The intention of the study is to explore how organizations are managing and measuring their email marketing programs.

The specific topics we are exploring in this project include:

• Types of email marketing
• Frequency of email marketing campaigns and newsletters
• Email marketing services and their costs
• Most valuable email marketing features
• Metrics used for evaluating email marketing efforts

The survey should take approximately five minutes to complete.

If you decide to participate, there are few things to note:

• All participants will receive a copy of the final (aggregate) report – a $295 value.
• All data will be processed and compiled in aggregate. Data will not be reviewed or presented in a personally (or organizationally) identifiable way.

If interested, please participate in the study by Friday, 1/21. Please go here to participate in the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YX3VSB7

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1) Could you say a few words about Acquia? What are you trying to accomplish?

Drupal usage was growing like mad in the mid-2007 time frame, especially in larger organizations. But many of the companies looking at Drupal were hesitant because they saw no single go-to vendor for Drupal support, in the same way that they may typically view the role of a proprietary software vendor, or the way they might view RedHat (or MySQL when it was independent.) This was holding back Drupal adoption, and I knew we could solve that problem by creating an enterprise subscription support business along the model of RedHat, MySQL, etc.

Plus, there were some obvious network services that we felt were important to add value to an organization’s Drupal site, such as update and uptime management, advanced website search, Drupal-tuned higher-end hosting, and others. And the list of these potential services we can provide to organizations continues to grow as Drupal continues its march into wider deployment.

So I joined with Dries Buytaert, founder and project lead of Drupal, to create Acquia to provide both subscription support & value-add network services to organizations using Drupal.

One thing we’ve been careful to do is to carefully avoid doing actual website construction as much as possible. We feel that for Drupal to continue to grow there needs to be a healthy ecosystem of Drupal development shops around the world. If we stepped too boldly into the professional services realm, we could unintentionally limit that growth, either by being a magnet for customers seeking site construction or by acting as a risk factor for entrepreneurs who wanted to work with Drupal. So though we do some work in this area, we have an established list of professional service partners to whom we feed the vast majority of this type of inquiry as referrals – without even the requirement that the partner sell an Acquia product to the end customer (though, of course, that’s our preference.)

2) You’ve recently launched a community platform called “Commons”. What is it. Why did you decide to launch this?

Two reasons.

First, we wanted to reduce the cost of building a social business software site in Drupal. We were receiving a drumbeat of inbound inquiries from customers who were looking at social software tools like Jive and others, but who needed more than simply the social software side; they needed their site to perform additional, non-social things. Some of these prospects had seen social-style sites built using Drupal, such as Symantec, Novell, and others, and wanted to know how to get one of those. Fortunately, social business sites can be built in Drupal; unfortunately, there was lots of discovery & work to do in order to find the right Drupal plug-ins, figure out an information architecture, etc. We figured if we did the bulk of the heavy-lifting once, and pulled together all the plug-ins, created the IA, page types, content types, interaction models, etc., all that would be left would be for companies to customize the graphical look & feel to their liking, and then focus their attention on the added capabilities they may want, such as integration with CRM, or web-based training, etc.

Second, there’s kind of a principle involved. When we looked at those other solutions (e.g. Jive, et. al.), we could see that the feature set was pretty well stabilized. This was confirmed by a conversation with Jeffrey Mann, a Gartner analyst, and by Jeremiah Owyang at Altimeter Group. And when we looked at this feature set, there was nary a thing that Drupal couldn’t already do; it just needed pre-assembly! So it felt strongly to me like this market was ripe for commoditization by a viable open source alternative. When software gets commoditized, customer organizations win because of lower cost and the ability to consolidate and reduce the number of supported platforms in their environment. Since many organizations were _already_ going to be using Drupal, let’s give them a Drupal-based social software suite, and accelerate this market commoditization for their benefit. Of course, Acquia is already set up as a business to profit from this, so we’ll do well in the process – possibly at the expense of proprietary vendors.

3) The higher-end community platform market is dominated by proprietary platforms. Why should an organization consider open source in this space? What will they be giving up?

I’ve already given a couple of examples above, but let me state them slightly differently for this answer.

First, many of the organizations seeking to deploy a social site need more than just a social site; they need the site to integrate with some existing business system, or to create completely new, custom-to-them capabilities. Proprietary alternatives will only let you get so far with this; organizations are limited by the structure of the system and the available APIs that flow from that. Conversely, Drupal has been, and will always be a strong application platform for many purposes. There are thousands of add-on plug-ins (“modules”) that can extend Drupal, plus a vast array of mature APIs to do things where there’s no module available. (This is why it was so easy to make Drupal into a social software solution.)

No other platform provides the freedom to adapt your social site to your other business needs – or to the special needs of your community.

Second, using Drupal Commons can consolidate infrastructure. Drupal is in use on over a million websites today, and it is fairly likely that there’s at least one Drupal website in operation at the organization of somebody reading this note! By basing your social business site on Drupal, you give your IT team leverage to manage what they already know. Even if you don’t have Drupal in your organization today, it’s rapid growth as a web platform means it could well be in your “mainstream website” future anyway; so Drupal Commons can be the vanguard of a consolidated future.

Finally, using Drupal Commons frees you from the tyranny of software license fees. Proprietary vendors survive by finding ways to get you to pay for software, then pay again at points in the future, such as at major upgrade time, or at a size bump, etc. Drupal Commons is open source, and the economics of open source are dramatically more favorable than proprietary alternatives.

4) Are you noting any big trends in web interactivity? Anything your client base seems particularly interested in these days?

The most interesting area to me, and the area we haven’t really yet explored in Drupal Commons, is game-ifying social interactions. In Drupal Commons, users earn points for posting content, making comments, updating their profile, etc. We see some users spending time making LOTS of contributions simply so they can be the top-dog in points on a site. Essentially, they are gaming the site for their own gratification.

While use behavior certainly drives contributions by specific members, the interesting question is how we could harness this “game-playing” type motivation to into positive rewards for all users. This can be used in areas like group innovation and ideation, where users can make proportionate bets (votes) on product ideas in order to get features they want. Or you can use virtual goods sales and barter to drive desired behaviors on the site.

While this isn’t yet a big trend, I see evidence that it’s a big potential trend. Some of our customers are doing some early experiments in this area, and learning what works, and what doesn’t. I think we’ll see more on this in the next 12-18 months.

5) What’s the five year view? Groups that are now using Commons – what do you think they will be asking for a few years down the road?

One word: Scalability. As groups get successful, all kinds of new issues arise. A successful externally-facing social site will become a target for Comment spammers trying to boost SEO for some site, leading to the need to fight comment spam. Social sites with very large active user counts will sap the capabilities of the infrastructure they’re initially deployed on, and organizations will need to react with more horsepower. And those are just the technical needs.

Separate from that will be the need for wise community management. Communities don’t assemble for the benefit of the site owner; they only have their own interests to serve. If a site successfully creates a community, organizations will need to have a healthy relationship with that community such that they let it continue to thrive, but still make sure it is serving the organizations purpose.

I don’t know how these get played out a few years from now. But fortunately, the Drupal Community itself encounters a lot of these kinds of issues before the wider world does, and I am confident that Drupal Commons will always have leading-edge tools to help organizations deal with the issues.

6) Any other comments on web interactivity?

Yup, one. Though we’ve definitely done some advance work for organizations by defining an information architecture for a social business site in Drupal Commons, user experience is still something that can be tuned in Drupal Commons – and organizations that want to be successful in their Commons deployment should plan on spending some time and paying for help to create a terrific user experience for their users. Social sites succeed or fail based on how easy and engaging the site is for its users, and each community is going to have different needs. This is why it’s so important to build a community on Drupal, because of the massive freedom Drupal gives you to do this.

Not to toot your horn inappropriately, but in my mind this is exactly where a partner like Forum One comes in. You guys know communities, and you have people dedicated to use experience design. It’s going to be crucial for Acquia’s customers to utilize our partners like Forum One to be successful with their Drupal Commons deployments. And I’m not just sayin’ that because it’s you asking the question! .

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Forum One has designed and managed networks of organizations over the years. Here are five quick tips, drawn mostly from the Online Community Research Network, a community of organizations we have managed since 2005:

1) Identity: The network of organizations needs an online home (and probably name). The web home is typically built upon a third party “workspace” product such as CentralDesktop, SharePoint or ProjectSpaces (a Forum One service). One product we like for this purpose is GroupSite – it includes the appropriate features and it’s easy to use.

2) Conversation: Most workspace products support online discussions, but require periodic supplement from a traditional web conferences. Recently we’ve been using Adobe Connect, which we find to be capable, reasonably priced and non-intimidating for newbies.

3) Activity: In order to grow and prosper, the network requires high-value activities. One tactic we use are network surveys, supported by SurveyMonkey, which are a fast and easy way to engender participation and identify best practices and resources.

4) Events: Online tools and activities are great, but they are generally not sustainable unless participants are meeting periodically in person. Increasingly, every online community needs an offline counterpart (and vice versa!).

5) Staffing: Any robust network will require dedicated staffing. It also will require governance rules and (possibly the trickiest challenge) a source of funding drawn from across the network.

We see the development of networks of organizations as a tremendously promising new opportunity for our clients. They require planning, effort and resources, but allow coordination and shared resources needed to address the most difficult societal challenges.

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Answer: Nothing.

Russia and China have taken diametrically opposed approaches to Twitter (and social media more generally). They provide a wonderful set of case studies to watch this year.

Probably no government has embraced Twitter with more finesse than Russia (and that includes the US). During President Medvedev’s US visit last June, he visited Twitter headquarters in San Francisco and posted his first tweet. Since then the Kremlin has provided a constant stream of timely, informative, casual tweets posted in Russian and English. They include substance as well as a bit of whimsy (including impromptu photos). The two accounts currently have about 125,000 followers.

Meanwhile the Chinese block Twitter and officially ignore it (but not the Chinese press: China Daily shows hundreds of articles this year mentioning Twitter).

President Hu is scheduled to visit the US early next year. Will he ignore social media, or have a change of heart and also visit Twitter headquarters?

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We received approximately 59 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community building activities, including: large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers, interactive marketing firms and independent consultants.

Several key issues pertaining to social media strategy and monitoring surfaced during this report, including:

• Two thirds of the respondents, 66% (39), indicated that their organization has either fully or partially written social media guidelines.
• The three most commonly reported policies that respondents said were important for staff participation in social media were:
  • Follow All Existing Employee Guidelines (23)
  • Be Transparent (20)
  • Respect Audience and Coworkers (20)
• Over three quarters of the respondents rated Facebook, 75% (44) and Twitter, 73% (43) as a 1st or 2nd highest priority social media site in which their organization participates.
• Almost a third of participants, 29% (17), indicated that their organization uses paid tools or services to monitor social media sites, with Radian6 (7) being the most commonly reported.

Size of Organization
Over a third of the respondents, 34% (20), have less than 50 people employed in their organization and only 12% (7) respondents reported having more than 5,000 employees.

• 34% (20) belong to an organization that has less than 50 employees
• 30% (18) belong to an organization that has between 50-499 employees
• 7% (4) belong to an organization that has between 500-999 employees
• 10% (6) belong to an organization that has between 1,000-4,999 employees
• 7% (4) belong to an organization that has between 5,000-9,999 employees
• 12% (7) belong to an organization that has more than 10,000 employees

Key Policies for Staff Participation
The three most commonly reported policies that respondents said were important for staff participation in social media was to Follow All Existing Employee Guidelines (23), Transparency (20) and to Respect Audience and Coworkers (20).

A third of the respondents also indicated that Adding Value (19), Being Polite and Courteous (18), Protecting Confidential Company Information (18) and Using Your Best Judgment (18) were considered key policies for staff participation in Social Media within their organization.

Social Media Business Goals
Most respondents rated all of the business goals as having some importance within their organization’s social media ecosystem.

The most important business goal reported was Driving traffic to the main organization web site, with almost three quarters of the participants, 73% (43), indicating that this was considered a very important goal for their organization.

The second highest rated social media business goal was Branding, 71% (42). Only 10% (6) participants said that Branding had no significance to their organization.

The next four most important business goals according to the respondent’s ratings were Retaining customers / loyalty, peer-to-peer evangelism, Educations, and Evangelism. These had similar ratings with at least half of the respondents rating them as very important business goals for their organization’s social media ecosystem.

Even though Peer-to-peer customer service and Recruiting had the lowest ratings, more than two thirds of those that rated the importance of these business goals said that they had some importance to their organization.

Measuring Success
We received a wide variety of responses to this question. The most common metrics measured on social media sites is the Traffic Generated (25) including: General Traffic Generated (10), Number of Clicks (7), Number of Page Views (4), Number of Returns (2) and Number of Site Visits (2). One participant commented, “We use Google Analytics to measure clicks to the company website, clicks to other social networking sites, duration of time spent, and direction of traffic”.

The second most common metric that respondents said they used to measure success on social media sites was related to user participation in the site content, such as, comments, posts and discussions (22), The amount and quality of content posted was said to be important for many participants. One participant said that, they track the percentage of positive comments versus the percentage of negative comments. Several other participants said that they monitored the Amount of Engagement (5) that was happening on social media sites.

Several participants indicated that they measure the Number of Brand Mentions (8) within user content posted on their company site and also in mainstream media content, with one response comment as follows: “We measure the percentage of participation within discussion related specifically to our company and market, the number of Brand Mentions versus Competitors and topic and sentiment tracking related to our company and competitors”.

Other commonly reported metrics that participants said they measure are the Number of Fans / Followers (16) on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as website follower friends and fans. Tracking the Number of Members / Registrations (8) such as website registrations and other social media membership sites such as LinkedIn group membership was also said by some to be used to measure success within their organization.

Tracking the Number of Leads / Referrals (14) was also mentioned by many participants to be useful in measuring success on social media sites, with participants commenting that they monitor referrals from social networking sites, as well as goal specific metrics such as revenue, sales and leads.

Number of Retweets (7), Number of likes’ (5), Ratings (2), Number of Video Plays (2) and Number of Unique Users (2) were among the other metrics that participants said their organization used to measure social media success.

The Complete Social Media Strategy & Monitoring Report

The full 31 page report may be purchased here: http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/somestmo.html and includes detailed information, analysis and charts on:

• Job title and industry
• Online community destination
• Social media guidelines
• Social media sites
• Paid services and tools
• Comments and advice from survey respondents

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We received approximately 51 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community building activities, including: large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers, interactive marketing firms and independent consultants.

Several key issues pertaining to online community platforms and services surfaced during this report, including:

• Nearly half of the respondents, 49% (17), indicated that their online community platform and services budget is less than $50,000.
• The three most commonly used primary platforms, apart from in-house custom made platforms, were:
  • Blogs / Forums
  • Lithium
  • Jive
• Over a quarter of the respondents, 27% (13), are actively looking for a new online community platform.
• A third of the respondents, 33% (17), indicated that they used Google Analytics as their Metrics & Reporting tool and 12% (6) use Omniture.

Job Title
A high percentage of the respondents have high level positions within their organization, with Community Director positions, 29% (15), being most frequently reported. Director related job titles include Director of Communities, Community Relations Director, Director of Social Networking, Managing Director, Regional Director, Senior Director Customer Experience and Director Community and Products.

The second most commonly reported job title was Community Manager, 21% (11), with an additional, 12% (6) of respondents reporting other Management job titles including Associate Manager Consumer Insights, Community Product Manager, Product Manager, Program Manager and Senior Program Manager of Client Programs.

It is interesting to note that over half of the respondent, 55% (28) have the word “Community” in their job titles, whereas only 2 have the word “Media” in their job titles.”).

Platform Attributes
The two most commonly reported attributes that respondents said was important when purchasing a new community platform was the Feature set of the platform (28) and the Ability to customize the user interface (26). Over half of the respondents indicated that these two factors were among the top 3 attributes they used in making purchasing decision.

Other attributes that respondents felt were important in the decision making process include the Price or Pricing Structure, Ability to scale the platform and the Reporting functionality of the platform.

It is interesting to note that the maturity of the platform option was only selected by 3 participants as an important factor when considering a new platform. Respondents were interested in newer, flexible platforms that have advanced features and customizable interfaces.

Platform Features
86% (44) of the respondents said that their company’s current community platform utilizes Discussion Forums. This was the most commonly reported feature reported during this survey and was 17% higher than the second most utilized feature, Blogs 69% (35).

Approximately half of the respondents indicated that their organization used Groups, 51% (26), and Surveys & Polls, 49% (25), as part of their current company’s platform.

The least reported feature that people used in their current platform was Chat 18% (9).

Community Platforms – Rated
Overall ratings to this question were above average in every area, with the highest average ratings given for the vendor delivering the platform on deadline (4.9) and post-purchase support from the vendor (4.8). The lowest average rating was given the platform’s capabilities in the area of Metrics & Reporting (4.0). All these ratings are out of a rating of 6.0.

HIGHEST AVERAGES:
The following Platforms were reported as having the highest averages (all attributes):

• HiveLive’s LiveConnect (5.4 out of a rating of 6)
• Leverage Software (5.4 out of a rating of 6)
• Groupsite (5.3 out of a rating of 6)

The Complete Online Community Platform Services & Satisfaction 2010 Report

The full 42 page report may be purchased here: http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/coplsesa20.html and includes detailed information, analysis and charts on:

• Organization Type and Size
• Annual Community Platform Budgets
• Respondents Primary Community Platforms
• Detailed Ratings of Community Platform Features and Functionality
• Other Products & Services Used for Community Operations
• Platforms & Services Wish List

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To sort through these challenges, we asked for the views of Fred Smith, a Senior Technologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who oversees many new media efforts. The CDC is always included on the short list of US government agencies using social media in innovative ways.

Here are five of Fred’s good ideas for effective social media programs in government:

1) Take Risks

New media are new. We all are experimenting to some extent. This means accepting some risk in social media efforts, and also tolerating some degree of failure. Senior management and staff need to understand the risk profile of social media efforts. (As a related note, Amazon reportedly includes “risk-taking” in their performance reviews.)

2) Realistic Evaluations

It is important to evaluate social media efforts, and particularly to understand which channels are best for reaching which audiences with which messages. Performance reporting will improve efforts. That said, it is necessary to be realistic about how precise communications evaluations can be (e.g. nobody ever asks “how effective was that brochure?” — they ask “how effective was our campaign?”).

3) In Government, Identify and Update Social Media-Challenging Policies

Many government policies were written before social media (or even the internet). They now can create obstacles. For example, as part of the “Paperwork Reduction Act”, the OMB is required to approve any program that asks questions of the public. Should that include, for example, voting up an idea on a social media site? This law, as well as laws and policies dealing with terms of service, tracking technologies, privacy issues, and others topics are being updated.

4) Promote Open Source

Government should use and contribute to open source initiatives. Unfortunately there are many terms of service, liability and other issues which hinder government participation. These obstacles are (slowly) being addressed. When government agencies can’t turn to open source, they should at least investigate offering their data and content
through open APIs.

5) Coordinate Security and Social Media Efforts

IT security staff and social media staff have very different – and typically conflicting – approaches to the web. It is important that they work together. At the CDC the security and social media teams meet monthly to work out any issues, and (importantly) to describe what is on the horizon in order to identify potential challenges.

Please feel free to vote or comment on these or other ideas – or add your own – on Good Ideas.

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I love my community. Whether I’m talking about my role at NetSquared, my blog, or my network of friends, I am inspired every day and find value in, and rewards for, my participation. Regardless of whether I feel like, or am trying to be, a community builder, the community always provides opportunities for others to join me. These spaces are built on distributed power and that makes the community a moving, growing, living thing that I am a part of, rather than a weight, trouble, or burden that I’m responsible for.

But, it ain’t easy. Being a Community Builder (I refuse, on principle, to use the word Manager) is a lot of work. So, how do you do it without losing sleep or sanity?

Here’s my 3×3 to Sustainable Community Building.

1. There are no short cuts.

Lead by example
Interact, use tools, and create and share content the way you want your community members to do so. Seeing you leave a comment, or share a resource, will model the desired behavior so others can see what to do (especially if they are new to social media or new to your community) and how to do it (especially if they are new to your tool or platform).

Operate in public
When it comes to “administrator” or “moderator” activity, always conduct it in public unless it requires or involves personal information. Don’t send a private welcome message – do it in public so others can benefit (they too can see, join in, and find someone new)! Don’t remove or edit contributions, but leave a comment to suggest how they can be improved. If there’s offensive or inappropriate behavior, note it in public so others can learn what’s okay and what isn’t, and feel empowered to help moderate as a community.

Ask for feedback and help
Asking for help or ideas means that 1.) you trust the community, 2.) you know that your community is valuable and smart, and 3.) you are interested in collaborating (not dictating). Don’t be shy about it – post blog entries or conversation starters, share your own feedback (operate in public), and provide places for the community to share ideas or feedback at any time (not just on specific ideas or proposals).

2. Know your community.

Let the community know itself: Working in networks means that the “center” (that’s you) is no better than any of the other parts. You don’t have all the answers, all the information, all the best jokes. So, help your community know its self. Messages shouldn’t just be about you, stories shouldn’t just be about you. Find content and value from the community that you can help put the spotlight on; find stories and changemakers from the community that you can support. Make connections and introductions.

Know your role: Knowing your community means figuring out what they need from you, how they need your help, how they need you to help them to succeed. Some communities may need a “manager” to help keep everything moving along, and others may need an “operator” to make connections and recommendations. Some communities need a “friend” to share ideas and honest feedback, others may need a “champion” that can help push ideas and opportunities forward. Find your role (by asking for feedback and help!) and take pride in operating the way your community needs.

Help it grow: Part of knowing your community means recognizing when it needs new blood, a fresh wind, or a change of pace. That doesn’t always mean just one or the other. New blood = new members. If this is the case then help the community to promote itself and attract others interested in participating. Fresh wind = new topics or ideas. Sometimes, conversation can grow stagnant and ideas can fail to materialize into projects. It is your role to help find new inspiration. Change of pace = new way of operating. This may mean that the community has outgrown its facebook group and needs someone (you) to help move it onto the next platform/space where it can do more. You may need to be the one willing to say what everyone’s thinking and take on the task of making change.

3. Strive to be replaced.

Encourage interaction without you
The goal of operating in public and leading by example is to enable the community to know how to operate without you. There can be interaction and exchange without your permission. There can be conversation without your moderation. Encourage the community to take control by giving them the responsibility and opportunity to do so.

Reward and spotlight leaders
Your goal should be to be replaced by other community members, as this means that you’ve created something so valuable, with members so dedicated to it, that they are willing to steer the ship and man the sails themselves. To begin nurturing those who may become the captains, start highlighting members who are contributing value. Shine the spotlight on those taking on extra responsibility. Operate in public by thanking them for their work in a way that’s visible to the whole community.

Share your toolbox
There’s no way that the community can take responsibility and contribute equally with you if you hold the key to a hidden set of tools. Open up all functionality to anyone who has proven their elevated role in the group. Share resources like strategies, best practices, and examples with the community so everyone can learn and contribute at the level you do. By sharing resources, you’ll probably find that the community has some to share back that will make your work even better, too!

But remember: all communities are unique, just like the members that comprise them. You can’t expect every group to operate the same way as others, or for one successful example to hold true in another setting. Communities are made up of people and the best approach you can have is to remain human. Organizations are buildings: they aren’t any fun, they aren’t very conversational, and they’re often made of neutral colors. You’re a human: you’re passionate, you’re interesting, and you have something to say. So even if you have different tools, different ideas, and different goals from one community to the next throughout your work, remember to stay human.

For more on my experience with community building, read Online Community Building: Gardening vs Landscaping.

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Ron Casalotti lives and breathes social media. For the past dozen years Ron has held senior social media positions at AOL, Business Week, and currently at Bloomberg. We asked Ron to share some of his accumulated wisdom in the form of five good ideas for using social media for the common good. Here are his thoughts:

The Business of Customers

For many years, companies have planned their existence based upon a fundamental falsehood – that they controlled their brands. And this charade was easy to perpetuate as hired pollsters, paid for by these companies, would create reports based upon the limited metrics available to them reinforcing their preconceived perception of what their customers were saying. Enter social media. Companies are now finding out that they do not control their brands – the customer does. Proposed: Social Media Departments become a separate and distinct segment of the corporate org chart, reporting to the CEO, and that Chief Community Officer (or a Social Media worded equivalent) be a permanent C-Suite position, tasked with independently (outside of influence from marketing; operations or product) engaging the company’s customer base and participating in a two-way conversation for the betterment of all.

Less Toast; More Water

Many people’s reaction when I speak to them about social media is akin to “Why do I care about who’s having toast for breakfast?” A great counter would be, “You shouldn’t – but you should care about who doesn’t have enough clean water to drink” Happening RIGHT NOW are grass roots groups using social media to advance awareness of and solicit funding for providing clean water for health and sanitation where none exists today. Almost 1 billion people do not have direct access to the 1% of the earth’s water that is suitable for drinking. Proposed: More attention be given and support provided to the current and future social media efforts to help solve this crisis. Charity:Water and folksinger Jewel’s Project Clean Water are two of the current charities using Twitter and other social media tools to help millions of others.

Coming to Our Census

“Ten questions in ten minutes.” That’s the mantra of the current U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 survey. After receiving a mailed noticed that the form was on its way; the form package itself; and a post card reminder about the form; I filled it out and mailed it back via USPS. Let this be the last decennial census done this way. Proposed: In the ensuing time period between now and 2020, a system be developed where the Census can be taken, securely, online, with social media marketing used to get the word out to all. For those constituents without Internet access ten years from now, local polling places, libraries and motor vehicle offices among other public facilities would be made available.

The Codger’s Crusade

Attention everyone 55+ out there: I have a message for you from my buddies on Madison Ave (and its equivalents in Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, Miami, London, etc): “You’re dead to me.” It’s true, why spend valuable ad dollars on a group that is set in its ways, has strong brand loyalty, and (let’s face it) will be dying off soon anyway? Better to try and capture the heart$ and mind$ of the twenty-somethings while convincing ourselves that our brand is young and relevant. One small problem: 50 is not the new 40, it’s more like the new 35. The fastest growing segment using social media are the 50+ crowd — and that segment is growing fast as Baby Boomers aided by better health care and nutrition join the fold. The problem is, young mature adults (can I coin a demo phrase, YMAs?)do not want to be treated as being old, or senior for that matter. Many avoid the grandpa/grandma titles altogether as being too “old” sounding. Proposed: Social media sites that truly cater to the 50+ set that are not condescending and do not try to include 60 and 70 year olds (who should have their own social media sites). A few have tried, but ultimately none have succeeded to provide this without itself engaging in ageism. It can be done – we should be working hard to get there before we’re too old to care.

Vox Populi

Every politician promises to listen to his/her constituency, only to rely upon weighing the public’s sentiment by the volume of mail received on a given issue. The problem is, not many people engage in letter writing anymore, given more towards sending emails or voting in online polls. While some politicians have latched onto the new media wave many more choose to do things the way they’ve always been done, afraid to rock the boat. Proposed: All functions in every Senator’s, Representative’s, Governor’s and State Legislator’s offices be required to provide easily accessible online equivalents for all interaction with the public. It’s time to bring our government into the 21st century.

You can vote and comment on these ideas at Good Ideas. You can find Ron on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Forum One’s annual Online Community Unconference takes place on June 9th, 2010 in Mountain View, CA. The Unconference is an open space gathering of online community and social media professionals from the commercial and non profit sectors. We expect over 300 participants to attend this year.

A partial list of attendee organizations includes: Genentech, Panasonic, Linden Lab, Wells Fargo, LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft, Skoll Foundation, NetApp, Autodesk, Jigsaw, Flickr, Rosetta Stone, Care2.com, WellsFargo, SEGA of America, Norton, Symantec, and Intel (to name a few).

Online community professionals come to the event to discuss optimizing their online communities and social media programs. It’s an excellent and engaged audience. If you’d like exposure for your firm or products, here are three reasons to consider sponsoring:

1. Fantastic (but appropriate) Visibility
As a sponsor, you will receive the “normal” event perks – your logo on conference materials, acknowledgment at the event, a sponsor banner. The key to our sponsors’ success is that we don’t oversell our sponsorships, and we limit the number of service providers attending the event so that the ratio of practitioners to service providers is favorable (which also makes for a better attendee experience). You will also have an opportunity to address the full conference for 5 minutes shortly after lunch. In short: Limited competition for attention, you are free to participate as an attendee, and you get the events full attention shortly after lunch.

2. Good Value
Our packages start at $2k, with our premiere package at $5k. (A total steal!) Many events with smaller, less qualified audiences charge twice that, and typically try to cram in as many sponsors in as possible. We also have a handful of underwriting opportunities. Packages exceeding $5k will receive a discount.

3. Attendees are Senior Staff and Have Purchase Power & Influence
Forum One has hosted online community and social media events for nearly 10 years. Over the years, we have built a very senior network of community practitioners and executives. Most of the attendees at our conferences have direct purchase influence, and many have purchase authority. Business *gets done* at our events between sponsors and attendees.

That’s it in a nutshell: great event, great visibility, solid value and an awesome attendee list.

We really do appreciate your time and attention.

If you are interested in discussing terms, please contact me.

Now back to our regularly scheduled community and social media programing.

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