Not gonna happen

Multitasker? I call bullshit.

My last post was an accidental review of PBS Frontline’s “Digital Nation”, where some really savvy reporters travel around listening to tech-heads and educators and regular folks trying to figure out, in grand Double Rainbow fashion, what our reliance on technology in daily life really means. I had intended in that post to expand on the larger issues; I found, however, that the only thing that I wanted to talk more about was a subject near and dear to many people: multitasking.

If you ask the people who know me well, they’ll likely say “Oh yeah, Tim’s a crazy multitasker. He keeps, like, 400 tabs open on his browser and is usually running five different programs at once, and using all of them. Let’s not even start in about his tweeting.”

True. I do have a penchant for tabs (at the time of this writing, 23 across two browser windows) and I do tend to run multiple programs, more so that they’re ready and waiting than anything else, of course. What concerns me is that, like some of the interviewees for Digital Nation, people assume that multitasking is somehow equal to multitasking well. Again, I call bullshit.

Digital Nation refers to a Stanford study where researchers made students take some oddly simple tests where the expectations shifted every few seconds. They could track the “switching times” in the subjects. Those who said they rocked at multitasking sucked at multitasking.

I am not ready to give my generation so much credit as to say that our brains’ hardwiring has changed to allow us to truly do many different things at once. There’s a gulf of difference between monitoring a large Twitter stream while checking interesting social news and monitoring a large Twitter stream and writing a complex report. I don’t care what you say – you can’t do it.

Accuse me of being a multitasker. Do it. I dare you.

You’re wrong! Here’s what I’m good at: I can accomplish tasks at seemingly blinding speed because I navigate computers and the web pretty quickly, often together. Once I learn a process I can usually speed it up a bit. I use hotkeys. I start, finish, and package small projects with great efficiency because I know how to constructively cut away and work on another when I get bored or stuck.

What I cannot do well is multitask. Think about the word itself. I cannot type a text message with my left thumb while I scroll through a Wikipedia article looking for the one chunk of text to paste into my new post, which I’m writing at the same time. Oh, and don’t forget the podcast that I’m listening to.

There is a clear dividing line between being able to do the impossible (multitask) and doing something quickly and well. It doesn’t help that most of us are gluttons and try to do far more than we’d normally be able to, anyway.

So I ask us out there, especially my Millennial brethren, what are we really saying when we’re good at multitasking? Imagine walking into a job interview and being asked about it and having the humility to tell them the truth. In one fell swoop, you’re demonstrating integrity and answering a tough question. Now that’s multitasking, damnit.

Photo by Flickr user Thomas Hawk

Are our brains changing?

“Over the past 20 years, the net has changed from a thing one does to the way one lives.” – Doug Rushkoff, Digital Nation

I made it a point to sit myself down for 90 full minutes and watch PBS Frontline’s “Digital Nation”. The video played in full-screen so that I couldn’t even see my various notifications pop up. Aside from one stray text message to my girlfriend, I even stayed off the phone. Given the subject matter at hand, I think that this is an entirely commendable thing, given that the digital native- HEY LOOK A FUNNY CAT VIDEO!!1! OMGZADORBZ!!

Ahem. The subject matter of Digital Nation is familiar to us. Is the internet making us stupider or smarter, and depending on how you answer that, which kind of stupider or smarter is it making us? Is multitasking real, and are the Gen Y/Digital Native generations really prepared to make it in a world where talking on the phone, emailing, and IMing all happen at once? Aside from a too-long chapter at the end dealing with our military’s Predator drone fixation (dehumanizing combat through computers), the film really put together all the contemporary issues and laid them out before us, with nifty researchers and thought leaders all weighing in. Note: “Digital Nation” was released in February 2010 – a bazillion tweet-years ago – so even its scope of things is limited.

Is the future of the internet and our life on it scary?

Hells yes it’s scary. I was born near the far end of Gen Y (1983), where we really only dipped our toes into the web-water midway through adolescence. It wasn’t really until my junior/senior year in college that I developed a healthy addiction (not shy about using that word) to all things digital. Some of the Millennials interviewed during the film were the kind that I like to make fun of: folks who “can’t live without” their mobile device, students who have not recently, and probably never will again, read a full book, and game-addicted loners.

That being said, I have had gaming problems in the past, spend far too much time reading online when I should be buried in a book, and just recently took the plunge into smartphoneland. Check out my pre-Droid X post about the Incursion Lifestyle.

But the people in the film seemed to be taking this stuff way too far. They were asked “Are you a kick-ass multitasker?” Naturally, they all responded “YEAH!” because they can tweet, email, chat and read SparkNotes all at the same time. I call bullshit, and so do researcher at Stanford who show that the time that it takes for the brain to switch tracks slows the mind down so far as to make analytic reasoning more difficult.

The bright side of being connected

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, of course. Many of the guests (including the loopy creator of Second Life) extolled the virtues of the connected life. There was surprisingly little chat about the great ways in which the social web has helped us get to know one another. Even though the film has a big section on WoW and Everquest gamers connecting IRL, there was no discussion of the advent of social media and what it means for journalism, disaster response, and activism (sometimes all at once!).

The overarching tenor of the film, for me, seemed to be the idea that we truly are moving towards, if not a fully bifurcated existence, at least one where our internet selves take the place of our real selves very often. All in all, it was a remarkably simplistic overview, perfect for the casual viewer, but not enough to make me either smash my “personal computer” or fully wire up Lawnmower Man style.

I don’t know where it’s all headed. I just hope that we can get along responsibly and with integrity, online and off.

“Jumping brain” courtesy of Flickr user lapolab.

Decisions, decisions…

Do we make decisions about what to buy or who to support based on rational calculations of value, craftsmanship, and cost, or are we simply ignorant about alternatives? What does Twitter have to do with all of this? Hint: if I don’t mention Twitter, no one will pay attention. :)

Built Ford tough, not like wimpy Chevrolets

Brand loyalism is often seen as both virtue and weakness. Think about people who bought nothing but increasingly-expensive, gas-guzzling General Motors monsters for years. Their loyalty brought pain, not just on themselves, but on the nation as a whole. Meanwhile, some family that bought a Honda fifteen years ago is still driving that Honda (and getting amazing mileage, to boot). Loyalty to a trademark helps create a stable market for that particular trademark, but it’s also less likely to contribute positively to the macroeconomic flows that make sense for our “free market” system. We stay loyal because…well, who knows?

It’s all that I’ve ever known…

Here’s a possibility: We stay loyal to particular brands because of a bad experience with a competitor, or more likely, we have little or no experience of alternatives. I will swear up and down on Breville products, not simply because of their high price and fine craftsmanship, but because I’ve never used a comparable appliance. I’m ignorantly loyal.

Let’s be sure – ignorant does not mean stupid. It simply shows us that we are willfully ignoring other possibilities. We’ll continue to go to the same mechanic that our parents went to even when we know that the chain store down the street might be cheaper. We trust Bill the Mechanic because he’s Bill the Mechanic.

Donate, donate, donate NOW!

Think about which organizations (or political candidates, for that matter) receive your hard-earned dollars in the form of charitable donations. Why do you give to that particular group? I have never sent a check to Oxfam, an absolutely awesome humanitarian agency. I donate to The 1010 Project instead. Why? Any fundraising professional will tell you that one of the most clear indicators of a person’s likelihood to donate is a personal relationship with the organization, either through a person or general proximity. I worked for some time as a fundraiser for The 1010 Project, so I understand this quite clearly. :)

A personal touch

The advent of social media marketing and customer service has, in my opinion, created huge opportunities to increase brand loyalty. In the quintessential example, you take to Twitter/Facebook/blog to bitch about Product X by Company Y, only to have Company Y respond in minutes with an offer to make all things right with your world. You go from being ready to depart from the brand entirely to being glued to them forever for their strong customer service.

I have developed many brand loyalties (if not particular product loyalties, which is a separate conversation) in the past few years. In almost every case, this is because of the personal touch. I drink St. Supery wine because of Rick Bakas and his incessant tweeting about it. I drink mate because of the receptive and socially responsible company Guayaki. I shop at REI because it’s a cooperative and the staff are always ridiculously helpful. My running shoes are Nike because my old roommate Erin refused to run in anything else. I drink GT’s kombucha (when it’s in stores) because…I can’t stop. :)

Why are you loyal to a brand?

PS – For an extra deep dive into economic rationality and stuff, check out Tim Nuccio’s post about brand loyalty.

I fully expect this to happen.

My Droid X is in the mail. It’s a phone that happens to do internet things in a groovy way. It can also spawn multiple copies of itself that morph into common household appliances. I made up that last part. Having a smartphone (in the Droid’s case, a superphone) will change the way that I use the internet. Here’s how I think this will happen.

We’ve heard that the internet is quickly moving toward a social, semantic, app-driven culture of quick satisfaction and ex nihilo networks of limited temporal convenience that form and dissolve according to the whims of users. That’s a mouthful, but I agree with it almost entirely. Moving backwards…

Networks of Convenience

One of the big ideas in Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations is that networks arise for a common purpose and then either continue or die out. What if ATT users began a campaign to purposefully overload the phone/data lines and shut it down? Even users on other services could play along. It would be like a DDoS attack, but covered by one’s monthly fees. :) Granted, this would be counter-productive for everybody, but it would show the power of quick organizing. When the campaign ended, say at the end of a 24-hour period, folks could go back to being regular iPhone users, and ATT could go back to teh suck.

Apps Rule Everything Around Me

Apps are, by their very nature, tiny bits of useful material. Some mimic certain websites, others carry information meant to replace a given website entirely. Why go to Webster’s dictionary online when you can have the whole thing in the palm of your hand? Apps are often one-off tools; we use them then we pack them away. I check in on Foursquare, tweet something, then upload a photo to Facebook. And I’m done – the phone goes back in my pocket. Apps enter the social web and exit, making incursions, if I may, as they are needed.

What Do You Mean By That?

Our mobiles are going to help us better “teach” the web to learn what we’re about, what we need, what we like, and what we’re up to. Every time we scan a QR code, checkin, or upload a purchase through whatever that website is that does that (I can’t remember), we are building out the trajectories of meaning around us. Somewhere, a machine is crunching those data, trying to figure out the next pattern – and what to sell us on Wednesdays.

Don’t Just Stand There Talking To Me – Talk To Me!

Once I finally get my Droid in hand, I’ll be able to carry on back-channel conversations and substream chat during events (specifically Tweetups and conferences) that I otherwise would have missed. Mobiles and the apps installed on them make it possible to interact on two layers. For the rare occasions when I’ve been able to connect my iPod to a nearby wifi network, this kind of “other-place” is astoundingly fun.

Incursions

I have a wireless network at my home. I’ve found that when I’m reading books or making crafts or cooking,  having my iPod on hand (next to my phone, of course), makes it very easy for me to quickly drop in and drop out with regards to the web. It’s not simply a question of not wanting to scroll through an entire news article, which I don’t at all mind doing. It’s that I can, through apps and the way that things are now, accomplish what I want quickly.

When we’re out and about using mobiles, we don’t so much live in the internet as we make quick incursions into its various streams. If anything, mobiles have given us oodles of more freedom; I understand that this statement is old hat, but consider it in light of everything that I’ve just said. Mobiles are, by their very nature, contributing to less time spent truly “online”. It almost goes without saying that you’re less likely to follow the next 20 shiny blinky things if your mobile isn’t yet set up for that – someday, undoubtedly, it will be.

Incursions are less likely to contribute to distraction when we’re working. For those of us who have to manage multiple dialogue/creative streams at once, the ability to select when and where and how we dive into the web is freeing indeed.

*** This post is part of the “Blog Every Day Challenge“, which I have undertaken in homage to John Haydon, a captain of social media and inbound marketing for non-profits. A few months back he did the same thing. Granted, all of his posts imparted some kind of value to his readers (and he has many). I’m blogging about the same old stuff. Don’t call it “general interest”, because I think that it goes without saying that humans should generally be interested in what I’m doing. :) ***

The Internet King

A lot of writers talk the web’s effect on how we communicate and collaborate and all kinds of other things. I’m more concerned with how the web is changing society and what it means for our future togetherness and apartness. Let’s drag up the old term “social contract” and stick the word “digital” in front of it.

I’ll paraphrase the Wikipedia definition: Social contract describes a group of theories that try to explain the ways in which people form states/countries and/or maintain social order. It is implied that people give up some rights to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order through the rule of law.

The most popular social contract theorists (Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau) realized that it was better for a person to be threatened by a stationary bandit (a single king, parliament, ruling body) than by roving bandits (warlords, brigands, renegade counties). Makes sense – we sleep better if we have a short list of possible sources of death. The great thinker Max Weber gave us the notion of a “monopoly on violence” that characterizes modern states. It is more applicable, I think, to describe it as a monopoly of force or power.

People abhorred the “state of nature” before the formation of modern states. Life back then was, as Thomas Hobbes wrote, “nasty brutish, and short”, and to escape it we exchanged certain freedoms and status quos for protection and prosperity. It was simply smarter to be a part of a collective entity than to remain outside of it – you gained more by joining the party than staying outside. What does this mean for our digital lives today?

The basic idea is this: joining the internet/digital party (representing the social contract) is not absolutely necessary, but it’s certainly attractive. This goes for individuals as well as businesses. How many blog entries have you seen that list pros and cons of social media, or approaches for convincing reluctant supervisors to let you open a Twitter account for the company? One of the first big things that corporations learned on the social web was that the brand was no longer entirely in their hands. However, by joining the conversation and recognizing that a greater power is at work, those companies profit.

The same idea goes for us small people, too. Many of us work online in the knowledge economy, but even for those of us who don’t, the internet still provides ample opportunities to network, find new employment, and supplement one’s education. I’ve tried writing about this stuff before, speaking at first of what I used to call the digital contract, then discussing prescriptive analyses of social media and governance. Two other bits worth skimming are some quick thoughts about the modern nature of empire and the diffuse, scattered notion of authority at play in international politics.

So where do we see this going? Will the rush to the intertubes hearken the birth of a new digital contract, or will we return to the state of nature, where status updates fall in the forest with no one to hear?

So…how many followers do you have?

Mark Mann over at Denvelopers asked me to construct an interesting list. At the time, I was deep inside a job search. Inspired by that process and the ways in which I’ve seen Twitter rise to prominence, this is what I came up with.

Keep it short

Whether it’s 140 characters or 140 seconds, make sure that you’re not talking over yourself. Many people aren’t born improvisers, so know your word limit (so to speak). Folks stop listening when your conversation goes over a handful of replies (or complete thoughts).

You never know who’s listening

Phone interviews can be deceiving. You never know who’s in the room with the interviewer. Even face-to-face interviews can spread past direct listeners. A person with ten followers can have a single well-placed tweet end up retweeted by Bill Gates, Britney Spears, or @ShitMyDadSays.

Don’t lie

You know better than that. Whether it’s tweeting your 4SQ checkins or talking big about a subject in which you have knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep, be true to yourself. You will eventually be found out.

Pay attention

If you’re a business, how are you going to be competitive if you don’t know who is talking about you online? It you’re a nonprofit – same thing. Listen to what your interviewers are saying about you or your field and respond accordingly.

You are an expert of your own experience

Everybody is unique, we know this, but you are an expert of your experience. Use this to your advantage. If you were tweeting at the Oscars, you probably know a bit about what was happening there. Let people know about your real-life expertise.

Quality of followers, not quantity

References count. Try to find heavyweights in your community. Don’t have Steve Jobs write you a recommendation for a job at Burger King. Make sure that your possible retweeters (references) are solid voices in your field.

Twitter, like a job interview, is not only a broadcast experience

If you do nothing but talk about yourself all the time, you’re going to pay the price. Start conversations with people, keep existing conversations going and most importantly, ask questions. Having great questions can enable you to talk your way into a comfortable place in a job interview.

I am oddly pleased with this list. What other lessons can we learn from Twitter to apply to the job search scene?

Photos by Flickr user bpsusf.

*** This post is part of the “Blog Every Day Challenge“, which I have undertaken in homage to John Haydon, a captain of social media and inbound marketing for non-profits. A few months back he did the same thing. Granted, all of his posts imparted some kind of value to his readers (and he has many). I’m blogging about the same old stuff. Don’t call it “general interest”, because I think that it goes without saying that humans should generally be interested in what I’m doing. :) ***

We have all seen blog posts like these:

10 Strategies to be a Better Blogger

9 Social Media Power Tips

15 Ways to Engage Your Audience Online

744 Beautiful Uses for Bacon

Rick Bakas, the Director of Social Media Marketing at St. Supery Vineyards, has written a book that effectively encapsulates, expands upon, and thoroughly collects all those wayward posts into one easy-to-read format (OK, so that bacon post probably doesn’t exist, but if it did, Rick would write it).

Quick Bites: 75 Savory Tips for Social Media Success is Rick’s attempt to make sense of all the competing lists of “things you ought to do to make social media work”, and he does it swimmingly. He’s a branding expert with years of experience, so it’s not like these are all untested hypotheses; they are strategies that work. All 75 tips are presented with simple descriptions and examples.

I won’t list any of the “quick bites” here – you can buy the book for those – but I will say that if you can imagine the types of things that would appear in such a collection, you’ll find them in Quick Bites. There are more than a few surprises, so don’t expect that you already know it all. Rick’s got a great way of presenting a lot of the more common and common-sense social media strategies in nuanced, multi-dimensional ways.

It’s a pretty quick read, but I think that even those of us familiar with many of the social web’s tools will refer to the tips within for a deeper understanding of the why and the how of online communication. Bingo bango bongo pongo go buy the book.

*** This post is part of the “Blog Every Day Challenge“, which I have undertaken in homage to John Haydon, a captain of social media and inbound marketing for non-profits. A few months back he did the same thing. Granted, all of his posts imparted some kind of value to his readers (and he has many). I’m blogging about the same old stuff. Don’t call it “general interest”, because I think that it goes without saying that humans should generally be interested in what I’m doing. :) ***

*** This post is part of the “Blog Every Day Challenge“, which I have undertaken in homage to John Haydon, a captain of social media and inbound marketing for non-profits. A few months back he did the same thing. Granted, all of his posts imparted some kind of value to his readers (and he has many). I’m blogging about the same old stuff. Don’t call it “general interest”, because I think that it goes without saying that humans should generally be interested in what I’m doing. :) ***

I’ve written before about Calacanis’ misguided attitudes online, especially in regards to the way that he spends his money, and I know that I’m not alone in criticizing him. Normally, I would just bitch to a few other techie friends, but this time it’s personal. Here’s a section of a Calacanis Rant (we should trademark them) where he describes Millennials as  generation whose members have “never lost in their lives”:

I am 26.5 years old. Do I count myself as a Millennial? Yes. I’ve blogged about Millennials and the internet before; it’s something that’s important to me. If blog posts can take the temperature of my generation, I would swear for half of the time that Gen Y is the most selfish, self-involved, and low-achieving group ever; and for the other half that Gen Y is the last, best hope for mankind. Which is it? I’m inclined to think that it’s a mix of both. Jason Calacanis, who is 39 years old and thus not a Millennial, is not of the same mind. He says that we’ve never lost, that we are in fact losers, and that all the great dreams that we have are junk because we are morally and spiritually and imaginationally bankrupt. Watch the video again – his sputtering is positively 19th-century.

Here’s a few observations about Gen Y that he may have missed while he was raking in cash and offering free iPads for new followers (http://twitter.com/Jason/status/11647997218 – on a serious note, this is a neat contest idea) while speeding down the road in his Middle East-less Tesla (let it be known that I would gladly pimp such a vehicle, given the chance):

1. Yes, Jason, Millennials have lost, big time. You cheerfully made up a statistic of 80% of Gen Y people being losers. I’ll cheerfully say that 20% of us were led to believe that participation was, in fact, important, and that winning was secondary to being in the game. Here’s the thing: 80% (another made-up number) of us lost, and lost often. Now, we’re set adrift in a jobs market that is going to affect our long-term income [negatively] forever. Even the 40% of us who were endlessly told that we were winners no matter what don’t seriously believe that. You’d have to be crazy to think that we’re that dim. We know that participation is not the key to “winning”, however you define it, but we do know that being a part of something is sine qua non for being productive and worthwhile.

2. Gen Y has “No motivation, no killer instinct, [and they're] all on some kind of antidepressant drugs, and they cry in their coffee all day, and they don’t want to win.” We  need to have a killer instinct because Gen Y has more motivation than you think; we know that we’re going up against other people who have used the internet and the information age to democratize the field of information management. We do cry. We don’t all drink coffee. We have to want to win because it’s the only way for us to succeed and outlive the previous generation (unlikely for the first time ever – thanks Gen X for dragging your feet and forgetting to tell your parents to give a shit).

3. Gen Y has a “good worldview, you want to save the planet, that’s all noble…being successful, making money, and being powerful will let you do more good in the world.” Mr. Calacanis, of all people, should know how much impact we can have, even without high levels of “power”, in a world as interconnected as ours.

4. Jason is so angry about the mystical 80% of Gen Y who are screwing up this country, but he’s also angry for them because they are “so stupid, and so lame.” Thanks dude. Super professional. We’re pretty angry, too. We’re angry that people like you, who don’t know who we are, think that you know what we’re about. Keep telling us. We love hearing about how sucky, yet potentially powerful we are.

5. We are losers. Jason has a new mission in life – he wants to take the 80% of Gen Y “losers” and turn them into the 20% of winners who have tech startups that he covers (for his daily bread) and change the world. Awesome! Start spending money to empower Gen Y social entrepreneurs instead of being an angel investor for tech startups whose social benefit is unknown. Help us help you. Here’s a quote from a Millennial friend of mine who works every day with young people focused on social change: “Perhaps he’s [Jason] spent too much time in the tech world.  I invite him to the ground floor to meet grassroots activists working their asses off, harnessing technology to do something useful instead of spewing nonsense.”

6. All of our jobs are going to “Eastern Russian countries”. Again, he’s a master of the geopolitical landscape. (Note: this is a cheap-shot. I also make mistakes when I’m talking quickly without thought.)

7. My mom and dad are “gonna die” and I therefore have no inheritance because they bought nice cars and went on fancy vacations. I cannot even begin to describe the anger and frustration that I feel with this portion of Jason’s rant. I grew up on a farm in northern Illinois. My mom and dad don’t, never have, and never will, make lots of money to buy nice cars. They have never gone on vacation. I watched them make sacrifices to send me to college and I made sacrifices of my own. I’ve never stepped on anybody to get where I am, and I don’t intend on starting. Don’t you goddamn try to tell me about who I am and where I came from.

In short, Gen Y suffers from an overabundance of opinion on both sides. One says that we’re destined for failure because we’re disconnected from reality. The other side says that we can’t possibly fail because we’re digitally empowered and we understand the world between us. I’m seriously inclined to believe that most of us (Jason’s magical 80%) live somewhere in between. We recognize our limitations but we know that we can do a lot to move beyond ourselves and change the world. Maybe do us a favor and stop telling us what we’re about – let us figure it out like your generation had to.

Jason even goes so far as to tell me about my tombstone – the only trophy that I’ll ever get for participation: “It’s not even going to be that big when you get it,” he says. Like many other Millennials, I plan on living forever through the good works and kind deeds and responsible life that I live.

I don’t need your stupid trophy.

Mark and I kicking it in Kibera with some friends

There is no end to blog posts from experts declaring the need to “separate noise from signal” and “engage your community” while getting out there in social web promotion. As nonprofits, we understand this. No joke. We get it.

I spent 13 months with The 1010 Project in Denver, coordinating fundraising and our social web life. In July of 2009, I left The 1010 Project for a job with the Interfaith Youth Core and Tony Blair Faith Foundation. I now do a bit of consulting for The 1010 Project along with the former Director of Communication Mark Mann (now heading up Denvelopers), who handled all the coding and web design and SEO stuff. Since leaving, and with the benefit of distance (physical and otherwise), I have realized what we were really aiming for and accomplishing with our forays into the social web. Three milestones (we’ll use that word for now) have enabled me to take a look back and understand how we made things happen.

1. The 1010 Project came in 1st (disclaimer: it was an alphabetical list! :)) on Lon Cohen‘s list of “26 Charities on Twitter“, which attracted a lot of attention (and followers) on Mashable in April. We were in very, very good company on that list.

2. Follow Fridays have been good to the organization this year. We are regularly grouped into #FF tweets with other luminaries like charity:water, Save the Children, and the National Wildlife Federation.

3. Yasamin Beitollahi, a marketing strategist and Huffington Post blogger, included The 1010 Project in her “Tis the Season for Charitable Giving: 7 Extraordinary Nonprofits on Twitter“. Some of the other luminaries? LIVESTRONG, Habitat for Humanity, and Susan G. Komen For the Cure.

Compared to these other nonprofits, The 1010 Project lags behind in almost every conceivable dimension. Since our founding in 2003, we’ve spent (in total) less than many of these organizations spend in one month. We have (as of December 2009) just shy of 2000 followers on Twitter. How have we managed to play with the big dogs?

We’ve been genuine. We’ve been honest. The quote that begins this post is not so much something that we learned from other bloggers as it is something that came naturally to us, as a community-benefit organization. We simply translated what we would do face-to-face to what we would do digitally. We had conversations (a staple of successful “How to Tweet” posts), we told friends about other like-minded orgs, and we never for a minute harangued about ROI (return on investment) or anything like that.

As a humanitarian organization, we did what we knew was right. We connected with people, albeit through tweets. And those tweets have landed us friends/followers, digital evangelists, and some money. We played with the big dogs because we knew that digital tools are equalizers, and that having a human behind a URL can make a world of difference. By viewing the web as an extension of real life, we made those relationships work.