How to leverage social media platforms to collect and create compelling content for non-profit and other community-based organizations ... success stories; project narratives; program evaluation; community building. Next wave of online collaboration (cloud-sourced and -edited content).

1. The Story Capture Concept Leveraging Social Media Platforms to Collect and Create Compelling Content Converting Conversation to Content Success Stories Project Narratives Program Evaluation Community Building October 2009

2. CONNECTING COMMUNITIES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA Social media platforms are allowing existing communities to better connect, as well as creating entirely new communities. People are moving away from static web sites and content libraries and towards the SM-based feed, stream, and channel.

3. BUT … SOCIAL MEDIA HAS ITS LIMITATIONS Messages are occasional, personal and ad hoc, and structured in reverse chronological order. They are “micro-content” (small snippets e.g. 140 characters for Twitter, or a couple of minutes of video) They are part of a stream, and tend to trickle away into the distance, hard to find for consistent reference. They are formatted as dialogue and conversation rather than as clearly structured narrative content. It is difficult to insert an editorial voice, or authoritative review. They are disconnected from project reporting and program evaluation requirements. Although foundations and social service organizations are beginning to use social media platforms as a new set of channels to reach their constituencies …

4. STORYCAPTURE BRIDGES THE GAP StoryCapture is a method of collecting and editing streams of text- and image-based interactions that is … Compatible with existing social media applications Makes it easy to … Assemble narrative assets Create persistent long-form content Feed that content back into the social media stream, as well as sort and archive it for multiple uses. The goal is to convert conversation to content and back again.

5. storycapture.org On storycapture.org we’re building tools to turn blog posts into stories Another author or editor can collect the posts and automatically create a “story line” formatted as a web page in chronological order. An individual author posts in “blog order” (reverse chronological order)

6. EDITORIAL HUB The tools work in the background so organizations can collect / sort / syndicate on their own sites … Pull in content from email, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogspot, etc. Change the order of the story elements Create a single page of HTML Syndicate (publish) the story on other web sites Add to , comment on or edit an existing narrative Sort content by tag, author, etc. and create new story lines

7. ARCHITECTURE Direct Entry Storyline Publishing Features (apply custom CSS formatting; compile as single post / HTML file; output to RSS) Blog Interface (each input becomes a separate blog post / content object) Tagging Interface (used to find, select and assign posts to “storylines”) Storyline Editing Interface (re-order sequence of posts, add, edit, remove posts, add commentary) RSS Inputs RSS Output Email Inputs Content Management System (CMS)

8. LOGICAL & CHRONOLOGICAL RE-ORDERING Blog order (reverse chronological) Logical order (for program evaluation) project vision The tools and features make easier and more convenient to mine social media conversations for persistent content and shape it into logical or chronological (narrative) order for specific audiences. evaluation Chronological order (for community audiences) commentary final week week 1 report community event week 2 report commentary final survey project vision commentary client interview 1 staff event commentary client interview 1 client interview 2 client interview 2 commentary commentary week 2 report community event survey client interview 1 client interview 2 commentary week 1 report evaluation commentary project vision final week commentary

9. PURPOSEFUL COMMUNITIES Actively solicit input OUTPUT INPUT Ideally we use storycapture to facilitate a “collective storytelling” process to support communities with a shared agenda Make available through structured interface (e.g. digital library) or internet or intranet site Aggregate (from a variety of input streams) Collect community- generated micro-content via social media channels & interfaces Stream through social media interfaces & channels Tag (shared, bulk and auto tagging) email Upload staff -produced content in micro-segments through social media interface Collect comments and feedback and continue cycle mobile messaging blogging Edit (shared editing and re-purposing) micro-blogging mobile messaging micro-blogging email blogging Package (.pdf, .ppt, .html, etc.)

10. Contact StoryCapture is a concept of the Learning Worlds Institute. Please contact … John ReavesLearning Worlds Institute15 West 26th StreetNew York, NY 10010Direct: (646) 442-4440Main: (212) 725-0436www.learningworldsinstitute.org This document licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0