My partner Melanie and I are in Ottawa. It's getting late. And I'm still preparing for the workshop that I'm leading tomorrow with Meera Karunanathan from the Council of Canadians. (I know, I know: don't leave everything for the last minute!) The Council (along with the Canadian Labour Congress, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and others) have organized a teach-in that promises to be nothing less than historic.

Apparently I'm not the only one up late. My search for a little music to keep me company turned up no less than the personal music library of Avi Lewis. I feel like I'm in good company tonight.

Avi will kick-off tomorrow's Integrate This teach-in as moderator for "The Big Business of Insecurity," "Commandeering the Continent: Military Integration, Big Oil and the Environment," and "The Democratic Deficit: Parliament and the SPP." Judy Rebick takes over in the afternoon moderating the session "The North America We Really Want."

A who's who of the social-justice movement here in Canada, other names on the line-up include: Maude Barlow, Elizabeth May, and Maureen Webb.

I'm pretty excited to be here, and to have an opportunity to present some online campaigning strategies to activists from across the country. Heck, it'll even be a great opportunity to update my Flickr feed.

When Terry Raininger asked me to give a short presentation at a recent day-long workshop on knowledge management for non-profit organizations and environmental NGOs, I thought I was going to cover the usual stuff: event registrations, e-mail communication, etc. However, the day of the event — freshly back from Web of Change — I had just one word that was stuck in my mind: Collaboration. 

We must work together to succeed!

Mark Surman is the probably one responsible for forcing me to understand the importance of helping organizations come together around common needs, ideas, or technology; he spent the later years at Commons Group pursuing that quest, and continues to do so though the development of a global network of telecentres. And I’ve continued to follow that path in my own work by helping to convene similar conversations, including one that is exploring how independent media and progressive publications can work together.

And, after all these years, one thing is clear: our ability to create knowledge efficiencies in our own organizations is not just important — it’s critical.

It’s critical because:

• The volume of information that we need to process on a daily basis is increasing;
• As funding shifts: we need to do more work with less resources;
• The Web’s continuing evolution is creating a knowledge divide between those who are able to find what they need and quickly share it with others, and those that are still “surfing” though an ocean of unmediated data. 
• Our organizations are knowledge organizations: we move information into the hands of communities that need it; and our ability to do that with more efficiency can have a direct impact on the work that we do.

So, how do we do it? Well, here are a few notes from the presentation (and the slides are attached below):

Mailing lists and groups

As one of the most basic — and most powerful — tools available to help you collaborate with your peers, team, and community: the automated mailing list still tops my list. Incredibly underutilized still, these lean and mean tools can be set-up quickly and cost very little (if anything) to maintain. 

Biggest benefit: they arrive in your inbox. And, for those who are e-mail overloaded, there’s usually a handy “digest” mode that delivers all the day’s traffic in one simple, handy, message. Personally, I’m a big fan of the classics like Mailman and Sympa — both of which have evolved significantly over the year.

For those that are more Web-centric, another simple option is “Groups” software. From hosted and no-cost software like Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups, to hosted versions of open-source software like NPOgroups (low-cost) and OnlineGroups.net (no-cost) — these tools make group-based communication a breeze and take minutes to set-up.

Put simply: if they could be used to organize one of the biggest anti-globalization meetings in recent history — just imagine what they could do for your organization, community, or team.

Multi-author blogs

Yah, yah: we all should blog. But, seriously: multi-author organization blogs can be an incredibly powerful tool for both sharing information internally and providing a view inside the organization for your constituents. They can act as an organizational “hub” — the central repository for new thinking —  and a knowledge collector, to capture resources and day-to-day learnings. 

Groups that have managed to make the multi-author organizational blog work often implement one of the following to support it:

• Build blogging into people’s workplan;
• Create incentives around regular posting, e.g., real rewards for top posters;
• Make the organizational blog a part of people’s evaluation and review.

The example that I pulled out was the Aspiration Technology Foundation’s blog. I’m sure there are others (and, if you know of some good examples, please post them in the comments below!). 

Collaborative authoring

This is a space that’s really matured in the last year. No longer is their a need to shuttle documents back-and-forth between your home and work computer, or between you and the other authors on the project — which can often lead to a problems with knowing which version is the most recent, etc.; collaborative authoring is now a reality. Once hard-to-use and notoriously geeky, tools that allow many people to work on the same document — or group of documents — are now commonplace and inexpensive. 

At one end of the spectrum is the class of tools generally referred to as Wikis. This are workspaces that allow many people to edit many “pages” (sometimes simultaneously) as easily as typing an e-mail or a letter. Different versions of each page are saved so that authors can compare the version side-by-side and, if necessary, revert to earlier versions. Some of the more notable Wikis are sites like Wikipedia that support thousands of authors and potentially millions of pages. 

On the no-cost end of the Wiki spectrum are hosted products like pbwiki and Wikia. There are also hundreds of free and open-source software options for a Wiki — you can find a good list here — that can be installed on your own server. And there are many low-cost hosted options too, like Socialtext and Stikipad.

At the other end of the collaborative authoring spectrum are real-time, simultaneous, editing tools like Google’s Writely (for multi-author editing of Word documents) and Google’s Spreadsheets, and tools like Thumbstacks for collaborating on presentations.

And, if you really want to get geeky, you can explore tools like Gooby and SubEthaEdit that support real-time co-authoring complete with chat. 

Social bookmarking, folksonomies, and newsfeeds

Because I’ve already written at length about how non-profits can leverage social bookmarking, folksonomies, and aggregation of newsfeeds, I’ll just point you in that direction.

Persistent chat

Probably one of the oldest technologies to those who work in distributed organizations, and one of the newest to arrive to a place of general acceptance and usage is “persistent chat.” Unlike instant messaging — which interrupts the other party — persistent chat is often asynchronous, occasionally synchronous, but always there. Imagine a room that was reserved for just you and your team, but the walls were all blackboards and you could leave messages for when the next team member was around; mostly you’d leave messages or read messages when you had time — but, occasionally, you’d end up in the room with each other and have a real-time conversation — that’s persistent chat. The beauty of this is that it’s like a conference call that never ends, and no matter where you join the conversation you’re always able to read back through what was already said. 

This is a must-have for time-zone challenged teams. 

Traditionally, this was only available in the extremely geeky world of Unix tools like IRC or SILC when combined with something like the Screen. However, products like Skype and Campfire have started to bring these technologies to even the least technically inclined.

Project workspaces

Finally, for those wanting to support many of these features — and the tools commonly associated with project management like to-do lists, milestones, and file sharing — with groups working on specific project, there are a number of low-cost (hosted) and open-source software options now available in the “project workspaces” category.

Of note are:

• Basecamp — low-cost hosted solution
• activeCollab — free and open-source software (needs to be installed on your server)
• dotProject — free and open-source option

Finally, there is no excuse for not having a central place to store, manage, track, and report on projects that your organization is working on. And, for those of you new to this space, there are free or online demonstrations for each of these tools — so try before you buy… but, more importantly, try it!

The Web has evolved to the point where the Web browser really is the application (as was once predicted by someone way smarter than me) and it’s time for you to think about the impacts this could have on the way your organization — and your teams — are collaborating and sharing information.

Feel free to download the slides. And, if you have other resources to offer, please post them in the comments.

I had the pleasure of delivering a session on Friday at Magazines University for the Small Magazines Spotlight. “Mags U” is a four-day conference for magazine publishers from across Canada and the US held annually in Toronto. The event is organized by a number of groups, but appears to be spearheaded by Magazines Canada — a Canadian magazine industry association and the folks that brought the Genuine Canadian logo to the cover of many Canadian magazines.

The session I delivered was given the title of “Build it (online) and they will come” and I was asked to explore ideas of how to use the Web to connect to readers, to increase circulation, and to generate revenue. I also wanted to provide some practical tips and look at the role of strategy and creative approaches in the work I’ve done with publications over the last few years. I was flattered to find that well over 30 people were interested in hearing what I had to say on the topic (you just never know at these things). In the room were folks from Canadian Art, Dandelion, Descant, Film Print, Front Magazine, Geist, Graphic Monthly, New Quarterly, Owl Kids, Style, Tart Magazine, Urbane, and many others that I wasn’t able to jot down.

Given the positive feedback that was received on the session, I thought I would try to document the key themes discussed before I forget (and while I’m feeling inspired). Also, I’ve attached the slides to the end of this post, if you’d like to have a look at the presentation itself.

It’s about strategy, not technology

I try to start every presentation by underscoring how important strategy is toward successful technology initiatives. Any initiative — technology or not — that doesn’t connect directly to an organization’s mission is probably not going to turn out well. But technology is sexy, so it’s easy to get lured into doing something online just because you can. And the challenge is that there’s no end to what you can do online (or how much you can spend!). So, the real opportunity for independent and small publications is to be strategic about where time, energy, and resources are invested.

To illustrate this point, I often share the story of inviting This Magazine to not implement a content management system when we first started working together. With their limited resources — and six times a year publishing schedule — I simply felt that they could invest more strategically. In their case, this was a major Web site re-design, an online store for subscriptions, donations, and merchandise sales, and decent online advertising and e-mail list management software. To this day, This still doesn’t have a content management system, but they have increased their traffic twenty-fold, have increased their e-mail list size by several thousand, and earn enough revenue online to justify further investments in Web initiatives.

Invest in results

Simply put, I feel the organizations should invest in initiatives that can deliver clear results before investing in less measurable activities. Many publications are putting money into their online presence without first asking important questions like, "Are people able to find us online?" or, "How and why are people finding us on the Web?" In the case of This Magazine (where the word “this” is dropped by most search engines), a low-cost Google Adwords campaign was able to deliver clear and measurable results in a short amount of time. Another example that was inspired by a question from Geist was, If we’re already in the top position when you search for “Geist” do we need to invest in something like paid advertising — and I would say yes! If you know your target audience well, why not let them know about your magazine when they’re searching for something just as relevant (e.g., Canadian culture)? I’ve recently heard some figures that put Google Adwords ahead of e-mail as a cost-effective donor development strategy — so, if it works for donors, I would speculate that it will work for subscribers too.

Related to all that is understanding how you’re currently doing online. If you can’t see how you’re doing, it’s pretty hard to measure improvement. So, now that Google provides top-notch, free, analytics (that’s Web statistics) software, there’s no reason for you to not have the detailed information you need to start investing in measurable results. Spending time looking at the traffic that comes to your site can help you see opportunities for:

• Increased online advertising revenue
• Increased online sales/subscription revenue
• Opportunities for online donations
• Greater conversion of visitors to subscribers (of one form or another)

Google also provides some great resources to get you started down this path with their Conversion University resources. And, if you can’t wait for an invitation to Google’s Analytics, you can usually purchase one for under $100 on eBay.

Make time for good ideas

I love sharing the story of Marry an American, the site that brought another fifteen minutes of fame to the folks at This Magazine just after the last US election. It’s a story of how a good idea with on-the-cheap and do-it-yourself execution can often be far more successful than a mediocre idea with great execution. This is important for one basic reason: if your creative initiatives and campaigns are done on the cheap, you can do more of them, and that equals more opportunities to be Internet famous for just a few milliseconds. But the untold story of that initiative is how many ideas were required — and how often they were discussed and tested on unsuspecting friends — before that specific idea (a satirical online dating site where single Canadians could pledge their chastity to save liberal Americans) was decided on.

Similarly, for the recently launched Ocean Voyager initiative, many ideas were developed over several weeks, which included both casual conversations and focused brainstorming sessions. I suspect that many publications are investing in this idea generation time for their direct mail and renewal campaigns, but online initiatives don’t seem to get the same attention. So, where possible, plan a regular lunch or put aside some time in your production meetings to discuss creative ways to use the Web. Brainstorm, document, and re-visit these ideas over time — that way, when the time comes (and when you need a great idea) you’ll have a selection of them to choose from.

Focus on developing subscribers

It’s nice to be able to say that your Web site has 100,000 unique visitors a month — but how is that helpful if those visitors can’t be converted into subscribers? And here I’m referring to both e-mail list subscribers and people who pay to receive your magazine. If we look at a ladder of engagement — where a person is moving toward becoming a supporter of your publication — then providing their e-mail address is the first step. Why is that an important first step? Because building your e-mail subscription list can mean:

• More people at your events
• More people re-visiting your site when new content is online
• More people to ask to subscribe in the traditional sense
• More people to ask for donations
• More people for potential advertisers to speak to through your publication

Access to a person's inbox is critically important to having a relationship with them. In my experience, regular contact with an audience via e-mail is just about as important as updating your Web site regularly. That said, having the list is just the first step… it’s also important to send those subscribers something valuable. This isn’t easy (and, in fact, I struggle with it myself — rarely getting out information to my e-mail list), so set aside some time to not only do this, but to do it consistently and well. Jon Spencer mentioned This Magazine’s Film Club e-mail as one great example of how a simple idea can be done well and provide ongoing value.

Give it away or don’t: pick one

Many publishers ask me, How much information should I make available online for free? I personally feel that it doesn’t matter — all of it, or some of it, or none of it —. Pick what you’re comfortable with and build a strategy around that. Then, re-visit that decision every six months or so — look around, see what your peers and other publications are doing — and decide if it is still the direction you want to go.

In an article about the infamous success of Toronto science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, Cory explains that by making his first novel (and all subsequent novels) available online for free, he was able to sell over 35,000 physical copies of the paperback and achieve more than 500,000 downloads. The article presents his view as, “free digital distribution allows authors to edge out the competition and acquire an audience.”

Similarly, for a smaller publication, putting content online for free can help people find out about your magazine. These are people who probably wouldn’t be accessible in the traditional distribution sense — people around the world, and people outside of urban centres in your own country. Also, for small publishers, it is often not so much about selling magazines as it is about finding your audience and promoting your contributors, ideas, or creativity — so there may be other reasons for providing your content at no cost.

As as example of both approaches, Taddle Creek makes all of it’s back issues available online at no cost. However, Toronto’s Spacing doesn’t and, instead, chooses to provide an incredibly diverse range of other content on their Web site. Both are making some assumptions about who is coming to their site and why, and — whether they know it or not — are making some decisions based on that.

Make it easy to “buy now”

Unfortunately, I had to fly through this section in the actual presentation, as I thought I was running out of time (unexpected benefit: lots of time for questions and answers!). So, I’ll go into a little more detail here for those who wanted to know more about this.

In short, there’s no excuse to not have a “buy now” or “subscribe now” link on your site. Gone are the days of downloading a PDF form, filling it out, and faxing it back in. There are just too many options available to not make an online purchase and payment available to your Web visitors. Let’s start with the This Magazine online store: another serendiptious accident (like the blog), this online store was put up in a matter of hours and allows the This staff to update it with new products as they become available.

It’s built on free software and utilizes a low-cost SSL certificate from Comodo to ensure that shopper’s personal information is protected. There are a number of payment gateway modules available for most free e-commerce software, including some basic ones like Paypal and Internet Secure. The store now generates thousands of dollars a year in revenue for This Magazine and, with some renewed efforts this year, is on target to increase significantly with the addition of some new products and more promotion on the This Web site.

A similar shop that my colleagues and I set-up for Amnesty in the UK handles over 10,000 orders a year — so, it’s safe to say that this kind of free software works and can scale to the needs of most organizations. On the low-cost end, Taddle Creek has used a simple PayPal online store for the last five years to offer subscriptions and back issues. This year, they’ll invest in something a little more sophisticated — but, for over five years, it has done the trick quite nicely!

In conclusion, people like to buy impulsively: so make it easy! Also, consider giving them something to buy beyond a subscription; Back issue bundles, t-shirts, merchandise, buttons. There are many online services available that can help you offer these products without event stocking them yourself, like Cafepress and Goodstorm.

Publish conversations

Why should your publication have a blog? Well… Claire from Magazines Canada recently asked me to write about this topic for their upcoming handbook — so I won’t go into too much detail here. But, the basics of why blogs work for magazines are:

1. Better Listings on Google: Technically speaking, search engines love blogs.
2. Blogs also challenge the traditional publishing paradigm of “we talk, you listen.” They provide a way for your readers to get to know the personalities behind your publication and opens the door to two-way conversations. For a great example of this, see the Spacing Wire.
3. Blogs can help to build greater reader loyalty by continuing a conversation in the space between a weekly, monthly, or quarterly publishing schedule. They can also provide a space to deepen analysis on an issue or provide voice to the often unheard.

A recent example of this is the This Magazine blog. Initially an afterthought proposed by Clive Thompson (who has not posted on the blog to this day!), the This Magazine blog now receives more traffic than any other part of the site; on average, the collection of blog posts receive over 6000 unique visits a month and generates substantial commentary on everything from Canadian politics to pop culture. John Degen’s recent post on Copyright generated over 70 comments and has been pointed to as one of the most open discussions about Canadian copyright this year.

‘Nuff said, there are just too many ways to get a free blog to even list here. So, go get one!

Free software is not a free ride

Finally, if you don’t have a picture of what free software is or why it’s important for non-profits and independent publications to think about, you can do some background reading here. However, the point I always try to underscore for organizations embarking on projects with free software is that there are very real costs attached to the labour involved. Not only does it take time and experience to install, set-up, and customize free software for the needs of a publication, it also requires ongoing upgrades, maintenance, and further customizations as the publication’s needs change and evolve. So, before jumping in and setting your publication up on one of the many free and open source content management applications available, do some research — talk to other publications that you know — about the investment required, both the upfront costs and the ongoing support.

Two of the publications that I’ve worked with — Grist and New Internationalist (in development) — use a heavyweight solution for online publishing known as Bricolage. Bricolage is also used on a number of other large sites. Many of the non-profits that I work with have chosen to use the more lightweight and community-focused system known as Drupal. In the magazine world, two prominent publication — The Onion and The Progressive have recently re-launched their Web properties on Drupal. In most cases, the investments required for these types of properties are substantial, even though the software is free in both the literal sense and in more accurate ideological meaning.

So, there we go! That’s a fairly brief — but incredibly long! — summary of the presentation from Magazines University on Friday. You can download the slides from the presentation right here. And, if you were at the presentation and have any comments, feedback, or additional questions about extending a print publication to the Web — please use the form below to post your thoughts!