Ok, the session sounded
interesting on paper but now
that I‟m here…
What the hell IS this?

NTC, San Francisco
April 27th, 2009

Welcome to Technology Stadium
3 matrixed teams of frienemies
•
Share process and brain power
•
Create different flavors of web solutions
•
Using 1 special ingredient
•
Practice what we preach
•

Here You Will See…
Meal preparation
•
Secret Ingredient unveiled
•
Each team’s meal in 15 minutes or less
•
Judges (you) get to ask questions
•
Vote on the winner
•

THIS is how we Iron Chef.
(imagine dramatic music here)

Sunday, February 8th
Our day of Unrest
(or what happened when 11 web professionals
gave up their Sunday to do something crazy)

Cooks In The Kitchen
(Never too many)
• Beaconfire Consulting
Ali Cherry, Eve Simon, Milo Sybrant
• Forum One Communications
Andrew Cohen, Michaela Hackner, Brian Pagels
• Free Range Studios
Susan Finkelpearl, Ross Nover
• Firefly Partners
Maureen Wallbeoff, Jimmy Cudzilo, Erin Johansen Hurwitt

Using all senses, skills, creativity
(the rules)
• 3-4 people per team including a
captain
• Address goals of organization
• Design, strategy & “wild card”
• Balance long-term vision with action
• Use social media
• Do it all in 8 hours
• No peeking!

The Day began..
• Ingredient revealed 3 days prior
• Met at Beaconfire in Arlington, VA at 10 am
• Teams & Captains assigned
• Group discussion of the day‟s goals
• Set ground rules
• Played with Atlas

Planning, Strategy & more Atlas
• Team Breakouts
• Generated questions for SI
• Named the teams
• Created a plan of action for the day
• Atlas helped …

The Secret Ingredient … speaks
• Hour long conference call with SI ED
• Asked questions
• Asked more questions
• Eyeballed the other
teams to see if we
could take „em
in a rumble

And off we went ...
• Started to work
• Had some lunch
• Worried we would run out of time
• Came up with some cool stuff
• Debriefed our lessons learned

Now you see how we did it…

Meet the Challengers

Now for the SI…

The Secret Ingredient (SI):
YOUTH SPEAKS

The Secret Ingredient (SI):
YOUTH SPEAKS
• Spoken word performance, education &
youth development
• Shift the perception of youth by combating
illiteracy, alienation and silence
• Empowering next generation of leaders,
self defined artists and visionary activists
• Over 45,000 Bay Area teens each year
• Partner programs in 42 U.S. cities

YouthSpeaks.org should…
• Be where young voices are taken seriously (and
take themselves seriously)
• Challenge young people to find, develop, publicly
present and apply their voices to social change
• Provide event information, trainings, curricula,
knowledge, resources, and best practices
• Raise money
• Be a stage as live and crazy as vaunted concert
halls
• Build the movement beyond physical

Let the Battle BEGIN!

Meet The Wordsmiths
Susan Sobel Milo Sybrant,
Finkelpearl, Amnesty
Free Range International
Studios (formerly
Beaconfire)
Michaela
Hackner,
Erin Sundari Forum One
Johansen Hurwitt, Communications
Firefly Partners

Tell stories (youth, staff, volunteers, teachers,

community)
Leverage opportunity of HBO

Better leverage emerging tech & social media

 Improve social network strategy
 Use social media more strategically
Make site easier to maintain/update


SWOT analysis

 Strengths: Live events, video assets, engaged
community, brand recognition, celebrity support
 Weaknesses: Flash/Frame-based Web site difficult to
manage, organization-centric navigation
 Opportunities: HBO, 20K email subscribers
 Threats: recruiting marketing/Web resources, social
network presence(s), HBO timeline
Phased approach

 Triage
 Short term
 Long term

2 - Short- 3 - Long
1 - HBO
term (6-12 Term (12+
Triage
months) months)

Challenge:

 Short timeline to prepare site and campaign for
HBO documentary release
Solution:

 Splash page on site to capture incoming traffic
 Technological capabilities: ensure site can handle
increased traffic load

Target Actions:
• Email Sign-up
• Donation
Youthspeaks.org • Find local
• Behind the Word: more events/chapter
stories from the HBO • Tell-a-friend other
viral mechanisms
series
HBO
• T.V.
• Web site

Challenge:

 Fix major site problems
 Engage new and existing audience resulting from
HBO exposure
Solution:

 Improve navigability
 Improve ability to edit
 Improve design

Homepage features

 Slideshow
 Success story pages: “Behind the Word”
Youth Speaks Events

 Google Calendar/Map mash-up
Flickr-generated photo slideshow

Video library: tagged and “filterable”

Resource tools for educators

Social network “hub”


Challenge:

 Build integrated strategy for social
media/network use
 Maximize social network assets
 Take up opportunity that mobile presents

Solution:
 Strategy
▪ Find mentors
▪ Add social media expert to board
▪ Delegate roles to members of youth advisory board/Spokes
 Technology Opportunities
▪ Experiment with mobile and text/micro-blogging
technologies
▪ Use phased, “testing the waters” approach
▪ Twitter for event promotion
▪ Flash mobs

And now for…

Our Vision for 2009:
 The most dynamic, open, and connected
festival ever.
 More people get involved in fundraising.
 More people experience the festival around
the world.
 Youth document their experience unlike ever
before.

Goals:

 Buzz building in select major cities
 Two-way interaction btw events
How:

 Youth watch Slam finals at house parties
 Text in vote for People’s Choice Award
 Events are free; but pass the hat
 Feeds from Flickr, Twitter, video to record
experiences around the nation

• Twitter
• Flickr
Chicago
• Video
• Twitter
House
• Flickr
Parties
• Video

Goal: cover expenses for 50 teams (500

participants) to attend BNV
Total revenue goal: $500,000

Methods:
– Show progress with
dynamic map on sitelet
– Each state links to a
unique fundraising page
– Each page has
thermometer showing
total raised
– Customization options

Time before
Task Description
event:
5 months Buzz marketing campaign Outreach to key bloggers promoting events
starts
4 months Sitelet launches Home page promotion; message to list;
keyword buys
• Include alumni and their families
3-4 months Direct mail drop and email
campaign speaking to how their participation in
past BNVs/spoken shaped their lives
• Use conditional content to target
fundraising
1 week 72-Tweet-a-thon Last-minute push via Twitter to raise
$10,000 in 3 day

Goal: 1,500+ participants tell their story of BNV ’09.

“Behind the Word” participants share “ground truth” with the

world.
Participants can:

• converse through Twitter
• upload tagged conference images to Flickr
• post tagged videos to YouTube, and stop by kiosks with Flip cameras to
share their stories and post to YouTube.
• upload audio interviews to a YouthSpeaks Utterli account
All feeds are “piped” into one central location on BNV sitelet


Flickr
Utterli
YouTube
Centralized Other
Twitter content on
content
BNV sitelet

Meet Team Skip2
Ali Cherry,
Maureen
Beaconfire
Wallbeoff,
Consulting
Firefly
Partners
Ross Nover,
Free Range
Brian Pagels, Studios
Forum One

OUR APPROACH
Listen
Brainstorm
Focus
Prioritize
Create
Chef’s Tip!
Knives are
very helpful
during the
brainstorming
phase.

FIRST COURSE!
TODAY’S STARTER:
A STRATEGIC PLAN

CLIENT GOALS
SHOWCASEthe words and artists

INCREASE number of donors

and dollars donated
EDUCATE audience about breadth

of organization’s work
COMMUNICATE the power and

inspiration of live events

CLIENT GOALS
PROMOTE nation-wide chapter

events to increase attendance
INTEGRATE work of local chapters

into website content
PROVIDE resources and trainings

to educators who work with youth
UTILIZE website as a tool for

self expression and recruitment

OUR STRATEGY
RUN
12 - 18 Months
JOG
6 – 12 Months
WALK
3 – 6 Months

WALK 3-6 MONTHS
ARTISTS: Showcase 10 active artists on website

Publish their profiles and work
Engage individual artists as bloggers
EVENTS: Allow artists to post event experiences

Email audience for post-event comments
Post set list and YouTube clips to blog
CHAPTERS: Post local chapter events to YS site

Add ‘search by zip’ to website
Provide content from local artists

JOG 6 - 12 MONTHS
ARTISTS: Expand poems and words on new site

Add weekly podcast featuring an artist
Expand artist profile section
EVENTS: Multimedia content posted after events

Use tagging to synch with artist profiles
Add search by artist, date and topic
CHAPTERS: Add Google mash up/Google calendar

Capture email addresses post-events
Train chapters to add events and info

RUN 12 - 18 MONTHS
ARTISTS: Add profiles for all event participants

Allow users to “fan” and “follow” artists
Showcase local artists in e-appeals
EVENTS: Add live streaming video of each event

Encourage off-site viewing house parties
Add RSS, social networking, mobile tech
CHAPTERS: Create full event pages for chapters

Tag local YouTube and Flickr content
Add local info to e-communication

KEY SUCCESS METRICS
• Volume of fans per artist • Volume of post-event
and artist content comments
• Visits from social • Speed of adding event
networking sites contentpost-event
• Growth of house file and •Traffic to event pages;
network artist profiles; blog posts
•Repeat attendee count • Chapter event attendance
• Number of RSS • Donation dollars and
subscribers donor pool

SECOND COURSE!
SURF AND TURF:
ONLINE
& OFFLINE PLATES
Chef’s Tip!
Five minutes
of break time
can help the
kitchen staff
stay on track.

OUR THINKING
Live events are powerful and high energy for

both the artists and audience
Best place to connect audience with online

programs is at live events
Strategy will ‘blur the lines’ between actual

event and content on website
Bring energy from live events to all online

applications and programs

EVENT CHECKLIST
Develop a system to coordinate tasks

pre/during/post events
Identify staff and volunteers and train the

team
Create a paper detailed checklist with step-

by-step to do items

SUGGESTED ACTIVITY
Send a ‘Thanks for Attending’ (TFA) email
blast the day after each live event
Capitalize on the energy from the live event

Keep the conversation going - engage the

audience in an online dialogue
Introduce the audience to ongoing email

communications from Youth Speaks
Capture attendee email & cell numbers at

each event to quickly grow the house file

TFA EMAIL BLAST

THIRD COURSE!
A YUMMY NEW
HOME PAGE
Chef’s Tip!
Keep your site
developer
away from
open flame.

4 HOUR HOME PAGE SPECIAL
Full redesign process:

I/A; Wireframe; Mock Up; Revision Cycle
Used collateral from the Youth Speaks image

library and current website
Referred back to organization goals and strategy

to determine home page elements
Result is a balance of information and ‘Call to

Action’

REVIEW THE BILL
Define and respond to client goals

Create a manageable strategic plan

Identify key measures of success

Coordinate offline and online experiences

Use technology to create online dialogue

Design new website to serve as entry point for

audience both pre and post-event

Thank You
It was a pleasure serving you
today!
(Tips are appreciated)

Meet Team Teppanyaki
鉄板焼き Jimmy
Cudzilo ,
Eve Simon,
Firefly
Beaconfire
Partners
Consulting
Andrew Cohen,
Forum One
Communications

Our Offering
Appetizer: The Opportunities

Main Course: Site Map,

Wireframes, Home Page Design,
Email Design
Dessert: Communications Plan


Appetizer: The Opportunities
Improve user experience
•
Showcase artists and their work.
•
Bring energy of live events online.
•
Seed target messages for donors, educators,
•
and press.

Main Course
Site Map

Wireframes

Home Page Design

Email Design


Site Map

Site Map

Site Map

Site Map

Home Page Design
Clean presentation

Strong visual impact

Prominently feature artists

Show latest events

Be easy to update

Tie in social networks


Dessert: Communications Plan
Welcome Series

Monthly Communications

Quarterly Communications


Communications Plan
Welcome Series
Tailored messages by audience:
 Artist Studio Owners
 Educators
 General

Communications Plan
Monthly Communications
 E-Newsletter
 Artist Studio Success
 Event Tweets / Status Updates
 Text Message Broadcasts

Communications Plan
Quarterly Communications
 E-mail Solicitations
 Printed Newsletter
Annual Communications
 Annual Report
 End-of-Year Solicitation

Communications Plan
Annual Gala
Tweet registrations updates

Save the date emails

Registration reminder

Event follow-up email (links to photos)


And now for a break from the
regularly scheduled program…
5 minutes of Q&A

Cast Your Vote!
Text Code 69866
• ntc501 for The Wordsmiths
• ntc502 for Team Skip 2
• ntc503 for Team Teppanyaki

Surprising Flavors on the Palette
• Web folks working for nonprofits
are pretty damn smart
• More that unites than divides
• With goals and focus, you can
accomplish anything in 8 hours

More Surprising Flavors…
• Divide and conquer
• Collaboration harder with people you
don‟t know that well
• ALWAYS have a dog to play with if
you spend your Sunday in the office

And the winner is…

So now, with an open heart and
an empty stomach, we challenge
YOU, NTC…

… How do YOU Iron Chef?

TXT Your Session Evaluation!
TXT <CODE> to
69866
Or complete online at http://nten.org/ntc-eval or on a paper
evaluation available in the session room.
Each completed session evaluation enters you
to win a FREE 2010 NTC Registration!