19 March 2009

Social media's potential for improved impact

Simone Staiger-Rivas, part of the CGIAR's ICT-KM program and ground breaker in knowledge sharing for development, made a presentation on social media at CIAT yesterday. She was kind enough to share the presentation at http://www.slideshare.net/ictkm/

Take a look at the ideas here about how the impact of her organization's activities and research projects, as well as the efforts of individuals can be enhanced through the use of social media. It has already stirred up a discussion on Simone's FaceBook page, which I think is fantastic. I hope the presentation went well at CIAT and that it has many minds now thinking about the possibilities of social media within large, structured organizations!

We need to reprise this presentation for use in my own organization...

@km4dev shared a link earlier today which compliments Simone's presentation: Notes for Non-Profits: Ten Things a Nonprofit Should Do Before Setting Up Social Media. Don't just read the ten points, read the discussion posts below - particularly the discussion on ROI is useful in my opinion. (Hmm ... maybe we in the sprawling international organizations need to have a chat about the concept of ROI. What do you think gang?!) A bit of strategy is always a good thing when embarking on a new venture, and it would help management to understand why some tools are chosen over others and the corresponding resource commitments.

3 comments:

Simone Staiger said...

Wow Michael.
Thanks for the compliments and the publicity.

Well the presentation went really well, but I would have liked to get more people to join it at CIAT (what interpretation would you give to the total absence of IT staff?)

Nonetheless the Tweets and re-tweets, the comments on Facebook and on the Slide Share site as well as your blog are a fabulous encouragement.

Thanks to all.

Michael Riggs said...

So IT didn't show up?!

Well I'd say it's better to start with the curious, the self-motivated, those searching for something to improve/enhance their current activities. This gives the ideas and tools a chance to get established, and then interest will have the opportunity to spread.

Sort of like the Everett Rogers Diffusion theory that defines new product adopters in five categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, etc.

Michael Riggs said...

Thank you for the kind comments :-)