Putting the Social in Social Media Technology in Prevention

How social is your agency or organization?  Are you head-down focusing on developing and disseminating messages through social media channels or have you shifted into social media engagement and interaction?

I've noticed that a lot of our prevention agencies and organizations still focus on old style marketing and promotions strategies applied to social media channels.  Old habits are hard to break.  Few organizations are actually interacting with followers and fewer re-post good content that others have posted with attribution. I realize the old marketing process is much easier in some ways (control) but it is also far less effective in today's communications environment. Research shows we trust other people, even people we don't actually know, more than we trust brand advertising. 

Today I noticed a recent post by Alexandra Bornkessel over at Social Butterfly (follow her if you don't already because she is in the thick of social media and social change).  Alex's post refers to a study of how health departments are (or aren't) adopting and using social media stating that 60% say they use social media but the findings show the way they use it is less than ideal -- pushing messages out through the social media channels rather than interacting with people to connect and build their network.  There were actually few posts, many using third- party auto-feeders (sigh) and as you can imagine most had no comments and about half had no likes. Not at all what we intend, but what to do?  First things first ...

We've really got to drop the idea of using social media to 

disseminate only our own messages and start thinking in terms of 

making connections, engaging in conversations and building networks.

What do we already know about beginnings? 
Under the Strategic Prevention Framework we begin with an assessment, right?. The same is true of social media.  Start with a Social Media Communications Audit (.doc), collect some data (find out where your people are online),  choose a place to get started with social media -- and give it a go.  Establish and nurture your presence and be sure to decide on some metrics to watch. You'll want to learn from the experience in measurable ways that prepare you for more extensive and knowledgeable planning and action.  Listen to people. Talk with people. Ask questions. Share good content. Find meaning. Rinse, lather, repeat.

When it comes to social media, we really need to see both the old marketing/public relations (which are also changing) and the new social media communications perspective.  Both have their place and it really is important that we use each in ways that connect us and give us something worth talking about. 

How does your agency or organization use social media to connect with people and build your network? What are you learning about what works where you are? 

Alcohol Awareness and Technology in Prevention

In honor of Alcohol Awareness Month, how about a social media infographic to help tell the story. Original from Military Pathways.



  What are you sharing with your community online/offline when it comes to alcohol awareness? How are you using infographics to tell the story of your work or cause?

Infographics and Prevention

I'm a big fan of well made infographics and perhaps an even bigger fan of what Noland Hoshino calls InfoSnaps (he has four categories of small bites of data that speak out).  Infographics aren't new, in fact we see them all the time BUT because of social media sites like Pinterest we're now seeing and envisioning information in graphic form in new or different ways. 

The infographic below, all about Pinterest, caught my attention. It reminded me of the activity Paul Evensen, with ForumFYI, challenged us to think about and work out how we keep prevention relevant and visible in the midst of the fray of typical hot news stories and local conversations. Podcast story here.  If people don't see us as relevant - we're toast.  So, what does prevention have to do with the visual topics that most often get posted online?

Source: liza-shaw.com viaGJ on Pinterest

When you look at the things people most often view, like, follow, pin or comment on ... how could prevention be represented or connected?  What kinds of slides, photos or other visuals do you have already that you really hadn't thought of as infographics or the makings of an infographic?  What interesting or compelling local data do you have available that you could mashup with a slide or two and create a conversation piece that links your work (prevention) to other things going on in your community? 

How are you using prevention infographics to do good?  Click comment below and share a link to your visual creations or those of others that you've benefited from.

10 Tool Challenge-Evernote

10 Tool Challenge Followup

As promised as part of the 10 Tool Challenge this post is to report on progress in the past month on learning my first tool Evernote.

I didn't catch on quickly the first time I tried to learn to use Evernote, you know how it is when you're busy and stressed -- tough to focus on something new and different.  This time was different in three ways.

1. I added Evernote to my morning routine so it is one of the things I open as soon as I turn the computer on, right along with email, calendar and Netvibes (my reader). 
2. I happened to check www.lynda.com (where I pay a monthly subscription) and they had an brief course on Evernote. The course helped me "get it", in other words, it helped me see and understand the organizing principles of Evernote and to set up the basic Notebooks for a solid start. 
3. On top of that one of my learning partners Raye Shilen aka @preventiongeek gave me a few tips on how she uses Evernote which got my mind jump started on how it could work for me.  

So, here's some things I've learned and a bit of a description about how I use it. If you do this differently, please add your method in the comments.

 

ORGANIZING STRUCTURE
Evernote is organized by Notes & Notebooks. For us digital immigrant types, its sort of like having a series of notebooks to record things in but not having to carry them around all the time. 

NOTES
Notes can be made up of text, audio, screen clips, website links, images, photos, etc. There's a built in mic so you can record notes when that serves your purpose. I learned from Raye to organize notes by date first then title (3.1.13 Title) and to tag everything (more on that in a minute).  I've noticed that I can also change the date on the file without having to keep an extra copy like when we use Word.  For me, it has helped to make it a habit of opening a Note when a meeting, conference call or even a new project begins.  It is so easy to take the notes and make a list of tasks and then send the note via email to other meeting participants.  Even better, Evernote assigns a specific email address to you enabling you to forward important project/topic emails as Notes. You can also specify a particular Notebook and add tags as part of the email header.

TAGGING
Tag your notes, which means add a keyword or phrase or series of meaningful letters/numbers to each note so that you can find all the related items by tag at any time. How I wish I'd had this capability back in 1990 -- my boss back then would have loved it!

NOTEBOOKS
Notebooks can also be put into Stacks meaning grouping them together -- basically a collection of Notebooks.  So when you have several components to a project you can put each in a Notebook and then stack them together.  

SYNCING
The best part is that everything is available on every device I use and continuously syncs in near real time.  For me that means my laptop, desktop and mobile phone all have the same content in my Evernote Notebooks and Notes. 

I wouldn't say I've mastered Evernote in the last 30 days but I've actually learned a lot AND best of all have been successful at integrating the tool into my work processes.  I'm jazzed.  I'm sure Evernote does other things I haven't explored yet but so far I'm really excited about how much easier it makes my work day.

How about you?  How do you use Evernote as part of your work day?

Keeping Prevention Relevant

How do you keep your coalition or network's prevention focus relevant and visible where you are? 

Ever since I heard Paul Evensen talk about and lead this activity on relevance, I've been eager to get him to talk more about it -- especially about the power of an activity so simple yet able to contribute so much to the work of prevention and community change.



So, how do you keep your coalition or provider network activities relevant given all the other news, events or distractions that compete for people's attention and intention? How do you make and share your case for the relevance of what you do?

Listen to the Prevention Podcast with Paul and try the activity (individually or as a group).  Then drop back by and leave a comment on your experience.  Better yet, post on your coalition blog using this permalink.  If you have a different tool or activity, please share it.

Special appreciation to Raye Shilen (aka @PreventionGeek (my learning partner and very good friend) for setting up the interview and leaning into learning the technology with me. At least now we know the recorder can't do three video feeds even if Skype can!

So, at the end of the day how do you keep the prevention issues you work on relevant and influential in the mix of competing issues and ideas?  What issues have you been able to link your work to that at first glance didn't seem possible? 

CADCA Leadership Forum 2013 Resources

Another really great CADCA National Leadership Forum is in the books, closing last Thursday evening.  This is the only forum of this kind attended by some 2600 substance abuse prevention coalition leaders -- working to create positive change in communities around the world.  The passion shown and willingness to speak and act for change is always inspiring.

For those that attended the social media workshops Raye Shilen (@preventiongeek) and I presented, we say a huge thank you.  As promised we've posted everything online on our conference workshop wiki page including the slide decks, handouts, materials and a really great infographic Raye produced using our collective information on social media for free range learning.  Everyone is most welcome to use what we've posted and we'd love to hear from you as you engage and integrate technology in prevention and social change. Everything we've posted on the wiki is under creative commons license. (Gratitude to Robin Good for the video explanation about Creative Commons.)

http://bit.ly/CLF2013

We had the largest group of people participating via Twitter that I've seen at this conference so I'm jazzed that coalitions are seeing the value and contributing using this open communications tool.  Having a bigger crowd of tweeple (people using twitter) sure made it more fun and interesting with lots of helpful comments, pictures and resources (I'm still following up on links).

Both Raye and I would be most grateful for the gift of your thinking, so jump in below with a comment or question.  If you attended the forum, what stands out to you from the social media workshops? What ideas did you hear in other workshops you'd like to see spread with social media? If you didn't attend the forum but have given a look at the content we posted, what strikes you as valuable or unclear?  Let's talk.
 

Prevention Acronym Song

Do you get frustrated by all the acronyms that are used in prevention?  Me too. A high school principle from White Swan reservation in Washington created this awesome video that every person working in prevention will find valuable. I'm guessing you'll be howling with laughter before you're through watching (any maybe even singing along).

Thank you Raye Shilen (@preventiongeek) and Nancy Fiander from White Swan Dream Makers for sharing. 



Pssst, pass it on.