Author Archives: Nancy

Thank you, NTEN!

Posted on by
3

I’m still absorbing the full impact of Thursday’s presentation at the NTEN Member Reception. Since I was off site at the NTEN Day of Service (see the 4/8 posts for my pictures,  all tweets, or the NTEN site for more about that), I thank Judy Hallman for picking up the award for me.

The award is lovely, but what I’m still having trouble getting my head around having my name on the following list on the last page of the conference program:

— my name on a list that starts with Beth Kanter, ends with TechSoup Global, with many other luminaries in the mix.

I’ve been a member of many professional organizations over the years, and I know how hard a relatively small group works to make any organization run. I’ve never given that level of service to NTEN, but I suppose that “voting with my membership” and trying to use the information that I receive for the benefit of my contacts does count for something. I encourage you all to check out NTEN, its resources and programs.

If you’ve any interest in how technology can benefit the nonprofit organizations of the world, join us!

The more things change…

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a quick summary of this week’s Facebook user interface changes, particularly those apt to affect the Facebook for AAUW document that may be useful to AAUW members across the country who want to introduce Facebook to attendees at their state conventions this spring:

  • The icons to access various Facebook applications have moved from the lower left to the left hand column (where they used to be). They replace the “quick links” to show the news from subsets of friends.
  • The “notifications” icon has moved from the lower right to the upper left (and is now almost invisible). I’ve yet to see any notifications come in, so I don’t know if it will be move visible when it’s active.
  • The only thing left that uses the bottom of the screen is the chat application (which also appears in the left hand menu). I don’t use that, so I’m not sure if there are other changes.
  • The confusing News Feed/Live Feed options are still there — but can now be accessed on the upper right of the main content window as “Top News” and “Most Recent”.  By default, as before, Facebook shows the “Top News” chosen by some proprietary algorithm that no doubt uses some metric about how “close” you are to a particular friend and how many other friends have commented on the post. If you want to see everything, click “Most Recent”. [There used to be a way to make “Most Recent” the default. If I find out what that is, I’ll post here.
  • Access to your list of friends has changed from the top menu to a topic in the Account menu (at the top right). That’s where you’d go to search for new friends, edit your friend lists, etc.
  • The friend lists that used to appear in the left hand column are now a click or two away under the Friends link in that column.

With gajillion Facebook users feeding data to the Facebook developers, I have to believe that these changes were based on usage patterns. For instance, it’s possible that few people “found” the icons at the bottom of the page, and that few people actually used the prominent access to friend lists in the left hand column.

Obviously, change is unsettling — we all have other things to do with the energy it takes to adapt to these changes. But since all gajillion of us do use a single interface, our choices are to adapt as Facebook solves problems that no other company has ever had, or go off and start our own networks where we have more control (and have to spend considerably more energy on the information architecture, user interface, recruiting participants, and other issues). My choice is to stay here — where there’s a much greater probability of finding the folks I’d like to talk to.

For more on the reasons behind the changes, see the Facebook blog.

If you want to help update that “Facebook for AAUW” document, please contact me or one of the other folks listed in the document.

Getting info from Facebook pages

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a quote from the comments of

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-better-engage-facebook-fan-page-fans/

[I]f you are fan of a lot of Pages, the ones you never made a comment or a “like”, there are good chances you never see the updates in your News Feed

In my experience, this is at least plausible.

What does this mean for you? Well, if you are coming to depend on Facebook for updates on your friends and family, you can also start getting information about organizations, businesses, candidates, and more that interest you. What are the steps?

  1. Find a Page and click the “become a Fan” button.
  2. Then, engage, people: If you see a post that you like, simply click the “like” link underneath the post. If you have something to add, make a comment!

In other words, in this brave new world we call web 2.0, you have a vote as to what information you see. The way Facebook implements it (analyzing your actions even after you subscribe to content), you can continue to say “yes, this really interests me” even after you make the initial “subscription” decision. It can tell what content “grabs” you and it tries to show you more of the same. This is so much better than the old “check back often to see what’s new” and I encourage you to make the effort to see how it can simplify your information gathering life.

[Of course the pages I’d like to see you engaging with are the ones for AAUW and AAUW NC.]

18 month/best value membership

Posted on by
1

AAUW’s dues year for branch members is July – June. Standard practice has been to allow new members to join branches for “half price” from Jan. 1 to Mar. 15. This has been particularly valuable in January since some benefits accrue to the branch based on the number of members they have on February 1.

While this makes sense in some cases, as a branch treasurer and former membershp vp, I’ve come around to thinking of the half-year dues program as counter productive. A new member pays dues,  barely gets connected to the branch, and just starts figuring out which of the national programs are of most interest, and wham! there’s another invoice for the next fiscal year.

The Tar Heel Branch (the North Carolina Branch without Borders, serving the entire state), handles this by offering instead an 18-month membership for new members joining in January and February. The way it works is:

Assuming annual dues are $49 for national, $11 for AAUW NC and $5 for the branch ($65 total).

  1. We advertise a “best value” membership as $49 + 1.5x(11+5) = $49+24 = $73.
  2. When we get a check, we send in an at-large membership application with $49 from branch funds. [We use the FAX application and debit card to make the payment, so this is almost as easy as the online dues payment that is normally used.]  The MAL expiration date will be January or February of the next year.  We connect the member to the branch and start treating them as a branch member, but they don’t have access to the aauw.org member center resources or the branch roster at aauw.org.
  3. In a couple of weeks when the new member shows up on the national rolls, we do a transfer to a branch member, and at that time the national system changes the expiration date to June 30 of the next year. We pay the state the 16.50 they are owed (partly through the online dues system at aauw.org, and partly through a manual process).
  4. We’ve now got more than a year to make sure the person understands the benefits of AAUW membership before we send them another invoice.

This worked fine last year for a handful of members (before the branch signed up for online dues processing). There may be a glitch or two this year, but we expect all to go well.  Over the years, I’ve submitted the “18 month option” a few times through channels, but since nothing has changed in the dues processing at AAUW, we’re handling it in this somewhat awkward way. It seems better than the alternative, though.

What about the month of March? Well, since it can take a couple of weeks for AAUW to get the new member fully processed, and dues for the next fiscal year can be paid starting April 1, it makes sense to us to just start accepting checks for the next fiscal year beginning March 1. We hold them in the branch account (with our financial report having a record in the accounts payable section) until April 1 when we can submit them for the new member.  There’s some risk if we accept payment before getting final notification of the next fiscal year’s dues amount — but that’s relatively small.

While we use this for the branch without borders, it would apply for other branches as well. The main requirements are to make the new member feel welcome while the national membership is pending, and to handle the processing accurately and quickly. On the other hand, for states that do have a “branch without borders,” then if that branch understands this convoluted proceess, it could handle it for the entire state. Once someone is member of the “branch without borders” they can transfer to any other branch without paying additional dues. This can simplify recruiting new members at, say, statewide events, though your state policy may want to be more specific about how the ultimate branch’s dues are actually handled, particularly if, as in the case of AAUW NC, the branch without borders dues are kept very low.

See http://tarheel.aauwnc.org for more info on the NC branch without borders.

Comments? Questions? Post here (at change.bbvx.org) or on Facebook.

Notes from Gloria Steinem event

Posted on by
Reply

I was privileged to hear Gloria Steinem speak on Saturday. Her wisdom filled the room. Here are some snippets — not verbatim, but I hope I’ve captured things closely enough:

  • We know that in domestic violence situations, the time around the escape is the most dangerous — the time when there’s a loss of control. In the public arena, there’s also danger at times when one party is losing control — there is danger now, but we won’t stop.
  • Our country is profoundly affected by the notion that we are “the best” — even in areas where’s there’s evidence that it’s simply not true. We must fight “bestism”.
  • We must move towards attributing value to caregiving.
  • Look at family violence as linked to all violence. What would the world look like if one generation could be raised without violence in the home?
  • Gratitude never radicalized anybody. Her experience differs from that of the suffragists and from the young women of today. Young women may not “get” the passion around the right to abortion — but she never went around saying “Thank you for the vote.” [Note: this talk was before the events of Saturday night.]
  • The reason we are still fighting for reproductive rights is that it is the whole ball game — the root of control.
  • Think of history “vertically” — who lived in this particular place and how did they live? Matrilineal cultures of the Native Americans controlled their own fertility as well as other aspects of the community.
  • Let’s declare the last 500 years of patriarchy an experiment that has failed.
  • There is no way to be a successful feminist without being anti-racist and vice versa. These inequities are intertwined and can only be uprooted together.
  • Feminists, antiracists and LGBT activists have always come together — with the crux of sexuality as a form of expression challenging control, defending the principle of bodily integrity.
  • In any movement we need people in jobs they cannot be fired from.
  • Wish for a global series of meetings like AA — where those doing this work could check in, get support, and be re-energized.

This was more than a lecture — though the group was nearly 400 people, there was an extensive Q&A segment. During that, a member from the audience recommended Miami of Ohio’s work linking domestic violence to foreign policy issues, work that Steinem said she’d been unable to uncover in her numerous visits to campuses across the country.