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Nonprofit Radio for October 17, 2014: UX Secrets Revealed & Better Tech RFPs

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Jared Schwartz: UX Secrets Revealed

With Jared Schwartz at NTC
With Jared Schwartz at NTC

User Experience (UX) is all the stuff visitors see on your site and how they navigate through it. What are the secrets to strategy and design so people enjoy engaging with your site and find the content they want? Jared Schwartz is senior consultant at Beaconfire Consulting. (Recorded at the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) 2014.)

 

 

 

Peter Campbell: Better Tech RFPs

Peter CampbellPeter Campbell has strategies to make your software and service requests for proposals smarter, so you build better relationships with vendors and get what you need at the right price. Peter is chief information officer of Legal Services Corporation. (Also recorded at NTC.)

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host and i’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of relapsing polly con dryness if i learned that you had missed today’s show you ex secrets revealed you ex user experience is all the stuff that visitors see on your site and how they navigate through it. What are the secrets to strategy and design so people enjoy engaging with your sight and find the content they want. Jared schwartz is senior consultant at beaconfire consulting and better r f p’s. Peter campbell has strategies to make your software and service requests for proposals or, if he’s smarter, so you build better relationships with vendors and get what you need at the right price. Peter’s, chief information officer for legal services corporation both of those interviews are from auntie si non-profit technology conference on tony’s take two something to tuck away for twenty fifteen, responsive by generosity, siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks here’s. The first ntcdinosaur view with jared schwartz on user experience. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc fourteen. The non-profit technology conference we’re outside, we’re in washington, d c at the marriott wardman park hotel. And with me is jared schwartz he’s, senior consultant at beaconfire consulting, and his workshop topic with the other some other panelists is top five u x rated secrets revealed. Jerry swartz welcome to the show. Thanks that’s. A pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Thank you for taking time on a busy conference day. You ex let’s make sure everybody starts at the at the same level. What is you, x or user experience? What? Music’s? So you exes user experience. So that’s all i’m sorry, i already i already revealed you gave the cat. Yeah. That’s, that’s that’s number one of five. You’ve gotta come with four more secrets. Yes. Oh, you exit is the user experience. And a lot of what that is is a lot of the front and pieces of these web applications. It’s the when the user interacts with the computer. Whether it’s with the website, whether they’re the product of an application, it is the experience that they’re having that is guiding them to achieve a certain goal. Um, and so the goals of you, except to make sure that that is optimized for the user so that they can achieve their goals as quickly and efficiently as possible. And then so there is a lot of what falls under the u ex umbrella, such as user testing, focus groups that there’s a lot of like pieces of u ex butler. The heart of it is making sure that when you want someone to do a thing, they get that done as official as they can. So first thing we need to know is, what do we want people to do? And that could change by a week to week, right? Month to month? Yeah, i mean, so a lot of what you ex starts with this sort of one of the goals and the goals for your application for you is the organization of the company. But then also the users goals were they coming here to accomplish, and that also ties into audiences. So a big part of user experience is who are your users? And so we’re talking about demographic data, but also, you know, a lot about what are they trying to accomplish? What other internet habits? So ah lot of our session, one of the other panelists is talking a lot about users and audience and having empathy for who they are and what they want to do. I’m trying to put yourself sort of in their shoes, they are coming here to do a certain thing. It may not be exactly what you want them to accomplish, but you need to think about what they would do and lead them down, that pathway, what they want to do, but it also has to be coordinated with what you want them to do. Absolutely if you’re in the midst of ah campaign for for gathering emails or a campaign for fund-raising or, you know, whatever, yes, i’m so ah lot of what we do it beaconfire and some of our initial work with our clients is to sort of figure out these audiences and then their goals and your goals and how that thai house that matches up to each other, it doesn’t always jive oneto one sometimes it’s close, sometimes related, but you know, if the goal is is email conversion, you don’t just want it’s not just simple, to put an email sign a page. On your on your home page because they may not be there yet, and they’re not coming to your website yet to give you an e mail address. They’re coming for another reason you wantto figure out what they’re trying to accomplish. I think of what is the pathway that would lead them down the road to okay, they’ve gotten what they’ve wanted the next step would be now how do we lead them to where we want them to go? And so it’s zoho trying a lot of what we always start with his understand your audience, and they’re prioritized them and then understand try to match up your goals with their goals and that’s that’s a really key to making sure that you’re gonna have successful application if you just put your goals first there, you’re not going to get there don’t care. Yeah, so start with them and then try to lead them to where you want them to go. And i think the email conversion is a very good example. Putting on a light box on your home page may not be appropriate because your point people haven’t come for that purpose on lex out of the light box, maybe they’ll stay for what they wanted to achieve, or maybe they won’t. But either way, at least one of you is unsatisfied and that’s you because you bombarded them with the email purpose before they were ready. Essentially, absolutely. And i think you have anything you haven’t sold them. Why also you’ve got to make the case for someone to give it their email address. It means you’re going to be invading their personal space potentially several times a day. You need to make the case for why they want that space invaded. And so, you know, a lot of work just by putting a female sign a box and say join our list great isn’t really going to actually convince somebody that i should do that. I should get more email from you, so it’s make the case with content that you have made the case that the organization who you are, that they see themselves and your community, your community is them, and then when they feel that connection there, then say, join our email list to get daily updates during our email list to get job postings that that is a much telling. Them what they’re going to get that is the benefit to them is much better than just opening up with join our list because that’s just that’s just serving your own purposes and not theirs and our audience is small and midsize non-profit so ninety percent of cases we’re going to talk about the organization’s website you had mentioned aps ahs a possibility, but we’re probably talking about their their their website and that’s most of our clients as well, you know, it’s, a u x there’s a it breeds into, you know, the applications you carry around with you, i mean that the cars you drive, i mean there’s there’s user experience toe actual physical products that chairs you sit in this user experience by but really the most most of our clients are also medium to large non-profits and so they’re mostly it’s mostly, you know, web sites as well some web specific applications, so not just like organizational website by the website that does a thing and then occasionally in tow, like abs or things like that. Okay, now you’re part of the panel was the psychology of users correct and what’s going on literally what’s going on physically in their brains as their coursing through your site. Yes. So, i mean that this is sort of, you know, i do a lot of us work, and then my hobby miree of interest is a lot of this pop psychology and okay, you know what is making the web sites are the most successful. So successful. Why are people going there? You know, tens twenties, hundreds of times a day? What are they tapping into the underlying human psychology? You know what? What is firing off the dopamine? And you’re their brain that says, i need to go here. I’m getting a pleasure, but results. I’m gonna go there again and again and again and again. How do you hook them? How do you keep them coming back? What are the triggers that are being fired off on them now? Some of my my pat, my peace talks about there’s. An external internal triggers there’s. Probably a lot at this conference about external triggers. So that’s getting an email, that’s getting a text message, something saying go to my website internal trigger is instinctively on their own. They make a decision to do that. So an example. Would be facebook photo sharing when you take when you see, you know this amazing celebrity walking down the street, you take a picture of it. No one said facebook doesn’t say to you, go share that photo here. They don’t remind you you instinctively know to do that. The goal is to form a habit isto have the minimal amount of neurological activity required to get there and so it’s to try to find, you know organisms are not going to be facebook, but what is what is the thing that when someone wants to do something or find something they instinctively know to go to you and so try to identify what those internal triggers are because that’s mean that that’s what drives massive amounts of traffic? And how did you get get interesting that you said that you said it’s a hobby? I get into the psychology of it. So i mean, i’ve been doing, you know, sort of web application development for the older than i look from the beginning, the beginning of the internet and he looks about for listening. She looks about thirty a lot to be forty and northern. Thirty. Okay, so and i’ve been doing this for about twenty years, and i just, you know, it always sort of fascinated me, you know? Why does someone do what they do? Why are these things so successful? There’s millions and millions of web site, you know, i think i heard that the top thirty websites account falik ninety some ninety five percent of traffic and it’s insane, the food that that dominate the space. And so what are they doing differently? And you could start to see the patterns of the understanding of their words and it’s, not reward wasn’t giving you a t shirt or a sticker it’s the rewards of, like, stroking your ego, making you recognize the community. This, like, the sense of the hunt is when i talk about so, like reddit and countries that you want to keep looking for, what may be that you know, that next great things going to be on the next page, i can’t leave, i got five more things, and so they’re all tapping into this, like, you know, that this hundreds and fifty tens of thousands of years of human psychology and leveraging that, you know, make their website successful interesting. Okay, so you you mentioned dopamine, there are there are physical changes happening in our brain as we’re going through. Ah, website? Yeah, and then this actually was just that south by southwest. And i saw a really fascinating panel on don’t know the name i can’t without my head. Unfortunately, it was fantastic. I love to give him credit, but it was on the neural, the neurological effects that happened on the successful websites on so they were actually, like, scanning people’s brains they were interacting with. And it was really fascinating to see that, like, its firing off the same, like pleasure centers. When you, for example, what would you do? Something good. And you want to share that? And then people like it. And so having someone like that, you did something good. Just fires off the same pleasure center as anna’s. Mother sex? Yeah, i mean, it’s, that sense of you know you. Yes. You want to do good things that you wanna be altruistic? Yes. You want to have an interesting life but it’s even more exciting when somebody you know acknowledges that likes it back to you. And so that’s include that’s. Why, facebook? Tapped into that very early and so that’s why the like button is so ubiquitous tower, what part of what it actually does that that reward is, you know, is this it is a super powerful thing in your brain that you don’t even know is happening, but it’s, you know, it keeps coming back because you want more, but you want more of it. You want more of it? I’ve read research that takes the talk about the first step that about how pleasure centers are activated when you do something positive and what i was reading about was making donation when you, uh, you know, the science was someone who makes it makes it a donation versus someone who doesn’t, and the pleasure centers are activated, but you’re going a step further and research that shows that when someone likes yes and and acknowledges and approves of your having done something beneficial, it is even more activity. And i think that greater pleasure and i think you see, a lot of that was like the peer-to-peer fund-raising stuff it’s spreading now because you can give ten dollars organization, you feel good about it, but once you do that, now you’re invested and it feels even better to get someone else to give arms, it feels even better toe, like have them know you care enough that you’re going to get them roped in. So i think that’s why a lot of peer-to-peer stuff that’s, why they’re trying to know share when you make this donation because they know that, like, you know, that’s, that’s a human ego thing that people want, they want to feel like they’re part of the cause and bigger than just a donor. I feel it, i think, just dahna simpler level when i find an article that i’ve read that i think someone else is going to like that. So i just forwarded to them from the time sight or send them the u r l n e mail and then i get something back says oh, yes, thanks. That was pretty cool, you know? Yeah, i was right. The person did like i liked it and they like to to feel good and is the opposite feeling that that sense when you send it out and nothing happens, you know, like that they think is that sense of like what i thought? For sure, you’d validate my my mind knowledge of who you are, my mother. I least deserve acknowledgment. At least say thank you, even if you didn’t think, well, just something okay? You’re listening to the talking alternative network. This’s. The same way we’re hosting part of my french new york city guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia, from paris to keep back french is that common language? Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it comes desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them. Share this story. Join us, part of my french new york city. Every monday from one to two p, m. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping countries. People be better business people. Dahna talking. Hyre dahna okay, so let’s, let’s, look on the flip side, what happens when we’re in a site and we’re not finding what we want. You made the point that we come with with with our own goals in our own purpose, to go to a site, what what do we feel when when that frustration of cars and we’re not getting what we want, what were therefore, i think the first thing you’ll see is you’ll see luke users leave. I mean, you know, the internet loads so fast, there’s so many other options out there, you know, data analytics is a piece of you x as well, and i’m looking at like, the simplest thing is bounce rates, that is an example of you think they care because you’re in that organization, you deal with this every day, but if what they’re saying they don’t care about they’re going to bounce rate is how fast how many users leave the first pay, but about bounce rate is the percentage of people who, like, come to a page and then lead it, they don’t go anywhere else on so that so that, you know, they think that you’re gonna have the answer for them. They go there. You don’t have what they want. Boom! There were only one page deep there, one hand, even after one, too. Yeah, and that that is a really easy way to identify. Are you giving users pathways? Are they seeing themselves in your sight? Are they connecting with your brand at all? If your bouncers every high ah, what’s jai, is it possible to generalize what i hate putting numbers on things that are because it always depends, like in a one organizations bounce cerini complete different than another it’s i would you know, i would say, look at trends. So if you’re seeing that you know you’re going worse, they’re getting better. A lot of us is testing and so it’s to keep trying to you always want to try and try and try and then look at what the data’s telling you. And so if you’re making adjustments and the bouncer is going down, you’re doing good things. If you’ve if you’ve taken something off of your home page, if you redesigned it in a way that’s what you think it works and you see that change, i would look at trends trying. To always say, like, this is good, this is bad, you know, it is i find that sometimes unfairly for example, like open rate supplies. That’s what a good open percentage it depends on, you know, if you’re talking about a list it’s a small list of highly cultivated people or one hundred thousand like random strangers you just bought, you know, so it’s really hard to say what affair basically, okay, trends trends are valuable, too, and and now bounce treyz something that users confined in google analytics. It’s, one of the top analytics applied to your your your page, your sight, your sight and there there’s that’s when, like the first top things you can see, it’s very easy to find google analytics is very rich, very deep. They just come out with universal analytics, which takes it even richer and deeper. I’m very fortunate that i understand that at an emotional level i can kind of interpret with the number someone’s telling me the numbers say, and i work with people who understand this stuff in a very strong, deep technical levels, you know, i’m fortunate that this that i consent, that we have people who look at the data, you know, process that data because their data analysts and then it’s my job. Treyz okay, now that they’ve process that for me, like what’s the driving reasons of these, okay, but even though, you know, people were sort of amateur, google analytics bounced rates, the ones that know google smart, the ones they put upon that first page view that summary page, they know what they’re doing, but we’ll give you good answers. Okay, well, let’s, let’s see if there’s some advice that we can leave non-profits with we have ten minutes to stop, we got plenty time. Um, based on from your perspective, from the cycle of psychological perspective, what would you like to see? Non-profits maybe doing better? Smarter? I think one of the things that they tend to forget is that their users and themselves are different, that it’s very hard, you know, i worked non-profit space for a long, long time, it’s very hard not to step back from that bubble, right? I mean, you’re causes your there, you work for these organizations because you’re insanely passionate for them, that is your job. Everybody you work with is interested in it when you have this great idea for a campaign, of course, everybody would want to do it because you’re in that. And so i think the hardest thing to do is kind of step back and say, not me, but somebody who is a squishy middle, someone who not the converted, not the staff, somebody who we want to make the case for they’re not there yet, and a cz much as possible when you’re designing your sights. When you’re thinking of your imagery and what your imagery is saying, i think i see all the time. So taking advice, i see a lot of organization websites have large, beautiful imagery now, but they will put in that image whatever the latest news is and don’t realize that image is connecting your brand more than anything else. And so did you really think about what your imagery is saying thing with your confidence saying not to the converted, but to that people who you want to get to your so you have to take that that perspective of the person who’s? Not, as you said, not yet converted. Step outside your day today dafs site excitement of your work how do you get somebody as excited as you are because i have been part of lots of campaigns when i’ve been working non-profit space where we’re like this is going to explode, of course, who wouldn’t want to, like, share this on with all their social media friends i personally do, and then it doesn’t really explode, and i think a lot of that is because we just have you just not well, you’re not coming from their perspective, and so you need to think, okay, they’re not here yet. What do they want? How can i lead them to the point when then they’re fourth, fifth, sixth views visit now? They really care. But those first few visits or the is that making break time and they’re they’re not where you are. You need to really remind remember remember that? Okay. Is it important to know what sights are? Ah, referring to your to your own site? Yeah, i mean, where people are coming from there. I mean, i think that’s that’s always important to look at that. The number one thing to remember is google’s. Probably number one, bob. A lot of organizations spend time trying to put everything. Possible onto their home page because they think that’s how people are getting to their content because maybe that’s how they are, but truthfully, most people are coming to your content as an internal visitor. If you go to look up, you know, blue cheese, you’re going go to google type blue cheese, you’re not going to go to the cheese foundation and see if they have a navigation. It takes you to cheese colored block. Yeah, so i’m looking away. Other organizations where people come from is important. I think the most number one to remember is it’s probably google people on your home page come in because they want to know who you are so that’s probably a brand thing, but that most uses air hitting you first at an internal page and so that that email sign up just shouldn’t be on the home page. If there’s, that pathway should be accessible anywhere. People get to your content because they’re not going home page first, they’re not going to your navigation likely they’re doing a google search and coming into an internal piece of content, and so you still need to make that conversion case even three. Four levels down your cs. Okay. Excellent. Yeah, very good point people. Not they’re not doing it the way top down. They’re coming in the middle somewhere. That doesn’t know there’s a lot of what we have. Several u ex folks. There’s always big debates about navigation, the value of navigation. I’m on the stage. So i get to like you say my opinion versus the person i work with who tend to disagree. I think navigation is least second third tier navigation is this is somewhat overvalued. You know, i think taxonomy, i think having smart tags. I think having your content search engine optimize is really the best way to get content. And not just necessarily, like, do you have to think about things and strict categories of first level, second level, third level? Because people just don’t navigate the web that way anymore. That it’s it’s not that hub and spoke structure. Yes, or did they just jump around from from thing to thing? What more? What more can we say about the psychology? Other advice? Mom it’s. The other advice about the psychology. So, you know, understanding the rewards is a huge one. The other is that there’s a person and bj fog who i’ve read a fair amount of honest what’s called bogey bogey has the fog model and the but you can find online type in five model the core of it is that when the trigger goes off another internal external, the reward has to outweigh the effort to get there very right simple idea, but that’s that’s the core of successful websites, and so that rewarded, whether it’s a internal reward, whether it’s a hyre you know, i want to find things wherever that might be the level of effort they have to take to meet that reward. They’re going to make, like internal mental calibration essentially a cost benefit analysis essentially cost benefit analysis, and so that that level of effort has to be usually fairly frictionless because that reward is probably not as high as you think it is. So too, you know, to to keep that you try to make that as frequent as possible try to get people invested a lot of times. Why, you’ll see, you know, the most people don’t leave facebook for google plus was because they were heavily invested, their data was there their friends were there. So if you get people invested, it makes it easier for them to just to re engage because they’ve been through experience. They have already signed up. They have your data. So i think trying to kind of always balance that reward effort is really that’s. That’s that’s the challenge. What if we have to justify spending time and money on on our user experience? If we feel it’s lackluster and, uh, but we have to go to an executive director, maybe even to a board to justify this. We were sort of talking around the benefits, but let’s, i think that would make them explicit. Yeah, man, that that’s a fantastic question. Because one of the things that that comes up a lot, that is my best, you know, you’re great at it. We’re twenty minutes in and it’s the first good question. Okay. Ah, one of things that gets cut from a lot of our clients budgets is testing and user experience and things like that and it’s. Not because they don’t value it. It’s. Because it’s not as tangible, right? You have to have a design. The site has to be developed. It has. To function and so when they’re you know, non-profits have about budget restraint constraints, and so they do tend to say, okay, we’re not gonna have those audience focus groups, we’re not going to bring in users to test our wireframes to valley that we’ve done is right because we can still build it, it’ll still maybe be pretty little still, but we think it’s going to be and i can get by on less money, and so that is always a challenge. I think you will never regret spending money tohave a actual audience, our users actually interacting with your sight structure, interacting with your of the wireframes you set ups interacting with your prototype, giving you information ahead of time, you will never regret that information. I’ve never been a time when someone said that was useless like you always lie learned something when you actually get out of your own space and put in the hands of users back-up so it’s super super important and it often gets cut and it’s a challenge. I think one of the things is to try to make the case for, you know, when you’re inside under an organization that this way. We want this to be successful, that with with our users we need to hear from them. It also sometimes helps sell with the internal politics one why did you design it this way? Why did you put it here? If you have users informing that it gives you a little bit of protection, you can say we put it there because users are finding told us that’s where it goes were designed in this way because users test said that when we did the blue button, it didn’t perform as well as the red button. So back-up it’s not only hugely successful tow the product being a success. It’s hugely important that provoc buy-in success. It’s also can help with when it comes time to defend the decisions that you’ve made. It’s not because it’s just the three of you in a room who’s on the core team deciding this it’s because this is what our users have told us. So i it’s it’s a it’s. A big challenge because you see it, it does all it’s. One of the first things to go. Well, you know, we could probably get away without this user tests. We probably don’t have to bring in user focus groups. We know the answers ourselves and it’s, always surprising, there’s, a really interesting study where they asked people to sort of guess how many jelly beans are in a jar and, like a hundred people guessed, and no one got any closer than the average of everybody’s guesses. All right, nobody got any closer than the average ok, even though there was wildly low gas isn’t some wildly high guesses. The hearing from the larger community actually gave the smartest answer than even the expert jellybean kapin guests, so nobody did better than the average. So as much as you try to think like that, we could just get this exactly right on our own idea. It’s, you’re always going to do better to hear from a larger perspective, to hear from thoughts outside of your own it’s super valuable, okay, dahna. I want to ah admonish you live it on the show. We have jargon jail okay now, just for people who may not know what a wireframe is. Yeah, it was a few minutes ago, but i didn’t want interrupt you. Although used a lot of times i do it threw up, but you were i didn’t feel like interrupting you, but what’s a wireframe just eso a wireframe is in a nutshell, a website design without a design it’s the functional captures the general layout. It captures the functional specifications of what that piece of the website will do and how people do wireframe is very, quite a bit. But i guess you could think of it as if you were going to design a home page you would have at the top that there is a big maybe hero space, and there’ll be a couple sentences that would annotate, saying it is going to do this, it will rotate this way. It’s not designed it’s not actually drawn. It just sort of implies what it’s going to do. And so then then those wireframes go to designers who then design around that aunt? I don’t know we often. Tell our designers that design is not a coloring book, they’re meant to kind of interpret this, but it’s just sort of say, this is what the thing is supposed to do in generally how it’s supposed to look, and then it also feeds over to the developers. You, seo when i see this email sign up thing here that the wireframe tells them well, it means that when they sign up it’s going to put them into this also database, for example, so it’s the wireframe is these step before you start designing and before you developing is just a way to capture those requirements. Okay, put me in jail. That’s okay? You’re out to make prohibition comes easily. That’s okay, um, or parole should say welcomes you were in jail on parole comes after, um, let’s say, all right, so one, one final thing we can leave people with just throw to you, uh, about about user experience, you know? So i guess i’m one final thing about user experience. I would say, you know, we’re doing an exercise at the end of our session and it’s an audience exercise and the reason i want to do that. Is with a hammer home that think about who you’re trying to do this for. So the exercise that we’re going to do, i think it is a good example where we’re taking a really bad donation page so that, you know, we have one of our folks in our teams like this on the worst possible nation page, and then we’re going to tell the team, break up in small groups and say one of you is the audience the rest of you take five minutes interview that audience member about when they’ve had a good donation experience and who they are and what they’re trying to accomplish and then take notes on that, and then they’re going to be asked to then redesigned this with that audience member in mind takes five, ten minutes to do you know, i think it’s a really good, easy exercise, so when you’re saying, like, wow, this we want to do this thing, do it, and then think of an audience person have somebody played that role for five minutes and then redo it for that person you’ll make, you know, some nice improvement. So it’s a really low hanging way to kind of like just keep tweaking things for for different your audience and a way to see that adopt that outside perspective that we talked about earlier on we do that’s no, we’re consulting firm, we do that. We helped lead clients through that, but you can certainly do-it-yourself think any any organization can say, you know what? We were built this thing. Now we’re going to think of who’s going to visit there. John, you can play the role that person tell us about this from your perspective, and now we’ll tweak it and it’ll get a little bit better. Excellent. Thanks very much. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having my pleasure. Jarod schwartz is a senior consultant with beaconfire consultant. And thank you for being with tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of non-profit technology conference generosity. Siri’s you know them? They host five k runs and walks. You probably. I’m guessing can’t generate enough runners to host your own event. And then, if you did, you’d have to deal with the permitting and the medals and the sound system and the starting finish line and the porta potties. That’s what generosity siri’s does they do? Porta potties? And all the other things that are involved in multi charity runs and walks where there are hundreds of people because each charity brings the participants that they can, and together they have hundreds talk to dave lind he’s the ceo, about becoming one of their charity partners. They have events in new jersey, miami, new york city and philadelphia coming up. Tell dave you’re from non-profit radio, please let him know that he’s a seven one, eight, five o six, nine triple seven or generosity siri’s dot com can you start planned e-giving in twenty fifteen? I know you’re in fourth quarter fund-raising right now, it’s not any more detailed then just something to tuck away in the back of your mind for next year. Planned giving is not complicated. You do not need special expertise. I’ll have more to say about it later, but that’s all for now. Just tuck it away for next year and that is tony’s. Take two for friday, seventeenth of october forty first show of this year here’s my interview with peter campbell from non-profit technology conference on better requests for proposals. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the non-profit technology. Conference ntc two thousand fourteen the hashtag is fourteen and tc we’re at the marriott hotel and wardman park washington d c my guest now is peter campbell. He is chief information officer for legal services corporation. Peter welcome, good to be here. It’s a pleasure. Thank you on your ah workshop topic is requests for proposals making our of piecework for non-profits and vendors. Peter campbell, what is the problem with our f p’s that non-profits do no, my take is so rps request proposals um, commonly used by organizations to gouge whether a vendor is going to be able to do their projects for them or whether the software they’re buying is going to meet their needs. But i don’t think it’s something that’s well understood non-profits i don’t think there are a lot of resource is for understanding how to write our appease, how to do that well, and as a result of that, a lot of the vendors in the sector really hate them to the point where i’ve sent our if he’s out to vendors who have refused to even open them, much less response. So part of the problem is non-profits i’m not going. To be getting the the quality and volume of of replies that they could be getting to their art piece because they’re writing them in a bad way. Well, he let me see how i see the issue say you need a new website, your non-profit you need your website um, how much that cost you so it cost fifteen thousand should it cost seventy five thousand? It cost one hundred fifty and if you spend one hundred fifty, are you getting a much better website than you would for fifteen or seventy five? And i think today the answer is you have no idea you could pay one hundred fifty and get a much worse website than me when you could get from somebody who’s very smart and doesn’t charge a lot. Um, so the non-profits goal is to gouge who should i hired to do this job for me, who will give me the most value for my money? And if you’re buying, say, a software system something that’s really well defined before you buy it, you can ask very tactical questions, get them answered that’s fine you khun do a request proposal has a list of i need this feature? I need this functionality i need to integrate with this. Get a good answer, but if you’re doing a website or you’re doing a sales force implementation or you’re doing a project that is much more open ended, um, using the form of our a p that you would use to buy a product doesn’t work very well. And i think what happens often this people use that form and send it to a consultant say beaconfire you were talking to earlier? Yeah, and the chances going into a web project that you know exactly how many hours it’s going to take to do that project and what type of effort’s going to be needed are very, very slim, right? So my argument is that our of peas are unimportant thing because when you go into a relationship with a vendor to do an expensive project, we’re talking one hundred thousand for an organ, it maybe makes three million, you know, bilich revenue. Um, you want to make a good investment in that relationship, you know, you don’t as someone to marry you on the first date, you get to know them first, you got to know. What? You’re compatible. You get to know if your needs are going to be mutually met, that type of thing. So we need to be more creative about how we do our fees in order to ensure that, and i think one of the problems is the non-profit i want the rp to tell them exactly how much they’re going to have to pay that’s what they’re focused on. Yeah, cause we need a new website, we need fifteen thousand pages. We need this color scheme. How much will you charge us to do that? And i think that that’s a question you really can’t ask and shouldn’t be asking. So when i do an r p for something like that, i recently won recently did one for a sales force ghisolf the r p est a few basic things i want to know if the vendors i was sending it to had the expertise i needed for my project, i had some particular aspects of my project that one vendor might do better than another say, integrating with databases in my organization, so i ask questions about that and asked him to give examples case studies when they done before, if they can send me pictures, website links and then i also have section, what are your standard rates for each role of consultant that would work? What i didn’t ask is how much will this project cost? I didn’t it’s a multi year project, i have no idea, and i just didn’t think that was fair question what i i was looking for and what i think i got was a vendor that had the expertise needed do my project that i felt my staff and i had a good report with that we’d be able to work well with, um and a good relationship and through the reference checks, assurances that they were very sensitive to non-profit budget needs that they could stretch the project out longer if the money wasn’t coming in to pay the bills, that type of thing. Do i know what the project’s gonna cost when it’s all done? I don’t do i know that this vendor is going to work with me? I’m not going to get in financial trouble on this project. I’m pretty reassured, you’re confident so my pushes the ar fi sessions say r f peace can be good. But we’re kind of being cruel to the vendors and frustrating the life out of andrews by sending them questions that can’t be answered. Ok, all right, so do we need to spend more time in planning on r f p? I think a lot of non-profits that’s sort of the mind set is, well, we need a vendor, and this is going to be a sizable project for us. Let’s, do an r f p, right and then and okay, it’s going to fall within your department. So you put together the questions we need to do more than we need better planning around the rof pieces that were part of the problem. So the r p is a piece of the process of evaluating purchasing a system. If you’re talking about software that needs to be in consultants and that type of project, the web sales for us, who are the, you know, fund-raising database of things that highly customized. Project that you’re going to need that help on there are few is a piece of it. Any organization going into a project like that should understand their business needs. Our sales were surprising. For example, before we’re doing the sales worse project, we’ve hired business process consultant’s help us fully understand what we’re doing today before we start trying to do it better. So so it is a piece of that process, and again, the rp we think about the rv is being the session a bunch of questions that we weren’t asked avenger, but just as important as part of the therapy that explains to the vendor what we’re trying to accomplish so that we’re helping the vendor understand the depth of the project and the scope of the project. You’re going to get better answers back. Yeah, it’s zoho learning process both ways. It’s a two way into yeah, okay, i think, yeah, i think that perspective is not really seen. Basically we ask questions, you come back and answer, and and the questions are not really that informative about what we’re trying to do. Yeah, this is really very timely, actually, for may i do play. Into giving fund-raising consulting. And just last night, when i got back to my room at the hotel, i had an email from someone who had been referred to me, and she asked me to give her a price quote for creating a plant giving program for our organization and i and i don’t really know about your organization. She said that, you know, a small number should get to give a number of donors, but i have no idea how they break down in terms of age. I don’t know whether they’ve ever attempted plans giving in the past and maybe it’s been unsuccessful or this is the first venture. What are their goals were planned e-giving of how deep do they want to go? Is this gonna have the most sophisticated programs? And or is it just gonna be maybe charitable bequests? Is that all we’re going to start? Stop there. So what i sent back was, can we plan a call before i give you a range and that’s actually what you said i need i need a range of costs. Teo, give to my board. I said, well, it’s kind of premature. I don’t don’t know. Enough about the organization, and so i need to learn more as the vendor and that’s what you’re suggesting? Yes. So i will say as the client and, you know, i work for a quasi government organization, and we have very appropriately bureaucratic process follow-up just explained legal services corporation plays what? Rolling? Oh, yes, i have a legal service corporation. We are the federally created five a onesie three non-profit that allocates federal funding to legal aid programs across the country. Ok, our tagline is america’s partner fecal justice, and i think people know legal aid, you know, legal aid in their community and in their cities. People know exactly what people get confused about is because we have so many cop shows telling us that everybody has the right to an attorney. They forget that that’s only in criminal cases. So if the bank is foreclosing on your home or you’re in a domestic abuse situation or children or being threatened, take it away and you can’t afford an attorney we’re trying to address that. Those are all civil. Yes is criminal and illegal. That’s what legal aid provides? Yes, legal aid gives the attorney to the people. Who are too poor to afford one? Our funding program has requirements on coffeecake income. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Alright. So legal services corporation is the primary funder of legal aid services throughout the country. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Okay, please. Okay, so on our way to talk about, oh, learning and how i was giving you my example of how i need to learn more about the organization before i could. Yeah, there was a change of prices, but i want to add to that from my if i’m doing an rp process, i want to be very fair process. I don’t want to give one vendor advances another one might not have so i might agree to have a five minute phone call just outlying a little more of our situation, and i’ll have that same conversation with every vendor that i’m including in the process of but i generally don’t want to do the full pledged interview with the vendor until after the r p e r a p is determined which of these people who have responded to the therapy are the ones who really look like they might be a match? Narrow it down and then from there, go to the interviews. Usually, when i’m doing our fee for a large project, all in, you know, include a deadline to ask questions, preferably send those questions by email, and then i’ll send out the questions and answers to every participant in the r p so, again, everybody’s getting the same answer is getting old questions. Asked even nothing worth questions, they particularly asked. Okay, e-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving. E-giving cubine have you ever decided to reinvent yourself? Are you navigating a new life’s journey? Are you an aspiring artist that’s looking for direction? This is kevin, barbara, ll and my new show, coffee talk three point, always your new best friend. Tune in live to hear successful professional artists and their inspiring real life adventures. Mondays at two p m eastern, right here at talking alternative dot com stand. Wait, no this’s, the same way we’re hosting part of my french dinner city guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia, from paris to keep back french is that common language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it comes desires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them. Share this story. Join us, a part of my french new york city. Every monday from one to two p, m. 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. Hey, 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. Hi, this is claire meyerhoff from the plan giving agency. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at tony martignetti non-profit radio. Oppcoll what? What? What specifics can we leave? Give the non-profits around our f p planning. So creation so very important. Assess whether the rv is necessary or not. My take their two things that in general there’s a dollar amount relative to your total revenue that’s going to justify doing the rpg? Determine what? That is really another thing that’s kind of abusive to the vendors is you have a twenty thousand dollar project and the vendor is used to doing fifty one hundred hundred fifty thousand dollar project it’s not worth their time to answer the our feet that’s work they’re doing without getting paid for it. So you want to make sure that there is some value to vendor in taking the risk of the answers are api. They’ll put the hours putting the time means yes. Okay. Okay, so, so being part of this is be respectful to the vendors. And you know, if this is a simply project and not that high dollar, then just go straight to the vendor interviews. Don’t do the rp process. Don’t make him look that hard. Okay, value to it. Okay. Other other advice? What else? What else could we be doing better the when you do have the valid or if he makes sure that you’ve got the right questions and they’re not the ones there, you know, and just the right ones. I think there is if you go look for examples of our apiece on the web, you get one’s written by very large companies that are sixty pages long. I think in a lot of our cases with the work that we’re doing this non-profits we don’t have to write sixty page long are appease, we can keep the questionnaire is shortened just what they need to be. I’ve done our peace for large dollar projects, but they’ve really only been one or two page question because because that told me what i needed to know to move forward well, let’s, explore this a little more what other advice to have around questions that don’t really belong that you think, are there often that you see often? Well, again, i think comes too. You wantto ask what you know, not ask what you don’t know so again in that kind of web, our fee, you know? All right? Or let me even back off again with myself feeling example, i didn’t ask every vendor if their sails for certified i didn’t ask if they, you know, do you know how to do this? That or the other detailed thing in sales for us? I asked broader questions for hyre level skills and ask for examples again because, you know, i didn’t want just putting questions for the sake of having questions if the vendor is on the sale, i found all these vendors through sales force af exchange, they’re certified yeah, okay, yeah, anything that i didn’t need to ask. I didn’t ask so again, focus the questions generally you could assume if you’re picking the vendors were going to send the rp two, is supposed to just posting rp publicly and both are valid ways to go. But, you know, you really could make some assumptions that they’re going to have this that or the other thing and not necessarily make them answer questions on necessary. I do like to ask questions like particularly if i’m going for some kind of there’s a sport contract following its avenger than to rely on past the initial install what? The rate of turnover is the questions like that. So you, khun gouge the stability of the company. There are different types of r f peace. Yes. Okay, let’s, talk about some of different types. What are they, um how do you categorize? Ok, so i work in technology, and i see two general types. One is for product ones for services to a very different and, you know, again with the products i think you want to ask. Actually ask a lot of questions on day one of the reasons you want to do that. You’re looking for a new phone system. It’s very important to you. They’d have certain types of conference calling functionality. Or maybe it does calls center. You know, there are things that your particular looking for for your organization. So you ask every one of those questions. Do it in a way that simple. The answer that they can check a box or, you know, just say yes. No, um, you know, again that’s the way you be nice with a lot of questions, everything they demolish, everything doesn’t have to be a narrow exactly. And then once you decide on the vendor include the r f p response as an amendment to the contract so they’re accountable for what they said their system could do in the ar fi. O interesting. Okay, that sounds like that’s very good advice. Other other something else and different tight around different types is just product versus services bilich anything else that you want to leave people with around labbate i’m kind of okay, okay, um, what if? Well, i guess let’s get to what the ultimate benefit of all of this is if you have smarter or f p’s, we’re going toe is going to be hiring the better the better providers. Well, i mean that, you know, the goal is for the non-profit to get the return on investment on, you know, we’re spending a lot of money on this project that’s why we’re doing the therapy in the first place. We want to make sure that when it’s all said and done, we haven’t wasted that money, the two risks icy or one that you make a big investment in my case in technology, and then that technology is rolled out in such a way that it’s not useful to people it’s not used you’ve made the big investment. You haven’t gotten the functionary that you were seeking that’s one problem the other night where we see is that we haven’t really picked the right vendor. The project has become a money pit that we’re now thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds thousands over what we wanted to pay software evaluation for major systems for your new fund-raising system for, you know, your new website something that is a big investment for the organization in a very important project provoc can’t can’t be decided on by one or two people in a room somewhere e i mean project’s go much better if more people are involved at the start of them in the evaluation in determining the needs and entering what’s important product demos are great opportunities to educate staff about what the software could do for them because most people go into a software project thinking, i know what i like in my current product. Does the new product do the same things? But the question really should be, how could this new product give me more capabilities? Mohr strategic possibilities and my existing software did and going to the demos and seeing you know what the president is going to show, you can spark the imagination. Okay, having this many people in that room as possible. Okay, now your program is an hour and a half, so i know we haven’t exhausted this. What more can we? I mean, your your workshop is going to be so what more can you can you share? I’m leaving it open to you. What more can you tell us that we haven’t talked about my pushed any anti seizure shin is to do about food four, five minutes worth of presentation, so you’re right. I have more than this, okay? And then open up for a good discussion and in this case, because we’ve got vendors versus staff and it’s a controversial topic, i’m hoping for some violence. You are? Yeah, we’ll see. Last year i did one on project planning. I’m agile versus waterfall, too. Computing project management philosophy’s i was hoping that we’d have some, you know, excitement in the room. But no, everybody agreed with me that there’s time for one in time for a male. We’ll see. It wasn’t it wasn’t. It didn’t turn out to be his. Provocative as he would have liked. So maybe, well, maybe start out by moving all the consultants to one side of the room in the staff to the other. Okay. And then looking throw things or something. Okay, well, let’s, leave it there then. Peter campbell is chief information officer for legal services corporation on dh. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc the non-profit technology conference. Thanks so much for being with us, thanks to everybody at the non-profit technology conference and there hosts the non-profit technology network and ten next week, an interview or two from fund-raising day that’s the one day conference in new york city in june, where i got a whole bunch of speaker interviews, i have one or two of those. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com generosity. Siri’s they sponsor non-profit radio generosity siri’s dot com or seven one eight five o six. Nine triple seven our creative producer is clear miree off. Sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell, social marketing and the road producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Our music. This music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping countries. People be better business people. Buy-in have you ever decided to reinvent yourself? Are you navigating a new life’s journey? Are you an aspiring artist that’s looking for direction? This is kevin, barbara, ll and my new show, coffee talk three point oh, is your new best friend. Tune in live to hear successful professional artist and their inspiring real life adventures. Mondays at two p m eastern, right here at talking alternative dot com stand wait. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. I’m the aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent fund-raising board relations, social media, my guests and i cover everything that small and midsize shops struggle with. If you have big dreams and a small budget, you have a home at tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern at talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Napor

Nonprofit Radio Knowledge Base Inauguration: Branding

 

I’m kicking off the Nonprofit Radio Knowledge Base:

Sarah Durham is principal and founder of Big Duck, communications consultants for nonprofits. People need to know you before you can ask them for money. What is brandraising and how does it pave the road to fundraising? (Nonprofit Radio for 12/6/13)
safdadf
Nadia Tuma is a brand innovation strategist with clark | mcdowall. Your brand goes much deeper than logo and tagline. What’s the process to discover your brand strategy? Once you’ve found it, how do you manage it? Nadia and I discussed on Nonprofit Radio, 3/26/13.
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Lacey Kruger, lead information architect at Blackbaud, and Misty McLaughlin, the company’s principal user experience consultant, have lots of ideas to help you design your online properties for success, so visitors return and supporters stay engaged. (Nonprofit Radio for 2/1/13)

Nonprofit Radio, February 1, 2013: IA and UX: Information Architecture and User Experience & Tech Trends

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Lacey Kruger,  Misty McLaughlin, and me
Lacey Kruger, Misty McLaughlin, and me
Lacey Kruger & Misty McLaughlin: IA & UX: Information Architecture & User Experience

Lacey Kruger, lead information architect at Blackbaud, and Misty McLaughlin, the company’s principal user experience consultant, have lots of ideas to help you design your online properties for success, so visitors return and supporters stay engaged. Recorded at Blackbaud’s bbcon conference last October.

 

 

Scott Koegler
Scott Koegler: Tech Trends

Scott Koegler, our tech contributor and the editor of Nonprofit Technology News, tells how he sees nonprofits using computing to fulfill unique needs; engage through social networks; and customize their own computing.
 
 

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

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If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

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Dahna hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your aptly named host it’s february first twenty thirteen we have the campaign for five hundred stars going on, i want to mention it now mentioned also at tony’s take two if you go to my blogged twenty martignetti dot com, you’ll see the campaign video you’ll see the rationale laid out it is basically to extend the reach of the show so that mohr charities khun benefit as i picked the experts, brains were trying to get one hundred ratings on itunes, and hopefully they’ll be five stars. There’s your five hundred stars campaign, please rate the show in itunes. Oh, i hope you were with me last week. I’d be mortified to learn that you had missed grantwriting revealed iana jane hoexter was with me for the hour, she’s, the author of grantwriting, revealed twenty five experts share their art, science and secrets. We talked about researching relationship building, writing and why you can’t polish a turd this week, i and you ex information architecture er and user experience. Lacey kruger lied information architect at blackbaud and misty mclaughlin the company’s principal user experience consultant have lots of ideas to help you design your online properties for success, so visitors return and supporters stay engaged that was recorded at blackbaud sze be picon conference last october and tech trends. Scott koegler, our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, tells how he sees non-profits using computing to fulfill unique needs, engaged through social networks and customize their own computing. And as i said on tony’s, take two between the guests, the five hundred stars campaign. Right now, i have the audio from my interview at the blackboard conference, and the subject is information architecture and user experience. Here’s that interview. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of pecan twenty twelve. We’re outside washington d c at the gaylord convention center. My guests now are misting maclachlan she’s, principal user experience consultant at blackbaud and lisa kruger. I need information. Architect at blackboard. Ladies. Welcome. Thank you. Like it’s. A pleasure to have you both. Lacey, i have to ask you, what does a lead information architect do for a big company like blackbaud? I work with non-profit clients of all shapes and sizes at two. Really? Follow-up help create a intuitive structure for their content, so organizing the information they present on the website in a way that people that are using the website can understand it. Okay? And that really is sort of the definition of information architecture is this putting content together so that it’s argast to itiveness usable use your friendly all concerned about the user experience, right? It’s a it’s, a blueprint for a non line experience so it’s the structure of the information okay? And you’re topic that we’re talking about is getting your priorities straight. A guide to successful information architecture, misty let’s. See what? What’s the what’s the first idea that you have around information architectural start basic and we’re built for move up. Excellent. All right, so in my presentation, i outlined sort of a top ten list, like any good late night talk show host, anything that you can be doing, things that non-profits typically get wrong on websites, and i would say almost everything on my list more than half of the non-profits that we work with just get it wrong. So the number one thing that that i would say most non-cash labbate fail at and that’s, the most important online for kind of creating an effective experience for bringing people in and getting people to stay on their website, is articulating their mission in a really short, compelling, concise way that’s almost of the level of the vision of the organization. It’s, what is the social problem that we’re trying to address and what is our particular impact or approach on the world? Hyre we responding to that? What charity is doing wrong around around this? Well, typically, organizations have their mission. They know what their mission is. They want a present too much so they either air on the side of your five senses from my annual report, i’m going to put that right on my home page, which no one can read it super text heavy it boggs people down, people just don’t even see it or they just go for a tagline that might be cute, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t really talk about what the organization is doing, how they’re changing the world so particularly a new visitor coming into a website, they just can’t figure out if they’ve landed in the right place. People just lose tons of new traffic because they’re really true. You are the right size. They’re not even shit. Well, they mate, they made sort of think ellery, this organization has something to do with what i’m after, but it doesn’t seem like they’re really kind of making an impact or this isn’t necessarily the cause that i want to learn more about. I want to support so a lot of the time, if somebody’s coming to you through a google search, you don’t clearly articulate your mission. Just don’t get another chance, lacey. Now, in the last last session, i just learned like boxes. Sure, you both know, like, is this appropriate for for a light box on? Why don’t you explain it like boxes? Because everyone listening to this may not have heard the others weinger light boxes. This is totally just a neophyte question is a light box an appropriate place for you’re it’s, ice efficient state after you tell us what? Like boxes. Okay, so light boxes. It’s. Kind of a non obtrusive papa buy-in. It allows the user to see the content behind the papa. So it interrupts the experience with the message that the organization wants to get across. But you can still visualize what? Behind the message. So it’s really easy. Tio, click out of it and dismiss the message. A shaded bok’s ship you could see behind. Exactly. Yeah, my ideal fight question is, is that is that compelling? Is that compelling enough for light box? Having this concise, efficient, i would not suggest it. I think a lightbox a better use for a light box is something that has a specific action. You want users to take something like donate now or you take action or fill out this form or something. And with learning about the organization learning about their mission you really want them to explore. And, you know, click around and read different stories. You have, you know, it’s not just one thing. It’s it’s. A multitude of different inputs experience so it’s okay, if people have to click to find concise mission statement mr was talking about he used you said he wasn’t such a deal. Fight question. Maybe it’s important enough that it rises to the level of light box. But i understand it does well, where should it be? It should be something that comes across in the home page. So one of the things that we do is is way gauge a user’s reaction to the home page. So we show a home page to a user. This is a usability test. We show them the home page, and we say, what adjectives would you use to describe this page? And if those adjectives match your organization’s mission and your messaging, then you’re in good shape. But oftentimes they don’t that’s a basically a focus group for the home it’s. A usable yeah, basically it’s, a usability test, and you can do it online. So it’s, really quick, and you don’t have to get people all in the room together. That sounds a little sophisticated, but a small and midsize charity could probably do something like that. Maybe in a board meeting or a maybe they do host a little event or something like that if they don’t have in other words, if they don’t have the wherewithal to create something online. Is that is this doable in our little round table or something? Sure, another great place, great free place to get input from your users is your social media channels, so you could you could publish, you can publish a test like this for free online, and you can post a link to it on facebook or twitter and then people that are following you there can that conflict to it? Doesn’t your users so it’s a great freeway to recruit people to help? Okay, this deal will come back. You know the number to now. I know you don’t listen, do you know the same number ten? But mr knows it’s a top ten list presley roughly. Yeah. So what’s your throne. Another one. Whether whether it’s number two or not. Well well, never. Alright s o a few others but i think are worth mentioning. Wanna? Storytelling. One of the most important things in an organization could do is both tell and show the impact of its mission. So showing can happen in a couple of different forms, something like an infographic. We’re showing a few key statistics for those kind of analytical thinkers. Those people who are considering making an investment in the organization who want to know what kind of an impact you’re having. Something like an infographic on the home page that says we provide vaccination for fifty percent of the world’s children. That something unicef does powerful number that can visually represent that, in a way. That’s, really compelling talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? 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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 answer. 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 but they also do well, is they do this sort of show and tell of an individual who’s really being helped look at this two year old to receiving vaccinations and how it changed his family’s life, how it’s extended his life span, that kind of story telling us something that non-profits often don’t do. And when lacey and i talked to our guy notations and we actually go out and talk to their audience, the number one thing that people say they want more of universally stories, it’s stories that helped him get a feel for the emotional impact of the organization and make them connect to it. What are some of the best ways of telling these stories? Well, personal profiles are one way, and the organization could really kind of find a few kind of two faces and a few key stories. Another great way is actually to get people whose lives have been transformed to tell their own story and that’s. One of the ways the web is really powerful, that you can really solicit content from people who were personally involved are helped by the organization and get them to tell the story of what? Happened? How their life has changed as a result of it. Lacey telling it in what format? A week. Talking about video or its print or it’s all these or what? Video video is a great option. I think i think it’s important to have the text as well. The text as the substance of the story, but video. You know, if you have some video testimonials, those can be very powerful tools you do need you do need something to draw somebody and to make them want to watch the video. So it’s kind of a lot to ask for somebody to click and watch an entire video about something. But if you give them a preview of it and make them, you know, compelled toe watch it than video would be a great way to tell the full story. Do you have a place around? How long? Something like this should be a way to talk about drink this two or three minutes too? Increase the viewers or fifteen, ten, fifteen minutes? Yeah, i mean, i was short is better. Our attention spans are not what they used to be. So shorter is always better, i think. All right, so another, aside from sharing impact and outcomes, vividly least he wanted to give us another another idea around information architecture. So one idea that that we see a lot of is organizations that structure their content like their organization and structure so they, you know, they organize it by department four in-kind, you know, a different division that the organization works with, and while that makes a lot of sense to the organization and they can each kind of own a section of the website, it doesn’t make sense for their users. You know, i don’t know what your marketing department does versus your fund-raising department and i don’t i don’t really care, i just care kind of what are you doing on the ground? So i think i think, you know, using structures and labels that resonate with your users and not not necessarily your internal stakeholders users need to come first in their perspective, okay, how do we figure out how are users are thinking about our organization? Information should be yours, there’s various ways to research that on there’s some low cost ways. We’ve talked about smaller non-profit so i’m just talking to people. And asking them kind of what they think. There’s a there’s, a research technique called card sorting that you can present teo users a basically a set of cards with kant, the types of content you offer so these stories would be one of them, you know, news articles would be another one, events would be another one, and then you ask them to group things to group the content, according tto what makes sense to them, and then you can use that to really guide this structure of your website. Okay, is that where you want to say about that? Argast there are a ton of using research methods, and i think that this kind of gets to the heart of what user experience is, which is that we really take the approach that an organization has goals they want to achieve online, but the only way they’re going to do that is if they begin from the place of their audience. So they really research and map out and understand who these folks are. Lacey and i often develop personas, which are kind of detailed portrait of the major audience groups that our organization is trying to reach. Online or offline? And try to really understand what it is that’s driving and motivating that particular type of person and that tell me, organize content, we create an experience, okay, let’s, talk about it. This is interesting personas are hypothetical ideal oppcoll what do you know about these? Look what you create about. So we really try and make that a storytelling exercise, which is a demographic information with kind of fundamental it’s also attitudes, motivations, perceptions, behavior, schools, it’s sort of all the reasons that someone might be seeking out your organization, or that you might be trying to get them to be aware of who you are so they can also be aspirational. It doesn’t have to just be people that you’re reaching today, it could be people that you’re really trying to seek, but you failed to be able to connect with well, what’s great about personas is that they give you a framework kind of strategic, audience oriented framework as an organization to get your marketing department on your fund-raising department and your programs, folks all organized around the same type of folks, so that not just your website but you’re offline communications your email. Marketing their social media presence all of that is organized around this theme for audience groups it’s a really good internal tool for building consensus and getting people on the same page. Excellent. And i want to remind listeners that i had a guest. James is your tronvig group his work is around marketing. I talked a lot about building these personas also to some live in unconference i don’t remember the date of that show can can access it, but look for james on the block search for him as a guest, fine, very similar conversation, what we’re talking about right now creating these hypothetical personas, and he talked a lot about involving the board yes, especially in the aspirational persona, anything anything you want to add in that respect so it’s part of our process is that we begin with stakeholders, and we like to begin from the kind of all the way from the bottom, all the way to the top of the organization and everything so board is really critical, particularly board, because they removed from the day to day operations of the organization a lot of the time. But then the web folks with customer support people who answered the phone and they hear the kinds of complaints, but they really know who these folks are because they’re talking to them. So really at all levels of the organization trying to get stakeholder employed and then help people to kind of organize around these personas, including the board, because it can really shape the board’s vision of who you’re going after. Khun really molded it could be a tool for getting boardmember all on the same page with each other. Hoexter lacey let’s, go, teo. Another another good practices. Wait. Let me ask you for that either of you, major in information architecture is is such a major where? Yes, i am saying yes to you might not believe it, but i have a master’s degree and information architecture and usability. Okay. Yes. So there is a program out there in the online world. And i’ll just say it comes from the discipline of information science. So that’s, you know, organizing libraries, organizing videogames, organizing any place that’s an information or an interactive space. These kinds of principles apply. You could really learn a lot there. So that’s, the kind of background that i come from lacey comes from an interactive advertising backgrounds second, tell us where your master’s degree program hey, someone’s grief, they’re interested in such a degree. University of texas school of information how did you become an information architect? So i was an advertising major at the university of texas, and they had an interactive advertising sequence that was just a special series of classes that i took. And so that was the beginning, and then i did, you know, i worked in an ad agency for a while and then moved into the non-profit space that khun vo and and really worked with misty teo, develop our methodology around design and really dive into the information architecture. So anything so it was a slow transition on when i graduated in college in interactive was so new that there weren’t really information architects. So as soon as that niche kind of created itself, i found that that was where my home was. That was where i was meant to be. So i fear that all these years i’ve been mispronouncing the name of your former company convoy, and he wasn’t wrong via can be another reason it’s convenio and not cardio. It’s a schwab. They go back like fourth grade english and my homeroom teacher talking, you know, like more than a second green. So suave officials have you? Yes, i think that people sometimes go for they reach for convict. And so con vo seems like a natural stress, but actually in english. Apparently i’m married to a linguist way. Put the stress on the second to the last syllable in many cases. S o convene. Okay, that would be the italian pronunciation to yeah, very common with italians. Have accent on the second last that’s, right. And so in latin. Convenio means with vision and that’s where the name came from that’s how the founder information architect married to a witness. It’s true snusz lisa let’s. Talk about another. Another good practice in information architecture s o so one of the ones that comes to mind is creating a visual hierarchy. So on your home specifically one identify what the key points, the key messages you want to convey. So, like misty talked about earlier, your mission and vision should be number one on that there’s also, probably some actions that you wantto encourage from your home page. So i think that having a visual hierarchy that it’s basically a design principle that ensures that the big key salient points are what stands out visually on the page so they might be, you know, a different color, they might just be a graphic on next ism text, but the visual hyre he is what conveys to users look at me first, look at me. Second, intel is that kind of guys there experience around a page, okay? And you would develop that screw you users talking to users about how they are going through your sight versus how you’d like them to be going through your sight, or or do you do it more based around the way they’re doing so, whether you want them to or not? So the the inputs are both from the users and from the stakeholders. So our job as information architects is really to combine those two sometimes distinct set of needs, so the stakeholders wanted communicate x, y and z and the users are looking for, you know, a b and c and so it’s it’s a meshing together of those two things that that designates what the visual hierarchy should be. And that that’s sometimes a balancing act, but usually usually stakeholder messaging. What the organization wants to convey kind of comes first because it’s like this, this is what we want you to get across. Can i add one thing there? No dahna wrapped it up. It was perfect that your colleague is given insufficient explanation is that way work together a lot. So we tend to tag team this morning because of course, you’re welcome way often use web analytics data, i think one thing that’s hard, right? If you talk to people, people can often describe their attitudes and their motivations, but they don’t really know what they’re behaviors are there just sort of predicting? I think i would act like this. So analytics data is a really great kind of hard metric sort of way to look at trends and how people use an information structure, a website. What do they really interact with? What are they seeing? What are they not even saying so a lot of the time, you know, the kind of piece of this that we can bring in addition to research we really do with the audience surveys, that sort of thing. Is a really behavioral picture of how people are using the site, and that helps to really inform ways that we think people will use it what we can do with it. Okay, what are some of the ways that we influence? How they move through the site because it is simple is fun size? Lacey mentioned color it is simple in these things visual priority top to bottom orientation. Navigation is obviously the primary tool that people used to traverse when they’re really looking for something to move in and out of a website, you can do a lot that’s really powerful with having really strong navigation devices, um, and then they’re just a variety of ways that we can provide pathways into the content so you can throw all your content up there, and some people think that’s the solution that more is better, lacey and i really take the approach that more, more is not necessarily better if you have a ton of content, what you’re trying to do is move people strategically down paths towards the content that they’re looking for and that helping a lot of klicks is not necessarily a bad thing, but that used to be kind of the common wisdom with the web no clicks, you know, you really want people to get everything from the home page, but actually what people want is to feel like they’re on a journey towards the thing that they’re looking for, that they’re making progress, and if you can help them do that, they don’t actually mind moving around to find the thing that they want. Ladies, i’m going to guess that you have a lot of frustration as you you navigate the web, whether it’s, charitable or run or you’re not charitable sizing goto, who means a lot of frustration, there’s frustration, but there’s also a lot of inspiration. Um, i would say, you know, i didn’t major in information architecture, er and the majority of my training and education about this has been my own experiences online, so i learned a lot from other sides, you know, when i’m looking for something on amazon dot com and i confined it like that that’s something that i’ll take with me in translate to what we’re working on. So there’s good and bad there’s definitely some poor experiences out there, but there are good ones. Too wanted to share. What is it you love about information? Architecture works. I would say it’s very creative without being visual you create on it allows me to really kind of use my let to think about how things should be organized. And, um, you know, the graphic design part of it is is very important. But i think separating the information side of it from the graphic side of it allows for a bigger picture and allows for a cleaner in solution. And i think there’s also just so many facets to information architecture’s. So we designed the navigation structures and the way the continent looks on the page. But we also designed back in data structures and how a gn administrator would put the content into the system. So it’s just a big universe of on a different types of work. And it keeps things interesting and dynamic all the time about you. What i love about this work, we just have a couple of seconds. Yes. So i would say good idea is like a good therapist. But it anticipates your needs before you even know that you have them sometimes that it gives you something. That you may not be able to get anywhere else. And then it sort of satisfies you in a way that keeps you coming back again and again. So i like helping people get what they want and get their needs. Recession was getting your priority. Street guy, too successful. Information architecture. Christine mclaughlin is principal user experience consultant. Blackbaud and lacey kruger is lead information. Architected blackbaud you are listening to twenty martignetti non-profit radio coverage of twenty twelve, thanks for being with us, durney. Thank you, my thanks. Also to the people at blackbaud who helped me that october day last year, especially melody mathos very helpful that day and everybody else’s blackbaud right now, we pause for a break, and when we come back to tony’s, take to the five hundred doors campaign and then scott koegler on tech trends, stay with me. They didn’t think that sending the good ending. Ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network waiting to get in. Nothing. 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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. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Hi there and welcome back it’s tony’s take two roughly thirty two minutes into the hour, the five hundred stars campaign i’m hoping to get the goal is one hundred readings on itunes, and of course the hope is that they’ll be five stars. Our five hundred stars campaign why am i doing this? What’s the what’s the case for support, as fundraisers would say it’s to increase the visibility of the show so that more non-profits can listen and benefit as i picked the brains of my expert guests that’s it you’re helping the charity community nationwide start at non-profit radio dot net, and from there, click viewing itunes or you could just go to itunes and search for the show name. Either way, i’d be grateful for your help. Very grateful if you would rate the show in itunes and five stars would be terrific there’s a campaign video on my blogged and this is all explained there, but you don’t have to go to the blogged just just jump to itunes and my blog’s is that tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, february first, the fifth show of the year scott koegler is with me now, he’s the you know who he is? He’s the non he’s the editor of non-profit technology news he’s, a regular monthly technology contributor on twitter, he is at scott koegler konigstein are scott kottler welcome back. Thank you. Tell me, how you doing? I’m doing terrific. Get that down. Good. Thank you. You do too. We’re talking this this month a little about trends, trends that you saw in two thousand twelve as the editor over there at non-profit technology news. What did you see? Well, you know, there’s always a lot of things going on in one, probably non surprising thing was the increased use of social media. It’s just, you know, it’s almost a given that non-profit i need to participate in social media just like you’re doing, tony, you know, with your itunes and your show and the kind of things were there, but the corollary to that is that people are looking beyond the social media and beyond the traditional methods of getting together, which and that’s, really the more surprising to me is that there was a break from social media into more traditional meaning. Face-to-face or letter writing or what phone calls? What? You mean? Yeah, well, hit one of them, actually, but i throw out six things. I’m bound to hit something was about to hit a target with one shot. Yeah, phone calls, for instance. You know, i used to be that before social media before even all that kind of thing really depended on paper mail and phone calls, you know, if you had paper mail that was kind of general, but if you needed quick responses, if you needed to actually get a message to someone personally was phone calling dahna so as we start to move away from that and rely on facebook and twitter and those other kinds of things, it’s pretty easy to discard the more traditional methods of contacting folks. One of them is the phone calls. And you know, if your constituency is large, obviously making phone calls to the entire, uh, donor base or a participant bases is pretty impossible. That’s impractical. Maybe so we’re seeing we’re seeing more activity. And what phone trees. You know, the thing that churches and schools used to to contact the people? No one like when there’s a snow day like a snow. Day he’s like that, so they’re using. So you’re seeing you’re seeing non-profits enlisting volunteers to use in phone trees? No it’s, thie automated phone trees more often, you know that still technology hyre honor requires, you know, prior set up, but we’re finding that that that the phone is, you know, one of those ways that needs tio needs to be used sometimes, okay, are there are there providers that you’re aware of that that are good in automated phone tree work? You know, i don’t know who they are. We’ve had comments from a couple of, uh, back-up couple of non-profits that have used them, but my understanding is that the that they are locally based a lot of times, and some of them are actually equipment that you install so there’s a variety of things if you have a question about it, my my recommendation is going to go to your local church and ask them what they’re using because they’re probably have one installed somehow, okay? So going backwards in technology to get attention because people have been abandoning the phone just like they’ve been abandoning hand written notes exactly and there’s a couple of reasons. Aside from just you know, you want to contact somebody but one of the organizations that we talked to, uh, those events and, you know, there’s a change in the weather and you need to contact folks email is really not always going to get there. Not everybody has seen on their smartphone. Not everyone has a smartphone, and so being able to contact folks as there may be getting ready to go out the door it’s really important. So that’s, why the phone tree but there’s also another piece to that, and that is along with the fact that people you can’t get too may not get to email right away or in some cases again, depending on who your audience is may not even have e mail, and that is the text messages. And again, there are there are providers that can do what’s equivalent to an email blast by text message again that requires having at all set up and having your you know, your text, your phone number’s already installed and ready to go. Um, the text messaging is one of those very immediate contact method. So again, do you have a the event, the weather? Changes. You need to change the location or tell people that has been called off. Text messages is one of those not quite as retro as telephone. Direct telephone contact. Sure, but it’s, you know, it’s. Another another method. Ok, yeah, if you if you know your constituency has the has the technology. Um, i see text messaging, you know, going back to the phone. It’s. Interesting. I own a home in in north carolina, and the police department there uses automated phone tree to alert us to incoming bed whether hurricanes, there was a rash of burglaries in one neighborhood, not my neighborhood. Of course we’re we’re we’ll secure. I haven’t, you know? Yeah, but some in one of the lesser neighborhoods in that town, the police were saying that there have been burglaries people had been. And they got to the level of saying that the burglars were getting in a lot of times through the garage garage doors being left open. So, you know, they got to that level of detail in aa in a in our automated phone call. So you know, there’s a there’s, a town government using it and not a big towns small. Town north carolina? Yep, yeah, those technologies kind of reach everywhere, so and so wrapped up in what we’re talking about is figuring out what what is what makes sense for your you’re non-profit and your constituents, whoever they are you trying to reach exactly the point, tony it’s uh, not not all constituencies have, you know, our enthusiastic facebook users. So, you know, some are some, aren’t i, uh, i know that some of us older folks, you know, just don’t always live and die by facebook, so wei need to have other methods and, you know, not just older folks, but, uh, it really just depends. I mean, think about the disabled community, you know, they may have special, special needs in terms of being reached, you know, if you have a i don’t know death community, you know, you need some other way than just telephone, so lucy need the enhanced telephones. So now i see why you unfriended me on facebook you’re using this opportunity using this platform that i give you as as a way of explaining to me why you unfriended me on facebook, i guess because you don’t use it very often, right? So you figured, you know, i have tony as a friend as well, unfriended. Co-branded yeah, sorry, all right, um, but ok, so you’re a former ceo, chief, information officer. How do we go from recognizing what our needs are specific to our organization and finding the technology that’s going toe? Help us fulfill those needs? Good question, but then that’s what your baby, i try. It’s really a kind of a multilevel approach. First of all, you got yeah, you really have to think. I mean, hopefully, if you’re if you have a constituency, you have been able to connect with them. I mean, that’s kind of the whole point, and so you have some basic understanding of what their needs are, right? So so you need to just think about that, you know, how how do these people communicate? How what do i see when i when i talk with them, what do i experience when i’m when i’m with them? And of course, one another way that is maybe not quite so obvious is actually ask them, yeah, certainly would like to be communicated with, right? What? How did they get messages? Have a talk with people that are important to them to find that out on dh, then kind of pursue the the resolution for that just to research again, asking maybe other non-profits you know, a lot of intelligent non-profit activity out there, you might have, you might have expertise on your board, correct possibility if there’s a marketing communications person or if there’s a technology person um what’s your what’s your sense of, you know, technology consultants? I mean, are there people who who think broadly about technology or there, or there only consultants who work in phone trees or social media or, you know, other other other specific areas? Uh, yeah, of course, there are people who work only in specific technologies that generally called sales folks. Yeah, and, uh, you know, there are consultants to deal in social media and unfortunately, no that’s become kind of a commodity kind of a thing. I i saw a survey recently were there were, um just the term social media consultant has has become meaningless because everybody is one. Yeah, yeah, i see that i’m not on the more important way to go about it is to find find somebody who does consult on a broad range of of issues and isn’t really focused on anyone. Technology, uh, isn’t being paid to promote one specific thing, not not to put down social media experts, but it’s really it’s become a catchphrase? Yeah, that not everything is social media. You know, it’s, not the whole world. On twitter, i see so many people who call themselves social media either experts or gurus. Oh, yeah, guru is just so become become so ubiquitous that it is meaningless now, and i think every it seems like so many people who are just users of social media consider themselves now gurus and experts. So if you are looking for somebody in that area, you know, make sure they’ve been doing this for, you know, i mean, social media, ten years or so, ten or twelve years, it goes backto old social communities, there’s more than just facebook and twitter in social media, you know, early blogging was is certainly social media, so you want somebody who has, who has a breath of experience and many years, and i personally i tend to stay away from the people who are self proclaimed gurus. Um, i’m just kind of off the topic, but there is another way to check that out and to find out if somebody is, in fact, a social media guru, and i don’t really mean that. I mean, i mean, if they’re well connected and that’s really more important than being, you know, any particular label, i think we talked about this before there’s a site called clout k l o ut yes. Right? And it, uh, it takes a kind of a broad perspective. It is still based on social media, so it, uh, it takes into account traitor twitter, facebook, google plus link, then foursquare, youtube, the flicker, you know, all kinds of things, and it measures your influence of anybody’s influence on, um, you know, on those different areas. Yes. Okay, so you can pretty easily go on to clout and find find somebody’s measure, in fact, okay, hold that thought. We’re going to take a break right now. Scott will come back, and we’ll continue talking about clout and measuring the influence of the gurus. Stay with us. Snusz you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back. We’re talking technology trends with scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news, which you will find at n p tech news. Dot com scott, what were going to say about clouds? Cloud is again a measurement of the social media in foot, right, quark, a variety of places. So what i was going to say was let’s, check tony um, and but you know what, tony? I did, and for better or worse, you and i have an equal score of fifty nine that’s humiliating to me what you’re equal to me. Yeah, because you said you don’t even use facebook thing is rigged. Forget cloud, alright, everybody listeners ignore what everything said everything that god said about cloud because it’s it’s clearly a charlotte in sight, it doesn’t doesn’t know what he’s talking about no it’s k l o ut clout, dot com and that’s interesting scott that we are that we’re equals it is and you’re not even trying. I know, i know, but you know just let’s. Look at the score for a second. Okay, fifty nine is actually not bad. Oh, they give you a rating for that fifteen out where it stands. You have fifty nine. I mean, if you just look at kind of the general, um, the seventy is like, almost the top of the rank really is for seventy is really, really good. Eighty is like superstar, um, fifties is, you know, is pretty good. So, you know, actually a fifty nine or sixties is actually you and i, tony, are among the influential gru’s there’s that word in social media. So without without really talking about you and me as we were talking about gurus and health, that term has really kind of become irrelevant. You can look at a sight like cloud, and there are a couple others that i can’t remember. They’re kind of up and comers, the cost been around the longest of those and so eh, it’s, war, you know above fifty is actually pretty good. Okay, so that person would have some credibility in social media, right? But and that’s a good way to check out somebody if they say they’re grew. Just put their ideas in cloud and we’ll see if they got a twenty five they want yeah, right. That’s, that’s. More like your grandmother, right? Grandfather’s? Exactly. Right. So we have a few more minutes left. What do you see coming as a trend in twenty thirteen or and maybe beyond, you know, specialization. I think the whole issue of using existing applications and existing tools in ways that they were designed, um, is what everybody does. The what’s coming now is using tools, system’s, applications, methodologies in new and different ways that we were not originally intended. Is what’s happening next? I think you know the phone tree. Text messaging. All those kind of things are becoming more and more viable again after all this time. Text messaging blast. You mean so right? Ok. Anything more specific that you can say about what you want? Oh, let’s, try it this way. What would you like to see? What would you like to see that’s not out there? I would like to see more, more personalized connections again if we just take text messaging, for instance, with email. If you’re sending out an email blast to your constituency, most email systems allow you to insert their name. You know, some information, all right on the flight. So it looks like it’s personal, even though you really know that it isn’t. But it would be nice to have that kind of capability with text message, even though they’re very short. Hey, tony, you know, i hope we show up today. We changed the location. Make sure you get the right place. You know, that kind of a message would be nice to be able to do, um and it used to be i think that text messaging in particular was kind of frowned upon because it was because it costs. The receiver money, and that hasn’t really changed except that now most phone plans include some number of text messages in their plan, so it’s a little bit less onerous on the recipient. Okay? And i think it’s always smart if you’re going to do that to offer a way of opting out absolutely no block, text block or text opt out or something back, and then the person is saying, i don’t want to incur the charges for any future messages that this center would might might send to me, right and that’s that’s the personalization. And along with the personalization is the method of contact when you sign up for a service, a lot of, uh, a lot of the services will say what? How would you prefer us to contact you? My voice by email, by text, whatever it might be. And so those kinds of personalization services can really go a long way too, you know, kind of solidifying that that connection between you and whoever it is that you’re trying to communicate with you. Okay, well, we’ll look for more, more personalization. Anything else you want to wrap up with? Scott? No. Tony let’s, let’s. Get out there and boost our krauz scores. Yeah, well, seventy to me especially. I just i don’t know. I don’t know whether you should be elated to be at the same score i am. Or i should be very disappointed to be at the same school you are. But something definitely is off to look into this more. Okay, thank you very much. God good to talk to you. Take care. He’s the editor of non-profit technology news again at n p tech news dot com and he’ll be back next month. Next week professor john list from the university of chicago on the value of lead and matching gift in your campaign. And chuck longfield, chief scientist at blackbaud has lots of ideas for increasing your matching gifts. So we have some research people next week, but don’t worry, i’ll keep the keep to talk straight forward and relevant, not not academic and pedagogical. Sorry i couldn’t send live listener love this week. You know, i love to do that a few times a show, but this show was pre recorded. We’re all over the social web facebook, youtube, twitter linked in four, square and still on ly tied with scott on cloud, i’ll pick one of those out facebook. You can sign up for weekly email lorts there be the first one to know who the guests are for that week and what the hell while you’re there, why did you like the page? See us on facebook. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, and it shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Remember the five hundred stars campaign, please go to itunes. Great, the show, one to five stars. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one, two, two p m eastern at talking alternative broadcasting, which is at talking alternative dot com. I think that’s. A good ending. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get in. Nothing. Cubine hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten am on talking alternative dot com. 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. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. 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 friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time. Join me. Larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage. Tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory tower radio dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Dahna hyre