Bread and Butter 2.0

Monday, October 3, 2005

By: Michael Stein

There has been an explosion of interest dedicated to "Web2.0" -- which is mostly a social-networking sites aimed at helping users collaborate and share items of interest. However, there is disconnect between the advantages of the new web technologies and the business goals our enterprise software users are striving to meet on the network.

But what do non-profit users want from the Internet? I think the major concerns are as follows:

Getting your message out to your community.
Allowing your community to register for your events, renew their memberships, make donations, and buy your literature online.
Allowing the use of your key business applications from multiple sites.

These are the bread and butter issues facing non-profits and associations, and most of them realize they can still improve significantly in all of these areas. I think this is the reason I instinctively identified Ajax as something my users would care about, and why I've not been as vocal about tagging or social book-marking, for example.

Meanwhile, somewhere in their organizations people are researching issues, writing brochures, commenting on legislations, issuing press releases - all "distributed, collaborative" tasks. But that's the problem with distributing: the work is being done with other people in other organizations or offices who are probably not going to take the time to learn the great new tool you've been experimenting with. The Senator's aide does not want to sign up for a Writely account just so you can mark up her draft in a cutting-edge way.

And probably your executive director doesn't want to either. "Why can't you just send her a doc like you did last week?" I know. I've tried. We're talking innovation here, and adopting anything new comes at a cost. Sad to say, winning buy-in from your own staff is not enough to allow the use of these new tools.

So is web2.0 simply irrelevant for most non-profits? If not, how can web2.0 be tied directly into the bread and butter issues? I think one way is to focus on these collaborative tools as a path to on-line community building for the organization's members and supporters. By making a site available to your members where people can post ideas for comment, prospect for colleagues to work on specific projects, and just plain schmooze, you can increase the sense of involvement your constituents have. There are a variety of tools you can employ to do this. You get the early adopters excited and engaged right away, and the others will be lured in at their own pace. Meanwhile, you still can still send the Senator's aide an email.