New Post on SXSW Posted on The Communications Network

I was happy to provide a guest post on things I learned at SXSW to the creative community at The Communications Network. Here's the post.

In Guest post, Ideas, Knowledge, Updates

Social Tools For Better Storytelling–More Insights from SXSW Interactive 

Posted by: Communications Network on Mar 26, 2012 | No Comments

Tags: Communications Practice : Creativity : Knowledge Dissemination : Social Media : Storytelling

Guest Post, Katherine Miller, Hattaway Communications

As Susan Herr pointed out in her recent post, at this year’s South By Southwest Interactive (SXSW), there was no shortage of ideas about how to make online experiences better and more engaging or how to make the world a more “social place.”  As I observed from searching among the thousands of panels, hundreds of side sessions and dozens of plenaries, many of the presentations and conversations at SWSX also offer important guidance to non-profits and foundations about how to effectively use social media to have the greatest impact.

Here are just three tools and approaches, on display at and used during SWSX, that are worth a closer look at and some experimenting with if your organization wants to maximize its potential through the use of social media:

Digital StoryTelling. This may seem obvious to those of you who have attended storytelling workshops and are incorporating them into your work – but stories really do matter. Stories are a common human way of conveying information. Our brains work better on stories, too—or so the hard sciences tell us. A good story will trigger both emotion and cognition. But the world is growing cluttered with stories and the speed by which social media moves make it harder to find them and remember them. A number of new tools are now out there to help organizations find, organize and publish stories but only one, Storify, makes publishing a story using existing content on the web really easy. Using Storify, you can grab content from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and the web and turn it into stories to share. Dozens of stories about what happened and what organizations learned at SXSW are up on Storify and being shared broadly. Click here to see how the ACLU captured SXSW using tweets (and I did one, too). Here’s one on a panel focused on the relationship and impact of celebrity and non-profits. Tools like Storify help us organize all the information, make it easy to find and maximize our interactions with our audiences.

Google+ Works for Non-Profits. For many organizations, Google+ was met with an almost louder thud than Jumo. Don’t write it off or so says the former Chief Evangelist for Apple, Guy Kawasaki says. As Guy writes in his new e-book “What the Plus! Google+ for the rest of us”, Google+ is important for a number of reasons but especially for organizations because it allows you post longer content (100,000 characters v. 160,000 for Facebook or 140 for Twitter); it reaches hard to reach audiences, especially young men; and is easier to find, and network, people based on their passions and personal interests. Using it also helps with search engine optimization as “Google owns [search] and it can divert people to Google+ anytime it wants. For example, when Google put an arrow on its search page pointing to the button to click to join Google+, hundreds of thousands of people joined.”

Visual Storytelling is Better.  Sunni Brown, a visual facilitator, led one of the best conversations at SXSW on the need to “shut up and draw” — or using visuals to help us all better tell our story. Jessica Hagy, one of her co-panelists, summed the reasons to use visuals best: simplify a complex problem, workaround obstacles or misunderstandings, to remember something, when tensions are high and because you can.  By combining strong stories with visuals we can make things more vivid and memorable — and breakthrough all the clutter more easily.

This is just a small sampling of the people and resources from this year’s SXSW. To learn more, check out the hashtag #sxsw or check out my lists on Twitter @table81/sxswlists.

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Katherine Miller is Managing Director of Hattaway Communications

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Tools in Search of Purpose (or what I haven't learned in my first 36 hours at SxSW)

This is my first SXSW Interactive since 1998. Back then Linux and Swish were cool and the tools that everyone was using to build website and features  — okay so maybe they weren’t cool but at least we knew what their purpose was, right? They were actually about liberating technology and making it easier for us to communicate with each in engaging, effective and new ways.

So that happened. In a big way. First there was code, then websites, web 2.0, chat, Google, Facebook, Twitter and so much more. It doesn’t seem to stop. Every day brings something new—especially here at SouthBy (as it is now known).

Guy Kawasaki and Vic Gundotra at SXSW

But now what? Sorting through “big” things (SOPA, transmedia and social) and “little” things (HTML 5, CSS3, Highlight) is challenging, especially because most of the time people can’t articulate the tool’s purpose.  Why did you spend 100s of hours developing, testing, changing and marketing this thing (APP, site, tracker, etc.)?

Don’t just give it a cool name or tell me how it works— tell me what it can do. Tell me how any of this going to help my clients make change in the world. Technology is powerful—more powerful than just highlighting the girl next to you in line for a latte.

For now, I’ll just have to settle for the words (and promise) of Vic Gundotra, from Google, has been the only one to say simply that Google is out to create face to face to face connections in hope that those connections will change the world.  

What the f-ck is wrong with this picture? And what do we do about it?

When I first saw this picture on Facebook, I thought that someone was recycling a picture from the financial crisis. After all what would all these men possibly be talking about at Congressional hearing except how they had killed America's auto industry, housing market, quality jobs pipeline [insert industry here]. But no, in reality these yahoos were testifying about birth control. 

A panel of nothing but men. Talking about birth control. Really?

The NY Daily News reports that this picture went viral— more than 5,000 people shared it —within hours of it being posted by Think Progress (a progressive blog funded by the Center for American Progress). 

I'm only surprised it didn't move faster. I'm actually even more surprised that while people posted it, liked it, tweeted about it, etc. they actually didn't seem really pissed off by it. More resigned to the fact that this picture represents our reality. We, women, are actually second class citizens. Or at least that is the message that image, that panel, sends. Right?

And I think we actually believe it. Where is the outrage? In 1991 the anger we felt over the treatment of Anita Hill galvanized a generation of young women. We fought and won the Year of the Woman. We helped elect the first solidly pro-choice President. Doors were opened in classrooms, boardrooms and, hell, even bedrooms. We found our voice. And we used it. 

Now it seems we're struck mute again.  I know there are plenty of us that are angry but what, really, are we going to do about it?  Our choices are actually limited. There aren't enough strong women running for office. Most of my friends would rather not get involved in civic life. The politics are too dirty, the trade offs at home (or work) too great.  

Or so it seems. I would argue that there is a lot we can do. It is time for us to find our voice again.

We should stand up in droves; refuse to vote for people who aren't real champions; refuse to donate to political organizations that work against us; rally in the streets. Hell, maybe we should even go on a sex strike. If abstinence is the only option, well then let's see how long we can hold out. 

How long do they think they can hold out without us?

[Note: Other options include donating ridiculous sums of money to organizations such as Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and EMILYs List.]

Time Flies! And today's lesson.

When I suspended this blog in October of 2010 I honestly thought I would come back to it in a few weeks, at most a few months. I never imagined that it would be 17 months!

But as I look back on those months, I understand why. So much has happened. In life, love, work, the world. Not much of it worth sharing, or at least I didn't think so while it was happening. It was just my life.

What I have realized recently though is my life is pretty cool and there are some things that I am learning along the way that I want to capture and, if folks are interested, share.

This week's lesson: Learning is cool! (And kids today are lucky!)

Seems like a pretty obvious point, i know, but I am spending the weekend in Tempe at a conference put on by Ashoka U (a project of Ashoka) and am surrounded by teachers, students, education experts, journalists, bloggers and others who are examining the state of higher education. Conversations are focused on empathy, innovation and impact. The exchange of ideas is happening almost as quickly as the exchange of business cards. New curriculums, new research, game-playing, etc. All around me people are talking about changing the world, finding your own paths, experimenting, learning for impact. My mind is sparkly with possibilities.

My how I wish that all of this existed when I was 11, 13, 17 or 21. I know it didn't, really. I am from the Breakfast Club generation - a world divided into geeks, jocks, princesses, freaks and criminals. High school was something to survive and college was required. And when I graduated, I bounced around, unclear as to what or who I wanted to be. Like many of my friends.

Now, I ended up just fine (as did most of my friends) I have a good job, have traveled and worked all over the world (for some pretty amazing people and organizations). So my academic performance (mediocre to classify it generously) in high school and my slightly better grades in college clearly didn't reflect my actual intelligence.

But I am still filled with tremendous envy of kids today. Learning in the 21st century is cool. You can do it on an iPad. Girls with glasses are "adorkable". Personal paths are something to be encouraged, not questioned or mocked. Experimenting is expected.

Taking all this in also made me a little sad. How had all of this passed me by. What could I have done if all of this had been there when I was younger? What change could I have made in the world! Oh, god, is my life a waste?

Then I heard a twenty-something (barely) speak last night. The audience was primarily forty-somethings (barely) and this "youngster" seemed to be speaking directly to me when it said it wasn't too late. That all this cool stuff wasn't just for his generation. That the coolest thing was that continuing to learn, to open our mind to possibilities was not just the domain of kids. It was in fact something that we could all keep doing at 20, at 30, at 40, at 50 and beyond.

How cool is that!
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Thank you!

Over the last year more people have read this than I thought ever would and by and large the comments have been wonderful, encouraging and funny! I am, however, struggling to maintain this now that I'm back in the working world.

So, I have decided to suspend this blog for a bit. I will likely come back to it as I'm currently working on a book and will need to try out a chapter here and there.

Stay tuned!

k

CGI to COMNET 010

Just the other day a friend asked me if I was ever home. It was (and still is) a legitimate question given that in the last three weeks I've been home just four days. But all the travel, chaos, jet lag and hotel hair are worth what I've experienced. First up was the UN MDG Summit, the Social Good Summit and CGI.

Nearly a full week of networking, listening, learning and absorbing all of the commitments made by companies, NGOs, foundations and philanthropists. Exhausting and inspiring, my head is still spinning with the world (literally) of possibilities that are opening up for girls, women, communities, and countries. We can eradicate polio; we can make sure that death isn't lurking in the kitchen; we can empower girls in the US to help girls in Malawi, Jordan, Indonesia; and we can end the trafficking of children.

I left New York and the celebrity-filled halls of the Sheraton (as well as the world leaders crowded into the UN) inspired and challenged by how to communicate all of this to the world.

Following a brief stop at home to repack (and attend my first meeting as a NARAL Pro-Choice America board member), I have landed in Los Angeles for the Fall 2010 Conference of The Communications Network. This is my first trip to this annual meeting of more than 200 communications specialists from the world's largest foundations and philanthropies. For the next several days we will listen, learn and share strategies about how to effectively communicate the work of that grantees do (and that are funded by the folks here).

I'm fascinated by the speakers the group has chosen and most interested in hearing from Neal Baer (the EP of Law & Order SVU), James Surowiecki who wrote "The Wisdom of Crowds" and Lucy Bernholz a consultant who helps foundations maximize their investment in applied research. These are only a few of the speakers but the fact that they aren't necessarily "on topic" will challenge us all to apply their successful strategies to our own work.

I suspect Baer will talk about leveraging pop culture and media to help drive change. Law & Order SVU has always been a strong supporter of RAINN and is tonight airing an episode on the delayed intake and processing of rape kits.  I look forward to asking Surowiecki a question about how his work is related to the age-old Roper model of focusing on "influentials" (a strategy I recommend often).

In all, it should be really interesting. First up, though, a little fun: a night of cocktails and music on the roof of the GRAMMY Museum (how cool!) and dinner with a few friends on another roof. I'm sure the conversations will focus on change, big and small, and how we can all work towards it.

My what a difference a year makes (or not)

I woke up this morning and suddenly realized that it has almost been a year since I started this life experiment - how crazy is that?

A year ago, I had quit my job, was participating in my "last" UN week, preparing to head off to Paris and so excited about the new life ahead of me.  Like many things in life, things didn't exactly go as planned. I quit my job but my boyfriend quit me. I spent a lot of time in Paris but I still came home to DC. I thought I was done with divine nuttiness of global philanthropy but this morning I find myself packing for another week in NYC.  So different, but very much the same.

For once though I'm excited about the "sameness".  Next week in September is one of my favorite of the year. It is filled with amazing conversations, pledges and commitments around how we can all work together to make the world a better place. Ten years ago, when the MDGs were first imagined, I don't think anyone would have thought that true progress would have been made on reducing child mortality rates, putting more girls into school and finding innovative ways to fight global hunger. But we have. There is still so much more to do (as Bono pointed out today) but this whole "let's work together for the common good of humanity-thing" is actually succeeding and I'm proud to do my little bit.

My clients and friends will make world-changing announcements this week. (I know, it is an overused phrase, but nearly $2 billion for girls and women in the developing world is game changing.)

This time last year, I rededicated myself to "helping make great change possible".  I get up most days and ask myself if I have been true to this idea; and for the most part I think I have been. Sometimes it comes in little ways (writing a press release; spending Saturday on the phone with a client advising them on how to position their programs or ideas); sometimes it is about money (increasing my donations); sometimes it is just in a simple action (directions for a stranger). 


So I think I have, but next week will also serve as a reminder that I have not done enough - yet.