Personalizing the Passion: Social Media, Transplant and Organ Donation

I’m in St. Louis this afternoon for the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations‘ annual meeting. If you want to see what anyone is saying about this in Twitter, use the #aopo hashtag.

Here are some other links participants might find helpful:

  1. Scott Meis and his blog, as well as the Donate Life Illinois group in Facebook.
  2. The LifeSource blog
  3. Bob’s NewHeart blog and his Facebook group
  4. Our Mayo Clinic Transplant Games 2008 activity.
  5. A post that lists our various Mayo Clinic social media platforms.
  6. The “Octogenarian Idol” post that’s gotten lots of traffic via a viral video.
  7. Finally, here’s the page that tells you the various ways you can enroll in SMUG to get hands-on social media experience, and implement the 10 steps I outline in the presentation above.

Blogging 401: LifeSource Blog on Organ Donation, Transplant

As Chancellor of Social Media University, Global I enjoy getting to do Extension Classes, on-site presentations with organizations interested in getting involved in social media.

I did one of these in May with LifeSource, the organ procurement organization for the upper midwest.

Even more than doing the presentations, though, it’s especially gratifying to see organizations move forward with their social media projects.

That’s why I was so delighted to get a note from Becky Ousley, saying that LifeSource was launching The Source, its blog for news and conversations about donation and transplantation.

Today’s post announces the LifeSource activities associated with the Minnesota State Fair, and its booth where people can register as donors. They’re planning lots of updates from the “Great Minnesota Get Together” as people stop by to share their stories.

In addition to having hosted the extension class, Becky and her blog co-author Susan are long-time SMUGgles, participating in the on-line learning opportunities available through SMUG.

Our goal with SMUG is to have people who have participated here launch their own blogs, particularly for business or organizational use. As they do, we’ll profile them here in the Capstone Projects section, the 400-level Blogging courses. And this will give others a chance to see what their fellow SMUGgles are doing.

Please join me in visiting the LifeSource blog and congratulating Becky and Susan on pulling together everything they’ve learned into a first-class blog for a great cause.

And if you’ve started a blog or are planning to do so, please let us know so we can profile you, too.

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Mass Media, Social Media and an Elf Who Got Too Jolly

When I spoke to the Ragan workshop with Shel Holtz yesterday, one of my points was how blogs and social media sites like YouTube work together with the mainstream media. Many times the fact that a story is mentioned in the mass media is what leads to it getting lots of hits on the Web. This message I got Thursday from Cindy at LifeSource, where I recently did a SMUG extension class, is a case in point:

Thank you for coming to LifeSource last week! Your talk was very interesting. I wanted to share with you something that happened to my husband this week regarding “social media” Curt is a sergeant with the MN State Patrol. A few years ago he arrested an elf…yes an elf….and the arrest made it on “You Tube” (you can find it under elf arrest). Two nights ago our phone started ringing off the hook at 11 p.m. and our friends and family said turn Jay Leno on, Curt is on the show! Well we missed it but Jay played his video! We were able to see the Leno show last night on the website and also looked at the You Tube video which went from a couple of hundred hits to over 58,000! Anyways…I thought you would appreciate that story. Have a great week! – Cindy

Here’s the “elf arrest” video that caught Jay Leno’s attention:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3yhiXlNRjU]

This is one of the points I often stress, but perhaps not as frequently as I should. Social media and mass media work together, and often the biggest impact from social media comes when it is noticed by someone in the mainstream media.

SMUG Extension Class for LifeSource

Today I had the opportunity to do a presentation on social media for LifeSource, the non-profit organization that manages organ and tissue donation in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and parts of western Wisconsin.

I had been asked to do this because of a presentation I had done for the Minnesota Health Strategy and Communications Network. I told the LifeSource group I would provide a link here to my presentation; since it was substantially the same as the one I did in February, I’m just linking to that post.

I will be interested to see what LifeSource does in social media; for an organization that is so volunteer-intensive and deeply affects so many people in a positive way, these tools are a natural way to give a voice and a platform to people who are passionate about this life-saving work. Here’s the Facebook group, Donate Life Minnesota, they have formed. I suggested they should talk with Scott Meis from the Donate Life Illinois campaign, where they’ve had a lot of success using social media.

I’m also looking forward to connecting with LifeSource at the Transplant Games in Pittsburgh in July, where Mayo Clinic will have a booth as one of the sponsors. We will be having opportunities for participants in these Olympic-style events to share their stories via a Facebook group and in other ways.