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Tag: netsquared houston

Posted on 2013-06-132014-11-02

10 Killer Mobile Apps Crowdsourced from Netsquared Houston June Meetup

Netsquared LogoThis month’s Netsquared Nonprofit + Technology Meetup was a lively discussion on Mobile Apps. We talked both Mobile Apps we can’t live without and Apps ideas we would love to see created.

We started with a simple question: What app are you addicted to right now? (My answer was Instagram). This led to a conversation on the psychology behind what addicts us to apps, and what we can do to make our internal technology “addicting” to further social causes – particularly when it comes to gamification (adding elements of games like avatars, badges, points, etc. to encourage people to engage with a cause through time or donations). More reading on that below:

What Makes Technology Addictive?

  • The Social Behavior Incentive by Robert Scoble
  • Gaming Can Make a Better World TED talk by Jane McGonigal
  • Gamification: An Introduction to Its Potential from the Huffington Post
  • 10 Secrets to Creating an Addictive App from Creative Bloq

We then brainstormed what App or tool we would like to see created. Not so surprisingly, a lot of the features requested already exist in some form or another. Below are 10 Apps I discovered or found out more about crowdsourced from our discussion. Some of them are content creation and productivity related… and some are just fun!

10 Cool Apps Crowdsourced from Netsquared Houston June Meetup

For Productivity

1. Hello (by Evernote) – Contact Management

Evernote’s new contact management app allows you to “remember everything about people” with tools like business card scanning, importing contacts from your calendar, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

The coolest feature is “Hello Connect” – your phone emits an audible tone that sends a signal to phones close to you that shares your contact info automatically. Pretty cool.

Available on iTunes and Android

2. trello – Collaborative Task Management

Trello allows you to create collaborative task lists with “cards” that you can drag and drop to move around to keep your tasks organized. You can add images, color coding, dates, etc. to keep track of projects big and small.

Trello Card Wall Interface

3. Google Keep – Simple Notes and Task Lists that Sync in the Cloud

Add task lists and “post it note” style notes to keep organized through Google Keep. You can label items and identify notes by category or color. The notes live within Google Drive so you have access to them from your desktop, tablet, phone, etc. The notes have very little formatting options, but that’s the idea. Keep it simple and keep it in one place.

Google Keep Samples Notes and Lists

 

4. Doit.im – Task Manager

Doit.im is a GTD Task Manager that lets you quickly add, process, and organize tasks. Built in labels like “Today,” “Next,” “Tomorrow,” etc. let you organize your day and prioritize easily.

doit.im feature examples  doit.im task list screenshot

5. Delivery Status – Keeping Track of Things You’ve Ordered

The Delivery Status plugin is a Mac Desktop Widget that keeps track of what you have ordered online. It syncs with lots of services including Amazon, UPS, and Fedex to let you know what is on its way – and when to expect it. A simple little tool that can save you a whole lot of remembering!

Delivery Status Widget

 

 

6. Google Now – Time + Location Based Alerts

Google Now takes advantage of everything Google knows about you and feeds you time-sensitive “cards” throughout the day. The idea is that if your calendar says you have a flight at 2 PM, Google pops up directions to the airport a few hours early so you’ll be sure to have time to make your flight. It feeds things like traffic conditions, weather, news alerts, etc. throughout the day.

This app combines time and location based alerts to give you the right information at the right time.

Download on iTunes or Android.

Google Now Interface

 

For Content Consumption & Distribution

7. If This, Then That – Workflow Automation

This powerful tool allows you to create workflow “Recipes” for virtually any online service that has an API. Define Triggers (if this happens) and Actions (then do this) based on everything from posts on social media to email to the weather. This tool can help “integrate” things that otherwise would not be integrated – and save a lot of time in the process.

Some example IFTTT recipes:

  • Every time I post to Instagram, save a copy of the photo in Dropbox
  • If the weather calls for rain tomorrow, send me an email alert
  • If the National Weather Service updates their sever weather alerts in my area, send me a text message
  • See more Recipes!

If This Then That

If This Then That Recipe Example

 

8. Flipboard – Visual Content Aggregation

Flipboard Logo

Create a personalized digital “magazine” with Flipboard by aggregating content from social media, RSS feeds, news sites, blogs, etc. in a visual way.

My favorite feature of Flipboard is setting up your feeds and then visually “flipping” through content and stories to see what’s going on around the web.

Available on iTunes and Android

 

 

Flipboard Flipping Motion when Viewing Content   Flipboard Mobile App Feed View

9. Backupify – Social Media Data Backup

Is the content you post on social media sites really yours? It lives in a place that you can’t control, and could disappear tomorrow. Backupify saves your social media data so you at least have a copy of posts on Facebook, Twitter,  etc.

For Fun

10. Yipit

Yipit aggregates daily deals (think Groupon, LivingSocial, TravelZoo etc.) in any city to give you one place to go for deals. One Netsquared attendee recommended it for traveling – even internationally – to discover activities and places to visit in a new city.

Bonus: Yipit also aggregates the data from deal sites and posts interesting stats and infographics like this one:

Daily Deals breakdown by type - from Yipit

What Killer Apps are you obsessing over right now? Share in the comments!

 

Join Us July 9 for the Next Houston Netsquared Nonprofit + Tech Meetup

Join Us for Netsquared Houston July Meetup Tuesday July 9 on Mastering Your Crowd-Fundraising with GroupRaise.com at Stag’s Head Pub at 7 PM!

See you there!

Posted on 2013-02-132014-11-02

Injecting FUN Into Your Nonprofit! NetSquared Houston February Meetup Recap

Let’s Have Some Fun!

Last night at our monthly NetSquared Houston meetup, Felicia Bates and I presented on Injecting FUN Into Your NonProfit through visual, interesting, shareable content! We discussed several new free tools to help you generate this content and connect your community online.

See the slides below and we’ve included a presentation recap in this post as well!

Injecting FUN Into Your NonProfit! NetSquared Houston February Meetup from Tendenci

Why Does Fun Matter?

When we say “FUN” we mean interesting content that people want to share!  The more fun content you create online, the more your community will want to share it and help you broaden your reach online.

Social Giving is on the rise.  In 2002 4% of donors gave online, while in 2012 65% gave online.

Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 3.09.45 PM

Source: The Online Giving Study

The average donation through social media continues to increase each year as well, as people are more comfortable donating online and more non-profits are taking advantage of new online tools.

Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 3.10.01 PM

Source: 2012: It Was a Very Good Year in Social Giving

Sharing Increases Donations – And People Want to Share NPO Content

Nonprofits who incorporate Social Media into a fundraiser generate almost 10 times more money raised than those who don’t.

Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 3.10.21 PM

And the best part? People want to share cause related content!

A New York Times Survey found that the number one reason people share something online is to give others a better sense of who they are and what they care about. This includes nonprofit causes and content!

Screen Shot 2013-02-13 at 10.58.34 AM

Content: Think Interesting, Visual, Shareable – And Strategic!

When planning the substance of the content you can create online using these tools, remember to always keep strategy first. Focus on the goals for your online efforts with every plan you make. Whether you are increasing donations, volunteers, or awareness – establishing credibility and showcasing your motivations are key.

Ideas for shareable nonprofit content to create:

  • Show who benefits and the impact
  • FAQs & Q&A topics
  • Showcase your people – staff and volunteers
  • Cover Events
  • Stats & Education
  • Think Real Time
  • Say “THANK YOU!”
  • Ask for help from your community – ask them to share their stories!

Tools to Produce Sharable Content

According to the Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, the most important Communications goals for nonprofits in 2013 are:

  1. Acquiring new donors
  2. Engaging our community
  3. General brand awareness

The #1 Communications Challenge for nonprofits in 2013 is lack of time to produce quality content.

We have gathered a list of tools we are enjoying using to create content that will hopefully help you create some FUN interesting visual shareable content in a relatively short time!

Imagery Tools

Vizify

Vizify (Vizify.com) allows you to create graphical bios for your organization and your people by feeding in data from Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Screen Shot 2013-02-12 at 10.03.06 AM

Wordle

Wordle (Wordle.net) generates visual word clouds based on content you plug in. You can plug in an RSS feed like your organization’s Twitter account or Blog to show what topics you post the most about, or copy and paste text from any document like a press release or yearly report to see what topics are most prevalent!

Screen Shot 2013-02-13 at 11.28.30 AM

360 Panorama

360 Panorama is a mobile app available on iPhone and Android that helps you create an interactive 360 degree view of any space.

View a sample interactive 360 Panorama view

Panorama 360 view

TweetCharts

Tweet Charts (TweetCharts.com) provide real  time data about any topic, hashtag, user, or phrase across Twitter. Use it to monitor and showcase what is going on around your primary focus topics or brand name – or to find influencers across those topics as well.

Video Tools

YouTube for NonProfits

If YouTube were a search engine it would be #2 in the world. More people search YouTube each day than Bing or Yahoo.

Apply for the YouTube for Nonprofits program to gain access to additional features like graphics customization and clickable calls to action in your videos.

Animoto

Don’t have video footage from your last event? Animoto (animoto.com) lets you quickly and easily turn images into video by creating animated videos based on images you upload. The interace is extremely easy to use – you choose the images, the transition options, and design theme and create a video that you can upload to YouTube.

This tool is free for up to 30 second videos and a pro account allows you create longer videos.

Example Animoto Video:

Animoto Video

Vine

Vine (vineapp.com) is the newest Video Sharing app created by the team at Twitter. It is billed as the “Instagram of Video” and lets users post 6 second videos that play in a loop similar to an animated GIF. Videos are quick to make, watch, and share by your community!

Example Vine Video:

Schipul construction project 2013! Rodney tears down a wall! vine.co/v/b1J6TBWmlmr

— Schipul (@Schipul) February 1, 2013

Outreach – Tools to Connect Your Community

GroupMe

GroupMe (Groupme.com) is a group SMS text messaging tool. You can use it to coordinate volunteers, committees, and board members by creating groups for each of those audiences.

Causes

Causes (causes.com) is a tool for driving change. You can start a cause for your nonprofit and manage anything from petitions to fundraisers, to polls.

Screen Shot 2013-02-13 at 12.11.57 PM

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts are on air video chat sessions between multiple people. With Google Hangouts you can create Circles, have conversations, and get your community and nonprofit talking and working together regardless of location. automatically records your session and posts to youtube. More on getting started with Google+ Communities

Presentation Resources

  • The 2012 Digital Giving Index Infographic
  • 2012: It Was a Very Good Year in Social Giving – Charitable Giving Infographic
  • 2013 NonProfit Communications Trends Report

What are You Excited About in 2013?

What tools and trends are you using to create fun content in 2013? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Join us for our next NetSquared Houston meetup March 12!

More details coming soon about the March 12 NetSquared event! In the meantime, follow our Meetup group at meetup.com/NET2Houston and follow us on Facebook facebook.com/NET2Houston!

Caitlin Kaluza and Felicia Bates

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