The Agitator

Consider this observation by communications consultant and blogger Dave Evans: Ordinary consumers are continuing to integrate technology into their everyday lives. As they do, a natural reliance on a network of friends and other consumers develops … It's only a matter of time before ...  Read more

About the only joy of living on airplanes is that I get to Europe frequently and can then tune in to all the channels of the BBC. One of my favorite programs (programmes) on the “Beeb” as the Brits call it, is “Hard Talk.” The sometimes puckish, often downright aggressive talking heads, always ...  Read more

David Love, Executive Director of The Conservation Foundation of Greater Toronto, who also happens to be an old friend, great fundraiser, wonderful cause hell-raiser, and reader of The Agitator wrote the other day noting, “I remain obsessed with social justice and green groups getting ...  Read more

Here at The Agitator find ourselves immersed in a real and very heated debate. Tom says that, in the interest of “transparency” and “accountability” anyone's contributions should be public and readily available online. Roger says, “it's no one's damn ...  Read more

A recent report on MSNBC notes that America's 1.4 million nonprofits (as registered with the IRS in 2004) account for 5.2% of the nation's economic output and 8.3% of its wages and salaries. That's a significant contribution indeed to the nation's economic well-being, but it ...  Read more

Agitator confesses to being asleep at the switch back in October when The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE, funded by Pew and Carnegie) released its massive study on the civic and political engagement of youth (ages 15-25). CIRCLE's 2006 National ...  Read more

From Deb Levin at Refinery comes some very simple, straightforward but largely ignored advice on website user expectations and how to meet them. Just one teaser here: How many of you have a nonprofit website that includes — anywhere on it — a genuine donor or member testimonial?  ...  Read more

A couple of days ago we reported on some intriguing testing of online videos by Marketing Experiments. Their test videos, reaching over 700,000 views over three months, re-confirmed the viral power of entertaining videos on sites like YouTube and Google Video. But who's actually watching ...  Read more

Actually, according to market research firm Media-Screen (as reported by Clickz Network), among the 57 million Americans with broadband access, five distinct sub-species of broadband users have been identified. Which are you? Content King: values entertainment Social Clicker: values ...  Read more

Max Kalehoff is my man. He's VP of Marketing at Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a firm specializing in measuring consumer-generated media (you know, like blogs and YouTube videos). Never met Max, but find him a constant source of superb insight into how to measure and analyze consumer behavior. Our ...  Read more