"You have to be experimental." Deb Levine, Founder, I.S.I.S., Inc.

Over fifty people showed up for Net Tuesday San Francisco on July 8th.  Our topic was, Mobilizing Generation 2.0: How Nonprofits Can Use Technology to Engage Youth, and the speakers were Ben Rigby, the Founder and Co-Executive Director of Mobile Voter, and the author of Mobilizing Generation 2.0, and Deb Levine, Founder of I.S.I.S., Inc. (Internet Sexuality Information Services).  Audio recordings of both presentations will be available in a few weeks on the NetSquared Podcast.  Our next Net Tuesday San Francisco will be on August 12th with Tara Kirchner of Flickr for Good. Below are my notes from the event.

Ben started the evening off by saying, "We're not going back to 8-Track."  Technology is going to continue going forward, so organizations need to adapt.

He gave some examples of how youth have used technology:

• Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook when he was 19.
• Three twentysomethings built the Invisible Children campaign with a video and the Internet.
• Young people organized protests on May Day in 2006 with MySpace and cell phones.

He gave three ways that organizations are incorrectly using Web 2.0 technology:

• The John Edwards Way: Do everything
• The 8-Track Way: Do nothing
• The 1.0 Way:  Scan your brochure/have a blog without comments, etc.

Then he gave some examples of how nonprofits are using Web 2.0 tools:

• Blog: Community United Against Violence blogged during the murder trial of a transgendered person to balance the mainstream media's inaccurate coverage.
• Social Networks: Jacob Colker did "door-to-door" recruiting for the Comptroller of Maryland campaign using social networks.
• Photo: Nature Conservancy's Flickr photo contest encouraged people to take photos of the land that the Conservancy is trying to protect.
• Video: George Miller, a California Congressman, used video to listen to, and answer constituents' questions.
• Mobile Phones: (See notes from Deb Levine's presentation below for examples).
• Wikis: Can enhance the capacity of a group to create a website quickly.
• Maps: iLoveMountains.org's use of Google Earth maps.
• Virtual Worlds: He feels most events in virtual worlds are similar to the ones in the real world, like the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life in Second Life. 

Some of his prime learnings from writing Mobilizing Generation 2.0 were 1. the most effective uses of Web 2.0 technology mobilized people online to act offline, and 2. what matters is not the technology.  The most successful campaigns have a powerful story.

Finally, Ben talked a little bit about Mobile Voter's newest project, Volunteer Now!, which facilitates people's volunteering "on the spot" via their cell phone. Volunteer Now! was a Featured Project at the NetSquared Conference (N2Y3).

Deb Levine began her presentation (which is attached to this post) by outlining the Steps to Success:

• Follow technology trends.
• Identify social needs and history.
• Engage community: youth, parents and professionals.
• Innovate, market and evaluate.
• Usability testing, make it better.

First Deb talked about I.S.I.S' In Brief: What if Ur Undies Had the Last Word? contest.  They asked youth, "What would your undies say if they had the last word?" in safe sex and STI prevention. Youth submitted their designs and slogans to put on underwear. They received 500+ entries in one month.

Contestants were asked to get out the vote to their networks.  The contest got youth talking about communicating about sex before your underwear comes off.  I.S.I.S. took all of the entries and made a poster of them that anyone can download. You can view all of the designs, including the winners, here. 

This year was the first sex::tech conference: focus on youth. Over 400 youth, parents, media, health professionals, and sex educators came together to talk about how to use technology for sex education. 

They had a Fresh Focus video contest in collaboration with DoGooder TV.  They asked youth to make videos about what their sex education experience was like, or how they would redesign their sex ed experience. 

They had a whole marketing plan to promote the contest, which they executed, but nothing happened.  In the last month of the contest, they allotted from 2-3 PM each day for all 6 staff members to get out the word about the contest.  They asked bloggers to post on their blogs, and they commented on blogs, linked back to bloggers who posted, and followed up on requests to post.  By the end, they had received 70 entries.

I.S.I.S. chose the ten finalists, and then told them to get out the vote for their video.  The 3 winners got a cash prize, and a flight to the sex::tech conference. The winners opened up the conference by showing and talking about their videos. There were no adult speakers, just the youth, which gave a signal to the youth in attendance that the adults were going to actually listen to them.  Two out of the three winners came with their parents.

Finally, Deb talked about I.S.I.S' SexInfoSF.org, a text messaging service for young people.  The idea for the service came from Deb standing outside of Mission High School in San Francisco observing high school students.  She noticed that all of them were using their cell phones.  It took about a year for the idea to be realized.

Youth can text "sexinfo" to 61827. They'll receive a pre-set menu of 4 questions:
Txt 1 if ur condom broke
Txt 3 if s/he's cheating on u
Txt 5 for STD info
Txt 6 if ur not sure uwant2have sex

Some of the answers refer youth to local clinics, which they had young people check out and approve beforehand. Every six months, I.S.I.S. goes back out and talks to the kind of youth they are trying to serve, and asks them, "How do you use your phone?"  She has noticed that there is an increase in web surfing.

Her final words of advice for people creating technology based campaigns is to ask:
1. What is your project?
2. Is technology the way to get where you want to go?
3. What is already being done with technology?
4. How can technology take you to the next place?

When asked how she got the word out about SexInfoSF.org, one of the services she recommended was using Myspace Friend Blaster.

Some texting resources she mentioned were: FrontlineSMS, Mobile Commons, Text Hub, and HipCricket

Ben Rigby also recommended a piece about Desktop SMS Campaign Tools on MobileActive.