Do you have a story to tell? The Center for Digital Storytelling wants to help you share it as a video-narrative combining still and moving images, first-person narration, sounds and music.

This recap was originally posted on the TechSoup Canada blog.

By: Claire Buré, TechSoup Canada Volunteer 

If we compare the two phrases, “Hear John's story on our website” or “go to the website and check out our stats”, which of the two is more likely to encourage you to go to the organization's website? The first one, right? The most compelling stories are those that appeal to emotion: those that are told from the heart, rather than a fact sheet.

Over the last two weeks, we have posted parts 1 and 2 in a 3-part series, sharing some of our observations and planning concepts, and hoping to gather feedback and ideas from you. The first part in the series focused on Local and Gloal and the second highlighted opportunities to Expand our Impact.

If your organization is considering producing video as part of a social media intitiative, check out this video.  The information applies whether producing in-house, or hiring an professional company.  Let me know if you find it helpful and if you have any questions or suggestions for future content on the topic.

Submit your digital story during TechSoup Global's Digital Storytelling Challenge open now through October 16th. Tell us your organization's story in a 5-panel image story on Flickr or a 60 second YouTube video or GoldMail audio-visual message. You'll be in the running to win one of our many fabulous prizes including a FlipVideo camera, Adobe software, mp3 players and more!

Learn more and submit your story!

I'm doing an "educational" activity here this Friday morning with some co-workers. I'm tired of powerpoints and yapping at people. As dazzling and engaging as that may be for my audience, lately I've been trying to diversify, to deepen my bag of tricks and find better, more interactive and engaging ways to talk about technology. So, I've contemplated theater - which has some promise but I haven't pulled that off yet - and games.

If you're a journalist, a writer, or someone with an interest or talent for storytelling, you're in luck as today we present you with a new and exciting volunteering opportunity.

There is always something cooking in NABUUR Villages. When you're participating in the Villages as a Neighbour and are right smack in the middle of the action, your volunteer time is better filled with researching solutions for the project, making contact with organisations, working on the assigned tasks, etc. All these efforts may not leave much time for other things, but there are Neighbours who may wish to take on a reporting role and write stories about the developments taking place in the Villages.

In this video taken in Tanzania , 9-year-old Glory leads her class in a song about the HIV crisis in her country. We believe this little girl’s song – and other videos and images like this one - have the power to inspire real change. (If you’d like to learn more about Glory, check out her expanded story here.)

Hello Net2 blog readers!

I'm back from my 2-week trip to Peru which was awesome.

Before I left, I did an interview for my Big Vision Podcast with Jonah Sachs, the Principal of Free Range Studios, an advertising and marketing firm with offices in Washington DC and Berkeley, California that specializes in non-profits and socially responsible businesses. They created the award-winning film, The Meatrix, about factory farming, and the hilarious film, Store Wars, about the importance of organic farming.