Workshop: Social Media for Social Change - Port Elizabeth

“Introduction to Social Media for Non-profits, NGOs, Community-Based Organisations and Charities”


The “new web” has transformed the way people connect and social media platforms have become an essential part of the organizational and business strategies. These technologies can be useful for non profits as strategic tools for engagement, relationship building with stakeholders and communities, networking and fundraising. With millions of users of social media in South Africa alone and over a billion worldwide across various platforms (PCs, Mobile phones etc.) this is an opportunity for non profits to share with the masses using FREE tools available to support the vision of such organizations.

Content:
This one day training “hands-on” workshop will cover the following areas:
1. Background to social media and tools such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, wikis, and multimedia file-sharing sites;
2. Provide a THREE step approach to how your organization can utilize and reap the benefits of social media
3. Practical opportunities for participants to engage with some of the social media tools.
4. Social Media and mobile phones
5. Drafting a Social Media strategy for non-profits.

Objectives:
1. Understanding of Social Media and its context
2. Identified tools that could be integrated into the non-profit operations to support its vision and objectives
3. Introductory level of hands-on experience using social media tools
4. To use mobile phones as possible social media devices
5. Understand the importance of a Social media strategy for a non-profit

Workshop Details:
All required equipment will be provided for the workshop and this includes all refreshments. Workshop price is R750.00 for the day.

Workshop Date & Time: 8 September 2009, 9am – 4pm.

Venue: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), Summerstrand, Port Elizabeth

To be part of this Social Media Revolution RSVP at rene@impactdirect.org.za or for more information contact Marlon at makesparker@gmail.com

PS: The workshop had limited space for 10 participants only.

Twitter under attack

The above image shows why we could not access Micro-blogging platform Twitter for the past few hours. Already I felt like I had withdrawal symptoms as FaceBook was not giving the same pleasure as Twitter. Indicating how my preference for platforms have shifted.

Twitter Translator: "Twinslator"

With the number of Twitter users increasing it is no surprise that more translator applications are becoming popular. One such application is the Twinslator which allows you to translate your tweet into another language. It is powered by Google Translate and then allow you to either post both messages or just the translated message. A pity about having to enter twitter details each time you want to do a translation. Does prove to be a bit tedious but simple enough to use.

Twitter Moms

Our mothers part of the Mom 2.0 project being exposed to micro-blogging twitter and interesting to see how they engage with one another using this technology.

Twitter School

Today the Reconstructed Trainers had a session with the Mom 2.0 ladies teaching them mroe about the micro-blogging tool Twitter. The ladies really impressed me how they embraced the technology and by the end of the day they already had more than 500 tweets amongst them combined. Not bad for a first day of Twitter School.


Be sure to find out more about these women who are using twitter as a way to reach out to other women and mothers in need. This is a first for these women who a few months ago had never even touched a computer but today they are using Social Media for Social Change.

Debt Counselling as close as your cellphone

Debt Breaker featured today in The Herald and Weekend Post newspapers in the Eastern Cape as we continue expanding our services to consumers accross the country. The article “Debt counselling as close as your cellphone” already managed to attract many consumers to the service and we know this is only the beginning.

YOUR fancy top-of-the-range cellphone might be able to help you in all sorts of ways these days, but you probably never imagined it could offer debt counselling.

However, with the global credit crunch and South Africa now officially in recession, you might only have to look as far as your cellphone to find answers to your debt problems.

A South African entrepreneur has developed an innovative cellphone service called Debt Breaker which can be used by over-indebted consumers to access advice and support remotely through MXit, Google Talk, Fring, Nimbuzz, Mig33 and other chat applications. Read the article here

Net Prophet the perfect wake-up call

Alarm went off at 6am and it was my wake up call to attend the First Net Prophet Event in Pinelands, Cape Town. With winter weather outside and still tired I was hesitant and very close to not attending but with such an interesting line up and having the "Prophets", "Gurus" and peers of Web, Social and Mobile Media all in the same room, that was enough reason for me to at least take time to learn from their experiences.

Upon arrival hundreds were gathered at the Old Mutual Business Park in Pinelands, Cape Town and it seemed as if an interesting day was lying ahead by seeing the fellow attendees present. Platform was well set by Rob Gilmour from RAMP Foundation and with Arthur Goldstuck, Peter Flynn, Herman Heunis, Henk Kleynhans, Dave Duarte, Mike Stopforth, Hannes van Rensburg, Andrew Smith and Charl Norman in the wings it was an event that I am glad I didn't miss.

My specific focus was around how the social web can be used to not just be monetised but also sustain and support social initiatives. With many of the speakers emphasizing the importance of mobile in a South African Context and more specifically the increased number of possibilities this provides for a developing country.

Highlights of the conference was that "The digital revolution levels the playing field and that the Internet should be taken to the masses", with "Mobile, blogs, video content, social networking and Podcasts having huge media revenue growth" this opens the doors for organisations to also explore the platforms where huge corporations are placing their investments. Software would also become more service oriented according to the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. This offers businesses more an operating expenses budget allocation than capital expenditure. Herman Heunis shared how MXit applied the philosophy 'We do not compete, we create' and how the right mix with motivation allowed them to become giants in the Mobile Instant Messaging space in Africa. How to approach Venture Capitalist (VC) and harnessing the Social Web were other highlights to this great Net Prophet event.

Well all in all from a social change perspective I do believe that Net Prophet was the perfect wake up call.

East Coast Radio "News Watch" features The Reconstructed

It was very encouraging to have The Reconstructed project beaing featured on East Coast Radio and on their "News Watch" blog which shows that their are many who can make a difference using the technology that they have at hand.


With examples this past week from people like Ashton Kutcher using Twitter as medium to raise awareness of Malaria but also to acquire Mosquito nets through using this new media format for donations. Another incident is also a British woman, Susan Boyle, who had the life long dream of becoming a famous singer and at the age of 47 her dream are being realised through her audition on Britian's Got Talent show, being seen my millions of people accross the world via sharing sites like Youtube.

This shows that with the technology we have at hand and if its being used appropriately that we can Empower our Communities as we see the lives of The Reconstructed being transformed.

1c Blogpost using MXit

1c Blogpost using MXit. We have been exploring ways of how we could ensure that more people especially youth start blogging using their mobile phones and MXit. Using a chat bot and linking MXit with this blog we were able to blog for less than ZaR0.01 using this mobile chat platform. Not bad when bandwidth and accessibility to computers are expensive. This could mean that South Africe is alive with possibilities for ordinary citizens to blog and share their thoughts using this simple technology. Setting up your blog in MXit post will be coming soon.

The Tool is in your hand: The Mobile Revolution

How much will a tweet cost you from your Mobile?

Well this post is a short test to see the cost of tweeting from a Mobile phone using some of the technologies I've got on my Nokia N81. The reason for this little experiment was specifically aimed at communities where cost is an issue or barrier to access or share information.

Cost for a single tweet per technology on my mobile:

m.twitter.com - zaR0.04 (Your personal and friends' tweets, @replies, Your Profile, People you follow, Public timeline, Drawbacks: No direct messaging possible, No Retweeting)

m.slandr.net - zaR0.07 (Your and friends' tweets (with some pics too), replies, directs, search, public timeline, Retweet, pic and tweet, geo friends (location based)

Fring - zaR0.05 (your personal and friends' tweets, takes long to load sometimes)

MXit(using Spoink setup) - zaR0.01 (One way tweeting at the moment, Only pushing messages nothing else)


Well now that you have the costs and some of the functionalities of the technologies you know which tool will be best for you. Personally I prefer m.slander.net let me know whats your choice or if there are any other tools you are using that we could add to this list. Happy Mobile Tweeting:-)

A Year of Reconstruction

Today as we end our year of Reconstruction a new journey lies ahead as we continue the use of technology to empower communities. Having completed part of this exciting journey it is also an opportunity to reflect on how this journey has changed my life and the lives of many others.

How can I ever forget the first day 23 February 2008 when we gathered at CPUT for the first time and the room was full of uncertainty not knowing how long we'll be running this course or what to expect. This year went beyond our wildest dreams and I believe it is the beginning of great things ahead. This year has had its ups and downs, as we unfortunately had 2 of our members not completing the year with us. But that was never going to make our Reconstructed team despondent. They were still persevering under the pressures and decided to complete this year. Not only did we empower the Reconstructed Team but we also launched Mom 2.0 (mothers in the community being empowered with the use of technology). We've had so much fun while learning.We've also had the privilege of meeting great individuals who shared their knowledge with us this year. Special thanks to Rafiq, Ramon, Johan, Gerhard, Nils, Micke and Pam who really empowered the Reconstructed team.

We also presented at the ZA WWW 2008 conference (won best poster of the conference award), Highway Africa Conference, Huddlemind's Nomadic Dinner, 27Dinner in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth just but to name but a few. Another highlight was when we had the opportunity to be live on SABC2's Morning Live on 24th October 2008. This was such a wonderful experience for many of the team as we believe that all our hard work was finally being acknowledged. Not only did we get some attention from the media but we also had the honour of gathering with peers in the Social Media industry.

Seeing how lives were transformed through the use of technology was encouraging. When we started the Drug Advice and Support (DAS) we never expected that it would have such an impact on a nation. Since its inception we've already had more than 50,000 messages, almost 11,000 conversations and closing in on 5000 contacts to date. This in itself was incredible as we began offering advice and support for hundreds of young people on their mobile phones, Tuesdays and Thursdays between 3 and 5pm. The Reconstructed blog also continued to grow as the team increased their contributions with the goal of reaching 1000 blog posts by the end of 2008 (The good news is that they've achieved this goal read all about it here).

The technologies we've used this year and that proved to be useful in the Social Media for Social Change (SMSC) course were:
- Blogging (Using blogger)
- Social Networking (FaceBook and Ning)
- Micro-blogging (Twitter and Spoink)
- Instant Messageging (Google Chat, MXit, The Grid)
- Web Literacy
- VOIP (Skype and Fring)
- PodCasting



The climax of the year was when we had The Reconstruction graduation 12 December 2008 at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). Seeing all the excited graduates and proud parents, family was such a wonderful moment for me personally. We also launched our Podcasts and Angel project at the graduation which was just a cherry on the top.

Well with 2008 almost coming to an end we are looking forward to 2009 and we would like to thank everyone who has contributed and shown interest in the Reconstructed project. We will continue on this journey as we empower communities in tension using technology.

We would like to wish you and your families a wonderful and blessed New Year for 2009.

Reconstructed Session: The Essence of Micro-Blogging

Saturday morning we had an interesting session at CPUT with Rafiq and Gerhard who shared the essence of micro-blogging with the Reconstructed team. Rafiq stated that the following should be considered when using Micro-blogging tools such as twitter: Focus, Consistence, Looking Outward, Look within and Conversation. His slide show is available here. After exposing the team to various twitter tools such as feedalizr it was clear that with a new outlook on how to use Micro-Blogging that the Reconstructed team will begin using this social media medium to reach out and share with as many as possible.

You can catch the the following of the Reconstruction team on twitter @Brent, @Craig, @Clinton, @Clive , @Jason, @Ricky, @Michael, @Monique, @Shameez ,@Jerod , @Gary and @Jerome

Reconstructing families using Technology

This evening we did a presentation at a church in Westridge Mitchells Plain titled "Reconstructing families using technology". It was good to see so many people coming out and having an interest in technology. The talk was presented in such a way to show possibilities of how technology could be used for family reconstruction and empowerment.

The projects that were presented included:
- The reconstruction project and the reconstructed blog of the reconstructed team. One of the team members, Jerome Mias, shared his story of how he was addicted to Tik and how his life was reconstructed. He also shared what blogging did for him as part of the healing process and how he is currently using blogs as an outlet of expression. Interesting fact is that Jerome never completed school (only passed grade 8) yet the skills that he acquired through technology and how he is using to empower others are remarkable. Well done Jerome for showing us that we can use technology even when we don't have the education background to help our families and communities.

- The Drug Advice and Support on MXit (DAS@MXit) was also introduced to the audience. The room had both parents and children present and there were mixed feelings about this technology. This was an opportunity to show how this technology is being used to save lives. Brent Williams shared his testimony as a MXit counsellor and what he has experienced through the use of MXit for drug advice and support. Hearing how it impacted his life and how he could share the many stories of others who's lives have been changed through this service was well received. (We got an additional 10 contacts after the presentation to the service.

- Finally we ended with the Mom 2.0 project and showed what the plans are to empower mothers and women in the community.

Having parents, children and grandparents there was an opportunity to engage technology on all levels and see how best it could be used to reconstruct families. We hope that this talk is the first of many of its kind and with the positive feedback we know that there are lots more innovative ways how technologies could be used.

Micro-blogging and more

This morning we continued with our workshops and started with Micro-blogging and how we can use this to empower Communities in Tension. We also welcomed 4 new members to the program. A special welcome to Jason, Gary, Dayle and Ricardo (Picture on The Reconstructed). We looking forward to see how through the empowerment of Technology you will use it to help your communities. Today the guys were taught how they could use twitter as a means to keep others updated about what the are doing. It was exciting to see how the reconstructed team will use this technology as a means to encourage one another and as a means for counselling. We also getting ready for the Mom 2.0 project which we will launch Monday and the initiave where many of the reconstructed team will be assisting and facilitating. Definitely exciting times...