We are all guilty of it, we treat email as a casual, flicked-off communication that our colleagues and friends will understand. The body content is bad enough but the subject line can be completely irrelevant.

How many times have you received an email that is the reply to a reply to a reply of an email on a completely different subject? Among close-knit groups it doesn't matter, but when you are trying to connect with a community of interest, clients or subscribers, its a completely different matter.

The folks at Network for Good are focused on that subject line again

How many times have you decided to read an email (or not) based on the subject line alone? The subject line is your first chance to make an impression. Pack your subject lines with details about what's inside, emphasizing why the reader should take a few extra seconds to see what's in the body of the message.

• Change It Every Time.
  Your subject line should change with every edition. Don't waste space with dates, edition numbers, sender information, etc.
• Lean toward personal value.
  For example, "Where Your Best Friends Will Be Dancing All Night Long" will work better than "Register for Our All-Night Dance-a-thon Fundraiser." (I must be getting old, but that just sounds cheesy to me, we can all do better than that)
• Describe the Candy, Not the Wrapper.
  Tell us what goodies are inside the email, not about the packaging. Forgo wrappers like "Parenting Workshops" when your readers are craving candy like "Dinnertime and Bedtime Routines that Preserve Your Sanity."
• Keep It Short.
  Somewhere around 35 characters seems to be the ideal now. You can play with subject line length and see what works for you, but do try to keep it between 20 and 60 characters tops.

I'd like to add another two,

1. Don't announce that this is "The organisation x monthly email newsletter", your "From line should tell them who sent it and, frankly, we don't care that its your newlstter, wnat we care about is whether it has anything sueful in it.
2. If there are multiple items in the newsletter, liost the headlines for each of them in that part of the email that will be visible in the "Preview" pane, then use the headline to link to the actual content further down the page. If you don't know how to do that, you probably shouldn't send any more email newsletters till you learn how.

Before an email can be read, it has to be opened. Make your subject line so irresistible, your supporters won't be able to help themselves.

Do you send email newsletters? What's your method for getting your recipients to open them?

If you receive email newsletters, who produces the one that you are most likely to open? Give them, a plug in the comments.

BIG question. Do we have to send regular informational emails anyway? Woudl you rather get an email once a month even if it doesn't have anything really interesting in it? Or would you rather hear fromn the same organisation only when there is really something solid to talk about?

Hidden agenda questions.

• Are we, as organisations, afraid that our supporters will forget that we exist?
• Do we really only use the emails as a way to regularly tap the recipients for donations?
• How well does that work?

Comments open for any and all of that, and ay other take on the topic you have.

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This is a very heartening opening gambit from Finance Minister Bill English backing freer access to state data.

The Government could release screeds more of the data it holds in order to encourage private-sector problem solving, says Finance Minister Bill English.

A ministerial committee is exploring the concept, which he termed "inside-out government".

"If information is power then you can distribute power by distributing information," he told an audience of about 300 public servants at the Beehive.

"Inside-out government" required the Government to be open to good ideas.

"We want to see ideas generated in the private sector and ngo [non-government organisations] sector genuinely considered and appraised - not simply ruled out on the basis that these sectors might not understand all aspects of government."

Could it be that we are moving towards genuine Open Government? That might pose some interesting rethinks from traditional political assumptions.

While we're at it, lets go the whole hog, the idea of "commercial in confidence" is a boondoggle; we should all be able to see who is getting paid how much of our money for delivering what services. Once we get real publicly-paid-for data in the open we will all be able to know how well, and to what effect, our government is being run.

Do I want to know exactly whose phone is being tapped, and why? Of course not, but I do expect to know how many phones are being tapped, and by which department. Over time that will let me look at the rate and scale of phone-tapping and enable me to chart whether it is increasing or decreasing in any marked way.

Mashup some other public data such as the number of police employed with that data to give us an idea of whether increasing police numbers results in higher or lower numbers of phone taps; link that to the number of prosecutions that rely on phone taps and their conviction rate and we can start to see some interesting patterns. Then we can decide whether we like them or not.

Similarly, we should be able to see, at the very least post facto, the bids and evaluations and reasoning for accepting and rejecting bids for Government Contracts. As the people who pay the pipers, we should be at least able to read the music and now that this technology offers the possibility to do that.

Its refreshing when we are not treated as untrustworthy by those who ask us to trust them. Instead of filling us with marketing obfuscation, more organisations should be doing stuff like this (Hat tip to Ben Kepes who runs and excellent blog on SaaS issues).

What about your organisation? Could you withstand this kind of scrutiny? How would you respond to it becoming the norm?

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While many companies go to the internet "for eyeballs" paying attention to their work or products, they can quickly discover that they have entered a village where your every move is watched through the lace curtains and quickly reported through the gossip channels; everything you do and say is not only available to anyone who wants to know, they frequently know more about you than you do. Perfect case in point was the Disappearance of Books and Movies Shoves Amazon Into Tight Corner. [Read more →]

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OK, this is a bit of a long bow but its interesting to see that some work done by 415Forum a few years ago still holds good. Why Buy Local & Ten Reasons to Shop Local First [Read more →]

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Rebecca at Beaconfire Wire has a good rundown on approaches you can take and even better, has a host of links to examples at How Nonprofits Are Using Video Online: 20 Examples

Online video has become an increasingly popular tool used by non-profits to raise awareness. If you’re using video online and need some inspiration, or just want to see what others are doing, take a look at these non-profits who are educating and getting people involved through the use of video.

Interactive Campaigns

These campaigns encourage visitors to get involved by recording and contributing their own videos or photos:

• 24 Hours for Darfur
• Witness.org – The Hub is an interactive community for human rights
• The Prince’s Rainforests Project
• DoSomething.org holds an annual video contest with $100,000 to the winner’s cause.

Stand-alone, viral campaigns

Rather than belonging to a collection or gallery, these videos stand on their own. They’re often longer in length and housed on a page that provides opportunities for visitors to share and learn more. These types of videos make the biggest impact when they go “viral,” spreading from person to person through word of mouth and social networks.

• Charity:Water raised over $10,000 in one day, using YouTube’s new overlay ad feature.

Video Galleries

Unlike the stand-alone videos above, these pages allow visitors to browse a collection of videos that give an in-depth feel for a cause or provide education on topics anf ror more examples check out DoGooder.tv’s Non Profit Video Awards and YouTube’s Non-Profit channel.

The biggest challenge for an organisation wanting to use video is no longer the technology which is relatively cheap and increasingly easy to use. The biggest issue now is using the video medium to tell your story effectively and THAT is a whol new ballgame.

Have you tried to use video to promote your cause or reinforce your message? How did it go? What were the difficulties and how did you solve them?

Comments welcome as usual.

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