Reconquering Twitter and shifting my Twitter following to @tobiaseigen

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Tobias Eigen

Recently a wonderful new Kabissa volunteer, Ziyanda Xaso, has taken charge of our social media outreach. Ziyanda has given me an opportunity I have been waiting for to let go of the @kabissa Twitter account on a daily basis and shift my own Twitter following to my @tobiaseigen account. This helps since of course I am doing and following more with my life than just running Kabissa! :) So if you want to keep in touch with me on Twitter, do check in with me at @tobiaseigen. If you want to follow Kabissa and the organizations we showcase through our networking platform, follow @kabissa.

TweetDeck Chrome App

Twitter is one of those services that is powerful because it can be harnessed using various tools and platforms. Unfortunately that has also meant for me personally that my involvement in Twitter has slowed when for one reason or another I have had to switch from one tool to another and when I haven’t had the time to figure it out.

The TweetDeck Chrome App is my current Twitter client of choice. It provides a single login to access multiple Twitter accounts and configurable columns so I can set it up to show me Twitter activity related to me as well as hashtags for whatever it is I am currently wanting to track and work on (e.g. #socentwknd #iati #open #africa).

“Follow from” feature in TweetDeck

TweetDeck also has features that help with handling multiple accounts, including “follow from…” and “retweet from…” which have enabled me to start recalibrating which tweeps are followed from which account and communicate the way I want to about various things I am working on.

Social WordPress Plugin by Mailchimp

One of my biggest regrets about the direction social media is taking is that we all are being encouraged to share and interact on Facebook, where the focus is on what is going on RIGHT NOW and content we are creating is disappearing into oblivion.

When I have something to say or ask that I want to be able to refer back to later, or when I want to track over time who is interested in what I have to say or added a comment, I post it to this blog. The Social plugin by Mailchimp does a terrific job of integrating the process of sharing the post via Facebook and Twitter and pulling back in the responses, retweets and likes. Take a look below to see how it works in practice.

How we use Twitter at Kabissa

Back in 2009, Beth Kanter encouraged me to write a blog post about how Kabissa uses Twitter. That post is still worth a read, methinks, but Ziyanda has made some significant adjustments. Below are some of the changes that I have been monitoring and find to be very interesting and impactful.

  1. Kabissa Twitter Lists are streamlined so there are now only two lists to maintain – Interesting (tweeps we follow especially closely) and Kabissa members on Twitter.
  2. Kabissa presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are connected. When we want to share something everywhere, we post it to LinkedIn from where it automatically flows to Twitter and from there to Facebook.
  3. We post more frequently on Facebook than on Twitter. Facebook is where our followers appear to be interested in getting interesting content on a more regular basis. We also take advantage of Facebook features like photo sharing that help us increase our reach.
Posted in Information and Communication Technology, Random, Social Media | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Google Drive or Dropbox or Both? What should geographically dispersed teams do?

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Tobias Eigen

OK, it’s time to tackle the question of the potential role of Google Drive in the online infrastructure we use at Kabissa for coordinating the work of our volunteer team spread all around the world. We use dropbox now for file sharing and like it, but we also keep running into disk space restrictions and some odd dropbox behavior (eg it’s not possible to rename folders, sometimes folder syncing does not work when you need it). Meanwhile we also use google docs a great deal already for online collaboration on documents for planning and running meetings, documenting and coordinating larger projects and activities with multiple steps, and spreadsheets for tracking activities related to Kabissa members and larger numbers of people. We have a google apps account for kabissa.org and a handful of mailboxes for longer term team members as well as role mailboxes that volunteers can access already for their ongoing work on membership management, supporting bloggers on kabissa etc.

So what are you doing in your organization? What do you recommend we do at Kabissa? A google search turned up this post Dropbox or Google Drive? Why not Dropbox AND Google Drive? which seems to suggest you can do both.

At the beginning I was wondering if I had to move from Dropbox to Google Drive or stay on Dropbox.
New Google Drive features are really appealing but moving everything is a little bit scary. As said in a comment on HN, what if Google closes your account, you loose now everything…
So why not using Dropbox AND Google Drive in the same time, on the same directory? This way, you have 2 backup versions on 2 different cloud systems, the best of the both world!

I think I’m leaning towards recommending to the Kabissa team that we switch completely to google drive, and stop sharing the dropbox folders – but keep syncing the most crucial folders with dropbox for backup purposes. Some benefits:

  • Integrated with existing google apps accounts we already log into every day
  • No more disk space concerns
  • Integration with and better management of existing google docs on kabissa.org (right now it’s a chaotic list of documents)
  • streamlined volunteer induction – right now we have to have our volunteering coordinator give access to dropbox and help new volunteers who do not already use dropbox, in addition to all the other induction steps. With google drive this would not be necessary at all – we’d just give them a kabissa mailbox or give them access to a role mailbox and they’d immediately have access via the web interface

Thoughts? What other considerations am I missing?

Posted in Information and Communication Technology | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

CALLING ALL DATA HACKERS! Get up to $10k to try out your innovative new idea through Global Integrity Innovation Fund

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Tobias Eigen

 

Are you a data hacker with a new idea you have been wanting to try out that you think will help promote transparency and accountability? Do you need a little extra motivation? Then you will want to head over to http://innovation.globalintegrity.org right now to apply for a $10k grant.

I am a connector for the initiative and will be blogging, nudging, and encouraging people in my networks to take advantage of this opportunity. Please help spread the word to innovators in your communities and let me know if you have questions or suggestions on where to post.

Here’s the proposition in a nutshell from Global Integrity:

We are investing in brand new ideas that target the challenges of transparency & accountability.

For us, innovation is ‘learning through trial’. We want to prioritize innovation in our own work by taking on new approaches to test, learn, and improve. Through our Innovation Fund we hope to encourage others in the transparency community to do the same.

HOW DO I APPLY?

Submit an application here. We want to know a little bit about you, your organization (if you work for one), and of course, your idea!

WHEN DO I APPLY?

NOW. Applications are due on Friday, November 16, 2012 at 5pm EST. Be ready for the possibility of follow-up questions at any point after you submit your application. We will notify you on our decision to take your idea to the next round or not by December 21. Our final announcement of ideas that we are investing in will be in early 2013.

HOW MUCH IS GLOBAL INTEGRITY INVESTING IN INNOVATIVE IDEAS?

We will be investing in 10 to 15 ideas, with up to 10,000 USD per idea.

WHY SHOULD I APPLY?

You have an innovative idea that could create new information or change the way we see existing information, with the goal of holding those responsible for governing us, to account. You want to test this idea out, but you need a little push to take the risk!

Posted in Africa, Open Data | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I am honored to have my photos featured in photo exhibit adorning the OfficeXpats One Year Done celebration

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Tobias Eigen

I have always enjoyed taking pictures and get alot of pleasure out of  my own photographs, but have never really made too much of an effort to show them to other people except via flickr and my moo cards. So it was a particularly gratifying surprise to meet with Steve Wilson, a renowned photojournalist who has worked with National Geographics and LIFE Magazine, to show him some of my favorites and have him critique them and then actually choose nine of them to display in a photo show and make them available for sale.

The photo exhibit launch coincides with the Office Xpats Year One Done one year celebration party taking place tonight at 6:30pm. OfficeXpats is the co-working and event space on Bainbridge Island where I work and host the Kabissa Africa Roundtable on the first Friday of every month.

Here are the photos Steve selected. Contact me if you are interested in buying one.

 

Posted in Random | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

I’m awake. I’m awake!

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Tobias Eigen

I don’t watch broadcast TV much at all anymore, so am glad when friends share their favorite political ads with me via the interwebs.

(oh, and yes – I am awake and will complete my ballot carefully)

Here are two great ads I came across this week – what are your favorite ads?


Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Join me for a GlobalGiving webinar about online fundraising and my tips for succeeding in the GlobalGiving Open Challenge

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Tobias Eigen

Woohoo! I’m honored to have been invited to lead a webinar next Thursday, 20 September organized by GlobalGiving, by far my favorite online giving platform. I recommend GlobalGiving strongly for all Kabissa members and like it so much that I had our developers add the ability to display a GlobalGiving donation widget on Kabissa profile pages (here’s how).

The webinar is open to all and will be given twice in one day to accommodate organizations in different time zones – I hope you can come! Read on for details on how to join in (no RSVP needed) or head straight over to http://bit.ly/M2S2PO to request to be reminded of the event.

If you’re not a member of GlobalGiving yet, you can nominate your organization at http://www.globalgiving.org/non-profits.

GlobalGiving Online Trainings

GlobalGiving is very excited to welcome Tobias Eigen, the President and Executive Director of Kabissa, for the webinar next Thursday. Kabissa is a volunteer-led non-governmental organization founded in 1999 and organized in the United States as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The Kabissa mission is to help African civil society organizations to put Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to work for the benefit of their communities. 

 Kabissa’s current priority is to support the networking, information sharing and ICT peer learning needs of African civil society organizations, which we do by maintaining an online platform at http://www.kabissa.org with a searchable organization directory, community blog and monthly member newsletter.

Kabissa participated in our Global Open Challenge back in 2008 and succeeded in the joining the site. Tobias has since posted several blog posts on his site about tactics for success in the GlobalGiving Open Challenge and will share those tips in the online training.

Hosted by: GlobalGiving, and Tobias Eigen, Kabissa

Date: September 20, 2012        Time:  9am EST – 10am EST OR 3pm – 4pm EST
Conference Call number: +1 -202-464-6816
Webinar Link: www.anymeeting.com/globalgivingUS1  (no password required)

To receive reminders for this training please RSVP here with your name and email address: http://bit.ly/M2S2PO 

Posted in Africa, Social Media | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Please reply – goofing around with SOCIAL WordPress Plugin

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Tobias Eigen

Consider your shoulder tapped.

For a new site I am working on for CISLAC Nigeria, I am experimenting with the social wordpress plugin by MailChimp which apparently pushes out posts to Facebook and Twitter and then aggregates replies back here on the blog. Handy.

Please help me determine the appropriateness of this tool by sending a quick reply to say hello. Thanks! :)

(Oh, and thanks as always, Beth, for curating compelling pictures from around the webosphere relevant to social media!)

Posted in Information and Communication Technology, Social Media | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-06-02

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Tobias Eigen
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-05-26

Posted on May 26, 2012 by Tobias Eigen
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-05-19

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Tobias Eigen
  • Hey Bradley Tatum here's that video I mentioned with five (!) people playing a song on one guitar at the same… http://t.co/zfnLlKYm #
  • Save the date! Africa Roundtable next Thursday, 24 May in Washington DC hosted at the Washington International School. Should be fun! #
  • Lubuto Library Project and Maasai Girls Education Fund have already agreed to be featured at the Roundtable in DC at WIS next week – yay! #
  • I posted a new photo to Facebook http://t.co/lrScpK5R #
  • I posted a new photo to Facebook http://t.co/Ae2e54W1 #
  • I'm coming to DC next week – from 18 May to 25 May. Hope to be able to see and give a squeeze to many lovely… http://t.co/TglW4bqO #
  • http://t.co/7LpmaovI Blog post is up about #africaisnotacountry #ignite talk I am giving tonight on #bainbridge – now I'm ready! #
  • I (@tobiaseigen) am on my way to DC for a week visit, look forward to reconnecting with old friends. #happywarmglow #
  • enjoying the beautiful suny evening enroute to dc from dulles – it feels good to be back in dc! http://t.co/dYIwEs4v #
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