I don't know if you have heard of the Causes application on Facebook but CAIRN, a client for whom I am the community manager, is now listed there. One of the cool things that people can do with the Causes app is to talk to their friends about a charity work that is important to them (My Causes: Cairn, Kiva.org, Breast Cancer Research).
And now... you can choose to ask friends to donate to your favourite charity instead of buying you a birthday present. A brilliant idea.
I want give a buddy a hug. My best friend Tom is on the other side of the world and I haven't seen him in a damn long time. I even had to miss his wedding last year.
My hope that that my contacts and Twitter friends can help me give my pal a pat on the back.
Will you help me?
Here is what I can tell you:
Just to make this interesting I'd like to set these rules:
I'm releasing this challenge at 23:55 EDT, Monday May 18, 2009. Can you help a brother out? You can follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/zoic
If you are responsible for making the final hug-rrangements I'll send you a copy of a The Whuffie Factor from Tara Hunt (@missrogue). (Not that you'll need it because you will obviously know the "power of social networks" if you can help me pull this off...)
If you are a children's camp and you would like someone to help you plan your best web strategy try this option.
How Does it Work?
The cost of the service is $500 and includes a 1 hour phone
consultation, a website critique and a review of your
present online marketing. Email follow-up will be available for 30 days after our call
Camps will also get an email with the details of our call and a list of ideas of things to try.
If you are interested please email Travis travis@walkingmaverick.com or call 519.532.7366
(50% discount for registered charity organizations that run camps)
Introduction
Survey Questions:
At CAIRN we don't have a lot of toys so we have worked to distinguish ourselves. One of the things that we have become known for is the 4 S's Test.
In order to do any activity, game, skit, song or project you must answer Yes to all four of these questions:
Is it SAFE?
Does it SERVE others (put others’ needs above your own)?
Does it build it SELF-ESTEEM?
Is it good STEWARDSHIP of the Environment?
- Firefox Add-ons (a.k.a. extensions): extra features and that help make it the most used program on my computer
- Some add-ons I recommend for a camp director are Evernote - gathering research;
Gmail manager - easy access to my work and personal email accounts; and Forecastbar - always available weather
- Foxmarks: I didn't mention this one but it is Awesome. Foxmarks allows me to have the same bookmarks available on all of the computers that I use.
- If you would like to see what extensions I use in my Firefox you can check out the wiki I keep for my Firefox http://myfirefox.pbwiki.com/
- Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts - choosing Comprehensive means that Google Alerts will search blogs and webpages. Receive information by email or RSS on searches that you set up. Some ideas: yourcampname+camp, Travis+Allison [‘cept your name... ;-)], camp+yourstate, camp+yourtown]
- RSS The beauty of blogs is their RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed. It is an easy way to get your message into as many hands as possible
I recommend you Watch a video from Common Craft called RSS in Plain English. The jist of RSS is that instead of going to many websites regularly you can go to one and find all of the changes in your favourite websites since you last looked.
I recommend using Google Reader to keep all of your RSS feeds in a format that is easy to maintain - make sure you subscribe to the feed of your friends camps, authors you learn from and your closest competition. Mine are organized by importance & all of my alerts are under “Brand Monitor”
- Technorati http://technorati.com/ Set up a search for you camp in blogs across the net.
- Google Analytics - http://www.google.com/analytics A great system of reporting on the traffic on your website. Google Analytics will also show you which of your pages are most viewed and what search terms people use to find your camp on the web.
**as a side note: I believe that it is imperative that you always have full admin access to your website once it’s complete. This allows you to do simple things like update the wording yearly
Epinions.com (877 results for "summer camp" as of 12/1/09, 1903 as of 19/3/09)
GigPark
campratingz.com
Facebook Pages - FB Pages are better than FB Groups because what you post to your camp’s Page will showing up in the feed of your members. Therefore the friends of your members will see what is going on at your camp.
You should be watching all of these sites things weekly.
**The biggest lesson I can give is to ask campers for recommendations - do it on your blog, email list and mailings to returning campers. Remember the only legitimate way to overcome a bad review is to drown it in good ones.
Vox - free service, add supported
Wordpress - free, open source website & blogging software. Incredible amounts of free & paid templates
Typepad - paid blogging service (this blog is hosted on Typepad)
Squarespace.com - paid website and blogging, getting a ton of buzz lately. I haven’t used it but it sounds like it is a very easy way to create a great looking website by yourself.
Skitch - The screen capture program that I’ve used to prepare this presentation. Screen Capture allows you to show people what is on your screen.
Jing - Record screen casts - videos of my screen for training, etc. I used Jing to demonstrate to staff how to make their own changes and additions to our new WordPress camp website.
Ning.com - create your own social network - been covered
To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text Follow zoic to 40404 or 21212 on Canadian phone
The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 2 - Staff
The book Grown Up Digital (by Don Tapscott GrownUpDigital.com) has been a brilliant resource this year. It made me think about ways we are working with our staff - the digital natives. Tapscott calls them the NetGen.
Privacy - Let’s teach these NetGenners something about privacy. I recommend you refer them to http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/
Resume - One of my biggest take-aways from Grown up Digital was Tapscott’s idea about a new format for a resume that better tells the story of a Net Genner’s work history. We often talk about resume writing with staff as part of the life lessons we try to give them through the summer (ie. waltzing, how to shake a hand, etc.). Happily this also works well for former Camp Directors, too, because it is so hard for us to tell the story of all of our skills. People don’t believe you when you say “I can do anything or I can learn how to do it”. Tapscott says to answer these 8 questions:
To see an example of a resume in this style you can look at my CV on the web [click here for web version - http://travisallison.org/curriculum-vitae/] or as a downloadable Pdf [Download Travis Allison - CV
].
Google Apps - Using the free tools available through Google Apps you can make webpages to create tests for pre-camp training or surveys for your families. [click here for the instructions]
Moodle - Moodle.com is an online teaching resource with video, tests, etc. It is hosted on your website.
Key To School - Keytoschool.com is a free version of Moodle.com that they will host for you so you don’t have to got through setting it up on your serve.
To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text Follow zoic to 40404 or 21212 on Canadian phone
The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 3 - Collaboration
There are a few good choices for working together on projects on line.
reviewing policies with staff or board members
Parent manual - experienced parents can help new parents understand camp from their perspective
job descriptions - work on Job Descriptions with the staff who did the job last year.
There is a great video that explains a wiki from Common Craft. [Click here to see it]
The free wiki service that I use most often is PB Wiki
To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text Follow zoic to 40404 or 21212 on Canadian phone
The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 4 - Marketing
CAIRN owns all of the following domains:
Consider: .org, .ca (if you are Canadian), net, .biz, and common misspellings of your camp’s name. The Question to ask yourself is would it make you happy to see someone use your name on their website. Could just be that they syphon your traffic get ad revenue, could be that they put up a site to highlight the things that they think you are doing wrong.
My Best Advice For Camp Directors
Get a Mac - it makes it soooo easy to edit photos, put together good looking videos, easy posters and even your confirmation packages
To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text Follow zoic to 40404 or 21212 on Canadian phone
Travis Allison consults on Website Usability, Social Media & Community Marketing for Children's Summer Camps
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