night that i was in your dear close friend circle you could be lying. Oh, hello. Oh, the connection broke down. No. Uh, no, i hear you. Fine. Good let’s. See? Okay, what we can do? Ah, we could do hangouts on google pages. Can’t wait. Yeah. Why don’t we remind let’s? Remind people with the hangout is and then and then tell us that we hang out is a can be a video conference with multiple people participating. Not everybody has to have the camera on, but in general that’s, the way that it’s promoted is that we will have our cameras on you get a little box with with the with the participants in there and it’s text as well as audio as well. A video and up until just recently, it was limited. Two ten participants. Just just a week or so ago. They raised that. I think they did it at the same time they brought out the pages. You can now have twenty people in a hangout. So that’s that’s. Pretty interesting in it. Uh, i can see where this is moving toward unlimited. Hang out, sweetie. The technology is there. The web cams are easily available. As soon as you have in-kind around tables going on live hangouts you could have seen the technology is they’re so so for a non-profit they could just have a spontaneous. They could just have a hangout. It’s redundant to say spontaneous. Hang out. They could just have a hangout, right? Just declare one and get a bunch of people who who are there. They’re friends. Teo. Teo, participate. Can you can you limit the people who comes like, could you have? Ah, impromptu boardmember board meeting, which you wouldn’t want just anybody. And can you just have certain people in your hangout or you can’t do that? You could do that. Mostly. You do that. By who? You announced the hang out, too. Okay, right. Just don’t, uh, google plus does not automatically announced the fact that you’re hanging out. You could do that, and then you can have a circle of board members, and you can announce a hangout to your circle board members, and it doesn’t have to be spontaneous. You know, you could schedule it, announce it, tell people that you’re going to have it, and then on then, when you bring it online, announce it again, just to remind them, okay, so so not necessarily spontaneous, right? You could do it in advance. Okay, so if you had a hang out with all the people in your dear close friends circle, that would, i would just be hanging out with myself. I was just like me looking in the mirror. It would be me and you, tony that’s it. Okay, dahna. Let’s, see, and we have just about a minute before a break. How do you what’s the best way to promote your your new google plus? Sorry, i keep saying that your new google page at the moment, probably at the same way that you would promote any other page or function that you have you posted in your newsletters, you send it out on facebook or on twitter and announce it the same way that you would announce anything else. It’s, just another venue at this point. Okay, all right, i’m with scott koegler he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news. We’re talking about the goods on google. Plus pages were going to take a break for some messages, and then we return. We’ll start talking with scott about some of maybe you can measure and use some of the google analytics around your new google page, so stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. Oppcoll this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective be happier and make more money. Improving communications. That’s the dahna i’m christine cronin, president of n y charities dot orc. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back, scott koegler and i are talking about the goods on google, plus pages got their google analytics is so rich in measurement. So is that connected at all to the google pages? Come, we evaluate your page? Yeah, it’s built in on dh it’s it’s a nice thing because pretty much any website now has has google analytics kind of baked into it, so people are already accustomed to looking at analytics and understanding how how google accumulates and reports that information. So the fact that the pages are also included in your analytics accounts, it is just it’s great and it’s a it’s, a natural kind of flow in the in addition to what google plans on doing, and i think it’s going to go farther, i think any of the components that google already produces in any of its properties is bound to find its way onto google plus, so if someone plus ones your page, then you can learn about who those people are that are doing it in the aggregate, like what their interests are is that is that kind of is that the kind of data that a non-profit could enjoy using and a good question. I’m not sure how deeply into the specifics the analytics gets, and there are privacy issues, of course. Facebook, it’s, it’s well known that you khun subscribed the facebook and the people that you like can either send messages to you automatically by way of the attributes that the things that you like, but i’m not sure whether google is going to get to the point where they’ll say, hey, tony liked you in that that you could get out of your circles, but in terms of analytics, i think it’s kind of more broad in terms of numbers and times and events and why and when rather than who? Okay, okay, would we be expecting less spam on on because of google pages or because of the because of the this automatic, unlike ing, i guess, or i’m not sure how to say it, but un connecting when when i disconnect. So is that going to you think lied to their being less spam, fewer messages that that i don’t want? I would think so. I think that google has a plan tto make this a more riel and more direct connection between brands and their supporters that’s kind of the overall mantra that i’ve repeated many times they want to make this a real connection between the people that like or support a particular brand and the brand itself, so that can be more engaged and they use the word engaged quite a bit. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but i’m sure they will tell us how they’re going to enable that, so we’re likely to see then fewer plus ones on a google page. Then we see there are then we have likes on a facebook page, but the connection is closer. Aye, that’s the plan yes, with connection should be closer again. I’m not sure how that how that will work out what the plan is to do that, that that that is where they’re going with. Okay, where would a non-profit goto to create a google page? Where’d you even get started with that? The best? The first thing to do is to create a google plus account, which means creating google plus or google profile, so you have to start with a with a personal page, and at that point you can then create a a little plus page. And that, i believe, is right on the right on your google plus account. In fact, i think it said, just close mine over on the right hand side. Yep, there it is, toward the bottom of page create a google plus page. Okay, so simply click that and off you go. Okay, so you started on your own personal google plus pages that right? And then down in the lower right you’re saying is where it says create an organization page or something like that, right? I looked at my stream, so the stream of it is my personal google plus account. And the beginning point of all this is the google needs to know that you are actually a real person and that’s why they want their profile once you validated yourself, then you’ve got the ability to create a google post page, which you could do for an entity for a company for a non-profit for a group of what okay, you represent and to create that google plus account to prove that your identity you have to have a valid email address, right? Yes, correct. Is that that’s how they know that you’re a real person? Cause they’re going to confirm exactly. Okay, got anything else you want to leave us with? About google pages? I would say jump in early and get something going. And there’s no, no downside to it. And it really. I set one up. It took me about ten minutes. Very simple to do, of course, it’s possible to get very, very complex. Look at some of the examples that are up there bmw and mercedes, coca cola. And there are literally thousands of this point, but they could be essentially full websites in and of themselves, but i would say, start out, get going and get prepared. Excellent. Thank you very much. Scott koegler my dear close friend in my dear close friend, circle on google, google plus is also just incidentally, i mean that’s the most important thing. But incidentally, he’s, the editor of non-profit technology news which you’ll find it n p tech news. Dot com and scott will have you back. Of course, next month. I think it’s only have a good one. Thank you very much. Happy thanksgiving to you too. Thank you. Next week, because of thanksgiving, there won’t be a show, but i hope you’ll be celebrating the things that you have to be thankful for, and we all have many of those and take time to do that, and i really hope you don’t go shopping on thanksgiving day. I just think that’s atrocious, that shopping will be available on december second. Oh, so we won’t have a show next week, but on december second, friday will be kristin schultz from crescendo interactive and she’s going to share. Schultz is sharing social networking best practices for planned gif ts that’s, kristen schultz from crescendo sharing social networking best practices for planned gif ts and that is based on her research and their interviews with non-profits and are contributing legal team will have something legal to talk about. That is, of course, jean takagi and emily chan from the non-profit and exempt organizations law firm in san francisco, are regular legal contributors. Keep up with what’s coming up on this show for pizza! Sign up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page you can fill out a very simple form and get the weekly alerts. If you like the show like us on facebook, you can listen to the show live or archive. You’ve been listening, live i archive is on itunes, and you’ll find itunes our page at non-profit radio dot net. Subscribe and listen on the device of your choice at the time of your preference on twitter. You can follow me, you can use the show’s hashtag, use it with impunity that hashtag is non-profit radio, the creative producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is claire meyerhoff, our line producer. Today is janice, the owner of non-profit, the owner of talking alternative broadcasting is sam liebowitz. Our social media is by the excellent and today in the studio, regina walton of organic social media. I hope you’ll be with me on friday, december second, when i’ll be back in the studio at one p, m eastern for tony martignetti non-profit radio, always heard at talking alternative dot com. No, i don’t think you’re getting it. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Thank you, e-giving thinking. Duitz good. Looking to meet mr or mrs right, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as filling as possible? 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