The follow is the planned agenda for Aspiration's Fall 2009 ZeroDivide eAdvocacy Trainings in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The agenda will be updated based on feedback and requests from registered participants.
Participants will be encouraged to bring laptops for the hands-on portions of the trainings, and Aspiration will make laptops available for participants who are unable to bring their own.
These trainings are designed for the person or persons in social justice organizations who have primary responsibility for their online campaigning strategy and communications. While there will be some technical content, the primary focus will be on strategic use of processes and best practices for online campaigning. The material is modeled to be most relevant to grassroots organizations working in underserved communities.
For questions about the agenda and topics to be covered, please email info@aspirationtech.org, or call (415) 839-6456.
Participants can elect to attend one or both days of training as their needs and interests dictate, but those attending on a given day will be expected to participate in full agenda for that day, as seats are limited and trainings have always completely filled up in the past.
Additional information about this training (including how to prepare for it, and suggestions about what to bring) will be forwarded to you once you register for Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Agenda
Day 1
9:30am - Welcome and Agenda Overview: Participants will introduce themselves and describe what they hope to get out of the training
9:45am - Effective Audience Assessment: Do you really know who you are talking to? Participants will see how to assess web and other online traffic to learn what content is providing the most value and generating the most traffic. The process of identifying and designing content for audiences will be explained, and optimizing search engine ranking will be discussed.
12 noon - Lunch
1:00pm - Establishing a Publishing Matrix: Do you have a model for when to use what tools in different situations? Participants will see examples of a “publishing matrix” which enumerates the online channels to which a campaign or organization is publishing, and defines appropriate actions in each channel for different content types, including newsletters, action alerts, event announcements, and press releases. The sample matrix will include columns for web, email, blog, Facebook, Twitter and mobile devices. A hands-on exercise will allow participants to create their own draft publishing matrix.
2:30pm - Break
2:45pm - Message Calendaring: Is all of your online campaign and organizational messaging scheduled and tracked on a unified calendar that is visible to all stakeholders? This session will explain the process of creating and maintaining a messaging calendar. In addition, design of “narrative arc” will be described and correlated to calendaring strategies. Participants will be invited to construct their own draft calendars for the campaign or other online communications for which they are currently responsible.
4:30pm - Adjourn
Day 2
9:30am - Welcome and Agenda Overview: Participants will introduce themselves and describe what they hope to get out of the training
9:45am - Social Media “Dashboarding”: Do you know where you are being mentioned online? As the number of valuable eAdvocacy channels grows, tools are needed for tracking how and where a campaign or organization is being mentioned on web sites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere. This session will explain how to create such a dashboard, enumerate what free and low-cost tools are available, and describe best practices for getting the most value out of such tactical resources.
11:15am - Blogging Essentials: Blog publishing continues to be a high-impact endeavor for many campaigning and advocacy organizations. This session will cover blog basics, explain how to set up and maintain an effective blog, and explore editorial and publicity strategies for blog content. Important concepts including RSS and comment strategies will be explained.
12:30pm - Lunch
1:00pm - Using Mobile Devices for eAdvocacy, Part I, will explain the range of eAdvocacy applications that are now possible with today's mobile technologies. A tool overview will be provided and core concepts and considerations will be explained. The focus of the materials is on strategy and appropriate tactics in the mobile context, and technology details will only be explored where relevant.
2:30pm - Break
2:45pm - Using Mobile Devices for eAdvocacy, Part II, Case studies will be presented that explain the strategic use of Twitter, text loops, and other mobile-oriented advocacy tools. Participants will be encouraged to bring questions and ideas about the relevance and efficacy of mobile tools and strategies for their campaigns and organizations, and to share how they're already using mobile resources in their work.
4:30pm - Adjourn