My Huffington Post Articles
Customer Service: Sorry Page Not Found (404)
You walk into a Starbucks and ask for a small coffee, the
barista looks at you bewildered and replies, "sorry, small coffee not
found." This conversation would never happen for two reasons: 1.
Starbucks has small coffee up the yingyang 2. The barista would
translate your request to Starbuck's terminology 404 Page not found --- Some day I hope to be a top Google result for page not found. This article includes a broken link to a lot of sites including HuffingtonPost.com. Ironically as of writing this, Huffpo does not have a great 404. |
Online Voting: The Organization Who Cried Wolf
"Please vote for us even though this is the fifth contest we've tried to win in the last year. This time we really need it!" - Not-for-profit Communications Team'Crowd sourced philanthropy' is a hot trend in the for-profit marketing world. Nearly every 501(c)3 has been eligible -- and tempted Online Voting --- I think online voting is a lot like scratch and win lottery tickets... |
Killing Innovation: Does Your Organization Have Moats?
In the year 1066, King William the Conqueror had a problem;
he could not take care of all of England. There were too many uprisings
for one centralized power to manage. Enter feudalism,
a system that divided the land into fiefdoms led by lords in exchange
for... Tech Fiefdoms article -------------------- This article was inspired by Rusty Lewis's insights on the social dynamics of tech in the workplace. |
Mobile Giving and Why People Are Bad at Poker
"Your org doesn't have mobile giving!!?? How are you supposed to
collect the thousands of dollars people could be texting you right now?
All you need is a mobile donation short code, that's all the Red Cross
did and look how well they're doing." -- Someone you probably know READ MORE --- I am a fan of poker and have been looking for a way to weave some poker lessons into an article. I pushed pretty far in this one but I think it holds true. And it if it doesn't succeed in warning orgs about mobile giving, maybe it will make them better at poker... |
Usability: If People Don't use it, it's Broken
Cow Path Theory If you drop a cow in a random field it will eventually find its way to water or die trying. Though it may not be the fastest way, cows will do their best to reach their goal, and will continue to use the same trail leaving a cow path. READ MORE ---- This article was inspired by a change we had to make after we relaunched our site. Just a reminder that a site is always in beta, a work in progress that must be continually refined toward it's goal. |
Christmas in June: What Orgs are Missing on Their Calendars
Dear supporter, We've all received hundreds of these messages...on e-mail, by snail mail, via... This article highlights the DoSomething.org Halloween Case Study, and encourages orgs to jump on holidays outside of December. |
R.I.P. E-mail Newsletters
Your e-mail newsletter is going to die. As you read this, there are
a host of illnesses attacking the health of your pretty newsletter:
competition, RSS readers, SPAM, PDAs and tracking issues, and
digitalnoise. Scared yet?
Every year e-mail open rates decline. Ten years ago, e-newsletters were achieving, on average 25 to 30 percent open rates. Between 2004 and 2007 rates slipped to 15 to 20 percent (200 million messages surveyed). But since 2006, open rates are tracking around 8 to 13 percent. Let me be clear: if your mutual fund posted these numbers, you'd be selling your house and taking on a second job.... A smart guy named Harish Rao started me thinking about this topic in early 2009. There will be more R.I.P Email Newsletter articles focusing on click through rate, targeting, and finally one that simply promotes moving to mobile :) |
Will You Marry Me? What Not-For-Profits get Wrong on the Web
Will you marry me? Seriously, will you, the person who is reading this right now, marry me? A little info about myself: I'm a college grad, I have all my hair, I like long walks on the beach and I'm employed. Yeah. It's a little bold to ask you upon our first meeting, online. You don't know much about me. I know almost nothing about you. Seems a bit desperate, right?Read more on the Huffington Post This is one of my favorite things to say in a presentation. There are more practical applications of this concept that I will write about especially regarding UI (user interface). |
11 Tips on Hunting and Capturing a Not-For-Profit Techie
Capturing a good techie in the open job market is something that 80
percent of nonprofits struggle with at some point (the other 20 percent
are probably lying). I have interacted with many organizations that
know they have a need for a techie (i.e. programmer, IT, web design,
social media manager, online/SEO strategist) but can't find the right
person. This includes DoSomething.org. They post descriptions on idealist.org
and other job sites, moan about not having enough money to afford a
great person, and end up hiring an outside firm instead. Don't give up!
Just change the hunt.... Read more on the Huffington Post This was my first huffpo article and I think it was a fun way to give a small intro to how I got started in tech at DoSomething.org. It also tackles a problem I have seen across many orgs. |
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