Walking Maverick

TriState '09: Internet Camp Director - Communication

The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 1 - Communication

Introduction

Survey Questions:

1. Do you have your own personal website or blog?
2. Day Camp / Residential  Camp
3. Private;  Agency/religious; Municipal camp?
4. Personal Twitter Account?
5. 12 + months on twitter?
6. Know what a #hashtag is?
7. Have twittered with this hashtag #tristate09;  
8. You have a camp Blog
9. If I say I practice GTD, do you recognize what I mean (answer: I read a great book on organization called Getting Things Done by David Allen and it has helped me organize my life.)
10. If I lift the lid off this jar of mosquitoes and say that it isn’t right that only Canadians are exposed to mosquitoes... who’d recognize that?  (Bill Gates spoke about malaria at this year’s TED Conference and released a jar full of mosquitoes into the room.)
11. (The Question I Forgot To Ask) Who here collects domain names like some people collect bingo dobbers?   What are some of your favourites that you are saving for a rainy day business idea?

The 4 S Test

At CAIRN we don't have a lot of toys so we have worked to distinguish ourselves.  One of the things that we have become known for is the 4 S's Test.

In order to do any activity, game, skit, song or project you must answer Yes to all four of these questions:
Is it SAFE?
Does it SERVE others (put others’ needs above your own)?
Does it build it SELF-ESTEEM?
Is it good STEWARDSHIP of the Environment?

Communication

• A browser: the program that your computer uses to help you interact with the internet. I always recommend Firefox.  http://www.getfirefox.com

- Firefox Add-ons (a.k.a. extensions):  extra features and that help make it the most used program on my computer
- Some add-ons I recommend for a camp director are Evernote - gathering research;
Gmail manager - easy access to my work and personal email accounts; and Forecastbar - always available weather
- Foxmarks: I didn't mention this one but it is Awesome. Foxmarks allows me to have the same bookmarks available on all of the computers that I use.
- If you would like to see what extensions I use in my Firefox you can check out the wiki I keep for my Firefox http://myfirefox.pbwiki.com/

• Watch Yourself: One of the best thing you can do for your online reputation is to watch what is being said about your camp online.
  

- Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts - choosing Comprehensive means that Google Alerts will search blogs and webpages.  Receive information by email or RSS on searches that you set up.  Some ideas:  yourcampname+camp, Travis+Allison [‘cept your name... ;-)], camp+yourstate, camp+yourtown]
- RSS The beauty of blogs is their RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed. It is an easy way to get your message into as many hands as possible
I recommend you Watch a video from Common Craft called RSS in Plain English.  The jist of RSS is that instead of going to many websites regularly you can go to one and find all of the changes in your favourite websites since you last looked.
I recommend using Google Reader to keep all of your RSS feeds in a format that is easy to maintain - make sure you subscribe to the feed of your friends camps, authors you learn from and your closest competition.  Mine are organized by importance & all of my alerts are under “Brand Monitor”
- Technorati http://technorati.com/  Set up a search for you camp in blogs across the net.
- Google Analytics - http://www.google.com/analytics A great system of reporting on the traffic on your website.  Google Analytics will also show you which of your pages are most viewed and what search terms people use to find your camp on the web.
**as a side note: I believe that it is imperative that you always have full admin access to your website once it’s complete. This allows you to do simple things like update the wording yearly

• Recommendations/Reviews Recommendations from other camp families help you clients feel comfortable in choosing you.

 Epinions.com (877 results for "summer camp" as of 12/1/09, 1903 as of 19/3/09)
 GigPark
 campratingz.com
 Facebook Pages - FB Pages are better than FB Groups because what you post to your camp’s Page will showing up in the feed of your members. Therefore the friends of your members will see what is going on at your camp.
You should be watching all of these sites things weekly.
**The biggest lesson I can give is to ask campers for recommendations - do it on your blog, email list and mailings to returning campers. Remember the only legitimate way to overcome a bad review is to drown it in good ones.

• Blogs & Other Communication Services Every good camp deserves a blog.  It allows people insight into what camp is like on a daily basis and shows your camp's personality.

Vox - free service, add supported
Wordpress - free, open source website & blogging software. Incredible amounts of free & paid templates
Typepad - paid blogging service (this blog is hosted on Typepad)
Squarespace.com - paid website and blogging, getting a ton of buzz lately.   I haven’t used it but it sounds like it is a very easy way to create a great looking website by yourself.

• Other Communication Tools
  

Skitch - The screen capture program that I’ve used to prepare this presentation.  Screen Capture allows you to show people what is on your screen.
Jing -  Record screen casts - videos of my screen for training, etc.  I used Jing to demonstrate to staff how to make their own changes and additions to our new WordPress camp website.
Ning.com - create your own social network - been covered

To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text    Follow zoic to 40404  or 21212 on Canadian phone

TriState '09: Internet Camp Director - Staff

The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 2 - Staff

The book Grown Up Digital (by Don Tapscott GrownUpDigital.com) has been a brilliant resource this year.  It made me think about ways we are working with our staff - the digital natives.  Tapscott calls them the NetGen.

• We have been using email to communicate w. staff BUT they don’t read it, and don’t respond.
• Cell Phones - Ask Them For Their Mobile # - one of our changes this year - Tell them will be contacting 1/6 doz times before camps. Our thinking: Go to them on the medium they are using
• Use Text Messages to get RSVP’s to pre camp events
• Another idea: Tatango.com Broadcast texts from the web - US only
• Social Media - Ask for their social media addresses (be sure to tell them that it's not required but they will likely give to you because NetGenners don't hide. Ask for Youtube, Vimeo, Twitter, Flickr, etc.
•  - Ask your staff for any Camp related Facebook Groups (you should already know the answer to this)

Privacy - Let’s teach these NetGenners something about privacy. I recommend you refer them to http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/
Resume - One of my biggest take-aways from Grown up Digital was Tapscott’s idea about a new format for a resume that better tells the story of a Net Genner’s work history.   We often talk about resume writing with staff as part of the life lessons we try to give them through the summer (ie. waltzing, how to shake a hand, etc.). Happily this also works well for former Camp Directors, too, because it is so hard for us to tell the story of all of our skills.  People don’t believe you when you say  “I can do anything or I can learn how to do it”.  Tapscott says to answer these 8 questions:

1. What I Know
2. Where I’ve Done It
3. How I Got This Knowledge
4. Who I Know and What they Know
5. What I Want To Learn
6. Who I Want to Meet
7. What I Want To Create
8. What Would Help Me Be Most Productive

To see an example of a resume in this style you can look at my CV on the web [click here for web version - http://travisallison.org/curriculum-vitae/] or as a downloadable Pdf [Download Travis Allison - CV ].
Google Apps - Using the free tools available through Google Apps you can make webpages to create tests for pre-camp training or surveys for your families. [click here for the instructions]
Moodle - Moodle.com is an online teaching resource with video, tests, etc.  It is hosted on your website.
Key To School - Keytoschool.com is a free version of Moodle.com that they will host for you so you don’t have to got through setting it up on your serve.

To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text    Follow zoic to 40404  or 21212 on Canadian phone

TriState '09: Internet Camp Director - Collaboration

The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 3 - Collaboration

There are a few good choices for working together on projects on line. 

• Wiki: a wiki is a hawaiian word for fast.  A Wiki is a fast & easy way to build a website together.  There are lots of wiki possibilities that we can use in the camp world:

reviewing policies with staff or board members
Parent manual - experienced parents can help new parents understand camp from their perspective
job descriptions - work on Job Descriptions with the staff who did the job last year.

        There is a great video that explains a wiki from Common Craft. [Click here to see it]
        The free wiki service that I use most often is PB Wiki

• Google Docs: At CAIRN the staff works from 4 offices regularly - 2 directors work from home and when Adam leaves camp for promotion, etc, then our administrator is at camp & Adam in Nobleton.
  Google Docs allow real time editing. People can be on a conference call and see the changes as someone else makes it.  It is in a nice, simple format. You could even get your staff to show you their preparation as they are doing it.
• Mind Meister - visual planning. We used it to plan a website but could be great for brainstorming other camp projects - great for winter when people are not in the same place
• Slide Share- share your PowerPoint/Keynote slides. The Ontario high school year often runs in to our Leadership Training week.  Slide Share allows us the potential to record the essential training presentations.  Since the changes in the insurance industry we designate which are the essential training sessions and require staff to make up those sessions if staff miss them for exams, or graduation
  The slides from my presentation are available at http://www.slideshare.net/zoic/internet-camp-director
• Highrise - great Customer Relationship Management tool to manage contacts like your donors - free plan: 2 users, no files, 250 contacts.
• Google Apps (email, shared Calendar, collaborating on documents, video hosting, simple website building)  You can get Google Apps installed for your domain and then it is s_i_m_p_l_e to add new email addresses, share planning calendars, etc.

To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text    Follow zoic to 40404  or 21212 on Canadian phone

TriState '09: Internet Camp Director - Marketing

The Internet Will Make You a Better Camp Director, Section 4 - Marketing

• Your domain is your website address (ie. ours is ilovecamp.org).  It makes sense to own all of the domains that may be associated with your camp business.

 CAIRN owns all of the following domains:

glenmhorcamp.com

campiona.com
presbyteriancamping.org
www.cairncamps.com
www.cairncamps.org
www.cairncamp.com
www.cairncamp.org
www.presbyteriancamps.com
www.presbyteriancamps.org
www.presbyteriancamping.com
www.presbyteriancamping.org

Consider:  .org, .ca (if you are Canadian), net, .biz,  and common misspellings of your camp’s name.  The Question to ask yourself is would it make you happy to see someone use your name on their website.  Could just be that they syphon your traffic get ad revenue, could be that they put up a site to highlight the things that they think you are doing wrong.

• Facebook Pages (Some samples: Cairn, Subtlevox Photography by Travis Allison).  Facebook has 175 million users, 50% of which are camper aged.  Pages are better than groups (See Communication Notes)
• Photos:
  -Flickr.com - good google juice.  See CAIRN on flickr.  The purpose of having photo/video on the net is to show that you are fun, up to date, modern. I love Steve Cony’s idea of a minimum of four 60 second videos : About Us, Activities, Facilities, and Staff
  -Camps could potentially make some money by putting pictures online and selling the prints.  There are companies that will host password protected galleries that will do online order fulfillment - you don’t have do to a thing and you might make some extra scratch.  You could use a company like Photrade.com
• Videos:  A site that I love for video is vimeo.com because the quality is much greater and you can make the videos available for download.  Membership is free unless you wish to post HD video.  Put up youtube videos but always link to “higher quality videos on vimeo.com/zoic”
• Business Cards: Moo.com - unique business cards, can be on recycled paper.  Printed with your photos or design on the back.  The cards feel totally different than other local copy-place cards
• Twitter.com - like Cheez Whiz - it adds personality.  Since we are in a people business Twitter helps people understand what sort of people you are.  Avoid mistakes - like the business consultant hired by Fed Ex that twittered as the plane landed that he thought that Memphis was a hole.
• Alltop (http://alltop.com/)  Here’s an idea that we could all work together on: Alltop is a “magazine” style aggregation website.   They highlight the “All Top Money” blogs or “All Top Mommy Blogs”, etc.  If there were camp blogs with enough consistent content they are willing to create an “All Top Camp Blogs”
• Mommy Blogs:  another great way to market your camp for free is to contact some of the best Mommy Bloggers and offer to write articles for them - How to Pick A Good Camp, How to Be the Best Camp Parent, etc.

My Best Advice For Camp Directors
Get a Mac - it makes it soooo easy to edit photos, put together good looking videos, easy posters and even your confirmation packages

To Follow Me on Twitter go to http://www.twitter.com/zoic or text    Follow zoic to 40404  or 21212 on Canadian phone