nfptweetup

This week's NFPtweetup, at which charity staff meet up to share experiences of and ideas for using digital media and tools, focused on gamification and how charities could use it.

Following the most recent London NFPTweetup meeting of charity social media users, I was interested to read a thought-provoking and increasingly commented upon blog from @SamRSparrow (aka Samantha Sparrow) about 'slacktivism'. For those of you new to this term, and according to Wikipedia;

the word slacktivism is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. Examples of activities labeled as "slacktivist" include signing internet petitions, the wearing of awareness ribbons or awareness bracelets with political messages, putting a ribbon magnet on a vehicle, writing blogs or statuses about issues on social networking sites, joining a Facebook group, posting issue-oriented YouTube videos, or altering one's personal data or avatar on social network services

This suggests to me that being a 'slacktivist' is considered a bad thing by at least the authors of the definition, who, are the truly engaged and spend their time moving heaven and earth to change the world. You do indeed do a great job but please get over yourselves.

Samantha's blog suggests that being a slacktivist might not be such a bad thing and that many people are involved with charities at this level. And I couldn't agree more. Millions of pounds have been raised by people wearing charity bracelets. Hundreds of millions have been raised through slacktivists supporting initiatives like Comic Relief, Children in Need and DEC Appeals. I don't see anything pejorative about that.

Read more at the Bottom Line Ideas Blog............

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about some of the most useful things I'd learnt from attending the NFPTweetup meetings held in London. The eighth event was held on 15th September and, having had a couple of days to reflect on what we saw and discussed, I'd like to add the following three things to that list of useful learnings.

The second nfptweetup was held in London last night, attracting over 60 charity sector staff and others interested in how Twitter can be used by charities.