A good summary of why non-profits should get on the social media bandwagon - and that it's more than just a bandwagon! It's the path to further engagement in this day and age.
Read the article here by Beth Kanter
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Engage young with new media
Jan 16, 2009
By Clarissa Oon
Straits Times
SCHOOLS are starting to use new media tools such as role-playing and simulation games, blogs and animation clips to engage the young on how Singapore came about and the challenges it faces.
Praising the approach, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said it was 'timely and important' for National Education because the young are exposed to so many 'competing worldviews' online.
Dr Ng was speaking on Friday morning at a seminar attended by some 300 National Education practitioners such as teachers, Singapore Armed Forces personnel and representatives from ministries like Education and Home Affairs.
His remarks reflect the Government's growing push to engage citizens online.
The seminar was organised by Nexus, the central coordinating agency for National Education, which aims to get younger Singaporeans such as students and National Servicemen interested in the country's past, its challenges and values and its future.
Dr Ng noted that while the Internet is a source of valuable information and views as well as bigotry, prejudices and untruths, 'thankfully, teenagers in school are discerning' and know which websites to go to for more reliable views.
Still, National Education efforts must have a presence online and 'provide a balance to ideas that sow discord and unity', he said.
How to do that effectively involves not just putting out information, but requires using digital technology to 'become better story-tellers' and to bring people together, he added.
By Clarissa Oon
Straits Times
SCHOOLS are starting to use new media tools such as role-playing and simulation games, blogs and animation clips to engage the young on how Singapore came about and the challenges it faces.
Praising the approach, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said it was 'timely and important' for National Education because the young are exposed to so many 'competing worldviews' online.
Dr Ng was speaking on Friday morning at a seminar attended by some 300 National Education practitioners such as teachers, Singapore Armed Forces personnel and representatives from ministries like Education and Home Affairs.
His remarks reflect the Government's growing push to engage citizens online.
The seminar was organised by Nexus, the central coordinating agency for National Education, which aims to get younger Singaporeans such as students and National Servicemen interested in the country's past, its challenges and values and its future.
Dr Ng noted that while the Internet is a source of valuable information and views as well as bigotry, prejudices and untruths, 'thankfully, teenagers in school are discerning' and know which websites to go to for more reliable views.
Still, National Education efforts must have a presence online and 'provide a balance to ideas that sow discord and unity', he said.
How to do that effectively involves not just putting out information, but requires using digital technology to 'become better story-tellers' and to bring people together, he added.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Fund-raising on Facebook rises
Jan 4, 2009 (Straits Times)
IT IS not every day that you find a corporate bigwig sharing his personal interests or posting pictures of his company's fund-raisers online.
But Mr Tan Suee Chieh, chief executive of insurance firm NTUC Income, is doing just that on popular social networking website Facebook, to raise money for charity.
Inspired by American President- elect Barack Obama's successful use of new media to woo voters, Mr Tan and his staff are using Facebook to get people excited about NTUC Income's charity drive called Project Love.
Read Melissa Sim & Theresa Tan's story in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.
IT IS not every day that you find a corporate bigwig sharing his personal interests or posting pictures of his company's fund-raisers online.
But Mr Tan Suee Chieh, chief executive of insurance firm NTUC Income, is doing just that on popular social networking website Facebook, to raise money for charity.
Inspired by American President- elect Barack Obama's successful use of new media to woo voters, Mr Tan and his staff are using Facebook to get people excited about NTUC Income's charity drive called Project Love.
Read Melissa Sim & Theresa Tan's story in Monday's edition of The Straits Times.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Internet revolution that elected Obama could save Earth: Gore
8 Nov 2008 (AFP)
SAN FRANCISCO — Former US vice president Al Gore said an Internet revolution carrying Barack Obama to the White House should now focus its power on stopping Earth's climate crisis.
The one-time presidential contender turned environmental champion told Web 2.0 Summit goers in San Francisco Friday that technology has provided tools to save the planet while creating jobs and stimulating the crippled economy.
"The young people who have been inspired by Barack Obama's campaign and the movement that powered Barack Obama's campaign want a purpose," Gore said.
"One of the reasons we were all thrilled Tuesday night is it was pretty obvious this was a collectively intelligent decision."
The Internet's critical role in Democrat Obama's victory in the presidential race against Republican John McCain was a "great blow for victory" in addressing a "democracy crisis" stifling action against climate change, Gore said.
The Web has "revolutionized" nearly every aspect of running for US president and delivered an "electrifying redemption" of the founding national principle that all people are created equal, according to Gore.
"Some week," Gore said in greeting to an audience that leapt to its feet cheering. "It really was overwhelming. It couldn't have happened without the Internet."
Obama's victory, seen by many as a repudiation of policies of president George W. Bush, was validation of sorts for Gore, who lost to Bush in a controversial election outcome in 2000.
"Belated redemption is part of what we are celebrating this week," Gore said.
Since leaving politics Gore has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his relentless efforts to combat climate change and starred in an Academy Award-winning global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
He also founded Current TV, a cable television operation that taps into user-generated videos and news coverage fed to its website.
The one-time newspaper reporter said his reasons for creating Current included a belief in the need to "democratize television media."
"One of the main reasons why our political system has not been operating well until this election is the unhealthy influence of the television medium as it has operated," Gore said.
"The Internet comes in and democratizes information again and it is so exciting. All the vibrant forms of information are living on the Internet but TVs are still dampening it."
Current TV teamed with Twitter and Digg on election night to weave feeds from the popular Internet websites into its coverage of the vote.
The Web has the potential to "revolutionize almost every aspect" of running for US president, according to Gore. He believes that social activism made possible by people connecting and sharing information online is in its infancy.
"What happened in the election opens a full new range of possibilities and now is the time to really move swiftly to exploit these new possibilities," Gore said of turning the power of the Internet to cooling global warming.
Gore said Obama should announce a national goal of getting all US electric power from renewable and non-carbon energy within the next decade and spend the billions necessary to build an "electrinet" smart power grid.
"Web 2.0 has to have a purpose" Gore said.
"The purpose I would urge is to bring about a higher level of consciousness about our relationship to this planet and the imminent danger we face. We have everything we need to save it."
SAN FRANCISCO — Former US vice president Al Gore said an Internet revolution carrying Barack Obama to the White House should now focus its power on stopping Earth's climate crisis.
The one-time presidential contender turned environmental champion told Web 2.0 Summit goers in San Francisco Friday that technology has provided tools to save the planet while creating jobs and stimulating the crippled economy.
"The young people who have been inspired by Barack Obama's campaign and the movement that powered Barack Obama's campaign want a purpose," Gore said.
"One of the reasons we were all thrilled Tuesday night is it was pretty obvious this was a collectively intelligent decision."
The Internet's critical role in Democrat Obama's victory in the presidential race against Republican John McCain was a "great blow for victory" in addressing a "democracy crisis" stifling action against climate change, Gore said.
The Web has "revolutionized" nearly every aspect of running for US president and delivered an "electrifying redemption" of the founding national principle that all people are created equal, according to Gore.
"Some week," Gore said in greeting to an audience that leapt to its feet cheering. "It really was overwhelming. It couldn't have happened without the Internet."
Obama's victory, seen by many as a repudiation of policies of president George W. Bush, was validation of sorts for Gore, who lost to Bush in a controversial election outcome in 2000.
"Belated redemption is part of what we are celebrating this week," Gore said.
Since leaving politics Gore has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his relentless efforts to combat climate change and starred in an Academy Award-winning global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
He also founded Current TV, a cable television operation that taps into user-generated videos and news coverage fed to its website.
The one-time newspaper reporter said his reasons for creating Current included a belief in the need to "democratize television media."
"One of the main reasons why our political system has not been operating well until this election is the unhealthy influence of the television medium as it has operated," Gore said.
"The Internet comes in and democratizes information again and it is so exciting. All the vibrant forms of information are living on the Internet but TVs are still dampening it."
Current TV teamed with Twitter and Digg on election night to weave feeds from the popular Internet websites into its coverage of the vote.
The Web has the potential to "revolutionize almost every aspect" of running for US president, according to Gore. He believes that social activism made possible by people connecting and sharing information online is in its infancy.
"What happened in the election opens a full new range of possibilities and now is the time to really move swiftly to exploit these new possibilities," Gore said of turning the power of the Internet to cooling global warming.
Gore said Obama should announce a national goal of getting all US electric power from renewable and non-carbon energy within the next decade and spend the billions necessary to build an "electrinet" smart power grid.
"Web 2.0 has to have a purpose" Gore said.
"The purpose I would urge is to bring about a higher level of consciousness about our relationship to this planet and the imminent danger we face. We have everything we need to save it."
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Maps, Online Communities and Games for the Environment
from the Reuters Environment blog by Juliana Rotich
Kenyan blogger Juliana Rotich is the editor of Green Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world, and will be a regular contributor. ReutersThomson is not responsible for the content - the views are the author’s alone.
Earlier this year, GV Environment listed the web2.0 tools for environment activism. Since then many more tools have been developed to help concerned citizens make decisions about their carbon footprint and engage with others using maps and games. This post will highlight some mashups, online communities, carbon footprint calculators and one online game.
More on the Reuters Environment blog.
Kenyan blogger Juliana Rotich is the editor of Green Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world, and will be a regular contributor. ReutersThomson is not responsible for the content - the views are the author’s alone.
Earlier this year, GV Environment listed the web2.0 tools for environment activism. Since then many more tools have been developed to help concerned citizens make decisions about their carbon footprint and engage with others using maps and games. This post will highlight some mashups, online communities, carbon footprint calculators and one online game.
More on the Reuters Environment blog.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Government engaging bloggers
Monkey observes: The Social Media Breakfast gets covered on the news yesterday. Read my blog post about SMB here. Interesting the writer is a recent NUS CNM graduate.
Come Blog About It
Govt agencies get help putting message out in cyberspace
ALICIA WONG
Today, 20 Aug 2008
YOU want to create an online buzz about a government-sponsored commercial on the family. What do you do? Invite eight bloggers to preview it.
This happened two months ago at a special session organised by global public relations firm Ogilvy. The commercial depicting a single father struggling to raise his daughter eventually aired on June 21 — with the buzz the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) had hoped for.
Mr Richard Tan, MCYS director for communications and international relations, told Today the experience was new in his 20 years' involvement in policy implementation and "very exciting".
Not only did the bloggers come to understand how and why the commercial was made, Mr Tan read their "heartfelt" reactions online. Such sessions "give policymakers and implementers a greater feel of how people really see our initiatives", he said.
Two years after signalling the need to engage the Internet at his National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revisited the topic on Sunday. Ahead of that, certain Government agencies have already been making the effort to court bloggers' views, while hoping they would put their message in cyberspace.
It is, to some extent, a gamble. These engagement events come with no strings attached — the invited bloggers are free to write what they want, or indeed, not write at all.
Sure, the event could have backfired. But blogger Ian Timothy, 27, who was at the preview, said: "While bloggers have the tendency to be overly critical, we also swing to the other extreme — when we really like something, we won't just stop at talking about it on our blogs, but also share with our friends through other channels."
Public relations, cyber-style
The National Heritage Board, meanwhile, has been hosting museum tours for bloggers and held a session last Saturday for 40 of them at the Asian Civilisations Museum.
In what it believes is a first among agencies here, the board is recruiting for an in-house "social media marketing" position, to cultivate relationships with active bloggers.
Said Mr Walter Lim, its director of corporate communications and industry promotion: "As social media gains prominence, we do have a very high proportion of people, especially teens, who spend time online. It is critical that organisations look at how we can leverage on this growth."
Such perspectives are a far cry from the early days when online views were sniffed at because of their mostly anonymous nature. Blogger EastCoastLife "applauds" the recent initiatives. The mother and education consultant, who asked not to be named, said: "It's better to work with the people, listen to them, than suppress their views."
Bloggers now appear to function as a "public relations arm" and the Government is recognising them as an important medium to reach the public, said Dr Linda Perry, a senior visiting fellow at the National University of Singapore's department of Communications and New Media.
Last year, the National Council Against Drug Abuse rolled out its anti-drug campaign on social sites such as Friendster and YouTube, and prominent Singapore-based bloggers were invited to blog about it.
They were given campaign information, and left to decide if – and what – they wanted to write. "It was a means to reach out to youths through their peers," said a spokeswoman from the Central Narcotics Bureau. Youths complimented this "ingenious approach", with at least one blogger, Darryl Kang, posting the "best campaign ads I've ever seen" on his blog and highligting the dangers of drug abuse.
For bloggers, what this all eventually might mean is a greater role in policy, said Ian Timothy. Instead of just blogging about what they see the Government doing, "we become active participants".
Press accreditation for bloggers?
Could such participation go a step further to include news reporting? Last month, the Malaysian Government issued press passes to about 10 online news sites such as Malaysiakini, but stopped short of handing them out to bloggers since blogs are often personal in nature.
Press passes would allow bloggers access to Government briefings or press conferences, for example, and the access to speak to officials at these events.
Said editor of The Online Citizen Choo Zheng Xi: "It's better to bring them in and allow them to see things from the government point of view, rather than lock them out and they criticise without understanding."
This could mean fewer misunderstandings and, while bloggers may still be critical, "it will be more constructive criticism", he added.
But one concern among commentators is credibility and accuracy – bloggers, after all, would largely not have journalistic training and their writing would not be subject to the editing process of the traditional media.
EastCoastLife said most bloggers at the preview of the MCYS commercial "weren't prepared and not active in responding. There were many questions to be asked, but they let slip the opportunity." Most bloggers, she felt, are not ready to be responsible.
Associate Professor Ang Peng Hwa of Nanyang Technological University's communications programme: "Unless they are prepared to have themselves held accountable (for their writing), I don't see how bloggers can equate themselves with professional media."
Member of Parliament (MP) Baey Yam Keng said blogsites that report on government issues should be regulated like traditional media, "to establish the same quality of objective and responsible reporting".
"I think it (bloggers reporting) could happen in the future, but looking at the state of the blogsphere now, I think the Government would not be comfortable," he said.
Still, fellow MP Lam Pin Min was "not averse" to credible bloggers covering press conferences as it would "be a positive step" towards harnessing blogs to put out information, "engage and solicit feedback from the public".
WEBTURN @ A blogger on the CNB's anti-drug campaign online: blog.dk.sg
Come Blog About It
Govt agencies get help putting message out in cyberspace
ALICIA WONG
Today, 20 Aug 2008
YOU want to create an online buzz about a government-sponsored commercial on the family. What do you do? Invite eight bloggers to preview it.
This happened two months ago at a special session organised by global public relations firm Ogilvy. The commercial depicting a single father struggling to raise his daughter eventually aired on June 21 — with the buzz the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) had hoped for.
Mr Richard Tan, MCYS director for communications and international relations, told Today the experience was new in his 20 years' involvement in policy implementation and "very exciting".
Not only did the bloggers come to understand how and why the commercial was made, Mr Tan read their "heartfelt" reactions online. Such sessions "give policymakers and implementers a greater feel of how people really see our initiatives", he said.
Two years after signalling the need to engage the Internet at his National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revisited the topic on Sunday. Ahead of that, certain Government agencies have already been making the effort to court bloggers' views, while hoping they would put their message in cyberspace.
It is, to some extent, a gamble. These engagement events come with no strings attached — the invited bloggers are free to write what they want, or indeed, not write at all.
Sure, the event could have backfired. But blogger Ian Timothy, 27, who was at the preview, said: "While bloggers have the tendency to be overly critical, we also swing to the other extreme — when we really like something, we won't just stop at talking about it on our blogs, but also share with our friends through other channels."
Public relations, cyber-style
The National Heritage Board, meanwhile, has been hosting museum tours for bloggers and held a session last Saturday for 40 of them at the Asian Civilisations Museum.
In what it believes is a first among agencies here, the board is recruiting for an in-house "social media marketing" position, to cultivate relationships with active bloggers.
Said Mr Walter Lim, its director of corporate communications and industry promotion: "As social media gains prominence, we do have a very high proportion of people, especially teens, who spend time online. It is critical that organisations look at how we can leverage on this growth."
Such perspectives are a far cry from the early days when online views were sniffed at because of their mostly anonymous nature. Blogger EastCoastLife "applauds" the recent initiatives. The mother and education consultant, who asked not to be named, said: "It's better to work with the people, listen to them, than suppress their views."
Bloggers now appear to function as a "public relations arm" and the Government is recognising them as an important medium to reach the public, said Dr Linda Perry, a senior visiting fellow at the National University of Singapore's department of Communications and New Media.
Last year, the National Council Against Drug Abuse rolled out its anti-drug campaign on social sites such as Friendster and YouTube, and prominent Singapore-based bloggers were invited to blog about it.
They were given campaign information, and left to decide if – and what – they wanted to write. "It was a means to reach out to youths through their peers," said a spokeswoman from the Central Narcotics Bureau. Youths complimented this "ingenious approach", with at least one blogger, Darryl Kang, posting the "best campaign ads I've ever seen" on his blog and highligting the dangers of drug abuse.
For bloggers, what this all eventually might mean is a greater role in policy, said Ian Timothy. Instead of just blogging about what they see the Government doing, "we become active participants".
Press accreditation for bloggers?
Could such participation go a step further to include news reporting? Last month, the Malaysian Government issued press passes to about 10 online news sites such as Malaysiakini, but stopped short of handing them out to bloggers since blogs are often personal in nature.
Press passes would allow bloggers access to Government briefings or press conferences, for example, and the access to speak to officials at these events.
Said editor of The Online Citizen Choo Zheng Xi: "It's better to bring them in and allow them to see things from the government point of view, rather than lock them out and they criticise without understanding."
This could mean fewer misunderstandings and, while bloggers may still be critical, "it will be more constructive criticism", he added.
But one concern among commentators is credibility and accuracy – bloggers, after all, would largely not have journalistic training and their writing would not be subject to the editing process of the traditional media.
EastCoastLife said most bloggers at the preview of the MCYS commercial "weren't prepared and not active in responding. There were many questions to be asked, but they let slip the opportunity." Most bloggers, she felt, are not ready to be responsible.
Associate Professor Ang Peng Hwa of Nanyang Technological University's communications programme: "Unless they are prepared to have themselves held accountable (for their writing), I don't see how bloggers can equate themselves with professional media."
Member of Parliament (MP) Baey Yam Keng said blogsites that report on government issues should be regulated like traditional media, "to establish the same quality of objective and responsible reporting".
"I think it (bloggers reporting) could happen in the future, but looking at the state of the blogsphere now, I think the Government would not be comfortable," he said.
Still, fellow MP Lam Pin Min was "not averse" to credible bloggers covering press conferences as it would "be a positive step" towards harnessing blogs to put out information, "engage and solicit feedback from the public".
WEBTURN @ A blogger on the CNB's anti-drug campaign online: blog.dk.sg
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