Questioning Social Networking

I'm spending some time this morning finishing my presentation for this week's Blackbaud Interactive Internet Symposium in New York City. I have developed a reputation for constantly tweaking my slides right up until the last minute. Alfred Hitchcock once said that "self-plagiarism is style" and I guess this has become my style.

I've spoken about Web 2.0 in the past, but this time I'm planning on going a few levels deeper. My latest presentation is called "What Social Networks Should Be Doing For You" and I'm going to attempt to answer some key questions including:

What is Web 2.0?
What is Social Networking?
Who uses it?
What are they doing?
Where do they get all that free time?
Why should you care?
What are Nonprofits doing with Social Networking?
What is and isn't working?
What should you be doing?
How do you get started?
Where do we go from here?

A lot of things to tackle in 75 minutes. I also need to find time to explain some concepts, show how the moon landings were a hoax, and attempt to answer some questions from the audience. I'm looking forward to it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve MacLaughlin

Steve MacLaughlin is the Vice President of Data & Analytics at Blackbaud and bestselling author of Data Driven Nonprofits.

MacLaughlin has been featured as a fundraising and nonprofit expert in many mainstream publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, USA Today, The NonProfit Times, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Bloomberg, and has appeared on NPR.

He is a frequent speaker at events including the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), American Marketing Association (AMA), Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association (DMFA), Giving Institute Summer Symposium, National Association of Independent School (NAIS), Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), Institute of Fundraising National Convention (United Kingdom), Civil Society Conference (Netherlands), International Fundraising Congress (Netherlands), Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School (Ireland), and a keynote speaker at several conferences across the social good sector.

Steve previously served on the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) Board of Directors and is currently an adjunct faculty member at Columbia University.

He is a frequent blogger, published author of a chapter in the book People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities, and is a co-editor of the book Internet Management for Nonprofits: Strategies, Tools & Trade Secrets. His latest book, Data Driven Nonprofits, became a bestseller in 2016.

Steve earned both his undergraduate degree and a Master of Science degree in Interactive Media from Indiana University.