Videos of the Year

Welcome to my third annual Videos of the Year post!  This year I want to concentrate on the videos that are clearly self-made, not videos that are the equivalent of the old, professional public service announcements. Not that there is anything wrong with professional videos, it’s just a different animal from self-made content that individuals (which free agents or part of organizations) create to share a story or advocate for a cause.

Please share any videos you thought were terrific this year.

Here are my top videos of the year, in no particular order:

I had the chance to talk to Dan Savage about this video for a Social Good podcast. Two things really stuck with me during our conversation. The first was the spontaneous nature of the making of this video. Dan and Terry just decided one night to make this video, without a script, with a friend holding the video camera. The second was the fact that not only did this video go viral, but the entire It Gets Better YouTube channel went viral, with thousands of people uploading their own videos and stories. I can’t think of another channel going viral like this, it’s a really remarkable event; a combination of lucky timing and real, heartfelt stories.

One of those personal, homemade stories posted on the It Gets Better YouTube channel was this one by Buddie. If you’re not moved by this, well, I’m not sure what would move you.

This video was a contestant in the Acumen Fund’s Sanitation is Sexy contest. As the daughter of a civil sanitary engineer, I find this topic and video particularly effective.

Mark Horvath, also known as Hardly Normal on Twitter, is a remarkable free agent (now an award-winning free agent according to Mashable) and advocate for homeless people. His efforts teaching homeless people how to use social media, particularly through the vehicle of Invisible People TV, to tell their own stories and advocate for their needs are both inspiring and effective.

But, if I were to select the best public service announcement videos of the year, there are plenty of great ones to choose from. OK, twist my arm, here are my top three:

and, finally, my favorite video of the year (who doesn’t love school kids advocating for a new roof?) which is one of the winner of the Bing Competition:

What’s Sticky About The Networked Nonprofit

Launch day for The Networked Nonprofit was a blast yesterday. Our virtual launch was great fun and helped shoot us to the top of Amazon lists — and resulted in Beth gracefully diving into her pool!

In the evening we had the honor of attending a reception at the Packard family home, Taaffe House, by Carol Larson, the president of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

A book launch means that the ideas that have been in my head and Beth’s head (what we affectionately call her 10 1/2 floor!) for a year are finally out in the hands of other people. Naturally, our friends are the first to comment, blog and tweet about it, and yet it is still fascinating to see what from the book is sticking in their heads, what has captured their imaginations.

From our first talk at NTEN in Atlanta, the stickiest idea and image is that of non-Networked organizations acting like Fortresses.  Marcia Stepenak has a great post here calling us, and others like us, Fortress Fighters. And a slogan is born!

The imagery of free agents, like Marc Horvath (Hardly Normal), crashing into the closed gates of fortress organizations resonates with people who are on the outside trying to get in and on the inside trying to get out.

Our friend Lucy Bernholz notes that the notion of organizations working as networks. She liked it so much, in fact, that she made it one of her Buzzwords for 2010!

Finally, folks are noting that the book feels very real and practical and useful because of the real-life stories of organizations that are in the process of becoming Networked Nonprofits. Tom Watson writes, “What makes the book sing are stories and the voices: many terrific examples of how nonprofit organizations – big and small – have used these tools, and the ideas of the people who make it all go.”

Momentum speculated about what was coming, how social media was going to change nonprofit organizations. The Networked Nonprofit is about how organizations as traditional as The American Red Cross are turning themselves inside out. The world powered by social media has changed organizations forever, and locking oneself up in a fortress leads to isolation and irrelevance, the death knell for nonprofits.

We have a fun party planned in San Francisco today hosted by TechSoup, and then onto DC.  We’re looking forward to hearing what others think about the book and what ideas and concepts they find sticky — and what they think we’ve missed.