Unconventional Wisdom - The Tuvel Communications Blog – Engaging Your Customers in Unconventional Ways

2014 FOSE Blogger & Speaker Meetup Recap

March 25, 2014 by Sarah Kneip

We participated in an excellent FOSE Spring meetup with top notch leaders in the information technology community. This guest post from Govents recaps the insights and discussions on the importance of emerging technology, social media and government events. The original posting of this blog can be found here.

1105 Media, organizers of the FOSE and GovSec Conferences & Expos, hosted a FOSE 2014 Blogger and Speaker Meet-up on Wednesday, March 19 at the 1105 Media office in Vienna, VA. In its 6^th year, this invitation-only event was held specifically for government technology influencers, FOSE speakers and bloggers. Held as an open forum, roundtable discussion, attendees were given an opportunity to discuss key elements of the upcoming FOSE Conference. The conversation moved from government events and the obstacles that continue to challenge them, to the uprising of mobile and social media and how they are influencing the way government interacts with the public, cybersecurity and more.

Technology + Social Change = 2014 Resolutions that Make a Difference!

January 3, 2014 by Sarah Kneip

Last year we rung in the New Year with “One Click Resolutions”. 2014 brings with it a clean slate, a fresh list of resolutions we intend to fulfill. Why not incorporate technology and create some social change this year?

If you like millions of others are planning on working out, losing weight and generally being healthier, than I have an app for you. CharityMiles allows users to earn money for charity when you walk, run, or bike. Bikers earn 10¢ a mile and walkers and runners earn 25¢ a mile. Ending hunger is an issue that is very important to me, so I downloaded this free app and selected Feeding America as my charity of choice. The Capital Area Food Bank is also a great non-profit to support. Tuvel had the privilege of partnering with them in 2013 to help make a difference in the lives of those suffering from hunger.

Maybe working out is not on your resolution radar. For some it may be carving out time to volunteer. Whether you have five minutes, a few hours or weeks to dedicate, Create the Good is a great resource that connects you with volunteer opportunities to share your life experiences, skills and passions in your community. Idealist.org and VolunteerMatch also offer a variety of volunteer opportunities.

For others the resolution may be expanding horizons, more time with friends and family or trying new foods. Whatever it is, there is new geo-location app to try that has “do- gooder” twist, Check-in for Good. This app connects your social networking with fundraising and enables users to support causes. A simple check-in to your favorite places such as coffee shops, restaurants, sporting events and more generates a micro- donation to a great cause.

And for those who are still on quest to figure out your resolutions, why not use a search engine for change? Bene is an online platform and community dedicated to transforming a $50+ billion search industry into pure good. You can also try Dailygood. Use this site for everyday activities like searching the web, playing online games, shopping, dining out and more and raise money for your favorite charity.

If you are interested in discovering more about social initiatives and technology check out The Tool Box. This is a new platform for tools aiding social change. Here you can find the latest articles and apps that are making a difference.

What social change apps or technology are you planning on using this year?

Context Is Everything: Online Communities

August 22, 2013 by Mitch Arnowitz

Beth Kanter & I recently participated in a Venture Philanthropy Partners/Leap of Reason

conversation reminiscent of a Netpreneur AdMarketing discussion from a dozen years ago.

We offered to write a guest blog post reflecting on peer learning online and online

communities. The blog post follows. What did we miss in our list of things that are

really important, those ‘mission critical’ elements of community building that you can’t

live without? Please let us know in the comments below!

Flickr Photo BirkgetKing

Online Communities: Are Best Practices Still Best Practices?

The discussion thread reminded me of an AdMarketing conversation we had a long time ago. The Netpreneur AdMarketing list, one of the longest running Internet marketing lists and still active, is an adventure of the Morino Institute. Over the last decade, the fundamentals of community and relationship building haven’t really changed. What was important then is even more important now!

I thought it might be fun (and useful) to take a look back at this AdMarketing conversation. At the time, we invited Internet thought-leaders to participate in an email list discussion, focusing on interactive tools. What transpired was a conversation among pioneers of early day Internet community building that produced way interesting insights. Below are several takeaways and pointers from that conversation. Looking back, its amazing how little has changed, how relevant these lessons are today and how important it is to do things the right way. Read the rest of the post here.