Taking the plunge into using social media

Leah Williams from the Women’s Resource Centre gave a great presentation on their journey into social media. You can see her presentation here http://bit.ly/1kArn7.

Sometimes it has been hard to see how second-tier organisations can benefit from social media as opposed to frontline campaigning organisations. However the WRC are a great example of how effective it can be.

Leah explained how important it is to make sure your use of social media fits with your organisation’s strategic objectives. For WRC, using Twitter, Flickr, a blog and YouTube has proved a great way to network, share stories and  also to get news fast.

Are you using social media in your organisation? How effective has it been?

How can we manage knowledge in the VCS?

Last week I attended some Aslib training on knowledge management. I had heard the term bandied around plenty and thought I had an idea as to what it entailed. Intially I went along with LVSC in my mind but found that the methods talked about could be particularly useful to Cascade.

So let me share…

Firstly a great quote from Francis Bacon (1597)
“But mere knowledge is not power; it is only possibility. Action is power; and its highest manifestation is when it is directed by knowledge.”

“So good information management involves maximising the value of information and turning it into knowledge, leading to more informed decision making.” (Information Matters Nov 2008)

There are two perceived types of knowledge:
Explicit knowledge:  formal systematic – therefore easily communicated e.g. written instructions, scientific formula etc.
Tacit knowledge:  highly personal – hard to formalise and therefore difficult ot communicate to others. Often deeply rooted in an action or a specific context.

The training discussed four models for managing knowledge
Exit interviews, Expertise directories, ‘lessons learned’ systems, communities of practice

The government are taking this all very seriously and released their strategy “Information matters: building government’s capability in managing knowledge and information” in 2008.

They say ”In the twenty-first century, information is the force powering our democracy and our economy. Both the private and the public sector increasingly rely on information and knowledge, and create value through their ability to manage these valuable assets.” (Sir Gus O’Donnell, Nov 2008)

What are we in the voluntary and community sector doing?

Readability

 The Readability Project has updated their leaflet about readability. It gives advice on how to write and present written material in a way that is easy to read and is now available as a free download from the NIACE website. The leaflet includes a simple formula for calculating a “readability level”, and an online calculator based on this formula (created in conjunction with Nottingham University) has now been included on the NIACE website.

Take a look at http://www.niace.org.uk/development-research/readability

Let me know what you think…

Blogs from Cascade members

Just wanted to let you know that two member organisations also have blogs (in the more traditional blogging sense than this platform).

Andy Gregg, Chief Executive of LASA blogs at http://lasaceo.wordpress.com/

The Women’s Resource Centre Blog is at http://womensresourcecentre.blogspot.com/

Happy reading! … and let me know if you have a blog!

Tell me…

Communications strategy for second tier organisations

Are there any second tier organisations out there that have a clear documented communications strategy that you would be willing to share?

How do you decide on your content?

How do you (second tier orgs) decide what content to include in your e-bulletins when there is so much information that needs to be communicated to frontline groups?