Facebook Metrics! Measure from the start

August 23, 2010 is the planned date that the YMCA of Metro Chicago will be launching about 20 Facebook pages, one for each of our membership centers.  In about 2 months time we have created a process to build the pages, train the authors, drive the strategy and make it happen.  But we recognize that we will need to measure our progress. So this is when I turned to Beth Kanter for advice, well her blog, not her personally.

Spreadsheet aerobics is a blog post from Beth that talks about how to measure your Facebook work and experiments. I took her advice, but I am doing it one step at a time. 

We have created a set of trainings, materials and steps to rapidly deploy our social media sites.  Our first effort is Facebook for our membership centers. Our first goal is to establish our presence and provide the foundation to begin to connect with our members.  We want to be where our communities are and communicate with them they want to.

Once we have the basics working, authors trained and a presence established we will work to equip our YMCA staff as authors to begin to create engagement with purpose. But we have to start somewhere, which for us will be creating the presence, training our staff and just getting it rolling!

In that effort, we will just be tracking the basic stats straight from Facebook Insights.  Each our Facebook page administrators will download the interactions stats into Excel and send it to us.  We will then copy those numbers straight into this report format.  Our hope is to be able to show the correlation between those actively interacting on their page with the increase in participation of fans.

Anyway, here is spreadsheet report, based on concepts from Beth Kanter.

Facebook metrics

View more documents from Steve Heye.

NTEN Tech Leadership Academy and what I learned already.

While I have been working on my transition from Steve Heye to just "the Steve," I have been too busy to post to my blog.  So instead I am just going to share some of the things I have learned while preparing for the upcoming Tech Leadership Academy from NTEN. I'm presenting with John Merritt, but I have already learned a few things without the event even happening yet, just imagine once it does happen.



Incredible training op from NTEN - Technology Leadership Academy! This is a free training for smaller orgs, but it is so much more than just a training.  They have assembled some of the best trainers, well plus me, to cover the spectrum of technology topics.

Apply before July 30 right here! http://www.nten.org/techacademy

Part of what they will be covering in the Academy above is a great diagram that is in a slideshow from the awesome Holly Ross . The slide shows an adapted, simplified version of the IT Alignment stages that I refer to a lot. But they have added some arrows indicating that as alignment increases the technology brings additional service to the mission.  I like the simplicity of it.

But then she also a second diagram (but it looks like she is borrowing it from Save the Children) of a IT Strategy pyramid that talks about how to progress forward in these IT Alignment stages. This diagram helps illustrate that only one of the levels is solely focused on tech tools, the foundation.

The second level requires examining your operations and tech. The third level is not just business steps, it is how you deliver your programs, serve your constituents, meet your mission with tech.

The top of the triangle is all about what you do differently, this requires not just thinking about how you deliver services, but how you can leverage technology to completely change your whole organization, add a new service or completely redefine the way you meet your mission leveraging technology.

To see the full presentation that Holly created you can visit SlideShare at: http://www.slideshare.net/nten_hross/let-a-thousand-tech-flowers-bloom

Thanks for inviting me to participate Holly, looking forward to it!

IT Manifesto and Collection of things...

Holly Ross posted "A Leadership Manifesto: Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" on the NTEN blog. Please take a minute to go to this post and make your comment, especially if you have a different viewpoint. This is a great post.  Here are a couple quotes that I cant help but share.

"Right now, in our sector, we need technology leaders.  We are standing right on top of a critical inflection point, and we owe it to our causes to make sure that we navigate the change as best as we possibly can. So I am calling on all of you to stand up and lead.  We will follow you."

"The old style of IT management was a command-and-control model.  It was about "experts" making decisions for the end users and mandating those decisions. These days, there are more experts than you think. innovation and expertise in technology can come from any staffer in any role, and technology leaders need to recognize and embrace that.  We need to run IT shops that protect our assets while encouraging this innovation. When everyone's a part of process, the revolution happens much more quickly."

And from out of the comments from Holly:
"tech is definitely undefined and muddy now. It's out of the back room and out in every department at your organization. Think about how we used to deal with IT...."  "now technology is a completely different beast. It's about communicating, conversing, collecting, sharing, advocating and more. It's about all the ways that we meet your missions."

Holly hints that the conversation about technology leaders has only just begun for the next year.  I cant wait to see what comes out of this.

And here are a few other gems I want to share:
Recording of a presentation on IT Alignment that John Merritt and I did for NTEN. It is worth a watch, we were on something of a roll that day.

Slideshow of Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom from Holly Ross.

Forget the Tech, Lets Talk Mission - Great article from John Merritt (he wrote it and just added my name)

And now for something completely different, be sure to take time to order your copy of Beth Kanter and Allison Fine's new book the Networked Nonprofit. Read more about the book and the launch!

Flickr Photo credit: Chris.Corwin

Social Media Comments Gone Wild! What to do?

What if someone says something bad about us on social media? We cant do that!

Isnt that one of the bigger hesitations of orgs using social media? It is easy to think through what to do if the comments are just wrong, but what if the comments are bad but correct, just plain mean or pose a real risk?

I am a huge fan of the Air Force Blog Assessment chart! This is what we used to guide the discussion around how and when we should reply to comments on our social media sites.  This visual worked great to allow non-tech staff to think through and understand all of the options.  It also helped leadership to feel more comfortable with our ability to reply.

But what do you do when the same comments start to cross boundaries and exposure your participants, your members or your organization to real risk?

So in addition to the Air Force Blog Assessment we decided to create a comment escalation flow chart.  This is intended to help our social media authors decide what action to take in addition to the reply.  We wanted to have a documented process for our employees to use and to find a way to keep our Communications & Risk Management departments in the loop.  So here is what we came up with.  We are also working on documenting the actual steps they take but wanted a visual to make it understandable and simple.

What are your thoughts on this?  Do you have similar things in place?

Here is why I decided to share this.  Moderating comments may seem like just another task that has to be done by our authors.  But in this particular pilot launch the authors are working with Teens.  So when they take action on an inappropriate comment, they are actually working toward the goals of their program. By having a conversation with a program participant about responsible behavior online, they are reinforcing the program goal of strengthening self image and how you present yourself.

Software randomly creates policy where none exists & other stuff I learned

If there isnt a documented process, policies or set of standards that your organization uses to define it's best practices on how business is conducted, then by default your software may create it for you.  Software and the solutions you use will have built in policies and processes. So in lieu of you picking the best way to run your business you allow the software to do it for you. WOW! How come I had never really put that thought together in my head?

Ok, so in many cases following the rules and policies dictated by your software is a good thing. Many times these are based on regulations, business practices and audit standards.  But beyond that should you determine the most effective way to run your organization, then try to adapt those practices to your software.  Rather than seeing how the software works, then letting that dictate your process?

Slow down Steve, where is all of this craziness coming from?

I was excited to be given the chance to present my #10ntc Ignite session for a small group over at the Great Book Foundation.  My ignite session tries to relay a point about how technology staff talking about tools and solutions can kill your audience. After that I spend about 20 minutes talking all about IT Alignment stuff from the NTEN book.  Then we opened it up for some questions and answers.

There was a group of questions that revolved around determining policy, planning technology strategy and staff roles in all of this. That is when someone asked about how do you manage a multi-layer technology strategy that meets the needs of the individual staff, each department and the full organization.  If you are meeting all of those needs wouldnt that require multiple technology strategies and require those strategies to start from very different perspectives?

That lead me to try to explain how you do need to have a few parts to your IT Alignment strategy.  This goes back to John Merritt's idea of the ART of the Technology.  ART = Alignment, Relationship, Transparency.  First, have a strategy to make the technology work so well that it is transparent, second work to build relationships between IT and the rest of the org, third move technology to meeting the mission through Alignment.  So yes, it is a bunch of strategies, not just one focused on mission, but that is still the end goal.

Steve, you are so off track yet again, wasnt this post about software creating policy?  Yes, it is about that and I am trying to get back to that if you would just let me.

This then loops us back to the comment about software creating policies and practices where there are none. If you dont have a well rounded technology strategy that is focusing on all three elements Alignment, Relationship and Transparency tied to the mission it is easy to let the tools take over.

WOW! Did you see how I just tied that all together and referenced the ignite session as well? ZOINKS!

Stop selling Slurpees and Lead with questions

Solutions. That is what IT Staff is good at. We see a problem or opportunity and we come up with solutions.  We have a fantastic ability to know and quickly identify possible tools or even process changes to make impact. We are quick to offer help and jump to the easy fixes.

But I would argue that this solution pushing turns us into a convenience store. We are only asked about things when a solution is needed.  Why do we need to be part of the planning when all we do is provide the solution?  People would rather finish their planning, identify what the problem or need is, then step up to the Slurpee counter and order the quick fix.


By acting under the orders of "the customer is always right" and "Service with a smile", are we really providing the best services to our organization?

Most of the Nonprofit Tech Staff that I know have much deeper skills than providing icee beverages when people need a quick fix.  We have a set of skills that complements the rest of organization very well but I dont see it used enough.  We are very analytical, process oriented, mission driven and creative with a unique perspective, plus the knowledge of tools and methods that many others dont know.  So why do we squander it?

Here is my proposal.  When a request comes in, lead with a "Yes but I have some questions..." Spend some time asking questions about what they are working on, what is the end goal, what would success look like.  And dont ask these questions in a formal document or a survey, try talking to your colleagues.


Or better yet, here is my ideal request.  Dont wait for people to come to you looking for solutions. Target one group of staff that is working on a great program within your organization.  Work within your IT team to come up with a set of questions about that program that would help you understand it better. Come up with questions about what the planned impact is or what long term success would look like.  Then invite a couple of those staff to your IT Staff meeting and have a conversation with them about it.  Dont even talk about tools or solutions. Just ask questions to better understand the program.  Showing interest in their program and asking questions will develop a relationship that will benefit everything you do with them.

In general, I think we all need to start leading with questions, not answers.  Try to listen and not jump to the solution.

You dont need a website, You need a web strategy! #10ntc

I was spending time cleaning my garage this weekend and I found a whole bunch of tools that I have never used. All of these tools serve a purpose and are still very useful, but at this point in my life I dont have a big plan to build anything.Without a big plan to build, the tools just sit there.

Websites can turn into those tools rusting in the garage very easily. A website, regardless of the coolest widgets, will only be as useful longterm as the strategy behind it.

Keeping this post nice and simple to hopefully make a point, so I will let the ignite video below do the talking.  I must give credit to Gregory Hellor for this post and title! Thanks for the inspiration.



Ignite NTC: Gregory Heller "You Don't Need A Website..." from GregoryH on Vimeo.