Ever since Facebook launched, schools and social media have enjoyed a strong connection. One of the first Web 2.0 site to really take off in Korea before Cyworld hit it big was a site called I Love School, which connected users looking for old school buddies.

Alumni have been a great source for fundraising for universities and it seems only natural that universities should do a better job of connecting with alumni and connection alumni to each other, increasing the value of the school and of the alumni body.

Mashable.com recently had an article 10 Ways Universities Are Engaging Alumni Using Social Media which outlines how universities can do a better job of connecting with its alumni. The list is not just for universities – these are good pointers for any organizating wanting to increase value and influence through members who are have passed through its organization.

Here is Mashable’s list of how universities are interfacing with alumni online:

• Helping alumni find jobs
• Collaboration and connecting with students
• Fundraising: From e-mails to tweets
• Training alumni to use social media
• Meeting alumni where they’re at
• Providing tools to spread information
• Alumni-generated content
• Promoting alumni networks
• Mobile reunions
• Connecting the dots: Google maps

I think openness is key here. Clay Shirky in his recent book, Here Comes Everybody show how the Catholic church in the face of its highly publicized priests’ child abuse scandals tried to impose limit the conversation the lay were having with each other. This may have been possible before the internet, but the effort in which you can disseminate information and organize groups is so low that it is simply impossible to contain conversation.

Like the church, universities have also classically enjoyed being the authority on knowledge and discourse, and being so, it would want to impose antiquated forms of limitation on what is talk within and about the institution. If you don’t embrace conversation and openness, members will find other ways of connecting with each other and you lose the opportunity to create value and take advantage of the group interaction.

Obama on his ground-breaking election bid website MyBO did exactly that, when the site did not shut down or delete the members’ open and vocal opposition to his stand on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

This is the way things are now. Organizations and institutions which do not embrace this new climate will be talked about, not talked with.

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McKinsey Quarterly has an excellent article on how the government needs to adapt to meet users’ needs online.

The article identifies areas which have stunted the growth of government online initiatives:

In our experience, three obstacles have, however, limited the impact of e-government efforts: ineffective governance, lack of Web-related capabilities, and reluctance to allow user participation in the creation of applications and content.

And solutions on how e-government initiatives should be carried out:

First, they must move to a governance model in which e-government initiatives are owned by “line of business” executives and supported by a dedicated, cross-functional team. Second, they must develop capabilities in critical areas such as marketing, usability, Web analytics, and customer insights. Finally, government agencies must shift mind-sets to proactively get citizens, businesses, and other agencies involved in contributing or creating applications and content.

In Korea, many of the government’s initiatives are focused on making the interface with the government more effective. Not in the grand schemes of building policy awareness or public participation in government, but in the mundane, such as getting records, filing taxes or getting a license renewed. They were pretty smart in tackling these mind-numbingly boring tasks. When front line tasks such as these are made easy, one’s perception of the effectiveness of government does indeed increase. At least I felt so at the time.

Balsamiq Studio's Mockup

Note: This post is a republish from an post on Strange Systems (my other blog), with some edits.
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I am so glad to see there are so many more applications dedicated to creating wireframes and prototypes. A far better scene from a couple of years ago when there was only Omnigraffle and Visio.

Here’s round up of information architecture (IA) and user interface (UI) tools for wireframing and prototyping, some with free licenses for non-profit use.

Free wireframing tools

1. Blasamiq Mockup – “Create software mockups in minutes”. $79. Free for non-profits. Cross platform: runs on Adobe Air.
Lovable, easy to use wireframing tool that creates hand-drawn looking wireframes. Interface elements are nicely grouped, and support for iPhone interface wireframing. The output doesn’t look professional, but who cares – it’s a prototype. Online versions in the works.

2. Pencil – “a Firefox add-on to do GUI prototyping and simple sketching”. Free. Cross platform: Mozilla Plug-in.
I loved the simplicity of Pencil, which looks as if it was a polished student project. Having said this, it has enough features to satisfy most wireframing experts who are used to Visio or Omnigraffle.

3. Prototype Composer – “Free prototyping tool from Serena Software”. Free. Windows-only.
Prototype composer is more of a fully featured tool to help you manage your team and software or web application development project. You can manage your project, assign roles and responsibilities to your team, define processes and create prototypes. Not really suited for low budget, rapid prototyping and testing.

4. WireframeSketcher – “Eclipse plug-in for creating wireframes and screen mockups”. $75. Free for non-profits. Cross platform: Eclipse required.
I haven’t tested this one out. It looks pretty slick, but just couldn’t get over the barrier of having to install Eclipse to run it. I myself would go through the trouble, but I doubt most users would bother (it requires you to download and install EMF core and GEF plug-ins before installing the application. Scary.)

5. iPlotz – “Wireframing, mockups and prototyping for websites and applications”. Free for limited use. $15/mo or $99/yr for full use.
Another excellent wireframing tool and one of my favorites in the list. The advantage of an application being online is that it allows sharing and collaborations, so you member of team can comment and even edit the wireframes directly. It has a very good set of features which include master templates, good library, full-screen preview, project management window, and simple task tracking. It also includes web and iphone libraries and 3 themes (Mac, Windows and hand drawn). Also worth mentioning is that it is available as a desktop application (Adobe Air required), which is very nice for those people who travel a lot and don’t have a reliable internet connection.

Not-so-free wireframing tools

6. Axure – “Wireframes, Prototypes, Specifications”. $589 for single license. Windows only.
I think Axure is the most heavily promoted in the list. It is by far looks the most professional and UX practitioner-focussed. What’s nice is that in addition to helping you creating wireframes, it can generate interactive HTML prototypes for testing and specifications from your notes and annotations. However the price does seem a little steep compare to its competition.

7. & 8. Then there is the obligatory shout-out to Omnigraffle ($100 for Standard, $200 for Professional version) my personal tool of choice for which I personally developed a simple wireframe stencil. And then there is Microsoft Visio ($200 for Standard, $360 for Professional version) which also has good wireframe stencils.

Other prototyping tools

9. Protonotes – “HTML prototyping collaboration tool”. Free. Online.
With a small snippet of javascript, you can allow your team to add notes to an HTML prototype you have already created. You can change status of the notes after reviewing them and also download the notes to Excel. Good tool for collaboratively testing and reviewing a site with your team or the client during the QC phase. You can also hook it up to a MySQL database.

10. Adobe Flash Catalyst – “A new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding”. Free beta. Cross platform desktop app.
Not quite a wireframing tool, but a interface prototyping tool for creating Flash based rich internet applications. The autoplaying intro movie is unbelievably annoying. Once you get over that, you realize this is indeed a very powerful tool, fully integrated with Photoshop and Illustrator to prototype interactions and interfaces without writing a line of code. And at the end of the day, it generates SWF files which you can have your coder polish up and optimize.

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I am sure there are a host of other great applications for wireframing. I’ve even seen some information architects use InDesign and even Excel for wireframing. Please let me know if there are others so I can update this list.

Here’s roundup of all the articles I’ve come across recently on how mobile is being used for non-profit purposes in developing countries:

FrontlineSMS is a service that allows text messaging with large group, especially useful for NGO’s and non-profits working in the field. From their website:

A lack of communication can be a major barrier for grassroots non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in developing countries. FrontlineSMS is the first text messaging system created exclusively with this problem in mind.

By leveraging basic tools already available to most NGOs — computers and mobile phones — FrontlineSMS enables instantaneous two-way communication on a large scale. It’s easy to implement, simple to operate, and best of all, the software is free.

FrontlineSMS:Medic uses the FrontlineSMS platform targeting healthcare networks in the developing world. FrontlineSMS:Medic is mentioned in Can Your Cell Phone Change Lives? a recent post on The Pop!Tech blog and also Healthcare via SMS in the developing world on Springwise.com.

Hopephones.org takes the phones that you are throwing away and receiving the hardware credit from recycling them. This allows them to purchase usable, appropriate cell phones for healthcare workers worldwide. They also partner with FrontlineSMS:Medic.

As additional reading, Wikipedia has an entry on mhealth or mobile health, which it defines as, a recent term for medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices

Springwise.com has an articles on Microfinancing and mentoring via mobile phones which mentions MobileMovement:

Mobile Movement provides mobile phones and training to foster both micro-funding and professional advice via SMS, MMS and email. Through a collaboration with UN-HABITAT, Microsoft Research India and the Vancouver-based Environmental Youth Alliance—with funding from the MacArthur Foundation—Mobile Movement’s first prototype project is currently under way in Kenya, where it is working with 15 youth groups from the slums and low-income neighbourhoods of Nairobi that are part of UN-HABITAT’s Urban Entrepreneurship Program.

Also on Springwise, Quick tasks via SMS for phone uses in the developing world.

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Update: Jakob Nielsen the guru to all things usability has a report on mobile usability. His conclusion:

Mobile usability is hard.

Major problems for users accessing the internet have been: small screens, awkward input, download delays and mis-guided sites.

That’s why simple SMS is still a very viable option for those in developing countries as a robust means of communication.

Update: Ashoka Tech has a blog post Mobile Technology is growing fast. Really really fast.

Clay Shirky gave an amazing presentation at TED@State last month about how users are becoming empowered by the ability not only to talk back but to self organize to communication with each other.

Almost as a follow-up to Clay’s presentation, McKinsey Quarterly has an article on how companies should deal with this changed environment, which may be a little scary for companies that are more used to traditional one-way communications: Managing beyond Web 2.0

Executives can use a model we at the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing have developed called LEAD (listen, experiment, apply, develop) to create a road map that will help companies thrive in the online world’s environment of constant change.

Listen is usually the hardest thing to do.

Google's All for Good

Last month Google launched All for Good, a website that aggregates volunteer opportunities from around the US from a number of charities and other websites. Apparently it is the same search engine that powers parts of Serve.gov, President Obama’s call or American to serve in their communities and help with the recovery. More detailed report in Mashable.

trendwatching.com has a briefing on what they call Generation G, where the G stands for “Generosity”, not “Greed”.

This is more of a report for businesses and how to capitalize on the latest consumer trends, but it does identify some interesting aspects of how the attitudes of consumer have changed recently.

GENERATION G | “Captures the growing importance of ‘generosity’ as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

In fact, for many, sharing a passion and receiving recognition have replaced ‘taking’ as the new status symbol. Businesses should follow this societal/behavioral shift, however much it may oppose their decades-old devotion to me, myself and I.”

This is a video produced by Apple in 1988. It’s amazing how visionary it is.

Given the technology landscape in 1988 this takes some incredible imagination and as a user experience practitioner, what I find most surprising is how much the users are at the center and not the technology.

Here’s snapshot of 1988:

• Hit movies were Die Hard and Rain Man
• Seoul hosted the Olympic Games
• Chart toppers were Guns N Roses “Sweet Child ‘O Mine”, George Michael “Faith”
• People were using MS-DOS v4 and Windows was in version 2.x
• Apple IIc+ and Macintosh IIx released
• 5.25 inch “floppies” were still widely used
• The internet was still ARPANET

At a time when computer ownership was not widespread and users were still struggling with MS-DOS command lines to interact with computers, the technology in the video takes a background role in support of the goal of each of the characters. These goals are:

• Author/mother: write a research and write a paper, organize her
• materials and communicate with her kids
• Students: study chemistry and conduct experiments
• Teacher: monitor and guide students
• Architect: create and present designs to client
• Girl with disabilities: make a cake for mom

The video shows the following (yet to be developed) technologies to achieve these goals. It is shocking to see how many of those technologies are now available today. And yet the interactions are still not as natural as in the video:

• Voice commands
• Natural speech recognition
• Gesture recognition
• Video conferencing
• Flat panel display
• Smart agents
• Shared desktop
• Distance/remote learning
• Real-time animation/simulation
• 3D modeling

Today, the video seem comical, but remember it was 1988. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for the authors to see a future like this one. Can we imagine what it will be like in 2020 let alone 2030?

Compare Apple’s video with a more recent video produced by Intel in 2007. Here it is obvious that the technology plays center stage and the humans are just extras.

The optimism in Apple’s video is commendable. The optimism that we will get technology right – in service of our needs and goals, not the other way round.

Something so simple is so easy to forget.

Causes, the facebook app that allows it users to share “causes” with their social network and give and receive charity gift, has raised $10 Million in its 2 years of existence.

Today [July 10], Causes broke $10,000,000 raised through the application in just over two years. Half of this, $5,000,000, was donated in just the past 6 months. It is through the hard work of activists and nonprofits on Causes that we have been able to reach this milestone. We are constantly awestruck by the drive, commitment and passion poured into a cause, petition or birthday wish.

[via TechCrunch]

Design for the other 90%, exhibition curated by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum

At the risk of being called “late to the party”, I post a link to Design For The Other 90%, an exhibition curated by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in May 2007:

Design for the Other 90% explores a growing movement among designers to design low-cost solutions for this “other 90%.” Through partnerships both local and global, individuals and organizations are finding unique ways to address the basic challenges of survival and progress faced by the world’s poor and marginalized.

Topics include:

• Shelter
• Health
• Water
• Education
• Energy
• Transport

My personal favorite is the Q Drum, which looks a lot like a half-brother of the Hipporoller which I recently learned has the potential to save lives against landmines, since it can be rolled in front of its user. A case of “Saving two lives with one water container”.

The exhibits have now ended, next scheduled for the National Geographic Society Museum, Washington, D.C. for April 28–September 6, 2010.

The blog is still periodically updated with the latest article on Social Changemakers.