Michael Stein is the Media and Communications Strategist at GetActive Software, but that's just the latest hat he's wearing in a long career in the nonprofit technology field. He's also been Associate Director at Groundspring and co-author of three books (including The eNonprofit: A Guide to ASPs, Internet Services and Online Software, and Fundraising on the Internet: Recruiting and Renewing Donors Online), as well as an independent consultant.
I've worked alongside Michael in the nonprofit technology field for more than four years, and I've always appreciated his insights. Today's no exception as he tackles personal blogging, blogging for a company, wearing different hats, and Bay Area surfing spots...
You've been writing about nonprofits' use of technology for 15 years. Last year you turned your personal site into a blog (although I suspect that life has gotten in the way of regular posting), and this year you began writing Word of Net, a bi-monthly blog for GetActive. What's different for you about writing in a blog format?
Writing in a blog format has changed my writing habits in two significant ways. For my personal site (Michael Stein’s Aether Madness) it’s provided me with speed and experimentation when it comes to creating and repurposing content. I typically post short news and opinion items, with lots of links and a thumbnail image. Like many people, I wasn’t too interested in keeping up with the finer points of HTML and Javascript, so putting content online using Dreamweaver was something I wanted to do as infrequently as possible. Today, I’m excited to log into Typepad several times a day because of how easy it is, and how fool-proof the tool is as a publishing platform. Also, I’ve developed a healthy respect for the syndication power of RSS, that other people are reading what I’m writing, and are commenting on things I’ve written using hypertext links and trackbacks.
For GetActive’s Word of Net, what’s different is the power to self-publish. I am the writer and my colleagues at GetActive are the editors, and there are no intermediaries between us and our reading audience. It allows us to contribute knowledge and content directly to our audience and to the nonprofit sector. We decide what topics we want to cover. As a writer this is both a great freedom, and also a responsibility. It’s one of the most interesting things to happen to writing in my lifetime aside from the word processor, and we’re only now starting to appreciate what impact this might have on learning, knowledge exchange, and freedom of expression.
As far as I can tell, GetActive is unique among nonprofit technology software vendors in having an official company blog. It could be argued that Word of Net is really more like a column, since you're not employing comments, trackback, or other "bloggy" features--but whatever you call it, it still appears that your competitors aren't doing anything like it. What does the company expect to accomplish through Word of Net?
GetActive created Word of Net as an experiment in publishing so that we could write about nonprofits using the Internet. Our aim is to disseminate knowledge, case studies, and opinions about how GetActive clients are using hosted online tools to communicate with stakeholders, engage supporters in online and offline campaigns, and raise money to do the work. We want to be part of the discussion about how this medium is evolving, and how nonprofits are using it to engage with stakeholders. But we want to be part of the discussion in a manner that people will find accessible and readable. A press release or a formal case study will only go so far in terms of engaging people.
Like many technology companies GetActive produces a full array of marketing collateral that describes our products and services, showcases clients’ successes, and highlights our company’s growth. We have press releases, product sheets, case studies, e-newsletters, articles in sector newsletters, and more. Blogging with Word of Net allows us to shape content and knowledge in a new way, with a different voice. It’s not written in typical "marketing-" or "sales speak." It’s more journalistic, more first-person, more story telling.
We’d be the first to admit that Word of Net is more like a column than a blog. I don’t sit down every week and say "time to blog." I sit down and say "time to write another article about a cutting-edge issue in nonprofit use of the Internet." What blog technology contributes to Word of Net is its syndication features like coming up in blog search engines and allowing subscription with RSS readers.
We’re learning as we go about how to use "Word of Net" to best communicate issues that matter to us as a company and to our clients. I used to be the sole writer, and we’re now mixing that up with articles from other key staff and partners. Our CTO Bill Pease is a world authority on email deliverability, so we recently asked him to write about developments at Microsoft with regard to email sender authentication. So he gets to write about a very complex technical topic, and I get to edit the article with a broad and not-always-technical audience in mind. With Bill’s article, as with all our content on Word of Net, our strongest commitment to our readers is authenticity and readability.
The content on Word of Net has been varied, and it’s given us a chance to cover a wide range of issues, and a range of "voices." When I reviewed the book "Nonprofit Internet Strategies," I tried to be honest with some criticism of the editors, while also praising the book overall as a strong contribution to the field. With "The Internet has gotten us all involved," I wrote a first-person piece about online advocacy from my perspective as an Internet user. In "Online fundraising for tsunami relief heralds the new e-stakeholder," I got to explore a wide range of issues regarding the online medium that have been percolating since January 2005. In "Surfing the knowledge stream of best practices in nonprofit Internet use," I wrote about how I stay current with developments in our sector by listing all my sources of information and news.
You've worn a number of different hats in the nonprofit technology field: independent consultant, nonprofit vendor, and now a for-profit vendor. How has your perspective on the field changed as you've changed roles?
My perspective has been enriched by being able to participate in the nonprofit technology field in so many different capacities. First, I’ve seen a lot of variation in Internet use among nonprofits of differing sizes. While at Groundspring.org I worked with small and mid-size nonprofits. Now at GetActive I work with mid- and large-size nonprofits. This difference in size means different staffing levels, budgets, and technology needs. Second of all, the other difference has been the size of the team that I’m working with. As a freelancer it’s been me alone, or me with one or two other colleagues. At Groundspring we got to 20 or so employees. As a writer and researcher, I’m amazed by the volume and speed of the knowledge exchange that goes on inside GetActive among the various departments and people. Finally, my perspective has changed as I’ve worked with larger nonprofits that have more online activity that can be measured. It’s like being a kid in a candy store. So many metrics, so many campaigns, so many lessons learned, it’s a never-ending source of knowledge and learning.
Bonus Pesonal Question: I know you're a surfer--what's your favorite spot here in the Bay Area?
I actually have two favorite surfing spots. My local break--in spite of it being 45 minutes from my house – is Pacifica State Beach, or "Linda Mar." It’s a beautiful spot along Route 1 a few miles south of San Francisco, surrounded by hills. A few years ago I joined one of the local surf clubs (Pedro Point Surf Club) and helped them build a website to publicize their community activities. We recently migrated the website to a Typepad blog so that more Club members could contribute content easily. My other favorite surfing spot is Bolinas (north of Stinson Beach and south of Point Reyes), because it’s so remote and eerily beautiful. I’ve surfed there in the dead of winter in the freezing cold, and never been happier in my life being out there on the edge of the world.
