Listening to Twitter- some key tools for your NGO or Council

Serendipity is not uncommon in social media. People find new and unexpected ways of using social media tools all the time. Of course, the same thing happens with PC-based software, but the web allows people to develop new uses for social media and then to spread these applications far more cheaply and effectively.

Twitter is a case in point. The 140-word microblogging service is still seen by many as an exercise in narcissism but at a deeper and more serious level it have found uses in areas as diverse as providing feedback on brands and products, distributing alerts for upcoming events, giving real-time responses to speakers in current affairs programs and even spreading information among activists demonstrating against dictatorial governments.

Both fed and been supported by the growth of a small forest of add-ons, Twitter is rapidly becoming a mainstream communication channel, which means it needs to be considered as part of the social media strategy for all NGOs, councils and other small organisations.

This presupposes of course that you have a social media strategy. The reasons for NGOs and councils to have a strategy and what it should do have been written about in numerous blogs, but the simplest argument is the most compelling – the hundreds of millions of people around the world who use various forms of social media on a daily basis.

What your social media strategy should do obviously will depend on your organisation’s objectives, projects, activities and users (both staff and customers/clients), but the basics are summed up in this post by Spurspectives. I’ve expanded a little on the standard components identified in that post to form this list:

• Adding a blog to your website (of course you can have multiple blogs, but don’t underestimate the demands of keeping even one up to date);
• Setting up a page for your organisation on Facebook;
• Sharing videos (for example through YouTube) and posting podcasts on your website about your organisation’s policies, projects and events;
• Connecting with colleagues and community leaders through LinkedIn and then joining LinkedIn networks relevant to your organisation;
• Using Twitter to post current news and updates about your organisation. These can include links to your blogs, videos or podcasts. You will need to decide who exactly has authority to post tweets on behalf of your organisation and what they will tweet about.

This list is a good start, but one key element of a good strategy is that you should not just see social media only as a one-way street to disseminate information about your organisation. Social media is about a conversation, or rather thousands of many-to-many conversations, and your strategy should be more about how to engage through these conversations with your users and those you are trying to influence.

This means that you need to listen to your target audience as well as broadcast to them. All of the social media components suggested above provide opportunities for feedback, but this is one area where Twitter shines, given that anybody with an account can respond instantly and publicly.

I don’t intend to provide a general intro to Twitter here – this has been well-canvassed in guides like the one on Victorian State Government eGov website or this local government-related blog from the UK. Instead I’d like to look specifically at how to receive and handle the rich stream of responses that Twitter provides.

Twitter is like a fast-moving river, with thousands of tweets posted every second; while you can use Twitter to search for your organisation, this is difficult if it has a long name. To help you can start using a hashtag for your organisation or its services in your own tweets. A hashtag is a short, distinctive is name preceded by the hash key (for example, #wikileaks or #cityrail) which used in tweets. If the hashtag catches on and other people start using it, searching for tweets relating to your organisation will be much easier.

Once you do this you can simply dip your hand into the “twitterstream” in every now and then to see what people are saying about you by using Twitter to search for your hashtag, or a filtering tool such as Tweetdeck, which allows you to display searches for multiple topics. You could then provide these as public feedback on your website by using applications such as Twitter widgets or Twitterfeed.

However, while Twitter and Tweetdeck can yield some interesting posts in real time, they don’t allow you to store the results for later use. For a more systematic approach you need software that allows you to filter and then extract the resulting list of tweets to examine outside of Twitter.

Tweetdoc allows you to enter a hashtag or other search term and then set date and time range and limits on the number of tweets to display. The resulting list is displayed in a PDF file which can be stored offline for later reference.

A similar service is provided by SearchHash. As the name suggests this concentrates on filtering by hashtags (though it does seem to work with other search terms) but is a bit more flexible than Tweetdoc in allowing export to an Excel document, which is easier to use as a basis for further research. Meanwhile other tools such as the Archivist provide a snapshot of statistics such as the number of tweets over time, the  top users, main sources, etc.

Be aware, however, that this is a fast-changing area. Search applications such as Searchtastic which were widely recommended only a few  months ago have already ceased operations. Others such as TwapperKeeper have removed their export facility, claiming that Twitter has alleged that it infringes its Terms of Service.

Setting up a Twitter account and then searching for your organisation’s hashtags or other topics related to your services is an important start, but you can do so much more with Twitter. In a future post I’ll look at how you can use it to help in running conferences and forums.

Web scraping – the Jekyll and Hyde of Web 2.0 (part 2)?

In the last post I wrote about a positive use of web scraping, the software process used to extract data from the HTML mark-up language used on websites. I highlighted Planningalerts, a web and phone app to deliver real-time information gathered from council websites about development proposals in that may affect a specific property.

Now for a look at a social media application which opens the door to web scraping in a much more controversial manner. Foursquare is described by Wikipedia as a web and mobile application that allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location. Points are awarded for “checking in” at venues.

Foursquare website

Basically, Foursquare broadcasts the user’s location to their friends and if they wish to allow it, to other Foursquare members, based on their smartphone’s global positioning system (GPS).

The process is best described, not on the Foursquare website but in a recent Guardian article. In summary, users “check in” on their phone whenever they arrive at a point of interest so that fellow users know where they are. They can also use their phone to check the names of all the other users in the same area, where exactly they are and if they are with other users

The application is still in its infancy but is already attracting a lot of users. Recently it signed up its two-millionth user, just three months after reached its first million. According to the Guardian:

“Foursquare is now being widely touted as the app which will, after years of anticipation and prediction, mark the beginning of ‘life as a game’ computing. Whatever you do, wherever you go, you will be scoring points, earning ‘medals’, and be in, at the very least, social competition with other users around you.”

However, as the Guardian article points out, this “game” could come with a price – a potentially huge loss of privacy. There are at least three areas of concern. First, by its nature, Foursquare automatically reveals a fundamental item of information, the user’s precise location, which is not disclosed even to the user’s friends by any other social media application. This has implications which are only beginning to be understood.

Second, while they have recently been tightened up, Foursquare privacy settings still require users to actively opt out in relation to key options to share data instead of the other way around. As the recent fracas over Facebook privacy rules demonstrates, this approach can leave users very vulnerable.

This is a particular issue with Foursquare, however, as there is little point to the program unless you choose to release your location information to at least some other users. However, even if you do opt to disclose your location only to your friends, this can still be risky, especially if you haven’t been too discriminating about who your “friends” are.

This risk is also compounded by the way in which the program facilitates the linking of Foursquare’s locational broadcast to a user’s Twitter feed, thus enabling their location to be spread even more widely.

 The biggest concern however, is that Foursquare could be potentially vulnerable to “malicious” web scraping. Unlike the Planningalerts application’s use of web scraping described in my last post, this involves the collecting and collating of private data that users have revealed (intentionally or otherwise) on social media websites rather than gathering public information made available on council or government websites.

Even if a user avoids the temptation to link their own Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts to reduce the risks described above, someone with the right skills can gather pieces of information from these sites and link it with other publicly available information such as phone directories and electoral rolls to build a detailed picture of that user’s address, employment, lifestyle, friends, associates, shopping preferences etc.

The role of web-scraped Foursquare data could be particularly critical in providing information on the user’s movements on a day-to-day basis. The Guardian sums up the risks:

“The big worry … is who might get to make use of this information. Pick your paranoia. Someone with criminal intent, such as a burglar, identity thief or stalker? Governments, the security services or police? Terrorists? Or a corporation looking to target its products at you with incredible precision?”

This is not to condemn web scraping and similar data-gathering techniques out of hand – as Planningalerts demonstrates, they can provide a particularly effective way of making already publicly-available data even more accessible. Nor is it a criticism of the innovation demonstrated by applications such as Foursquare. It does however provide a strong argument for all social media applications to beef up their privacy measures and to inform users of all the risks involved.

If we are going to march into the brave new world promised by Foursquare and the other locationally-enabled social media apps to follow, we had better do so with our eyes open.

Web scraping – the Jekyll and Hyde of Web 2.0 (part 1)?

Two media reports this week have highlighted the way in which social media and web 2.0 applications can use “web scraping” in very different ways and for very different outcomes.

Web scraping is a specialised software-based process used to extract data from websites, where it is commonly displayed using HTML or similar mark-up languages. When displayed in this way, it is difficult for conventional software trying to “read” the data to make a distinction between relevant information and the surrounding “noise” of the formatting, a situation complicated by the fact that websites may display similar information using very different layouts.

After the data has been “scraped” from the relevant websites it is collated in a database or some other systematic framework and put to new purposes, possibly not ones that were envisaged by the original creators of the information. The most common examples are the websites which provide on-demand price information for a product selected by the user, based on real-time comparisons between the web pages of various online shops.

Web scraping can be viewed as a specific form of data scraping, or the extraction of data from the human-readable output of any computer, but for the purposes of these posts I will regard the two terms as synonymous.

First, a positive example of web scraping at work. The not-for-profit organisation OpenAustralia, which has already made a name for itself in making information about the federal parliament, parliamentary debates and individual MPs more easily accessible, has just released a new app for iPhones and Android smartphones. The app gives users the ability to locate neighbouring development proposals that may affect a property just by pointing thier mobile phones at the property.

Planningalerts phone app.

The app is an extension of OpenAustralia’s already-successful web-based planning alerts service. This allows users log the address of a property and be informed by email of development proposals within either a 200 metre, 800 metre or 2km radius, assuming the property is located within the boundaries of a council that provides this information online in a format that has been scraped by the software.

This is not without its complications. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, OpenAustralia founder Matthew Landauer describes the process as “very painful and error prone”:

“The program clicks on links, fills out forms to do searches, and then when the program finds the web page with the development application it has to extract the unstructured information on the page and turn it into structured information.”

Only 85 of the over 650 councils in Australia are covered by the software, but these include many of the larger ones and others are being added to the system by “crowdsourcing”: members of the community adding the details of the websites of councils which start to place their DA information online.

www.planningalerts.org.au website

So far, so good. There would be widespread agreement that this is an appropriate “repurpose” of information which is publicly available anyway. Some councils may be nervous about the way in which the OpenAustralia phone and online applications raise the bar in terms of who gets notified about DAs, but hopefully most will take a positive attitude and cooperate with this initiative by making information available in a more standardised, software-readable format. In turn, this and other eGov initiatives may lead to councils and other levels of government making a wider range of data available in computer-accessible formats.

However, web scraping can be used in different and less benign ways. In my next post I will look at a new application which raises major questions about the use of web scraping and related techniques in relation to social media websites.

If the iPad is the answer, what is the question?

Recently I extolled the virtues of netbooks as an ideal device for travellers, due to their light weight, long battery life and very low (sub $500) cost. When the iPad was subsequently announced I assumed that it would be a “netbook killer”. However, after reading about them and having a brief play with one, I’m not so sure. In fact, once all the current enthusiasm for the iPad dies down, I don’t know exactly what its role will be.

This is not to knock the iPad, through which Apple has done to the tablet computer what it did through the iPhone to the mobile phone – remake the current crop of disparate poorly-implemented devices as a well-executed package integrated with a great, intuitive interface which can be used as a platform for a range of applications. 

iPad (from Wikipedia)

The difference of course is that the mobile phone was already a ubiquitous device when the iPhone came along. Millions of people already had the things and knew roughly what to do with them, though Apple was certainly successful in making a better interface and extending the range of phone-based activities.

 In geological terms, the mobile phone market was not so much as a niche as a very large depression, one only partly filled by a lake of existing devices which the iPhone successfully swamped. To labour the metaphor, the iPhone then went on to fill up most of the neighbouring niches and creating new ones, courtesy of the vast range of iPhone apps.

By comparison the tablet was only a very small niche before Apple arrived. While the iPad is likely to fill this relatively small hole, this is not that significant an achievement. Apple and the apps providers also need to fill a lot of connected niches  – and create new ones to fill as well – to give the iPad critical mass.

This is complicated by the fact that, because of its size, the iPad is unlikely to become a ubiquitous device like the mobile phone – for a start, you can’t just put one in your pocket, or indeed the average handbag, as you zoom out the front door. This will obviously limit its numbers, unless a great killer app or two can be found.

Such an app is unlikely to come from the ranks of iPhone apps ported to the iPad – after all, the iPad can use all of these already. It will likely have to be something new which is best suited to the iPad form factor. One suggested example is the delivery of newspapers, though electronic paper could well do a better job of displaying these (that is, if anyone ever actually releases electronic paper displays on a commercial basis). It may be that the killer iPad app is yet to be written.

This brings me back to the iPad’s potential as a netbook killer. There is little doubt that the iPad may be the ideal device for some travellers, especially those who just want to send and receive emails, look up websites (provided they don’t use Flash) or upload and post holiday photos (provided they buy the appropriate attachment). It also has almost twice the battery life of a netbook and would no doubt suit many (well-heeled) tourists.

However a netbook can do all of these things, albeit less elegantly, and is easier to use for anything more complex such as word processing or photo editing. It is also a lot cheaper – ironically, your average business traveller who can afford to buy an iPad may prefer to stick with a netbook because it is much easier to use the latter to type up that last-minute report on the early-bird flight to Melbourne. This response is also consistent with the suggestion that iPads are best thought of as content consumption rather than content production devices.

While I can’t predict whether such a killer iPad application will emerge or what that application might be, it’s interesting to consider how the iPad might be used in relation to some of the Web 2.0 applications I have previously reviewed. Those workshop or conference tools such as Poll Everywhere or iMeet which require interactive, real time participant input might benefit the most. MyCommittee also has potential, but only once it can be used to run actual committee meetings themselves. 

Perhaps more intriguing are the web-based mind mapping applications I reviewed last year, such as Comapping, Mindomo and MindMeister. These may also require some adjustment but they would offer the potential for brainstorming or mind mapping for small groups using iPads.

In summary, while the jury is still out on the extent to which the iPad will succeeed, there is a lot of potential to use the device to capture feedback interactively in meetings, workshops and conferences which should be explored by NGOs and small businesses – that is, if you can afford to buy the things in the first place. I’d be interested in any suggestions about other Web 2.0 applications for the NGO or small business sectors that are designed for iPads or which might be particularly useful in the iPad format.

Update – MyCommittee online meeting tool improved

Back in June I wrote a short review of MyCommittee, an online tool to manage committees and meetings. I concluded that there was a lot to like about MyCommittee and that it would suit a small to medium organisation with reasonably complex agendas.

I also highlighted some issues with the interface and a number of limitations, including the fact that the task management feature was problematic for organisations with a staffed secretariat as actions could only be scheduled for committee members. There was also little ability to change the terminology in the agenda, but my biggest concern was the inability to view resolutions in anything other than chronological order and the lack of any facility to extract them for storage in a separate database.

I took up these shortcomings with the program’s creators, who indicated that they might be considered in the next release of the program – and that’s just what has happened. Paul Cox from MyCommittee has just responded, noting that the latest version addresses some of my concerns. I’ve only had a chance to check it out briefly but I’m pleased to confirm what he’s said – plus more. MyCommittee now has the following:

• More flexibility in customising the agenda template – for example, changing the terminology and order of the standing items at the beginning and end.
• The ability to create custom lists of resolutions, by date, keyword, status, etc.
• A facility to export any list of resolutions in PDF, CSV or XML format to print or import into another application or database.
• Access for committee members to subcommittees (to view and download meeting minutes, resolutions, etc.).
• A greater range of roles for committee members, including “resource”. This could cover non-voting staff attending the meeting, who I assume could be allocated tasks, but I have not yet tested this facility.

Of these improvements the ability to create custom lists of resolutions and export them is the most significant. Not only does this make it easier for organisations to set up their own resolutions databases, it also provides the ability to download and backup resolutions offline. I suggested in my review that organisations needing this facility should hold off until it was implemented – but with its incorporation in the latest version, now is definitely time to have another look at MyCommittee.

Web 2.0 tools unlock statistics 2 – value-adding by the private sector

In my last post I looked at the release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) of TableViewer, which demonstrates the increasing use of Web 2.0 by the ABS to provide greater access to census data. Now I’ll take a look at how Australian company .id (informed decisions) has taken this a step further to produce a range of user-friendly profiles which rely heavily on Web 2.0 strategies.

.id develops and hosts LGA-level (and in some cases, regional) statistical profiles using a range of sources. Over 180 council areas across Australia use one or more of .id’s products. Whilst local government makes up most of .id’s customers, local communities, businesses and non-government organisations are also key beneficiaries as most councils with .id products put public links to them on their websites, thus providing a free source of formatted, interactive tables, graphs and thematic maps.

.id’s range includes:

• profile.id – a detailed social and demographic profile of a local government area. This is probably the most widely used .id product and has set the pattern for its other profiles. The basic format which allows users to select the relevant area (which could be a the whole LGA or a specific suburb) and then choose from a set of simple questions such as “how many people live here?”, “who are we?”, “what do we do?” and “how do we live” makes the data very accessible. It has also become the basis for the development of all the other .id products.
• atlas.id – a social atlas of thematic maps for an LGA. This is a “supercharged” response to the ABS’s Mapstats, providing much greater interactivity and control.
• forecast.id – a detailed demographic forecast for an LGA, broken down by customised local areas.
• housing.id – provides analysis of an LGA’s housing patterns and trends.
• economy.id – an economic profile of an LGA. This is .id’s latest and possibly most complex and ambitious project (click here for my review).

The .id website provides links to all the company’s clients and their .id profiles, most of which can also be accessed from the relevant council or regional website (though some links are easier to find on council websites than others).

Verdict: Whilst there is not enough space here to review in detail all the .id products, they are well worth checking out. The great advantages of these profiles is their accessibility, the extent to which tables and comparisons can be customised and the ease with which the resulting graphs and thematic maps can be downloaded.

For councils there is a significant upfront cost (upwards from around $25,000, depending on the product) plus an annual fee. However many councils consider that this is more than outweighed by increased efficiencies within councils, especially the savings in staff costs involved in preparing this data. In addition councils benefit from the improved data available to support planning and strategy development.

As previously indicated these benefits are shared by the wider community when these profiles are put online by the councils that have commissioned them, especially as the .id profiles are free to end users. The tables, maps and graphs produced from these tools can be pasted directly into community organisation reports and submissions, whilst businesses can learn an enormous amount about their local markets and the skills, size and demographics of the local workforce.

If you a scratching your head over whether to use ABS or .id profiles and other tools for your latest research project, here’s a suggestion.  The ABS products have more of a learning curve and are probably most useful for accessing metropolitan wide, state or national census data – or to construct tables which require a high degree of customisation (if you have the money to purchase the TableViewer subscription).

On the other hand the .id profiles are much easier to use and are specifically customised to provide LGA-level or regional census data as well as housing and economic information – provided your LGA or region is covered. If it isn’t then you will have to use the ABS tools.

Web 2.0 tools unlock statistics 1 – ABS releases TableBuilder

Web 2.0 tools unlock statistics 1 – ABS releases TableBuilder

So far in this blog I’ve looked mainly at end user applications, but this is not the only area in which Web 2.0 strategies are appearing. Another aspect which is also beneficial to councils, small businesses, NGOs and other organisations is the increasing use of Web 2.0 technologies and interfaces to provide masses of free statistical data and, perhaps more imprtantly, to make this information easier to use.

The provision of statistical information by governments parallels the development of the internet, albeit with a substantial time lag. Up to only a decade or so ago, most government data was available only in hard copy. Some material was on microfiche, or, if you were really lucky, on floppy disk and eventually CD – and you were often charged for the privilege of accessing it.

Eventually and somewhat grudgingly governments started making data available online, but usually in the form of static tables on websites or in PDF documents. Even where it was available in spreadsheet format, the size of the files and download speeds at the time often meant that CDs were still the best format for distribution – and there was little or no customisation.

This started to change with the advent of broadband. The advent of Web 2.0, changing community expectations and government attitudes have also combined with the emergence of third party providers to make this data much more available and accessible. There has been a dramatic increase in the data provided online by governments and they have (mostly) given up charging for it.

One of the oldest of these Web 2.0-influenced government sites and the one probably best known to Australian organisations is the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The ABS has made material available online for a long time but has made increasing use of Web 2.0 interactivity, especially since the 2006 Census, to present census information through a range of products.

This process has greatly increased the accessibility of census data and also brought down the cost, as many of these products are free. Thus small businesses, community organisations and even individuals can develop their own profiles of their potential customer base, service catchment area or local community without having to hire consultants or researchers.

The ABS products which show the most Web 2.0 influence include:

• QuickStats, which provides a summary of key Census data relating to persons, families and dwellings in user-selected locations, compared to national figures. This is the simplest and least interactive of the ABS Web 2.0 products and therefore has limited options – you choose a location and it displays a summary table. You have no choice over the data Quickstats displays and you can also only choose one location at a time.
• MapStats, which provides thematically mapped Census statistics for a chosen location. It is step up from Quickstats, as you get to choose both location and data. In theory you also get to choose the geographic boundaries that will be used for the thematic mapping, but in many cases this is predetermined for you by the type of location you have selected. The maps which can be downloaded are quite effective but the lack of control over the level of boundaries used can be frustrating. You also can’t access the underlying data.
• CData Online, which enables users to create their own tables of census data at levels ranging from a single collection district to the whole country. Unlike the previous products you can choose to start with either locations or topics and you have much greater choice over both. The resulting tables are very detailed and can saved in a workspace on the ABS website or downloaded. CData Online is obviously more influenced by Web 2.0 than the preceding products and is therefore much more flexible but it requires a fair degree of work to produce the result you want.

 The ABS has just added substantially to its Web 2.0-enabled stable with the release of TableBuilder. This new online tool allows users to create their own tables of census data by accessing all variables in the census output record file for all ABS geographic areas. Users are able to prepare their own cross-tabulations and smaller tables may be exported or viewed as a graph or a thematic map within the product, whilst large tables can be downloaded to the desktop for further manipulation.  

 

In effect, TableViewer combines almost all the features of the other ABS Web 2.0 census-based products – but all this comes at a price. TableViewer is a charged subscription service costing $1,655 (including GST). This price is for individual users for a “single Census reference cycle” and includes online training and ongoing help-line support.

TableViewer is a very sophisticated product which allows a much finer grain of manipulation of census data online by the end user than even CData Online does. Whilst a trial version is not available, the online and interactive Tableviewer tutorials provide a good idea of what the product can do and how it performs.

Whilst the ABS products provide a wealth of census information in an accessible format, a Melbourne company, .id (informed decisions), has taken Web 2.0 concepts a step further to produce a range of user-friendly interactive profiles. These I’ll take a look at in the next post.

 

Running an interactive forum in the 21st Century – Poll Everywhere

In my last post I discussed three web-based mind mapping programs that could transform workshops and brainstorming sessions for small organisations (a discussion I’ll continue in future when I look at other mind mapping software which has online collaboration facilities). In this post I’ll take a look at a tool that could revolutionise how councils, NGOs and others run larger forums, campaigns and even, for NGOs, fund-raisers – Poll Everywhere.

A number of programs such as PollDaddy, SurveyGizmo, SurveyMonkey, QuestionPro and Zoomerang provide facilities for structured online surveys, but Poll Everywhere offers something distinctly different – voting via SMS text messages from mobile phones in real time.

As the Poll Everywhere website suggests, using Poll Everwhere is very simple. For example, if you are holding a forum, all you need is a Poll Everywhere account plan (more on these in a moment), a computer with an internet connection (and ideally a data projector to present results) and an audience equipped with mobile phones.

You then ask your audience a question and your audience send their responses using text messages, twitter or via the web (if they have a PC or smart phone). The results are then displayed in real time.

That’s it, really! But to go through the process more slowly, Poll Everywhere offers three sorts of polls:

The simplest are multiple choice polls where you set a question and provide a list of answers. Each answer is automatically provided with a five-digit code number and, in more expensive plans, a custom keyword. Forum participants then text the code number or word to a mobile phone number. Local numbers are available in Australia and the UK and short number codes in the US and Canada. The UK/Australia numbers can also be contacted from a number of other countries (participants will incur a charge from their mobile carrier for their text message, depending on their phone plan, their location and the number they are texting to).

The poll result is then automatically collated and displayed. As indicated before, participants can also vote via twitter or the web.

The following screenshot shows the poll editing screen with a sample multiple choice poll:

As can be seen, you can set parameters such as whether participants can vote more than once, whether they will receive a confirmation message and the methods for responding.

As everyone votes, Poll Everywhere collates the results in real time and displays them on a graph. In the following example, two people have voted for Policy 1, one for Policy 2 and none for Policy 3:

These results can also be downloaded in a spreadsheet.

Multiple-choice polls are obviously ideal for choosing between different options at strategic forums or even for voting for candidates. Voting can be done anonymously, cheaply and quickly and there is no down-time collating the results.

In many forums, however, prioritising options comes at the end of the process. First, you may want to get a list of ideas, suggestions and/or questions from your audience. Poll Everywhere also provides the ability to do this with free-text polls, a facility to ask open-ended questions to which the audience can respond with text messages, tweets or via the web. This option will test the texting skills of your audience, which may cause some complaints, but at least it will keep the responses short!

The third type of poll is the pledge poll, which allows people to pledge funds for a cause. Unlike the other polls, this one obviously requires the participants to be identified – this can be done, but it requires an upgrade to a paid plan.

On the subject of plans, Poll Everywhere has a free plan with limited features (such as only 30 responses per poll) which lets you access enough of the facilities to evaluate whether the program is suitable for your purposes. There are then a range of plans which allow more responses and access to an increasing number of features such as additional account users, respondent identification, customised keywords and text moderation.

Plans can be upgraded and down graded on a monthly basis. For most small groups, the US$15 a month personal plan which allows up to 50 responses per poll may be adequate; if you are running a larger forum the presenter (250 responses) or plenary (700 responses) options, which cost US$65 and US$140 a month respectively, may be more appropriate.

Verdict: Poll Everywhere offers a very tempting and cost-effective approach to gathering information and conducting polls in workshops or forums. Whilst it should never be seen as an alternative for proper discussion of policy and strategy options, it could be used judiciously to enhance this process, allowing for different questions to be asked and options tested in real time at the meeting. It could also be used very effectively in a brainstorming process with the mind mapping software I have been discussing.

The downsides appear to be limited. Obviously, ongoing costs are significant if you are on one of the higher-end plans – but you can upgrade and downgrade on a monthly basis. Your will need a computer with good internet access at your venue – and good mobile phone reception as well. If you think a significant proportion of your audience are going to have problems with texting or don’t have access to mobile phones, this solution might not be for you – however, if you only have a few participants in this category you could always provide a couple of computers with internet access to allow voting via the web.

As always, you should look at the issues I raised in a recent post about avoiding problems with Web 2.0 applications in evaluating Poll Everywhere. If you do decide to use it I would also suggest a dry run as well as taking a backup voting process to your meeting, forum or workshop.

Addendum: I was contacted by a Poll Everywhere representative after posting the above post (click on the comments flag to see his feedback), who kindly answered a few more of my questions. I was curious about time lags – he assured me they weren’t a problem, as it was statistically very unlikely that two very large (1,000+) polls would be held at the same time and numerous concurrent small polls are not a problem.

Keywords, which are available with the larger plans to replace code numbers, are provided on a first-come first-served basis, so if a common word isn’t available for a particular option when you are holding your poll you may have to be a little more inventive in your choice of keyword.

I’ve also edited my comment in the post regarding Poll Everywhere’s phone numbers to clarify that there are other numbers as well as an Australian number for people to send their text messages to and also that sending a message will a incur mobile carrier charge.

Mind Mapping and Web 2.0: Part 1 – web-based tools

Over on our other blog, StrategyMatters, I’ve been looking at a key strategic thinking and planning tool, mind mapping software. In this post I’ll start to look at the interaction of mind mapping software with the web and a warning – this is a longish post!

First, what is a mind map? Wikipedia offers a good definition:

“A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.”

As I said in the relevant StrategyMatters post, mind mapping has been around for a long time as a manual, pen-on-paper exercise. Organisation brainstorming sessions often use a loose form of manual mind mapping with less than satisfactory results, but now software has been developed to make the process much easier and more efficient.

There are dozens of mind mapping programs out there, but most work the same way, allowing users to add ideas as branches to a core concept. The software allows users to move these ideas around the resulting tree on screen, detaching them from one branch and attaching to another, and to add new ideas as sub-topics to these branches.

Most programs also allow you to prioritise these topics and sub-topics, to format them in other ways and to add information such as deadlines, resources, document files and web links. Not only can these programs provide a simple, visual one-page map as record of a planning or brainstorming session – these maps can also become effective “live” management documents for implementing an organisation strategy or managing a project.

Whilst mind mapping software started out as conventional PC and Mac based programs, it has evolved in interesting ways. Some programs have stayed in this conventional mould. Others remain computer based, but also have options for uploading, storing and sharing maps on the web – and, in some cases, for shared online collaboration.

A third emerging category is those programs that are entirely web-based, with maps stored online and accessed though a browser. Obviously this facilitates sharing, but it also makes it easier for single users to access their maps from any computer.

I’ll have a brief look at the last two groups, starting off in this post with the fully web-based applications. Three good examples are Comapping, Mindomo and MindMeister. Both the latter programs offer both free and charged accounts, though free account holders can access only a basic version with limited features (MindMeister however offers a time-limited trial of its fully-featured premium version). Comapping offers only a 30-day trial but the trial version is fully-featured.

Cost: All three programs make it easy to sign up and get started. However, to obtain access to additional features you have to sign up for at least the “premium” version of either Mindomo (a monthly charge of US$6) or MindMeister (US$4 a month). Both programs also offer closely-matched “business” and education/academic versions with some additional features. Comapping comes in a single version, which costs US$15 for 6-month and US$25 for annual subscriptions. Comapping also offers group, class and company subscriptions.

Interface: All three programs observe basic mind mapping software conventions regarding the creation of new topics and sub-topics, the ability to move topics around the map and the expanding and collapsing of branches. The creators of Comapping and Mindomo have opted for Office 2007-style tab and ribbon formats for their commands, with a button in the top left corner allowing access to the most basic commands. This has the advantage of familiarity for many users, but the downside is that because the map window is already in a browser there isn’t much area left for the map itself in either program if you are accessing it from a notebook computer, especially one with a small screen.

Mindomo’s ribbon layout is reasonably intuitive, but with some unexpected twists. For example, text formatting is under the Home tab and not in Formatting. It is also annoying that at least in the trial version a column of ads appears on in the right sidebar, taking up even more space.

Mindomo screen:

Meanwhile, Comapping’s limited feature set (more on this later) and lack of advertising means that its interface is relatively straightforward.

Comapping screen: 

Comapping also appears to try to make virtue out of necessity by offering only a right-facing map. This makes better use of the available real estate on a notebook screen, but is somewhat limiting, especially as you cannot vary the spacing between topics. However you can change the map’s focus to topics other than the main topic and at least there are no annoying advertisements.

Meanwhile MindMeister has a different approach. Across the top of the browser window is a narrow bar with basic commands only. Other commands are contained in tabs on the sidebar. Whilst it provides more real estate for the map in the browser window, this causes another problem for notebook users – if several of the uppermost tabs are open, the bottom ones are pushed off the screen.

MindMeister screen:

 

This situation isn’t helped by the fact that the MindMeister sidebar contains “recommendations” (ie, advertising) which can only be removed by purchasing the premium version. Even if your screen is big enough to have all the tabs fully open, it isn’t easy to work out what options are available.

Feature set: Both Mindomo and MindMeister offer a reasonable set of features, though neither is as comprehensive as the range of features in a “conventional” commercial program such as MindManager. However, you can insert icons and images, add task information and attach notes and web links. Both programs also allow you to attach files but these first have to be uploaded. Mindomo can also handle audio and video files but these have to be available on the web in the first place.

Mindomo has by far the biggest range of map and topic formatting. There are 20 predetermined map layouts and individual topics can be given different shapes. Topic text font, size and colouring can also be changed and bold, italic and underline styles applied.

In MindMeister there is only one style of map and node shape, whilst only text style, size and colouring can be varied. MindMeister however does provide a history view and a “geistesblitz” (mind flash) facility, which allows users to insert topics directly from a sidebar, browser or via email or SMS.

Comapping  also has a limited feature set. Again, you cannot change the basic map style or format topic shapes but you can change the colour and size of text and apply a background colour. You can insert a hyperlink  for the whole map and as well as for individual topics – however some of the editing options only appear when you are actually editing the topic. Comapping does not have predefined images, but if you attach a graphics file to a topic it will insert a thumbnail image of the file.

One feature is unique to Comapping, however; its presentation mode allows users to drag topics onto the ribbon to create a slide show focussing on these topics in the order selected. This is actually quite clever and easy to use. Other Comapping users can view the presentation on their computers by clicking on the Join Presentation button in their tool bar and the map can be edited in presentation mode.

Mindomo and MindMeister offer the most comprehensive help facilities with detailed instructions and FAQs. Mindomo also has a forum, whilst MindMeister offers an online tutorial. Comapping has the most limited support, with only an FAQ and “Tips & Tricks”.

Accessibility and sharing: All three programs allow map sharing by inviting colleagues as well as posting them publicly on the web. MindMeister explicitly allows groups to work on the same map at the same time – and so, apparently, does Comapping – but neither program makes it clear how conflicts are handled. Mindomo does not indicate if it is possible to work collectively on the same map at the same time.

Both MindMeister and Comapping have downloadable versions which allow users to edit maps when they are not connected to the internet. MindMeister’s offline version is free as long as you have a premium or team subscription, but it requires Google Gears and a fairly complex installation process. Comapping’s offline version costs US$99 and requires Adobe AIR. Mindomo have not yet released an offline version, though one is in development. Business and academic users can however get a server based version.

Import and export: The basic versions of Mindomo and MindMeister can export image, PDF and Word (RTF) files, but a signup to the premium version is required in both programs to export more sophisticated formats such as MindManager. The premium version of Mindomo can export MindManager, Microsoft Project (MPX), Excel and HTML files whilst MindMeister can export to Mindmanager and Freemind. Comapping has a similar range to Mindomo, allowing export to RTF, MindManager, Freemind, HTML, Project and OPML files.

The ability of all three programs to export to MindManager and of Comapping and MindMeister to export to Freemind is especially significant. Although neither the commercial MindManager or nor the open source Freemind (or any other program) dominates the mind mapping market in the way that Microsoft does with office software, both have a large base of users and a number of other programs can also import their files. On this front all three programs can import maps from Freemind and MindManager.

The ability to export to common file formats also provides a simple way for users to back-up their mind map files off-line (which is relevant in the context of what I wrote recently regarding Web 2.0 services and data security) and to access these files easily using other software if required.

Verdict: Unlike Comapping, Mindomo and MindMeister both provide free versions – but these are very basic. Once payment is involved, the playing field is a little different. Comapping is the cheapest over 12 months at US$25, whilst MindMeister will cost US$48 and Mindomo US$72.

Comapping and MindMeister have an edge in online collaboration and both provide offline facilities (though you pay extra for Comapping’s software), whilst Comapping and Mindomo have a wider range of export options. MindMeister and Comapping have the most limited options for map formatting, though Comapping alone offers a very useful presentation mode. Mindomo has by far the most comprehensive range of formatting features.

Both the Comapping and Mindomo ribbon-based interfaces are reasonably intuitive and even for new users would be easy to pick up. This contrasts with the MindMeister interface, which seems to require more visits to the online help to understand.

I think that Mindomo offers the best balance of features and ease of use and would probably suit single users – especially those who have previously used other mind mapping programs – or small groups who want to share files, but not necessarily work on them at the same time. Both MindMeister and Comapping may be best suited to workgroups who want to collaborate intensively on maps in real time. Of these two, Comapping probably just wins out, especially for larger groups, because of its ease of use, presentation facility and lower cost per user.   

However the great thing is that all three programs allow potential users the opportunity to try them out for free. I would suggest giving all three a trial to determine what suits you the best. It should also be noted that I haven’t had time to apply all the tests I suggested in my last post about avoiding problems with Web 2.0 services - but you are strongly advised to look at these issues in evaluating these products.  At the very least you should use the ability of all of these  programs to export MindManager and Freemind files to provide off-line backups of your maps in either format.

In a future post I’ll look at the web-based collaboration of the more conventional mind mapping programs such as MindManager.

At Gooding Davies Consultancy we use MindManager extensively and can provide a range of strategic planning and program management solutions for your organisation based on this versatile program. We can also advise on solutions using the above products.

Web 2.0 tools for the “back of house” – part 2: MyCommittee review

In my last post I outlined some of the key steps for small non-government organisations and councils in managing board and committee meetings, highlighting the difficulties in finding a single program that would manage these tasks.

So far I have found only one Web 2.0 application specifically targeted to these processes: MyCommittee. This is a classic Web 2.0 program – hosted entirely online and managed through a web browser. All the data is also stored online and you can purchase different feature levels, paying for the application on a monthly basis.

Charges range from free (effectively a trial of the program, allowing you to set up one committee only with only 1 Mb of storage and limited features) through personal (US$19 per month, five committees and 200Mb of storage), standard (US$49, 15 committees and 1Gb) and premium (US$99, 35 committees and 3Gb) to enterprise (US$149, 100 committees and 10Gb). All paid levels of the program allow access to the full range of features.

How does MyCommittee work? Well, to quote the website:

“MyCommittee allows you to create and share indexed meeting agendas, minutes and documents and provides your members with a central location to collaborate and stay connected between meetings. It is designed especially for committees, boards and other groups that have regular and recurring meetings.”

After you have registered and created your own profile you set up basic information about your first committee, such as its name, meeting schedule and terms of reference. At this stage you also create standing items that occur at the beginning or end of every meeting.

You then access a dashboard with a number of tabs covering activities such as nominating committee members and other significant contacts, uploading documents and of course creating meeting agendas.

Choosing this option takes you to a set of new tabs which cover the sequence of creating a new meeting for the committee. You have the option of using the tabs or a wizard to step you through the creation of the agenda – or you can prepare the document in one go. 

The wizard starts with general information about the meeting. The second step is to input meeting attendees from the committee’s membership, plus any guests. The third step allows you to upload and attach documents and the fourth to confirm the standing items. The fifth provides an option to incorporate “old items” – what might generally be called business arising, or items deferred from the last meeting.

The sixth step is the guts of the program where general business items are created. Sub-items can also be created, in effect allowing the creation of headings under which items can be grouped (though this could be better implemented). These items can be either be discussion or resolution items – if the latter is chosen, then additional fields for mover and seconder appear with a drop-down list of the names of attendees, though these can be left blank at this stage. Documents can also be attached to individual items.

In the seventh step the agenda is reviewed and then in the eighth and final step the agenda is distributed. Every attendee receives a notification of the meeting, the items (if any) that they are required to lead and a link to the stored agenda on the MyCommittee website. PDF versions of the agenda (and minutes) can also be created.

Whilst MyCommittee doesn’t go out of its way facilitate real-time use in actually running a meeting, the minutes wizard – basically a cut-down version of the agenda wizard – can be used during or after the meeting to prepare the minutes. Each resolution item now has extra fields to record what the decision about the item and whether it has been resolved or is still outstanding.

There are a number of additional features, especially for purchasers of the paid versions of MyCommittee. For example, you can automatically create tasks for members from action items identified during the meeting which will show up as business arising at future meetings – though these have to be added as separate items rather than being attached to a previous business item. Committee members can comment on agenda items online and there are facilities to discuss any subject, take polls of meeting attendees and search previous meeting minutes for information.

Verdict: there is a lot to like about MyCommittee – which is just as well, because so far it is one of a kind. Although there is a small learning curve, it would suit a small to medium organisation that has reasonably but not excessively complex agendas and which needs to handle attachments. Its interactive features would also suit organisations with active committee members, especially if the task management features are adequate for their needs.

The program still needs refinement, however. Whilst it is well laid out the interface can still be confusing and sometimes you lose track of exactly where you are. MyCommittee could also do with a split-screen presentation mode so that it could be used to actually run a meeting as well as recording the minutes. The task management feature is problematic for organisations with a staffed secretariat as it appears that actions can only be scheduled for committee members. The ability to change some of the terminology and to customise the layout of agendas and minutes, especially in the PDF versions, would also be helpful.

The biggest omissions however are the inability to view resolutions in anything other than chronological order and the lack of any facility to extract them for storage in a separate database. This would be a major problem for those organisations that need to track or refer to resolutions. The program’s creators have indicated that these features might be included in later releases, so organisations that need these facilities might consider holding off until they are implemented.