Whew, that’s a mouthful!

Over the last 12 months, I’ve been writing a (long-titled) book with my extemed collegue, Melanie Mathos. We are thrilled that 101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits: A Field Guide will be coming out in February 2012, and I’m sure I’ll write more about here on this blog.

in the mean time, if you’re into nonprofit social media and want to learn more about using it to engage, raise money, and measure your digital impact, pre-orders are available on Amazon.com.

What problem can’t be solved with social media these days?

Our neighborhood was having trouble communicating, working together, and behaving like a true community, so we turned to Ning.com to help us improve that.

Using Ning it took only minutes to create a full-featured social network complete with groups, discussion forums, an event calendar, blogs, and photo sharing. After a few tweaks, neighbors were invited and The Longpoint Commons was born.

I’ve been working with online communities for years, and Ning has always impressed me with how easy it is for people to use. It seems like everyone who signs up immediately begins to write blog posts, join groups, or just build out their profile. A volunteer brigade, neighborhood crime watch group, and resident meetups appeared right away. It’s clear that social media makes it easier for busy, family-oriented suburbanites to connect. It really does take a village, and technology can make the village really hum.

And yes, I’ll probably still buy the book!

The other day I noticed that the books had undergone a reordering over the last few weeks. Some books have jumped across the shelf, while whole groups remain intact. What does this all mean? *** gender bias? – the pink books are  untouched ***

Here are the pics – what do you see? More analysis after the jump.

February 2008:

June 2008:

Here are some things I noticed:

• Right off the bat, the pink books did not move. He actually likes two of those stories, so I’m wondering if there’s some pink-aversion because he’s a boy.
• Somehow both copies of Oh The Pets You Can Get have moved together. This is fishy.
• Hop on Pop and There’s a Wocket in My Pocket have switched positions.
• The green and blue books must be popular, as they are dispersed. The white books, along with the pink, have moved less.

That’s all for now.

Congrats to Dave and Bree on the arrival of Ellis!

The East Tower:

The Customs House:

WhereIsClem.com is a user-generated site featuring stories about Clem the traveling gnome. This Clemson garden gnome really gets around, as photos have already been posted from Toronto and NYC. Rumor has it the site will officially launch at the October 6th home game against Virginia Tech. So if you get a shot of Clem, be sure to register and share with other Tiger fans.

ILoveMeebee.com was part of a massive disinformation campaign culminating with the release of an employee intranet. The site allows visitors to register and share stories about meebee. It had good traffic, but little participation.