I know that many of us are struggling with doing things online that are educational AND interesting. I love so called "serious games" for that purpose, but of course they take a long time to produce and are anything but cheap. Which is why I'd like to share an example with you.

A camera team that was working with the Red Cross while I was in Haiti just created a serious game that allows players to take on the role of a journalist, aidworker or survivor and I think it's really impressive. 

I find it’s pretty rare that you come across good, fresh case studies of how non-profit organizations are using social media. And I’m not talking about “we use Facebook, too.” I mean something that shows how an NGO actually managed to get a concrete, measurable result with the help of social media.

Tactical Tech managed to do a whole whole movie worth of case studies:
http://sm4good.com/2010/04/19/social-media-case-studies-nonprofit-organi...

A friend of mine sent me the deeply satirical text you find below. It's very, very close to the bone and I'm sure that, if you are a field worker, you will recognize many things.

http://sm4good.com/2010/04/06/aid-worker-life-options/

What would you do if you could build a non-profit website from scratch without worrying about any integration issues?

It’s exactly what I’m doing at the moment. In this post I’m sharing my ideas and I’d love to hear your’s.

http://sm4good.com/2010/03/01/nonprofit-website-scratch/

Based on experiences in Samoa and Haiti, I’m trying to come up with best practice for how to organize tweeting staff in a disaster context so that there is a maximum benefit for the organization.

I have identified four different approaches:

- The organizational approach
- The personal approach
- The CNN approach
- The List approach

read more about the advantages and disadvantages that I see in each approach on Social Media 4 Good:
http://sm4good.com/2010/02/15/twitter-disasters-organize-staff/

I hadn’t been following the news recently, so I was genuinely surprised when I saw “Google Buzz” in my Gmail dashboard today. My first impression is: this could work for me. But not as a replacement of Twitter. I rather see it as something to replace FriendFeed.

I have to admit – I never really got the hang of FriendFeed. While I want a service or an application that helps me to aggregate different forms of information streams, I don’t want to have to visit an additional site. But Buzz is integrated into Gmail which I visit a dozen times a day anyhow. And since most people I know check their Gmail or the iGoogle Dashboard regularly, this means you have real chance to create a lively discussion through Buzz.

To say that the last week was “intense” would be an understatement. From the minute the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement pulled out all stops to help the people on the ground.

Communications is only a small part of that response and social media an even smaller part. Nevertheless – here are my observations:

http://sm4good.com/2010/01/24/haiti-earthquake-social-media-response/

The Red Cross Red Crescent created a Flickr slideshow with photos from Haiti after the earthquake. This will be updated continuously.

If you want to add it to your own blog, you can use the code I posted here:

http://sm4good.com/2010/01/14/slideshow-blog-red-cross-red-crescent-phot...

I have been using Flickr for about two years to increase visibility of the work of Red Cross Red Crescent. Today, I’d like to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.

Why Flickr?

I believe that most non-profits spend too much time preaching to the choir. Flickr is a great website to show what your organization is doing and why it is doing it to people whom you haven’t been able to reach.

http://sm4good.com/2010/01/11/flickr-nonprofits-lessons-learned/