Opening the Random Thoughts Box
Filed under: Non-Profits, Off Topic, Social Marketing on Monday, December 17th, 2007 by Simon Heseltine
Since next Monday, like most, we’ll be on vacation, I thought I’d open the random thoughts box, which holds a variety of topics in and around the work that we do, and that you do.
Firstly, Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention, has decided that she’s going to make 2008 the year of the nonprofit tagline. To that end she’s running a quick survey on taglines that she’d like all nonprofits to complete. As a thank you for completing the survey, she’ll give you a copy of the final report for free, so if you’re a nonprofit, head over there, but come back for the rest of this post. 
Now it’s time for a minor technical rant that’s off topic for this blog… Why, oh why can’t IE and Mozilla based browsers load and parse XML using the same common functions?
Don’t forget to protect your data, and that of your customers / donors / members. The UK Revenue and Customs sent 2 CDs with the personal details of every family in the UK with a child under 16 to the National Audit Office. The CDs didn’t arrive. The personal records of 25 million people in the UK, including bank details, were lost. In the era of identity theft and fraud, this is a catastrophic failure. Make sure that your data is protected, and don’t send it all on CDs in the mail.
My great grandparents lived in the market town of Helmsley in North Yorkshire on a small farm. I visited there many times growing up, and loved the old market town feel of the quiet Yorkshire village. It was with interest that I read an article on how a band from Helmsley had become a featured artist on MySpace, garnering over 5 million hits per day on their MySpace page. It just goes to show that you don’t have to be in a big city to make an impact using social media sites, you just have to have a compelling story.
Mashable recently posted list of 20+ Charity and Fundraising Sites, and 30+ US Political sites that are worth looking at.
Finally, remember, if you’re modifying Wikipedia pages, people will look to see who you are, and what your motive is for making those changes. For example; if you work at Guantanamo Bay, and make changes to wiki pages talking about the detainees, Fidel Castro, and the War in Afghanistan, expect to get called out…
Well, that’s emptied the random thoughts box for now. Enjoy your holidays, and look for my next post on December 31st, when I’ll do a recap post on the first 6 months of life for this blog.
