This document provides information about various community organizing tools including 501 Tech Clubs, Communities of Practice, and volunteer organizers. It discusses using Microsoft Office for mass email campaigns, including building contact lists in Excel, writing email copy in Word, and personalizing emails using Outlook mail merge. The document also covers using text expansion utilities to increase productivity, tools for creating training and instructional videos like Jing, planning Twitter chats, and an introduction to using Google Drive and Docs for document collaboration and file storage.

1. Community
Organizing Tools
from the Experts

2. 501 Tech Clubs
Free! Local! Informal!

3. Communities of Practice
Free! Online! Topic-related!

4. Awesome Volunteer Organizers

5. Brett Ashley
Crawford, Ph.D.
Arts Management
Community of Practice

6. Post-call/Tweet Chat
Communications
• Storify :

7. Post-Call Communications
• Blog about it:

8. Build Community & Extend Discussions
• Share broadly & strategically
– Timing
• within a week
– Content
– Audiences
• NTEN CoPs
• Your audiences
– Personal
– Organization

9. Chad Leaman
NetSquared
Vancouver

10. Microsoft Office workflow
for mass email
• Stop laughing! There is a good reason!
– Targeting a small, distinguished group
– Between CRMs
– Many contacts to invite were not properly tracked
(had to dig for information)
– A mass mail and a direct mail had already been sent,
to poor results
– Emails from a person > emails from a mass mail
program

12. Microsoft Office workflow
for mass email
Excel –
build the list
Word – write
simple copy
Outlook –
become boss
Unplug ethernet
Merge
Personalize
Plug in and send

13. Excel Build the List
• The standard contact fields
• I also added columns for the process:
– First Email
– Snail Mail
– Personal Mail
– Phone Call
– Can’t attend
– Confirmed

14. Word – Write simple copy
• I wrote it as my boss would. Couple short sentences:
Hi «First_Name»,
I wanted to personally invite you to the Neil Squire Society’s
30th Anniversary VIP event.
It is a private reception for supporters on June 18th at the
Vancouver Club from 5pm to 8pm. Please let me know if you
are able to make this event. You can RSVP on our website
(http://www.neilsquire.ca/30vip/) or email me.
You’ve been an important part of our history and I hope you
are able to celebrate with us.
Gary

15. Outlook – Become the Boss
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/
library/bb676368(v=exchg.141).aspx

16. Unplug Ethernet
• Because mail merge puts everything in Outbox

17. Mail Merge
• Under your Mailings tab in Word

18. Outlook - Outbox
• Change the Send As / “From” on each one.
• Can delay the send time (so you don’t look like
a spam bot to mail servers)
• Spend 15 seconds to personalize.
– After event did this process again, added a picture
of them to the email.

19. Plug in and send

21. What I learned
• This took process drove 70% of signups. The
mass mailer and direct mail before this drove
20%.
• People will email back saying yes, or no and
why not (I’m away but wish you the best).
They don’t go to signup form linked.

22. Eli van der Giessen
@elijah
NetSquared Vancouver

23. TEXT EXPANSION UTILITIES
YOUR SECRET
PRODUCTIVITY WEAPON

24. THE PROBLEM

25. DANGER 1

26. DANGER 2

27. THE SOLUTION
Turn
eli@v
Into
eli@vandergiessen.ca

28. HOW IT WORKS

29. HOW I USE IT
EMAIL ADDRESSES
• eli@v => eli@vandergiessen.ca
• eli@t => eli@techsoupglobal.org
• eli@n => eli@net2van.com

30. HOW I USE IT
MAILING ADDRESS
“Haddress” turns into
Elijah van der Giessen
306 - 111 10 Ave W
Vancouver, BC V5Y 1R7

31. HOW I USE IT
“oorientation” turns into…
It was great to talk with you today. Let’s build on the momentum and get your new group started quickly.
Priorities
What is the name of your group? What community do you want to represent with your name?
Once you reply I’ll set up your meetup group. Do you have a meetup.com account yet? If not please create one.
Please create a user account on NetSquared.org - this is the first step to adding you to the organizer map.
Please review the organizer’s overview. This provides a good introduction to NetSquared and starting up your group.
Once you’ve completed steps 1 to 3 please email me back and I’ll tell you how to setup your organizer page on http://www.NetSquared.org
Per our call, I also wanted to share the following resources with you:
NetSquared logos which you're welcome to use or remix
Example community survey
Ideas for event formats and topics- including slides for you to use or remix at your first event (bottom of page)
Tips for using Meetup.com
You are also welcome to reach out to other organizers around the world via the Organizer Google Group (you’ve just been invited in!) as well as
share with and learn from other organizers via the Organizer Handbook.
The next step for you is to schedule your first monthly event.
Please let me know how things go for you in starting your group - and don't hesitate to reach out if you have any additional questions! I look
forward to hearing about your first event soon!
Best,

32. GETTING FANCIER
Cursor insertion points

33. Eli’s Stats

34. TIPS
• Start URL abbreviations with a comma:
– ,a = <a href=""></a>
• Prevent conflict with regular words by staring
most abbreviations with a duplicate letter
– Bbio = biography expansion snippet
• Start with frequently used pieces of text, like
your email, address, phone number, etc.

35. I WANT IT!

36. Paula Jones
NCTech4Good
Raleigh, NC

37. Jing by TechSmith

38. How can you use it?
• Capture an image
• Record on screen video (5 min max)
• Various uses:
– Screen shots for whitepapers, tutorials, and
documentation
– Staff/Volunteer on-boarding, training videos
– Tip of the week
– Embed video or images to your website, blog,
social networks

39. Praan Misir
Community Building COP
#Commbuild

40. Twitter and Storify

41. When planning a Twitter Chat
• Scope out the landscape! (Chatsalad.com)
• Participate in other Twitter Chats!
• Use a Management tool

42. Storify

43. Storify

44. Regina Walton
SFTech4Good

45. Intro: Google Drive/Google Docs
Google Drive is a file
storage and
synchronization service
provided by Google.
It enables user cloud
storage, file sharing, and
collaborative editing.

46. Intro: Google Drive/Google Docs
What do I use it for?
Everything.
Really…
Resumes, cover letters, presentations, spreadsheets,
word processing docs, forms, etc.

47. Where to find it?
Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/

48. Where to find it?
Google’s Drive Guide: https://www.google.com/intl/en/drive/

49. Once You Find It...
Google’s Drive Guide App page: https://www.google.com/intl/en/drive/using-drive/#start

50. Similar to MS Office and OpenOffice
It’s very similar to Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.
• Most commands are the same
• Can import and export documents.

51. Where can you use it?
Google Drive on the web
Use Google Drive on the web to store and organize all your files. You get 15 GB of free storage across Google
Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.
Google Drive on your mobile device
If you’re on the go, you can still access all of your files. Just download Google Drive on your phone or tablet
and you’re all set.
Google Drive on your computer
Download Google Drive on your Mac/PC to keep files on your desktop synced with your files stored on the
web. This means that anything you share, move, modify, or put in the trash will be reflected in Google Drive on
the web the next time your computer syncs.
From “Get Started With Google Drive” - https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2424384?hl=en

52. How-To Create and Use Docs
Creating Google Docs: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/googledriveanddocs/4.2

53. Getting Help
Google Drive Help: https://support.google.com/drive/