A few weeks ago, I attended the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference hosted by the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). You may have seen our event hashtag (#09ntc) trending on Twitter. Approximately 1,400 non-profit techies came together for three days in San Francisco, California.

A big focus of the conference was definitely social media. Nonprofits are exploring new ways of spreading their mission and deploying their message, which often involve YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. Nonprofits are not only using social media to reach their audiences, they are also using social media for fundraising and recruitment purposes. However, nonprofits are quickly learning that in order to maximize the benefits of social networking, the communication needs to go both ways; conversations are much more effective than one-way communication blasts.

Highlights of the conference included the plenary speakers who kicked off the conference each morning.

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, spoke about digital networking and grassroots activism. Some memorable snippets:

• “The loss of control you fear is already in the past.”
• “Once one person solves the problem once, the problem stays solved for everybody.”
• “Don’t hire consultants. Hire your own 23-year-olds.”
• “Nothing says dictatorship like arresting people for eating ice cream. The problem wasn’t the ice cream: it was the group.”

Eben Moglen, law professor at Columbia University, spoke about the ownership of software and knowledge:

• “Knowledge has to be shared to be valuable.”
• “In the digital world, we have escaped the constraints of scarcity but still bias against sharing.”

However, the best part of the conference was Holly Ross (Executive Director of NTEN) and her remake of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” music video. Holly’s video was a thank you to the NTEN community for donating scholarship money to help others attend 09NTC.

My favorite breakout session was entitled “Effective Online Communications.” This session, as well as many others, emphasized the need to plan and strategize before launching any new communications efforts (and to reevaluate old efforts once in a while to make sure they are still serving your original purpose!).

You can find my notes from 09NTC on my work blog. In addition, many of the breakout session materials are also available online.

Kristen Byers is the New Media Development Specialist for the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and she holds a B.A. in Professional Writing from Michigan State University. She recently attended the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference and we invited her to share what she took away about nonprofits, social media, and professional writing.