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Mindful Social Media Curation

by Beth Kanter on Jul 23, 2012

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Here’s a little bit about me.I’ve been working in nonprofits for over 33 years and since 1992 nonprofit tech and training. I’ve been writing a blog, Beth’s Blog, for ten years at http://www.bethkanter.org. I’m currently Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for nonprofits and social media – where they’ve supported my research and writing of two books. First one, Networked Nonprofit w/Allison Fine in 2010. Talked about the how nonprofits need to change their work to embrace a networked way of working – wasn’t about just using the tools. My next book, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit, with co-author KD Paine is due out this all. Meanwhile, through my work at Packard and with other organizations like IIE and the US Department of State, I’ve been designing and facilitating peer learning networks to build capacity of NGOs to embraced networked ways of working and build social media capacity. I just got back from India and launching a learning network of India NGOs that work in the area of Family Planning and Reproductive Health –the Networked Nonprofit Curriculum is based on the ideas in my book and uses cutting edge techniques in online networked peer learning – and I’ve been writing that on my blog.This year has been the year for training literally around the world – I’ve been working with NGOs in Rwanda, Kenya, Ethoipia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Brasil, Pakistan, and India …..
This webinar is based on the article I wrote for the June edition of the NTEN Change journal while on several long haul jet plane rides.The whole issue is on content curation and I’d urge you to read because the articles are great. They cover how nonprofits can use curation as part of their content strategy. My article focuses on the art and practice of content curation and an overlooked benefit: building up staff expertise AND eliminating information overload.Content curation is the process of sifting through information on the web and organizing, filtering and making sense of it and sharing the very best content with your network. Rather than another potential recipe for information overload, content curation can actually be a method to tackle this problem. With so much information coming at us from social networks, web sites, emails, and other digital sources, we can no longer afford to just whine about it – content curation can empower us to win the battle over too much information.
I was lucky to have a front row seat at the beginning of the nonprofit tech field back in 1992 – when nonprofits were first exploring how the Internet could be used for activist and mission-driven work. I confess to being an early adopter – someone who overpaid for technology tools that didn’t work and still do that today.My first job in this area was with an online network called Arts Wire where I learned new technologies as they came out – like email, HTML, and created and lead trainings, provided online support. I was reflecting back to those days and I realized that part of my work included content curation, although at the time I didn’t call it that.
I maintained a site called “SpiderSchool” in 1994 for about five years – where I searched the web, reviewed, and shared resources about how nonprofits could use this new technology. I was doing content curation – where I was making sense of the web. When I look back on it compared today, there is so much more information being shared – it seems like it was a lot simpler
But I also taught many workshops where I included techniques on how to deal with information overload caused by using the Internet to get our work done …Fast forward to today, I link both these ideas, but have now realized that content curation – the good practice of it – can help reduce that feeling …
Here is the definition
http://www.flickr.com/photos/an_untrained_eye/2998277224/sizes/l/Poll Questions:1.) Is your nonprofit currently using content curation techniques to support an integrated content strategy …?-Not sure what that means-Thinking about it-Do it informally or occasionally-Content curation is an ongoing part of our content strategy2.) What is your biggest challenge to doing content curation on a consistent basis?Time to sort through all the crap to find the gemsGetting overwhelmed with the amount of contentEfficient work flowContextualizing, reviewing, and reading discovered contentFinding good, reliable sourcesContent curation is not valued in our nonprofitOther Challenges
Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme. The work involves sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information. A content curator cherry picks the best content that is important and relevant to share with their community. It isn’t unlike what a museum curator does to produce an exhibition: They identify the theme, they provide the context, they decide which paintings to hang on the wall, how they should be annotated, and how they should be displayed for the public.http://www.flickr.com/photos/ica_mediatheque/3231821124/
What is content curation exactly? It isn’t mindless consumption of online informationCuration has nothing to do with personal expression or sharing nor with collecting links, tweets or blog posts that you may find interesting.Curation is all about "taking care" of something in the sense of helping someone "else" be able to dive in and make sense of a specific topic, issue, event or news story. It is about collecting, but it is also about explaining, illustrating, bringing in different points of view and updating the view as it changes. It is also about sharing with your community – not passing along stuff that you have not read or contextualize or shooting out links. But engaging in dialogue to help them make sense.
http://www.flickr.com/pI also like the metaphor of a sommelier. They know the grapes, the winemaker and their techniques, and vintages. They taste many wines to find the best of the best to appropriately complement (even enhance) the food in the restaurant. They can answer questions about the wine to help diners navigate a wine list to make the best choice. The content curator does something similar, but with information.hotos/soavementeblog/6257528545/sizes/l/in/photostream/
One reason content curation is becoming more and more appreciated is because of the huge amount of information available on the web (the equivalent of cheap red wine).
Which makes it hard to find more of this …
There’s so much of it that it is now measured in exabytes, which is equal to a quintillion bytes. The creation and sharing of content on social media and social networks is contributing to this information overload.
Let’s do the math on Facebook for second …800 million users on Facebook x average user shares 90 pieces of content x 12 months … and you get the pictureThe average user on Facebook shares/creates 90 pieces of content a month. With over 800 million global users on Facebook, if you do the math – that’s a lot of information!http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkalo/4815259737/sizes/z/in/photostream/
We can’t blame it all on the amount of information. The problem is our information consumption —we’re indulging too much at the buffet called the web. We need to go on an information diet. And guess what? Mindful consumption of information is at the heart of content curation practice .
The act of content curation can actually reduce our information overload. I believe that sense-making, both individually and in collaborative contexts at work or networked projects, will be the key to navigating the digital information landscape and finding relevant content efficiently in the future.
Improve staff expertise: It used to be that we could be trained to do our work and we wouldn’t need to update and synthesize new information on a daily basis. That’s less true today – and the ability to keep with our fields – esp. through online information is really important.http://www.flickr.com/photos/elitepete/442095833/sizes/l/in/photostream/
A good content curator has developed and honed 21st century work place skills. So investing in the skill and practice you are increasing the longevity of your nonprofit long term.Transdisciplinarity: literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines. A good curator can appreciate content that is not, at first glance, related to their subject. Sense-making: ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed. Social intelligence: ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions. Cognitive load management: ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques. New media literacy: ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication
You can be the Elvis of your nonprofit topic area … Doing content curation can help develop thought leader and brand visibility are the primary reason for nonprofit marketers to adopt content curationImprove Thought Leadership: If your organization is curating content on a particular topic, it can help with branding your organization as thought leaders in the space. If your staff is trained in the techniques of content curation, this process can be a form of professional development, building their expertise in a subject area that can, in turn, have significant returns to your organization’s programs. Better yet, this professional development is a self-directed activity – and it’s free! Not only are they learning on the job, but getting work done, too.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artgalleryofnsw/3699645649/sizes/o/Once you have a strategy plan in place, the next step is to select your curator. This may or may not be your social media manager or staff person. They should know the topic area, but also understand practice of curation. The secret to good curation is the selection of the best and most relevant material. A curator needs to have superb social media monitoring and listening skills — that means knowing the right keywords on the topic and sources, agility with “aggregator” tools, and the daily discipline of foraging for the best content and evaluating your finds before sharing. A content curator should never share something they have not actually read and thought about. The practice of curation is being able to sift through daily whirlwind of tweets, blog posts, and other content streams quickly in order to pick the right pieces that create an accurate view of the subject matter.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/salendron/947936275/Good curators are not packrats or aggregators, the pluck out the best and frame it for better understanding. Part of that might revising a headline, summarize the main points, and relating it back to your point of view.This is a hot debate in the content curator community: Are we creating and leveraging these tools to regurgitate and spit out more noise, or are we working to build tools and to help others understand the value of distilling and making sense of the information wave surrounding us?The debate in content curation circles is that we treat content curation as aggregation, then we’ll miss the point and just create noise. We don’t need more content, but a human point of view guided by intelligent tools- that can help others find and make sense of the information and resources out there.“…either be better at pump and dump than anyone else, get your numbers into the millions, outmass those that choose to use mass and always dance at the edge of spam (in which the number of those you offend or turn off forever keep increasing)…or Relentlessly focus.Prune your message and your list and build a reputation that’s worth owning and an audience that cares.Only one of these strategies builds an asset of value.”If your nonprofit is grappling with developing a content strategy and using content curation as a part of the mix, how will you keep your focus? For me, it is feeding and tuning the sources and the network, pausing, slowing down, and staying focus on a point of view.
http://www.bethkanter.org/good-curation-vs-bad-curation/What is good curation versus bad curation? The image is a remix of a presentation entitled ”Link Building by Imitation” and authored by link building expert Ross Hudgens — and explains the skill set pretty well.Here’s a great visualization of how different can be the traits of content re-use. In the left column you can see what would appear to be the ideal traits of a professional curator, while on the right you can immediately recognize the ones of scrapers, republishers, cheap aggregators and other “thin” publishers as Google would call them.I think it can serve as an excellent reference, when in doubt about whether you are still doing the right thing or not, when it comes to re-using and republishing other people content.You should NOT mix-up republishing, self-expression and easy-content-sharing with curation, because they are in fact at opposite extremes of the same spectrum.Robing Good’s detailed checklist of skills. If you follow his content curation activity, you’ll know that he practices what he preaches.• Optimizes• Edits• Formats• Selects• Excerpts• Writes• Classifies• Links• Personalizes• Vets• Credits• Filters• Taps• Suggests• Searches• Scouts• Hacks Filters and Searches• Is Transparent• Recommends• CrowdsourcesThe list of skills might, at first blush, feel like a lot of extra work. It isn’t once you’ve established good habits. And, the benefits of good curation far outweigh “bad curation.”
http://www.jarche.com/2010/10/network-learning-working-smarter/I’m a huge fan of Harold Jarche’s “Seek, Sense, Share” model for self-directed professional learning. The framework works well for content curation.Content curation is a three-part process: Seek, Sense, and Share. Finding the information (or “seeking”) is only one third of the task, as Mari Smith points out in this video about why curation is important and some tools for doing it. Making sense of the information is just as important. Sense-making can be as simple as how you annotate the links you share, the presentation, or what you’ve left out. Sense-making can be writing a blog post using the links or summarizing the key points in a presentation. But it has to support your organization’s communications objectives or your professional learning goals. Finally, the sharing: it’s about giving the best nuggets of content to your audience in a format that they can easily digest and apply.Putting content curation into practice is part art form, part science, but mostly about daily practice. You don’t need to do it for hours, but 20 minutes every day will help you develop and hone the skills. It is best to do the seeking part in small bursts to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
http://www.jarche.com/2010/10/network-learning-working-smarter/Keeping up to date in your field and finding content that will help you be more effective at work or build your organization’s reputation as thought leader Make sense of the information by creating a product or applying what you’ve learned.Exchanging resources, insights, and conversations with people in your network. Define objective, audience, and topicsOrganize sources Use discovery toolsScan more than you captureDon’t share unless it adds great valueDiscipline
http://www.jarche.com/2010/10/network-learning-working-smarter/Product – writing, report, presentation, memo, Annotate, Archive , ApplyMust add value to your workMake sense of the information by creating a product or applying what you’ve learned.
http://www.jarche.com/2010/10/network-learning-working-smarter/Product – writing, report, presentation, memo, Annotate, Archive , ApplyMust add value to your workMake sense of the information by creating a product or applying what you’ve learned.
http://netsquared.org/blog/claire-sale/september-net2-think-tank-round-curating
Bruce Lesley is one of a growing number of nonprofit executive directors and senior leaders that use Twitter. And, he isn’t tweeting about what he ate for breakfast or one of his personal passions, basketball. He uses Twitter to curate information related to his organization’s mission and work as a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. He also uses content curation for sources for his guest blogging. His use of Twitter (and his organization’s use of Twitter and all communications channels for that matter) serve this intent:First Focus is working to change the dialogue around children’s issues by taking a cross-cutting and broad based approach to federal policy making. In all of our work, we seek to raise awareness regarding public policies impacting children and ensure that related programs have the resources necessary to help them grow up in a healthy and nurturing environment.If you take a look at Bruce Lesley’s Twitter stream, you will see that he is curating information on public policies impacting children. Bruce does his own curating, using Google Reader and FlipBoard. Any individual or nonprofit organization can curate information using these tools. They can make it strategic by linking the information to their mission. But what is the secret sauce to doing it well?
Bruce Lesley is one of a growing number of nonprofit executive directors and senior leaders that use Twitter. And, he isn’t tweeting about what he ate for breakfast or one of his personal passions, basketball. He uses Twitter to curate information related to his organization’s mission and work as a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. He also uses content curation for sources for his guest blogging. His use of Twitter (and his organization’s use of Twitter and all communications channels for that matter) serve this intent:First Focus is working to change the dialogue around children’s issues by taking a cross-cutting and broad based approach to federal policy making. In all of our work, we seek to raise awareness regarding public policies impacting children and ensure that related programs have the resources necessary to help them grow up in a healthy and nurturing environment.If you take a look at Bruce Lesley’s Twitter stream, you will see that he is curating information on public policies impacting children. Bruce does his own curating, using Google Reader and FlipBoard. Any individual or nonprofit organization can curate information using these tools. They can make it strategic by linking the information to their mission. But what is the secret sauce to doing it well?
Note: This is not only the big outcomes, but also the evidence of peer learning work. ]You all have been doing amazing work since we last got together and your growing skills and networks really paid off recently with regard to the Supreme Court’s decision on the ACA. In her blog, Beth highlighted this day as one of those opportunities to balance strategic communications with the spontaneity of social media. You all jumped on this historic event and demonstrated your social media smarts, including:Being flexible and keeping it simple;Using multiple channels and shaping content for each channel;Leveraging the organic sharing properties of Facebook;Having a broad narrative in mind in advance (win, lose or something in between);Getting your social media ambassadors and “super-users” to help spread your message;Curating content from trusted sources; andFocusing on the story after the immediate announcement and providing analysis.There was a huge amount of activity across our network on decision day and it really was a great demonstration of putting into action what we have been learning as a peer community.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/waferboard/4153245628/Becoming “content fried” is a potential hazard for content curators, and that can get in the way of being efficient. In addition to the technical skills and tools described above, it is also important for staff to incorporate techniques into their daily work life that reduce distraction and stress.The seeking part of the work is a fast-forward, swimming-in-the-stream experience. I can’t possibly read everything, but my content curation skills help me pick out the best stuff to give more attention to. I find I can only do that work at certain times of the day or only for so long. The biggest difficulty I experience is the shifting from this forward-flowing process of consuming, curating, and sense-making of content to learn versus to get something done. The latter requires a different type of attention, so it is good to schedule accordingly.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/21/nomophobia-attacks-harris-says-74-of-users-panic-over-phone-loss-58-of-us-cant-stay-away-from-mobiles-for-more-than-an-hour/We have to cover a lot of ground in our work today and do it while logged on to the greatest tool for distraction and procrastination ever invented! And now we can access the Internet anytime, anywherehttp://techcrunch.com/2012/06/21/nomophobia-attacks-harris-says-74-of-users-panic-over-phone-loss-58-of-us-cant-stay-away-from-mobiles-for-more-than-an-hour/Nearly 60% said they don’t go an hour without checking their phone. Younger folks were the most addicted: 63% of women and 73% of men ages 18-34 say they don’t go an hour without checking their phones.Our connection never sleeps. 54% said they check their phones while lying in bed: before they go to sleep, after they wake up, even in the middle of the night.We need access everywhere. Nearly 40% admit to checking their phone while on the toilet.Learning how to use mindfulnessonline is an essential work place skill!
What is mindful social media?Becoming aware of how you direct your attention – both online and offlineContentcuration online does not control your awareness – you can take control back and through repeated conscious efforts
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tzofia/270800047/sizes/m/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/lululemonathletica/5724696305/sizes/m/in/photostream/
1.) Manage Your Attention, Not Just Your Time: Don’t just create a to-do list, lay it out on daily and weekly schedules, breaking down key tasks of the project into chunks. Consider the level of concentration and focus that each type of task or chunk requires – and schedule accordingly. For example, if I have to do some writing that requires a higher level of attention for me than does scanning Twitter or reading and responding to email,I schedule my writing time during peak concentration hours in the day. (I’ve charted those – so I know when they occur). I also use a timer when I’m scanning my networks and limit those activities to 15-20 minute bursts.2.) Visualize On Paper: Over the past 10 months, I’ve made a return to paper and markers and using mind maps or visualization techniques to reflect, and plan my week or day. I use this as a pre-writing exercise as well as a reflection exercise. It’s why I felt the need to dive into visual facilitation and thinking techniques as a way to cope with getting “content fried.”3.) Establish Rituals: Rituals in your work life are valuable. The mind map offers a lot of good suggestions for rituals – from decluttering your workspace to healthy habits like sleep and exercise.4.) Reflection: Reflection doesn’t have to be a huge amount of time to be effective. I’m taking ten minutes every morning to practice some visual recording skills like drawing to create my “3 Most Important Things for Today List.” At the end of the day, I look at it, reflect on what I did – and plan for tomorrow. The advice is not to go online or check email until you get your three things done, but that is very hard for me – given so much of my work is online. What I do is try to avoid email first thing in the morning.5.) Managing Email and Other Distractions: I’ve turned off notifications that pop up on my computer screen or send me a text message to my mobile phone.6.) Managing Physical Space: When I see clutter in my physical work spaces, I try to take that as a sign that I need to hit a pause button. Usually it is because I’m doing too much.7.) Just Say No: Maybe you are going to say no to social media for a day and go to meet with people, take a class, read a book, or take a walk. When I’m feeling most overwhelmed, I take a break. Even if it is just to get up and walk around my desk.
There are many content curation tools and they call into two categorieshttp://bit.ly/curation-tools-Robin-Good

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Mindful Social Media Curation

by Beth Kanter on Jul 23, 2012

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