Twitter Your Nonprofit ?

Do you "tweet?" That's the language of Twitter.

Twitter is the relatively new micro blogging service offered by our friends at twitter.com. These guys let you send very short (up to 140 characters) updates (tweets) to anyone that signs up to get them. Those people are called "followers." You can also restrict delivery just to your circle of buddies...or coworkers.

Followers can receive these updates on a variety of web sites or via email, instant messaging, text messages to your cell phone, etc. It all starts with a simple question: "what are you doing?"

Think of it as simple social networking on a small scale. Then again that small scale has nearly a million users right now. Some are just teenagers standing in line for a movie sending updates to friends. Others are much more sophisticated and frankly, more interesting. (Don't tell the teenagers.)

Whole Foods Market, Comcast, and Dell are using Twitter at an enterprise level. If you're having trouble with your Comcast service, blast a tweet of your frustrations to the world (the default delivery option). Customer support at Comcast monitors Twitter 24x7 for "damage control." See more on this at TBR (The Bivings Report).

Whole Foods is giving Twitter a serious try. They use it as a means of marketing and customer support. It's another way to enhance relationships with its customers. Hmmmm ..... seems like I've mentioned the importance of relationships somewhere else on my blog.

Universities, government agencies, news organizations, and significantly, the Obama campaign are all starting to use Twitter to keep people informed. Can your nonprofit make this work? Sure you can. But do you want to?

Think of two things. Who will be tweeting for your cause? Who will be the followers (the ones interested in your updates)?

If you Twitter just for internal purposes - to schedule or announce visitors for a tour, prepare for the arrival of volunteers, make a late change to an internal function - your followers will just be your staff. But if you plan to Twitter to the board, volunteers, or donors, you really need to have your act together.

Your "tweeter" needs to be informed, interesting, and able to find the balance of being consistent with new tweets without flooding the followers with drivel. Depending upon your cause, you may also have to be sensitive to certain privacy needs.

Your followers need to not be afraid of new technology. That probably means they'll be under 30, but not necessarily, and they may be some of your best candidates for volunteers and new donors.

Will it work at the nonprofit level? Why not? It's a free service, and chances are you want to improve your communications and you're looking for more volunteers and more donors. It's worth a try.

A caveat. Twitter is not especially fast. Look for competitors to get into this game soon.

Three Seconds After the Snap

It's amazing what we're trying to do now. At least what some are trying to do.

Today's college football quarterbacks need to take a football snapped from the center, drop back a few steps, look over about a hundred square yards of grass, and decide what to do with the ball. They have about three seconds to make up their mind and execute the plan...or improvise....or get crunched. That's a lot quicker than 10 years ago.

Heck, I'm from Texas. I have trouble saying a simple sentence in three seconds. Don't even ask me to put "philanthropy" in that sentence.

College teams all over the country are spending big bucks for simulators from companies like Gridiron Technologies or Visual Edge to get their qb's into a better place mentally to make quicker decisions. The Air Force Academy allegedly has their football players jumping on trampolines and reading two eye charts, one inches from their face and one 10 yards away.

Is this a trend for social capital in the 21st Century??? Wikipedia describes social capital as the "advantage created by a person's location in a structure of relationships."

College football is all about having an advantage in the relationships on the field. The game is faster than ever. There are more options than ever. The relationships are more complex than ever. The costs are higher, and there's more money at stake than ever before.

This holds true for the rest of life as well. Relationships are the common denominator. What you do to maintain healthy relationships and prepare for change in a rapidly changing world is vital.

Sure hope my bifocals stay on when I'm on the trampoline.