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I spent the day at PRSA’s “Connecting for a Cause” seminar, wearing my Jolkona hat as an attendee and a speaker. The theme of the day was how to make social media work for your nonprofit. Even though I’m someone who lives and breathes in the social media space, it was good to take a seat and learn from all of the speakers. Well, 6 hours, 30 Tweets via @Jolkona and 20 handwritten pages of notes later, there’s a lot to digest, but we’ll start here.

Throughout the day, I heard nuggets of information during these panels:

Make Social Media Work for Your Nonprofit: Tips from a Geek

• Chris Pirillo, Lockergnome

How to Write for an Online Audience

• Chuck Taylor, The Everett Herald

How to Manage Volunteers and Interns for Your PR Efforts

• Melody Biringer and Nicole Shema, CRAVE
• Laura Kimball and Nadia Mahmud, Jolkona
• Moderator: Nikki Balcerak, Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce

Media Relations in the Digital Age

• Linda Thomas, KIRO Radio
• Paul Balcerak, KIRO TV
• Evonne Benedict, KING TV
• Aaron Blank, The Fearey Group

Nonprofit Makeover: Fresh Ideas from Fundraising to the Web

• Bridget Perez and Ralph Allora, Tray Creative

45 Ideas in 45 Minutes

• Shane Mac, Gist
• Alison Carl White, NPower
• Kathy Gill, Master of Communication in Digital Media program at the University of Washington
• Moderator: Shauna Causey, Ant’s Eye View

There were many more speakers and talks, but these are the ones I had the opportunity to attend. (more…)

I recently participated in a unique experiment called The Lab, more specifically the Nonprofit Lab (#NPLab). The Lab is the was created by Erica Mills, Peter Drury, and Zan McColloch-Lussier, three rockstars of nonprofit marketing.

The Lab is not another tweetup or opportunity to collect business cards, although that did happen. It was started because Erica, Peter, and Zan were having similar conversations about the change and innoviation that is happening in the nonprofit sector and wanted to open it up to a bigger conversation. And so The Lab was born.

As they put it:

It is our goal to convene a consistent core of smart, engaged, strategic nonprofit leaders. But not just that. We want to create a community of professional peers who together can take risks, inquire, challenge, respect confidentiality, and think out loud. Together.

The first event featured T.A. McCann, the CEO and founder of Gist, to share his insights on how to listen effectively using social media.

Here are the highlights from T.A.’s talk:

(more…)