Code/Interactive and New York’s tech community are joining forces with Social Media Week New York to celebrate the inaugural Diversity In Tech Awards the evening of Thursday, February 25th.
The DIV Awards will celebrate the individuals and organizations championing the nationwide movement to increase diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education, and bring together leaders from tech, government, non-profits and education for the biggest celebration of its kind.
100% of ticket sales fund Code/Interactive’s expansion to ensure that even more New York students learn, build, and collaborate with technology.
The five award categories, include:
Student Ingenuity Award
Celebrates and honors the amazing work of K-12 students
Educator Dedication Award
Spotlights a teacher, school, or district that is making a major impact on students.
Government Impact Award
Illuminates a local government initiative that is increasing diversity in the technology sector
Corporate Initiative Award
Showcases a 21st century company building a diverse and welcoming workforce
Community Champion
Honors an individual in the technology and innovation community that is championing Diversity.
Follow @smwnyc (SMW New York) and @weareci (Code/Interactive) on Twitter for more updates, and watch the video below on how C/I is helping underserved students in NYC better connect with opportunities and access to technology.
About Code/Interactive (C/I)
C/I’s mission is to inspire and equip underserved students with the skills in computing, leadership, and professionalism needed to thrive in the Internet economy and beyond.
C/I’s year-round programs introduce students from underserved communities to the creative power of technology through the teaching of hard and soft skills. By providing hands-on training in today’s most relevant technology subject areas, C/I’s programs serve as the building blocks for long-term career paths in technology.
Social Media Week is built on a philosophy of openness and inclusivity, and for the upcoming conference, we’re excited to open up our annual Scholarship Program to provide complimentary Campus Passes to eligible students, non-profits, and startups, thanks to Forbes, our Social Media Week NYC Scholarship partner. The SMW NYC Scholarship provides access to our official sessions, masterclasses, experiential floor, co-working spaces, networking lounges, and more.
So, who qualifies?
Students (currently enrolled)
Non-profit employees
Startup or small business employees (defined as a company with no more than 10 employees)
You can apply here, and if you’re application is successful, we will notify you on a rolling basis. Please note, we have a limited number of Scholarships and cannot guarantee that your application will be accepted. For any questions, email nycpass@socialmediaweek.org, and we’ll be in touch at our earliest convenience
And of course, a very special thanks to Forbes for supporting this program! Without their commitment to the SMW mission, the Scholarship Program would not be possible
Deanna Zandt is an activist, consultant and author living in Brooklyn. Her book, “Share this! How You Will Change the World through Social Networking,” gives insight into how your voice can become an important part of the global conversation about things that truly matter. She’s also been a long-time advisor to SMW. A strong believer in social justice and the importance of non-profit organizations, there is a lot for her to be excited about this Social Media Week!
Below, Deanna’s shares with us the 6 SMW events (and a couple of extras) that she is most looking forward to:
The Digital Street: Beyond Protest
This is a great opportunity to workshop a strategy with some incredibly bright folks working at the intersection of nonprofits, philanthropy and digital strategy.
Secrets of Not-For-Profit Tech Success
You can count on this session being BS-free, which is always a refreshing change of pace. Nancy gave one of my favorite talks last year at any conference, and she always brings her A-game.
If you run into Deanna at any of the events above, we are sure there will be plenty to discuss! Get your pass here for Social Media Week, and if you are an employee of a non-profit organization, you qualify for a chance to win a scholarship to SMW, powered by Nokia. Can’t wait to see you there!
This post is a series of blogs contributed by SMW NYC media partner Differences Magazine. To learn more about Differences Magazine and to see the original post by Jessica Bender, please click here.
You wouldn’t think that Rachel Lloyd had been through any hardships just by looking at her. Decked out in an animal print cardigan and fiery red pants, the executive director and founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS)was the model for how powerful women should appear. When Lloyd strutted up to the podium at her own keynote at Thomson Reuters on Tuesday afternoon, she had a certain air of confidence to her, one that you can gain when you go through a traumatic experience like she has.
Lloyd is living proof that any girl, regardless of race or income, can be a victim of trafficking. For a good chunk of time in her teens (until she was 19), she was struggling to get out of the sex trafficking industry. When she eventually found a way out, she wanted to do nothing more than help other trafficking victims. “Squares would treat [these victims] like they didn’t belong,” Lloyd began. “If [society] didn’t change public perception about the way girls were being treated, nothing was going to change.”
With only a computer and $30, Lloyd started GEMS in the comfort of her own apartment in 1998. Although she first started to spread awareness about trafficking using typical grassroots techniques (petitioning, picketing, handing out flyers, etc.), Lloyd wanted to get the word out in a more creative fashion.
A book and a documentary put out by Lloyd and GEMS completely changed the future of the non-profit. Starting with the book Breaking the Silence, GEMS members told their heart-wrenching stories using personal stories, prose, photography and other forms of art. What really got GEMS the attention it rightfully deserved, though, was the film Very Young Girls. According to the non-profit site:
Very Young Girls is an exposé of the commercial sexual exploitation of girls in New York City as they are sold on the streets by pimps and treated as adult criminals by police. The film follows barely adolescent girls in real time, using vérité and intimate interviews with them, documenting their struggles and triumphs as they seek to exit the commercial sex industry. The film also uses startling footage shot by pimps themselves, giving a rare glimpse into how the cycle of exploitation begins for many women.
While the film had success at film festivals across the country, the documentary exploded on premium cable channel Showtime. Lloyd admitted that praise came from the strangest places, since the filmed aired during the late night on TV – even drug dealers in Rachel’s neighborhood raved about the movie to her!
Success may not have come overnight for the organization, but their achievements are undeniable. GEMS is currently the largest non-profit in the country working with sexually trafficked young women. They mentor over 300 girls each year through recovery and leadership programs, and currently have three distinct housing programs, providing the girls with services they need to conquer life.
GEMS’ current project has Lloyd hoping that sexual exploitation awareness will hit the mainstream. In partnership with trafficking organizations Free the Slaves and Polaris Project, mtvU’s Against Our Will Campaign was launched in September 2011. The campaign’s main focus is to empower college students to learn more about modern-day slavery and inspire them to take action to end trafficking for good. While being on mtvU is a big stepping stone, Lloyd dreams of getting the campaign on MTV by the end of the year.
Susan Halligan, the former Marketing Director of The New York Public Library (NYPL), established the first-ever marketing department for the 100-year-old institution, transitioning the library from traditional communication platforms to new media platforms. The library’s “Don’t Close the Book” advocacy campaign was named by MarketingSherpa to the 2010 Viral and Social Media Hall of Fame. Today, she is a Social Media Consultant based in New York working with cultural organizations such as The American Museum of Natural History, various non-profits, startups, and authors on social media strategies spanning channel selection, content marketing, employee activation, stream management, listening and measurement. As a multidisciplinary marketer, her specialty is integrating social media into traditional marketing and communications channels.
Susan Halligan, twitter: @srhalligan
A familiar face at Social Media Week, Susan moderated 2011 panel, “The Inner Workings: Social Media Success Through Coordinated Staffing,” and co-keynoted “The Connected Network” at the Arts Marketing Association’s Digital Marketing Day in London in November 2011. On February 14, she will moderate Literature Unbound: Radical Strategies for Social Literature at NYU during Social Media Week New York 2012. I spoke with Susan to learn more about her work and experiences.
You have quite an impressive biography. How did you become involved in social media?
Thank you, Lisa. I began to explore Facebook and Twitter in the early fall of 2008. Honestly, I originally started playing around with the platforms, because I had a very small marketing budget and was lured by the fact that the platforms were free. It was very much a “let me see what we can do with this” undertaking. I had no idea, actually, what I was doing, but spent a lot of time exploring and learning, and began to see that social could be integrated into traditional communication channels and that it was an opportunity to take the library’s brand and initiatives to entirely new audiences in a very powerful way. I became very passionate about social and remain so. While paid media remains an important component in any marketing campaign, the trend for marketers is to spend more resources on social and less on paid.
You established the first-ever marketing department for The New York Public Library. What changed?
Most of the library’s outreach efforts prior to my hire were concentrated on print advertising. I was hired to create and implement an integrated marketing effort across multiple channels.
In 2010, you helped The New York Public Library win the PR News Non-Profit PR Award: “Use of Twitter, Success through a Coordinated Staffing Model.” What went into this work?
I built a teamapproach to content marketing at the library. Non-profits have limited resources (i.e., people) to push messaging. But a big organization like the library has multiple message points: programming, customer service, circulation, collections, to cite just a few. It’s a matter of coordinating outreach. Though internal education and training, a regular working group of key stakeholders, the creation and implementation of polices, including a Crisis Plan, Best Practices and an Editorial Calendar, we were able to dedicate staff throughout the organization to message on a daily basis using team tools like HootSuite and Socialflow.
What kind of metrics were used to determine that The New York Public Library is #1 public library in the world on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare?
Community growth, brand mentions, interactions and referrals. We published a monthly Metrics Dashboard using Facebook Insights, the HootSuite and Socialflow Twitter clients, Twitter Counter, Radian6, AddThis and Google Analytics. We shared the data with key stakeholders and examined it closely for insights about messaging, engagement and content.
How does social media for a library differ from social media from other companies?
It doesn’t. Like any business engaged in social, we had a long-term customer-centric vision. One of our major goals was discoverability. We wanted social users to be to be surprised and delighted to find us online (and to discover online and offline resources, like free databases and thousands of programs) and to think “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that at The New York Public Library.”
Have your ideas ever been challenged? Which ones and how did you overcome resistance from others?
If an idea isn’t challenged, it may not be that good. The first step in social media iteration is to identify the organizational challenges: internal resistance (turf, legal, security), lack of resources, lack of skills, an ever-changing technology space and the ongoing challenge of measuring ROI.
Alignment is key: the ability to rally internal resources and stakeholders is the #1 skill in successful social media integration. Evangelizers must be able to maneuver adeptly within an organization and rally the “deciders” for support.
Does Foursquare have any real purpose in relatively remote towns with a maximum of 30 retail businesses?
As part of its 2011 Centennial, NYPL was the first in the world to secure a Foursquare badge. The badge was yet one more way to introduce the library to new audiences and it proved a very successful partnership in terms of unique users, check ins and check outs.
AdAge recently did a post about Foursquare’s connection to “mainstream” retailers. Chris Copeland wrote: “Foursquare is a regional play that masks what it is not – a middle America, mainstream tool.” He suggested that Foursquare needs to continue to educate businesses about the benefits of its platform.
What do you think is Foursquare’s future?
Mobile location-based social networking will continue to be adopted.
Of all the campaigns you’ve led, which was your favorite?
The Centennial of NYPL’s flagship Fifth Avenue building in 2011. It was a perfect storm of owned, earned and paid media: there was an exhibit; a microsite; multiple programs; an advertising campaign that included print, radio, outdoor, transport and online; publications; signage; ecommunications; and a deeply integrated robust social effort across Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. I secured VIK sponsorships from The Wall Street Journal, Titan Outdoor and the MTA to support the efforts. One interesting metric from the campaign was the incredibly high level of engagement with the library’s social content.
What is the most innovative use of social media that you’ve seen?
I am a big fan of Coke’s social strategy and tactics. I love that their Facebook Page is governed by regular fans, not “experts.” At the library, much of its social success is owed to the contributions of its staff. Power to the people!
Lisa Chau has been involved with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. View her online portfolio or follow her on Twitter.
