Digiactive, a site devoted to digital activism, has released a guide called A DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism. It's a quick read with insights and case studies of how Facebook can be used for campaigns. Many of the tips are helpful for anyone looking to use Facebook to support their eParticipation efforts.

[via Beth Kanter's Blog] 

One of the biggest takeaways from the fabulous book Groundswell - winning in a world transformed by social technologies, which I just finished reading, was the POST Method as a simple framework of how to approach social software:

Is your company [organization] doing its social strategy backwards?

If you started by saying "we should do a blog" or "we should create a page on a social network" or "we should create a community" the answer is probably yes.

I've been there and am confronted with this approach pretty often in our work. Following the POST Method seems obvious, but it's important to remind ourselves frequently to go through the steps one after the other:

P is People. Don't start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you're targeting college students, use social networks. If you're reaching out business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Forrester has great  data to help with this, but you can make some estimates on your own. Just don't start without thinking about it.

O is objectives. Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you're done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you'll know where to begin.

T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

This may sound simple to the sophisticated readers of this blog. But it works. Try it. Think your strategy through. Even if you're just clarifying your own strategy, this should help you explain it to your boss.

You can find more information about the book and its authors on their blog >>

Yahoo just added a community suggestion board feature on its Local site for two California cities where citizens can post and deliberate about local issues.  People rate the suggestions, comment on them, subscribe to posts about particular issues and spread the word by printing flyers, adding events and forwarding posts to neighbors.

From Webware.com: "...for instance, on the Sacramento "Neighbors" site, people have suggested that the city needs more downtown gas stations, more urban farms, and a dog park. It turns out the Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen is seeking volunteers and a group is volunteering to help with painting projects.

The pilot test is also running for San Carlos, south of San Francisco. Following a three- to six-month trial, the feature will roll out nationally, Yahoo said.

"We're providing a forum for the community to air considerations," which ideally will lead to action, Frazier Miller, general manager of Yahoo Local, said on Wednesday. "We think people are very passionate about their local community. This is a Web 2.0 site for people to talk about local community issues."

It's interesting to see big players jump on the hyperlocal bandwagon. Also, I'm fascinated by the overlap with e-democracy.org's Issues Forums. The interesting question will be: Is simply offering the right features enough to build community and to be heard by decision makers?
 

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I like the way Tara Hunt pitches the advantages of the bottom-up Web2.0 to government in an entertaining way. Found over at Beth Kanter's blog.