Archive for 2008

Download podcasts and transcripts from Accessibility 2.0

Accessibility 2.0 was a practical conference focussing on web accessibility in a Web 2.0 world, organised by Abilitynet held back in April. Podcasts, transcripts and presentations from the event are now available for download at Podcasts and transcripts : Accessibility 2.0.

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Using social media (Ning) to manage a social project

Not from a nonprofit as such, but this interesting article gives an insight on how Ning was used as a project management tool and how it was used in such as way, that the CEO became the facilitator, rather than the more usual barrier for speed and safety. Read the upbeat article at Using social media (Ning) to manage a social project.

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AdWords-Style Widget Recommends Related Ways to Take Action

Social Actions has launched a widget that recommends to readers of your blog or website related ways to take action.

The widget automatically identifies the keywords on any page and lists social change campaigns related to the stuff you’re writing about. These campaigns are gathered from social action platforms like Kiva, DonorsChoose, Change.org, GlobalGiving, Care2, Idealist.org, and fourteen others. You can read more about the widget and see examples on the launch article on the Social Actions blog.

See the widget in action - find out what actions would be listed for your blog (or any website).

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What happens when an organisation chooses not to engage?

I’ve been following unfolding of the excellent We Are Media project which is a community of people from nonprofits coming together curated by NTEN who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organisations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world. Working together the network aims to help identify and point to the best how-to guides and useful resources that cover all aspects of creating, aggregating, and distributing social media. The resulting curriculum will be live on the We Are Media wiki and will also cover important organisational adoption issues, strategy, ROI analysis, as well as the tools.

In the latest module, they are looking at the Return of Investment (ROI) of social media. In Beth Kanter’s recent post exploring where are the best resources to guide our thinking about Social Media Metrics, ROI, and Nonprofits?; Beth rounds up some great examples and opens up a discussion on measuring the benefits and also, if and how you can quantify the return.

Beth Dunn, another of my favourite bloggers and a contributor for the project and she’s recently posted an article ROI: the null hypothesis, which explores what happens when an organisation chooses not to engage; when they decide to play it ’safe.’
In her article she raises a compelling argument looking at the risks to organisations that are not engaged in social media to reach out to their supporters, members and users.

Finally, over on this side of the pond, Steve Bridger has shared the presentation he recently delivered to staff at Action Aid, entitled “does it mean we have to change our jobs?”. The presentation summarises many of the issues that charities face in choosing whether to participate and how they can make the best use of social media and gives examples of ‘connected’ charities too.

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A video tour of accessibility

Jon Gibbons on his dotjay.co.uk site has collated an impressive list of videos that demonstrate accessibility in order to help others gain insight into how assistive technology is used, particularly with regards to the Web, and its value to those who use it. Visit the site and read the article - Assistive Technology: a video tour of accessibility.

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Designing the Online Newsroom

Designing the Online Newsroom is an article from PebbleRoad which delivers a thoughtful roadmap to integrating an online news area for your website, and how to manage it and make it work. Well worth a read, and relevant to all sectors and organisations, read the full article at Designing the Online Newsroom.

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Deafness and the User Experience

Deafness and the User Experience is a recent article at A List Apart that helps you to a better understanding of deafness, highlighting the need to stop thinking of deafness as simply the inverse of hearing, but to understand deafness from both a cultural and linguistic perspective. A great overview with lots of suggestions on how to ensure your site is more usable and accessible for all.

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Blog Action Day on October 15th - have you signed up yet?

Last year, over twenty thousand bloggers participated in the first annual Blog Action Day. Blog Action Day is an event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. Last year the theme was the Environment and this years theme is Poverty.

Register your blog and take part in the forthcoming event on October 15th on the Blog Action Day site.

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LowBrowse - helping make the web a better place for those with vision loss

A new add-on tool to work with the Firefox browser will soon be launched which aims to help those with vision loss.

Excerpt from the Lighthouse International website:

While existing programs enable blind people to access the web effectively, LowBrowse™ is the first program to enable people with moderate or severe low vision to both view web pages as the original web author intended and read the text on those pages tailored to their own visual needs. The highly anticipated program, which runs in conjunction with the Mozilla Firefox browser, will be offered at no charge and is expected to be available to the public for download via the Firefox add-on site in late summer or early fall of 2008.

Using open source technology, this browser add-on will be free to users through the Firefox Add-on site. It works with Windows, Mac and Linux. Lighthouse International is a non-profit organisation which enables people with low vision and blindness to enjoy safe, independent and productive lives.

Read the full article and find out more about the wide range of features and opportunities that this add-on will deliver at Lighthouse International Develops Free, Innovative Web Browser Software For People Who Are Visually Impaired.

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Scripting Enabled

Scripting Enabled is a conference and hack day taking place in London, England in September 2008.
The aim of the conference is to break down the barriers between disabled users and the social web as much as giving ethical hackers real world issues to solve. Find out more at the Scripting Enabled website.

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