The Cascade Conference on 25 February was a great success and now we
want to share some of the resources and learning from the day with everyone. To start with we have posted resources that were shared during our workshop sessions. We have the handouts, presentations and audio files from the workshops. There is also a great montage of photos from our gameshow. I'll be reminding you
to keep an eye on this space as we'll be adding more resources over the next few weeks.
Hi - I'm going to be running the workshop on e-bulletins (I'm calling it "The E-bulletin Experience"). A brief outline of what I plan to cover is...
1. Just getting there - quick tips on how to make sure you arrive safely to the inbox
2. Surviving the inbox congestion - what will stop your readers from pressing the dreaded “delete” button?
3. How people use and think about email newsletters -
A look how
people read on screen/online and how to make your newsletter as useful
to your reader as possible.
4.Get feedback and share ideas - A chance to ask your colleagues to review your email newsletters
I'd be very interested to hear about any specific issues that people
have relating to their email newsletters that they would like me to
cover.
Hello, I'm Josh Hoole. I'll be talking at the Conference about what makes a great design and ways to make your newsletters and publications really stand out from the crowd.
I'll also be happy to look at any of your current newsletters and offer advice and tips on improving layout and format.
I cut my teeth at Richmond CVS redesigning their newsletter, annual report and all the marketing materials for the Volunteer Centre projects. I then set up and managed the RCVS Design and Print Service social enterprise which offered high quality, low cost design to local charities.
Click here to download the programme for the conference. Your presenters are:
Gideon Burrows is founder and editor of ngo.media. At the conference he will be presenting a session called The Written Word. Gideon started his journalism career as a staff journalist on Community Care magazine and has written for Guardian Society, Third Sector, The Times Educational Supplement, Social Enterprise Magazine and The New Statesman. Gideon manages the annual Charity Communications conference, delivers ngo’s training and was recently listed in the “Future 100 – The Next Generation of Young Ethical Entrepreneurs”. Visit ngo.media (http://www.ngomedia.org.uk) to learn more bout his work.
Sharon Stainsby, Cascade Network Officer at LVSC will be presenting on Developing Your E-bulletin.
Marc Osten of Summit Collaborativewill facilitate our day and also present a session on evaluating how successful your newsletter is.
Josh Hoole Design is a professional desktop publishing and graphic design company set up to create your design solutions - from simple leaflets to big branding projects to annual reports to advertising. Josh will be presenting a session titled Good Design Practices.
Welcome to this online platform for the Cascade Conference on 25 February.
Having an online space to share ideas and questions before the conference was a great success last year and so we're doing it again. This year the focus is on how to make the biggest impact with your newsletters and e-bulletins. If you haven't already done so, book your place.
We shall soon post up a more detailed programme for the day and information about the speakers. Also some questions and resources to get you thinking about what you want to get out of the day. For now you can get a brief overview from our facilitator Marc Osten who posted a video below. The transcript is below the video.
I look forward to seeing you on 25 February.
Sharon - Cascade Network Officer
Video Transcript
“Good morning colleagues, Marc Osten here from Summit Collaborative.
Sharon has asked me as facilitator for the 2009 conference to review with you the agenda and give you a little bit of a flavour of how the day with go next month.
Sharon is going to continue to post information via email and on this platform so that you can be kept up-to-date about the speakers, the programme and materials as well as logistics.
Hi everyone - I’m Laura and I run a service called The Big Opportunity Direct which helps London’s voluntary sector get involved in the Olympics. I’m really hoping to come to this year’s conference; last year’s was great, really empowering and inspiring!
In the meantime, I wanted to sing the praises of ngo media.
Sharon from LVSC included a link to their e-newsletters in the Cascade November e-bulletin. I signed up and got their free “Top 20 tips for better writing” and their e-newsletters. They’re really well-written, full of good tips and are teaching me a lot about my writing. I need to learn to have a much more “active voice”, and not use 12 words when 3 will do!
I wondered if colleagues might find it useful to sign up for these before the conference? Click here to sign up or cut and paste the following URL into your browser. http://ngomedia1.blogspot.com/
You asked and here are answers to your questions. A very special thank you to CASCADE members Josh Hoole and Jocelyne Boorman as well as Marc Osten of
Summit Collaborative. The three of them did a great job facilitating the effort.
Do you have additional questions about blogs and blogging? Click on 'comment' below and let us know.
The questions you've already shared are:
THE WHY
- Why should we blog?
- Why are we writing a blog?
- How do we know it makes sense to blog, as individuals and/or as a VCO?
THE WHAT
- Before you begin a blog how do you plan to sustain your work on the blog?
- How do we ensure that the content on our blog is interesting?
- If you are blogging under the name of your organisation how do
determine what is appropriate and how things should be put across?
THE WHO
- Who's it for? Who are we aiming to reach / to engage.
- What are we wanting them to think about? And what do we want them to think about us?
- What about the 'voice' of the blog? How do we know whose-what voice to use as we blög, on our blog or other blogs?
THE HOW
- Do we need great writers who have a passion for blogging?
- What kind of skills, such as self-editing, are the key skills needed for any blogger.
- Which blog software would you recommend? (find a site that compares them)
- What about confidentiality? How do we develop and enforce clear
boundaries about what can and cannot be shared to avoid violating trust
of the groups and individuals you support.
THE WHEN
- If we have a blog, how do we know how often to update it?
- When should we write one - every week / month / quarter?
- Do people expect a (e.g.) monthly one, that way you can publicise it
in e-bulletins/newsletters and you can say "come back on the first day
of the month to read our new blog" - or is it more of an occasional
thing i.e. when we have something to say.
Hi colleagues, I'm Jocelyne Boorman. I'm working this week and next with my fellow CASCADE member Josh Hoole. Marc Osten of Summit Collaborative will also join us to facilitate our online engagement with you about blogs and blogging.
To start us off we'd like you to view the video below that Josh has found and/or read an article about blogging. They provide you with a really simple explanation of what a blog is and demystifies the name!
The web address for the article is: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/ ... or click here to read it.
After you've read the article and/or viewed the video it would be great if you could use the 'comment' function below to share any questions that the video and/or article raised for you.
You will see that we already have a bunch of questions already submitted. Thanks Philippa, Cat and Ian for getting us off to a great start!
Next week we'll report back from a few experts in the field, who will answer your questions. They will also share the best web-based resources that can help us learn more about blogs and blogging. We hope you enjoy it and find it useful!
CASCADE member Ian Goodman from the London Advice Services Alliance asks a question in the video below related to email newsletters. There were dozens of questions that CASCADE members asked last week when surveyed.
In the other video, my colleague Marc Osten from Summit Collaborative responds to a few of the questions. He will answer Ian's and several other questions early next week.
