The Permanent Disruption of Social Media

Social media has chipped away at the foundation of traditional donor-engagement models. A new study highlights the realities of donor behavior and how organizations can redesign their outreach strategies to be more effective.

Fantastic article. Nonprofits and those involved with fundraising, please take the time to read and reflect on how you can reshape strategies for helping your cause.

An excerpt that I really like is the below graphic and accompanying explanation. Organizations on whole need to move towards a vortex model to maximize internal resources and outward impact, but they can’t forget the pyramid model, either.

Source: ssireview.org

A most sincere thank you.

Recently, I’ve gotten a few lovely out-of-the-blue emails from people who read this blog. I’m humbled and want to thank everyone for listening to my miscellaneous thoughts and reflections, and together exploring my passions, questions, and ideas. It’s fun for me to write, and it pushes me to think bigger and have conversations I wouldn’t otherwise have. I hope that the occasional post does that for you, too.

I suppose I could queue this post up for Thanksgiving, but why wait, right? THANK YOU for reading, commenting, reflecting, sharing, and using the blog to spark new conversations.

Someone asked me recently where I get all of the content and ideas for posts. Here’s the answer: through all of you. Almost everything comes directly or indirectly from what people in my network share via conversation, email, facebook, twitter, gchat status, or blogs. I’m constantly amazed by the scope of knowledge and information out there, and I’m lucky to have my ear to the ground in so many different places so that I can grab hold of those topics that are particularly interesting. I’m constantly learning from you, so thank you for that, too.

Obviously, I always love hearing from you, the awesome reader, so drop me a line or tweet me or chat via tumblr anytime. I mean it. And thank you, again.

Via USA.gov: How and Why You Should Write a Social Media Will

Social media is a part of daily life, but what happens to the online content that you created once you die?

If you have social media profiles set up online, you should create a statement of how you would like your online identity to be handled. Just like a traditional will helps your survivors handle your physical belongings, a social media will spells out how you want your online identity to be handled.

Like with a traditional will, you’ll need to appoint someone you trust as an online executor. This person will be responsible for closing your email addresses, social media profiles, and blogs after you are deceased. Take these steps to help you write a social media will:

  • Review the privacy policies and the terms and conditions of each website where you have a presence.
  • State how you would like your profiles to be handled. You may want to completely cancel your profile or keep it up for friends and family to visit. Some sites allow users to create a memorial profile where other users can still see your profile but can’t post anything new.
  • Give the social media executor a document that lists all the websites where you have a profile, along with your usernames and passwords.
  • Stipulate in your will that the online executor should have a copy of your death certificate. The online executor may need this as proof in order for websites to take any actions on your behalf.

Learn more about what else you should include in your will and how to create an effective estate plan.

This is a really interesting blog post (especially for USA.gov!) topic. It sounds so morbid, but what a smart idea. The internet allows for more eerie reminders of someone who is no longer alive, whether it’s gmail suggesting other people you might want to include on the email or facebook pages that become interactive memorials. It would make sense that there be a way to control what happens; however, as with “regular” wills, I imagine it has the potential to cause fighting among family and friends and layers of interpretation. With the internet and privacy settings constantly changing, too, it’s likely that the wishes documented in a social media will wouldn’t even be able to be entirely honored.

Don’t worry guys, I sometimes do morbid posts about certain angles of death; it’s just fascinating. I’m not going anywhere, so jenbokoff.com isn’t either.

Facebook Profiles: Accurate Indicator of Job Success?

A new study from the Northern Illinois University, the University of Evansville and Auburn University looked into how Facebook personality corresponds to work performance. Facebook-savvy HR researchers graded a sample of profiles according to the so-called Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) and then six month later, compared the evaluations of the same sample’s work supervisors and found a strong correlation for traits including intellectual curiosity, agreeability and conscientiousness.

I always have appreciated the insight into personality and character that an online presence can give, so while you don’t necessarily have to “clean it up” or put on airs, you may want to think about how those traits are or aren’t reflected on your page.

(the full article can be found on Mashable)

Source: Mashable

Farmville….why is it so popular?

I like games, but I just don’t get Farmville. Maybe it’s because I haven’t tried it, and maybe because the constant Facebook updates in my newsfeed are annoying as hell. I also am partial to board games with social interaction, not role play or simulation games like WoW or Second Life, which frankly are pathetic outlets for the anti-social zombies among us.

But “normal” people in my life play Farmville! When I ask why, they say “it’s so fun” or “so cute” and honestly, not much more than that. I think it probably has the same mind-numbing effect as a lot of trashy tv shows like Real Housewives or 16 and Pregnant (yea, that’s a show, with multiple seasons to boot). People don’t seem to care about strategy, or winning, or even generally succeeding. I can’t figure out what drives them to convince me to adopt a baby cow or eat some blueberries, and further, why think I’d care. And I certainly don’t want to help anyone plow their terrain.

Since Farmville started in June 2009, there are a LOT of people who use it and are fans of it via Facebook. The seamless integration with Facebook in fact has been easy advertising for the game and has undoubtably been the number one reason people decide to play. I just can’t figure out why they stay. PLEASE, someone, give me a good answer!!!

High School Facebook Friends and Erving Goffman

I got facebook friended today by someone else from my really large high school that I really don’t remember. We have 52 friends in common, of whom I really remember (beyond the name) about 2/3 and was for real friends (at the time) with about 3/13.

I accepted friendship.

I say that it’s because denying felt mean, but I think it’s really because I kind of like showing off my life right now because I think it’s pretty great. I also like looking at other people’s profiles and figuring out who they were and who they are and if they’re just doing the same thing I’m doing.

A sociologist I really like, Erving Goffman, wrote some stuff about this fancy thing called the dramaturgical effect, which I like applying to facebook. Basically, it’s this idea that an office worker might look busier than they really are when a supervisor walks by, or that a really shy and modest character might wear a promiscuous dress to the popular kids’ party to fit in. How you act on the “front stage” (what other people see) differs from what’s going on “back stage” (when nobody’s watching), but both construct your identity. More on dramaturgy here.

I always wonder if my front stage is what I think it is, but either way, I like people seeing it, I think.

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