NTC ’10 has come and gone, and as usual, it was another great conference.  I’ve had time to reflect on what I learned this year, and I’ve listed my top tips and takeaways.

Listen:  Seems simple, right?  Listen to your constituents, volunteers, board members and staff.  Listen to their opinions, ideas and complaints.  Everyone wants to be heard.  

Twitter and Facebook:  Social media tools and the web bring people together.  If you don’t get Twitter, learn, if you still don’t get Twitter, then you better at least have a Facebook Causes Page or a Facebook  fan page.  If you don’t have either one, then find someone on your staff to manage your accounts, or enlist a volunteer to create and update one or both accounts for you. This brings me to my next suggestion:  interns.

Interns:  Why?  They’re cheap, eager, they’re connected and they’re comfortable online.  An intern that also has a connection to your cause is the best fit for both you.  You can learn from each other.

Techies This One’s For You:  Connect-Mentor-Engage:   If you’re a tech person, step away from your computer and connect with others in your organization.  Are you treated like the rest of the departments in your organization?  If the answer is no, then it’s up to you to engage the other staff members.  You should not just be your organization’s help desk or troubleshooter.  Find ambassadors in other departments that love the technology tools that you have to offer, and let them talk it up to the rest of the organization.   They will be your biggest cheerleaders when you want to implement a new technology tool or service into your organization.  How do you find these internal ambassadors?  Go to lunch with them, or stop and chat at their desk.  Get to know your fellow coworkers.  Engage.  My favorite tip to bring unwilling or unknowing staff members on board with your technology goals:  Buy them a copy of NTEN’s Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission.

Know Your Mission Statement:  Look at your organizational chart and your mission statement.  How can technology help your organization reach the goals of your mission?  Who reports to whom, and how do you fit in the organizational chart.  If you provide employees with time saving tools, and in turn, everyone on your staff then has more time and money to support your mission.  The entire tech staff has to know your organization’s mission statement.  It’s not just a poster that’s hung on the wall.  It’s your job to make sure that everyone in your department knows an elevator speech about your nonprofit.  Your employees represent your nonprofit wherever they go, and they are the face of your organization.      

What’s your plan B?  Something will go wrong.  Will someone post something negative about your nonprofit on facebook,Twitter or on your blog? Yes, so you better have a response ready.  Nip it in the bud.  Have your policy visible on your site or facebook page and website that states the actions that will be taken if someone doesn’t play nice.  Be prepared to delete posts or block trolls, and let everyone know ahead of time of what actions will not be tolerated on your website or blog comments section.

Templates are your Friend.  Email, letters, press releases and thank you templates will save your organization time, and more importantly, your staff will have a place to start when it’s time for them to write a piece of correspondence.  Not everyone is comfortable with writing, so it’s better if you have the guidelines and standards in place.

Pictures and Videos are worth a 1000 words.  Are you stuck on your next blog topic?  Pick up a camera or flip video and let the picture tell your story.  Having a video on your website engages the viewer, but please keep the videos short.  No one has the time watch a ten minute video, but they will watch a two minute one.  You don’t have to hire a production team; a flip-style video camera will do fine.  If you’re still not comfortable, or if you need ideas, this is another chance to seek the help of an intern.

Measure – Measure- Measure – Measure your emails, your facebook and Twitter accounts - collect analytics on all of your sites and email click through rates.  

Cloud Computing- Are you in the cloud and if you’re not, should you be?  Here’s a good article from TechSoup that will help you decide if your nonprofit should transfer any of your resources to the cloud.  What is cloud computing?  Think about the positive and negative aspects of the cloud.  What should you put in the cloud:  Servers, backup, CRM, Websites, and Google docs.   It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing experience.  Experiment.  Gmail and Google docs are a good place to start.    

Participate in the NTEN's Day of Service  – I was not able to attend the Day of Service, but I did help John prepare for his consulting presentation, and it was well worth it.  It’s my only regret from NTC’10.  I encourage everyone to take part in at least one day of service in the future.  It’s a win-win situation.

Finally:  No one’s perfect, so have fun in you new technology adventures!