Organizational Uses

Organizational Uses

As most of you are aware, I spent the summer completing an international internship with an NGO (a fancy way of saying non-profit outside the USA) in Pune, India.  While there were networked with many other NGO’s in our area.  The first article I read is about social media and non-profit organizations.  I found it quite interesting how they quickly identified the challenges non-profits face in a very social media minded world. 

“An astounding 97 percent of nonprofits are using social media, far surpassing even the business world,” says Nora Ganim Barnes, co-author of a study released last year by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research.

The article gives tips like don’t delegate a campaign to an intern, measure everything, integrate social media, and get help with content.  Having interned for an NGO, I can say that the tips and suggestions are a 100% spot on.  Social media needs strategic planning to be successful.  You can read the whole article at http://philanthropy.com/article/How-Nonprofits-Can-Use-Social/126402/.

The second article I found on CNN.com.  It details how Iceland’s president is using social media. 

"This so-called social media has transformed our democratic institutions in such a way that what takes place in the more traditional institutions of power -- congress, ministries, even the White House or the presidency and the cabinet in my country -- has become almost a sideshow," Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, Iceland's president, said in an interview with CNN on Thursday at the PopTech conference here in coastal Maine.

He continues to say that social media is “transforming” politics in such a way that traditional democracies won’t be able to keep up.  Others say that social media protests are healthy.

“Grimsson, an even-spoken figure with Bill-Clinton hair and a charming Nordic accent, said protests organized by social media and technological developments are healthy for society, whether or not that offers him much in the way of job security.”

It is interesting that there are such opposite views.  You be the judge read the entire article at http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/iceland-president-social-media/index.html?iref=allsearch