Enterprise Social Media

and Non-Profits/Associations
Introduction
Web 2.0 and social-media technologies have drastically
impacted the way people interact on the Internet, both with
each other and with the data in which they have an interest.
With this paradigm shift in interaction, government agencies,
corporations, associations, and other enterprise-focused groups are
looking at these technologies more than ever to add collaborative
functionalities to existing Web platforms.

All effective social media solutions enable users to establish an

identity and communicate with other users through numerous
channels within a collaborative platform. Social media engages the
audience and presents multiple simple opportunities for contribution.

Social Media: What Is It?

Ask ten different people about their definition of “social media,” and
you’ll get 20 totally different answers — if not more. At Portalfuze,
we think of social media as tools that enable enterprises to:

• Engage the user by facilitating two-way and multi-way

conversations; as opposed to the one-way conversation from
the enterprise to the user, seen in typical “brochure” Web
applications
• Promote collaboration and secure information exchange
between and among users
• Provide new and novel ways for the organization,
distribution, and collection of feedback of traditional data and
information
• Encourage an “architecture of participation” that relies on
contributions from both users and site moderators
• Mesh and interact easily with other new and emerging Web-
based technologies, especially those focused on user
interaction and media distribution
• Create participation points for the audience to augment
existing information

Why do people collaborate? Whether online or in person, people

work together to share information, answer questions and solve
problems faster and (usually) better than by working alone. In the
context of enterprise social media, collaboration is generally
accomplished by comment posting, forums, document sharing and
other simple means.

With multi-way collaboration among clients and the enterprise,

participation is not only extended, the sponsoring enterprise
becomes an even-more entrenched part of the client's daily life. This
can lead to additional sales or referrals, increased sign-ups to a non-
profit and/or association, and so on.

Benefits of Social Media for Non-Profits/

Associations
Associations and non-profits are already putting their proverbial toe
in the water, when it comes to social media. A recent report from the
Angerosa Research Foundation showed that 27% of more than 300
associations surveyed said they have set up their own social
network, typically by using software they own or license.

The best news of all is that 21% of respondents said they generated
revenue from social media, mainly through sponsorships.

Enterprise-strength social media platforms and networks can

provide a significant tool to assist in effective communication within
an association/non-profit, as well as among geographically distant
members or chapters. The benefits of such platforms focus on
creating new and informal, but traceable, methods of
communication. Most important, though, is that these
communication channels should be positioned to facilitate one or
more specific functionalities for the end user. Some examples of
functional applications of social technologies includes:

1. Knowledge-management modules, which enable users in a

collaborative environment to build out teams by searching for
other users with specific technical expertise.
2. Sourcing modules, which allow for quick creation,
dissemination, and collection of RFPs for various goods and
services.
3. Collaborative modules, which let multi-functional project
teams work together on a product with a shared end-goal.
4. Broadcast modules, which allow for quick distribution of
content and critical updates within a network and via e-mail.
5. Publishing modules, which enable the posting and mining of
various content types to identify synergies among members
of a diverse network population.

Associations and non-profits implementing a social-media strategy

that goes beyond a simple blog post or a Facebook/LinkedIn group
can see numerous benefits. First, we need to see what makes
enterprise-level social media different – and better – than these
"good-but-basic" first steps.
Simply put, association/non-profit social media is about information
and control. It’s all about providing tools, technologies and
information that can be created, accessed and used by various
approved people – employees/staff, board members, members,
media, non-members, subject-matter experts, etc. Specific tools at
the site can include blogs, microblogs, documents, videos, podcasts,
forums, discussions, and ratings/reviews of content.

The "control" comes from the ownership or licensing of tools by the

association or non-profit. When depending on third parties for free
technologies like blogging and social-networking platforms, the
organization does not necessarily own those tools, host them on
their own servers, have easy access to their information, and so on.

In fact, your organization can even lose total control over your data,
when using those “free” services. Facebook, for example, at one
point threatened to keep everything that was uploaded to it – even if
a member quit. Does your association or non-profit want to give
away that kind of control over your data?

Enterprise-strength implies not only the ownership or licensing of

tools and data by the enterprise – in this case, the association or
non-profit – but the customization of these tools to create a
productive experience as well.

What specifically can these tools bring your association or non-

profit, and how can they help your goals? Examples include:

Member Engagement
Involve your membership with your organization and its
goals, by giving them an online home with the tools they
need to communicate with one another, and with you. The
use of social-media tools also promotes member retention
and renewals.

Member Mobilization
Need a good way to bring your members together to perform
a specific action, like sign a petition, call a Congressperson,
send in funds, and so on? An active membership that’s
engaged with your non-profit/association via a social network
is the fastest and easiest way to do it. Send to your
members an e-mail blast that directs them to your call-for-
action on a page in the platform that can also contain
discussions, documents, polls, rankings, etc.
Strengthen Bonds Between Members
By enabling active collaboration and cooperation among
your members, the bonding that already occurs as a result of
being a part of an association or movement is greatly
increased. In using the social-media tools your organization
provides, your members will think better of you as a result of
a “halo effect,” and even potentially recommend you to their
associates or friends. Members can also actively promote
themselves to one another, and even evangelize about your
organization to other members within the network.

Provocative Discussions
Seed hot discussion topics within groups and/or message
boards, and watch the conversation take off. Your members
will supply their own discussions within your organization’s
boards as well.

Document Creation/Collaboration
Your members can create, save, distribute and work with
one another on reports, flyers or any kind of publication with
document creation and collaboration. Changes are tracked
and saved, too.

Event Management
Does your organization hold events – annual, regional, or
even online? If so, events can be coordinated via a social
network, especially those that have event-management
functionality. When using event management and social
media features like groups and document collaboration,
events can change from a date-specific meeting to a year-
round “happening.”

First-Mover Advantage
Is your association or non-profit in direct or indirect
competition with other organizations? Set yourself apart from
them by offering your own branded social network.

Additional Revenue Generation

Put your social network to work for your organization, by
offering sponsorships to companies that can benefit from
exposure to your members. Sponsors find these kinds of
opportunities very attractive, because social networks are
highly used by people who are already collaborating and
connecting with others. Tie this in with events, and you have
the potential to bring in a large amount of revenue.
All this being said, some important considerations must be taken
into account when thinking about applying technology at the
association/non-profit level.

Security becomes more important and platforms must be analyzed

to understand how user groups can be tiered, how object within the
platform (data) can be categorized for viewing, and how multiple
user groups can protect their data sets from each other (multi-tenant
platform). Furthermore, security authentication and sign-on
technologies must be trusted by end users and sometimes
integrated with existing systems. In line with these security
considerations, more often than not, associations and non-profits will
likely want to self-host their applications and require access to all
source code.

Also, the ability to track actions within and site and audit these
activities becomes important for groups that have certain record-
keeping requirements. A mechanism for tracking all actions and
quickly indexing and searching system content is often required for
this purpose.

Finally, as associations and non-profits often have numerous legacy

systems in use, the social platform must often act as a portal
container in which numerous applications must integrate and run.
Appropriate social platforms should support REST and/or SOAP
style web services, as well as be customizable in support of other
XML data integration.

Case Studies
Non-profits, associations, companies and government agencies all
are utilizing social media technologies in both interesting and
successful ways. In particular, non-profits and associations can
study certain sectors that have been early adopters of these
platforms to think of news ways to apply these technologies. Some
of these representative applications include:

Entity: Canadian Airports Council

Project: A site that enables collaboration and collective
expertise among a geographically dispersed
membership.

Entity: US Agency for International Development (USAID)

Project: GlobalDevelopmentCommons.net, a collaboration site
that enables members to share information, build
communities and partner with others for international
 development efforts.

Entity: American Heart Association

Project: My AmericanHeart, a community for its member
health professionals that provides educational
materials and member help, as well as information on
research awards and practice guidelines.

Entity: National Geographic

Project: The scientific/educational organization has positioned
a full community (blogs, forums, photos, online
events) around its magazine content and a program
that features live video of animals in the wild.

Entity: Toy Industry Association

Project: ToyConnections, a social network for the toy and
youth-entertainment industry. Includes blogs, chat
rooms, messaging, a wiki, profiles, and associate
connections.

Entity: Healthcare Information and Management Systems

Society
Project: HIMSS Connect is a social-networking tool offered to
both HIMSS members and attendees to the
organization’s annual conference. Includes an
interactive mapping tool that lets members with similar
interests or demographic attributes find one another.

Entity: FilmsforLearning.org
Project: Initially funded by the National Endowment for
Science Technology and Arts, the site enables those
interested in creating videos or movies to collaborate
on a worldwide scale.

Entity: Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund

Project: This organization, which helps retired pro football
players in need, added blogging, multimedia and
auctions to its already-established Web site.

Entity: Star-Tides
Project: Network of government, non-profit, academic, and
other individuals who are dedicated to providing low-
cost, transportable infrastructure for post-disaster,
impoverished, or post-war individuals.
Entity: Bisikletciler
Project: This non-profit cycling organization located in Turkey
includes at its site discussion forums, blogs, groups
and a media gallery to foster a robust presence for its
growing community.

Portalfuze Services
Portalfuze is a premier developer of complex, enterprise-strength
social media applications. Our particular niche focuses on very
customized or functional networks and applications where off-the-
shelf applications are not well suited. We are also well suited to
integrating social-media functionalities with any existing Web sites or
services.

We accomplish this goal by combining our consulting services with a

social-media development platform that’s so state of the art, it would
rank among the best “off-the-shelf” enterprise systems available
today.

With more than 80% of most of our clients’ project requirements

preconfigured in our development platform, our clients often find us
to be the most economical solution for their challenges. What’s
more, they see us as their best choice in providing a solid foundation
for the future of their social initiatives.

It is important for non-profits and other organizations that use

enterprise-level software to understand how social-media
technology will impact their internal and external users. This has to
happen before any new technology adoption occurs. Portalfuze has
the internal staff that can help you translate social media and
collaboration across your enterprise, as well as alliances with some
of the top experts on emerging social media technologies.

Our services include:

Social Media Planning

Our experts can help you develop plans that begin to incorporate
current social-media functionalities, including networking,
collaboration, messaging, user-produced content, two-way and
multi-way discussions, and others into your intranet and Web-based
properties.

We will help lay out a roadmap that supports either a phased

introduction of these technologies, or a one-time complete overhaul.
Additionally, we'll make sure platforms are in place not just to
support current technologies, but also be positioned for future ones.

Collaborative Virtual Environments

Let us perform a thorough review of your legacy platforms and show
you how new platforms can help to begin to tie together existing
applications and application users. Furthermore, we'll explore how
employees and members interact with each other and study the
information flow within that base to make suggestions on systems
that can help facilitate and encourage collaboration and
engagement.

Needs Analysis
One of our expert team members can spend time with your IT staff
to understand the social-media initiatives being evaluated
throughout your organization. We’ll help your team create not just
requirement documents, but also reports and analysis for internal
use that begin to define budgets and analyze benefits of various
projects.

When it comes time to set up the platform, we can do as little as

install its source code and train your team to start developing with it,
or as much as developing a turnkey collaborative platform for you.
Our licenses include the complete source code from our
development platform/library, and a negotiated number of hours for
customization, installation and training. For new applications, we'll:

• Step 1: Load our development platform/library

• Step 2: Select modules from our library for inclusion in
deployed platform
• Step 3: Build or add existing custom modules following our
development platform’s conventions
• Step 4: Use admin layer to customize branding and graphic-
user interfaces (GUIs)

For existing applications, we'll either:

• Migrate your infrastructure by renaming files to follow our

development platform’s conventions
-or-
• Integrate our development platform’s functions by running in
parallel to existing webapp cluster and utilizing SOAP- or
REST-style Web services

On the other hand, if we discover that your organization would be

better served by the use of a different platform, we will recommend
that option and offer to customize that solution. At Portalfuze, we are
all about helping our clients find, build and utilize the best options
available for their social-media needs.

Developing a great social media/collaboration application is only a

partial step your enterprise needs to take to benefit from the
technologies Portalfuze supplies. The next step is to roll out these
applications and get your user base actively using them. We offer
several options to support these goals:

Hosted or Installed
The platforms we develop are generally installed on our servers or
yours, and set up to host all associated files internally on your
company's networks. That being said, we have developed and
integrated applications that take advantage of the cloud model and
can store/serve data rich files on services such as Amazon S3 or
internally.

Set-Up and Training / Customization

We can perform a bare-bones install of our development platform.
To assist you in this scenario, we can provide a one-day (or more)
introduction training to show your IT team how to customize and
integrate it with other applications. We can also perform all
customization and install work on your servers. After installation, we
can provide onsite or remote training for your teams.

Our development platform is designed specifically with expansion

and customization in mind. By following simple naming conventions,
new applications on the production server will be recognized and
acquire social characteristics. Your team can develop these apps, or
our staff can provide off-site development services.

Development of User Manuals

Our team can research and write user manuals and support
documentation for your unique application that’s built on our
development platform.

Additional Support
Portalfuze is there with you every step of the way, even after the
initial work is done. We can help with:

• Installation of new modules and upgrading of current ones

• The administration of your new platform
• Troubleshooting any legacy or new applications being
integrated into the platform
• Maintenance
• Other tasks - just ask and we'll do everything we can to help
The Portalfuze Development Platform
It’s important to know that our platform isn’t like most other social-
media platforms. Ours is not an “off-the-shelf” platform that, once
loaded, is by and large the end product. It is also not one of those
free social-network Web sites where a pre-defined set of
functionalities is standard, and that’s about all you get (unless you
pay monthly charges for more).

Instead, think of our development platform and library as more of a

starting point, tied to a toolbox that helps to build what your
organization needs: a truly custom social-media service that meets
the specific, unique goals and mission of your non-profit.

With it, you can deploy new functionalities, as well as have a great
foundation to scale out future functionality. To that end, we have
made sure our development platform has a library stocked with
standard social-networking features and architecture, so that it
quickly integrates with an enterprise’s current and future properties.
In fact, the libraries in our development platform contain up to 80%
of the features you’ll need to build a new service.
Our development platform uses the most up-to-date Java
technologies, which are widely accepted at all levels within most
enterprises. In fact, our use of J2EE in the development of the
platform makes it the most technically advanced, enterprise-strength
social-media platform available in and of itself. Not bad for what is
really the starting point for your social network.

In addition, Portalfuze can easily be used with many other types of

Web-based platforms, including .Net, Jive and Telligent; and a
myriad of content-management systems, databases, messaging
services and others.

Also of note, we provide our development platform/library at no

additional charge. We see our biggest job as to assist you with the
customization of the platform to your organization’s specific needs,
as well as the import of current Web-based applications. We can
also build custom Web applications that can be integrated into the
platform. And we give you access to a wide range of consulting
options, with either our help or the assistance of a member of our
partner network.

Specific features of the Portalfuze development platform and library

include:
State-of-the-Art Security
Conventions-based modular security (utilizing Spring
Security) provides a robust and secure Access Control List
(ACL) by default. By following Portalfuze naming
conventions or utilizing simple XML configuration, the
security framework can control individual access at a group
or module level.

Blogs/Status Updates/Microblogging
Portalfuze features a full blogging platform, along with the
ability for users to publish short status updates (also called
microblogging), in a style that’s similar to the Twitter service.

Facebook Connect/OpenID Integration

Portalfuze gives your users multiple ways to log in. Besides
(or in addition to) your own registration process, you can
implement Facebook Connect and/or OpenID integration.
Facebook Connect provides its members to seamlessly
"connect" their Facebook accounts with our platform (and
conversely, your platform). OpenID, meantime, is an
identification service where users can utilize one login
across multiple Web sites and services.

User Profile and Account Management

Profiles can contain as few or many fields as the network
owner wishes, with the user having total control over their
account. Other options include giving users the ability to hide
some or all of their information.

Dually Verified Associate and Network Building

For two people to become "associates," "friends," etc., both
must agree to the arrangement, which promotes trust among
all network participants.

Object Rank, Review and Comment

Whether its comments, products or other objects, users can
rank, review and make comments on them.

Built-In Internet Protocol and/or GPS Geolocation Interface

Knowing where users are can be important, if you wish to
build in "presence" applications for mobile applications,
directory searches or a myriad of other potential services.

Message Boards
Your users can leave messages for one another, and even
attach files, documents, photos, videos and more to those
 messages.

Q&A Forums
Similar to a message board, your users can ask questions
and get direct answers to them in our Q&A forums.
Document, photo and video attaching are available, too.

Full Auditing Capabilities, Including Activity Tracking

All activities on existing or custom modules from a user and
group perspective are tracked and available for use in
advanced social and collaboration tools with no additional
coding. Our activity tracker features advanced algorithms for
making the data available in a social context. All objects can
be tracked for activity as well.

Public- and Private-Group Formation

You can set up your own subject-based collaborative groups
in the platform, and/or give your users the option of
establishing their own groups. They also have the choice of
making their groups public or private. The security system is
"group aware," so no additional code needs to be added for
group security. E-mail group listserve functionality (real time
and digest mode), with additional activity notification via an
activity module, is also included.

Calendars/Event Planning
Portalfuze can provide anything from a simple calendar
where you and your users can place events, to full event
planning entirely within the platform.

Directories
Provide a service directory for your members in which to list
themselves, similar to an online phonebook. You can also
extend this functionality to any user group established within
the platform.

File Management
Give your users the ability to store and manage their files
directly within the platform. You can host the files on your
own servers, or via cloud services like Amazon S3, without
any additional coding.

With our development platform and associated consulting services,

Portalfuze can get organizations started with building their own
applications and networks, or can deliver custom-built turnkey
products that can be plugged in to current Web sites and services
And as we’ve previously said, if for some reason our platform isn’t
the best suited for your organization, we’ll find and customize the
one that fits your needs. Our goal is to create the best solution for
your non-profit.

Hardware/Server Considerations
Since many applications will need to scale to handle high-traffic
situations, our system is designed to support clustering and load
balancing. In addition, indexing engines are used for search, and
distributed cache servers are utilized. Our development platform
was designed to be able to handle appserver clustering without any
issues, and was engineered to work with many different third-party
applications, as well as our recommended open-source technology
deck, which includes:

• Security (authentication/authorization framework) - single

sign-on (SSO) using Josso, CAS, custom SSO system, etc.
All security is portable and easily configurable via XML.
Anonymous users can be implemented as well
• Profile, registration, and user management from the admin
side are available, which brings with it common features like
an “abuse resistant” reset password system, disable-user
ability, etc.
• Integration with social networks available via Facebook
Connect and OpenID
• Alerting system that triggers alerts for specific activities.
Portalfuze uses a Java message service (JMS)-based alert
system for heavy-traffic applications
• Multi-level caching system that allows us to focus on
business logic without having to take extreme measures for
performance. Caching occurs on the object-relational
mapping (ORM) level as well as “display level”
• An activity-tracking system, following our POJO modeling
approach, where custom-activity tracking and audit tracking
results are generated
• Custom components that follow standard conventions can
re-use common Portalfuze infrastructure such as pagination
• Portalfuze enables several options to plug in indexing
engines for searching, including existing database indexing
tools, Lucene, Apache Solr (faceted searching), etc.
• OSWorkflow integration
• Hibernate query language, which allows for optimization of
ORM-generated queries for whatever database is being
used (e.g.: MS SQL Server)
• Business logic (management layer) can be made quickly
 available as REST or SOAP style Web services, and reused
across existing portals, or services

Portalfuze and the Future of Social Media

The direction of the overall social-media space right now is very
indeterminate. No standards exist – yet. Already, at least one group
is examining:

• Data portability
• Client-supported technologies
• Back-end architecture
• Common code base and integration points across
technologies
• Industry best practices
• Legal and privacy policies

Because of our development platform’s modular configurations,

Portalfuze will be well suited to meet any kind of specifications
and/or standards, once they’re determined. This is a crucial point for
organizations that need to invest in social media right now, as costs
to upgrade to any new standards will likely be lower – and IT-related
headaches will be fewer – by using Portalfuze’s development
platform and consulting services.
Portalfuze is Enterprise Social Media, At Your Service. We are a full-
service technology-development firm specializing in social media.
Portalfuze customizes social-media applications – from simple widgets that
engage an audience on existing networks, all the way up to full-blown
vertically integrated social networks. Put simply, Portalfuze is all about
options; whether it’s developing with our own platform or customizing out-
of-the-box packages, we do what’s best for both our clients and their end
users. Portalfuze has the technology and the know-how to help
companies, non-profits and government achieve their social-media goals.
Portalfuze also owns and operates Sibdu (www.Sibdu.com), a free social
network for commercial real estate; and Feedfuze (www.Feedfuze.com), a
free RSS feed aggregation/publishing tool.