How much did your elementary education cost? The clever folks at Building Tomorrow have found a great way to use that simple question to drive an innovative campaign that connects the costs of a primary school education in the United States to the work they do building schools in Uganda.

I first learned about the campaign through a friend’s Tweet, and followed the link thinking that I would learn just how ridiculously expensive education is in our country, and maybe be encouraged to donate money towards schools that need help in the United States. Much to my surprise, after answering two easy questions, I was brought to this page:

Inspired by their simple-yet-effective calculator app, I called up Maggie Kirkpatrick, Assistant Director at Building Tomorrow, to learn more about it.

The Organization
Founded in 2005, Building Tomorrow is a surprisingly small organization, consisting of only three people (yes, you read correctly). In spite of their small size, they have helped build seven schools in Uganda, and are in the process of building another three. All of their schools are, ultimately, public government schools. Building Tomorrow provides the infrastructure for the schools, and partners with local ministries of education who provide the teachers. The idea is, once Building Tomorrow leaves the area, the schools can still function at full speed. The schools are all primary, P1-P7 (equivalent to our elementary schools) and can host up to 325 kids per school. They focus mainly in rural Uganda, because, well, it’s where they have personal contacts and the rural areas are where the highest population of kids reside, with the least amount of access to schools.

Campaign Messaging and Strategy
I asked Maggie if they had implemented any specific kind of outreach campaign for the calculator, or if most of the publicity had happened organically. She said it was a combination: the outreach team consists of only 2 people. They spent a significant amount of time emailing blogs and news outlets, doing research to find out who might be interested in promotion, and doing their best to email people they thought might be willing to help. But, for the most part, it has spread organically via social networks.

The messaging, as Maggie put it, was “very deliberate. The only way people are going to buy in is if we don’t spam them with messaging,” and I argue it’s the messaging that made this campaign successful. It’s the reason I clicked on the link and followed through. Maggie made another point I thought was interesting: this campaign messaging won’t ever be out of date. It’s always relevant, it’s always going to be interesting to see how expensive your education was and how you might be able to contribute to someone else’s.

The key contributors to this campaign are young people in the United States. High school and college kids take the brunt of the workload in spreading the word and fundraising. Building Tomorrow takes the money they have raised and creates “challenge grants” in Uganda, proposing to local communities that the organization will fund the school if the community puts in the legwork. What results is a community effort to literally lay the brick for their schools, while the bricks are provided by Building Tomorrow. Schools are built by family members – grandmothers, fathers, sisters – and local community members.

Building Tomorrow currently has over 20 college chapters, all working to fundraise for schools in rural Uganda. In addition, they have a partnership with Key Club International. 100% of the money raised goes directly towards construction of the schools, and as Maggie said, “We work hard to make that a commitment.”

Finally, they have donors and do some grant writing that helps fund operating cost for the organization, but my guess is the operating cost is low given they are currently only a three-person company.

Tools and Technology
Clearly there is a technical aspect to this campaign in addition to the deliberate online strategy. Some resources that Building Tomorrow used included working with sparked.com to get tips on how to build an accurate calculator. The technology behind the calculator is relatively simple, and uses data from the National Center for Education. The calculator uses no more than some basic html and a “digital excel spreadsheet.” I wonder about the sustainability of such a simple system. The calculateit.org app itself is built on software provided by Exact Target, who also help with email campaign management, and hosts microsites and landing pages.

Statistics
The calculator has been loaded just about 2,000 times since it launched 2 weeks ago. Most donations are coming from first-time visitors to the site.

When I first clicked through to the Building Tomorrow website, it’s because, to put it simply, I was intrigued. To me, this was already a successful campaign having fit a few basic criteria:

1. I found out about it organically, not via an email list or advertisement. I heard about it from a friend.
2. I was intrigued, and not by the actual intent of the campaign, but by a very clever hook, and I participated as a result.
3. I told my friends about it. I’m blogging about it.

At the end of the day, it’s not a campaign that has been earth-shattering in terms of numbers – it’s not seeing 100,000 or even 10,000 views every day. But right now, a small 3-person organization that has existed for 6 years has funded the construction of 7 schools in rural Uganda that host a total of 2,275+ children. I think that’s pretty amazing.

• Updating via Drush (with svn)
• Updating via Drush (without svn)
• Updating manually (with svn)
• Updating manually (without svn)
• Updating on your live site

1. Change to the root of your Drupal install
2. Back up your database
3. Run 'drush upc --version-control=svn --svnsync'. 'drush upc' updates all contributed modules, without running update.php OR updating core
4. Update core: run 'drush up'
5. Run 'drush updb' to update your site locally.
6. Test locally before committing to your development site.
7. Add any new files and commit your changes. Use 'svn add --force *' to force the addition of all new files.
8. Use 'svn commit' to commit your changes.
9. Run 'drush updb'
10. Test

1. Back up your database
2. Run 'drush up' or 'drush upc'
3. Run 'drush updb' - this will run update.php

• The 'drush up' command updates modules, core, and runs update.php
• The 'drush upc' command updates modules only, and does not run update.php

1. Back up your database
2. Download the new version of the module from drupal.org
3. 'svn remove' the old module file ('svn rm sites/all/modules/modulefolder')
4. 'svn commit'
5. Extract the new module and place it in sites/all/modules
6. 'svn add' the new module folder
7. 'svn commit'
8. Run update.php. Do this by going to www.yoursite.com/update.php
9. Test, test, test

1. Back up your database
2. Download the new version of the module from drupal.org
3. Delete the old module directory, and replace it with the new downloaded copy
4. Run update.php. Do this by going to www.yoursite.com/update.php
5. Test, test, test

1. Back up your database.
2. Put the site into maintenance mode. You can find that setting at /admin/settings/site-maintenance and select “Off-line.” Customize your offline message as appropriate.
3. Update modules and core (following whatever steps you followed above: drush (with or without svn), svn, or manually).
4. Run update.php. Do this by going to www.yoursite.com/update.php.
5. Test.
6. Take the site out of maintenance mode.
7. Test more.

• Drush: http://drupal.org/project/drush
• Subversion: http://subversion.apache.org/
• Coder: http://drupal.org/project/coder
• Tutorial: http://www.lullabot.com/videos/porting-drupal-modules

So in addition to having ShareThis links after each post, I decided to add them to the left sidebar where it lists the date of the post, and comments.

Once you enable ShareThis, and set the links to show up for each post, it automatically grabs the information for that post when you share it. So, if you just copy the code for ShareThis to another place on your site, it won't work, because it's no longer pulling the actual post info: Title, URL, etc.

I fixed this by adding in a few WordPress functions that call for the title and URL of the post. For example, instead of doing this:    <span class='st_facebook' st_title='{TITLE}' st_url='{URL}' ></span> I called for the actual permalink and title of the post. Like so: <span class='st_facebook' st_title='<?php the_title()?>' st_url='<?php the_permalink()?>' ></span>

Seems to me this is a pretty awesome (and super easy) tweak to ShareThis if you don't want it at the end of each post.

We've seen instances of Twitter getting journalists into trouble, including Octavia Nasr, former correspondent for CNN, who was fired for tweeting that she respected a prominent leader of Hezbollah.

There are quite a few things at play here, but I immediately question The Washington Post's decision to specifically advise its journalists against engaging on Twitter. Just because it's Twitter, does not mean the level of engagement should change. Just because it is the internet, and not TV, does not mean the level of engagement should change. What should change is the kind of engagement, the kind of thinking that goes behind your words.

I think there's a tendency to treat the internet, and Twitter specifically, as a different kind of world from anything else, especially for those who work outside of this industry. Many people still don't understand or even use Twitter. But really, for journalists, how does it differ from any other kind of information dissemination? It shouldn't. The truth is, The Washington Post should not have told its journalists not to engage. Rather, they should be doing what we are doing here at EchoDitto: teaching people how to use Twitter and other tools successfully.

In working at EchoDitto for many years, I have learned that very rarely is the answer to not engage. We teach our clients how to engage their audience in a productive way. Journalists are taught to be, and try to remain, unbiased. In the end, it is not Twitter, it is simply the written word. As a journalist, when you are writing, you should always keep in mind the publication you work for, the story you are reporting, and the brand you represent. Whether it's Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, or the front page of The Washington Post, your words will be judged. So choose wisely.

<link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory');
?>/example.css" title="example" />

But then, suddenly, the project comes to fruition. It's not just a project anymore, it's not code or strategy or even just an idea. Suddenly the work comes alive.

Earlier this year, we wrote about welcoming the Orton Family Foundation to EchoDitto. Today, the Community Matters Conference kicks off in Denver, Colorado. The Community Matters conference is "a commons for individuals and organizations working to steer change, engage citizens and build strong, vibrant communities from the ground up."

The conference will focus on enabling community leaders to make changes that are important to people like you or me. The conference not only focuses on providing tools to community leaders, but helping them connect with each other as well.

We built the communitymatters.org website primarily to be informational - attendees can visit the site to find out more information regarding the conference, register, and read about the speakers and panels. A few months ago, in discussions with the Orton Family Foundation, we began to implement a "Connect" section of the site, to enable the attendees to connect with each other in a number of ways.

Via this Connect page, attendees of the conference can find each other on Twitter, read each others blog posts, and interact with and meet each other via an online forum. Those who work in this industry, who help build connections between people on the ground, know just how important these connections can be in helping make real change.

The conference will allow the work that so many community leaders have been doing for months, or even years, to come to life in their own neighborhoods. So check it out: read about it on the website, their blog, or read more conference news on Twitter.

Ready?

Why I got the iPad

• It looked cool.
• I wanted to be able to leave my laptop at work whenever possible, but still be connected at home by a device bigger than my iPhone.
• Whenever I travel I have a desire to bring at least 10 books with me. I wanted an e-reader.
• I could afford it at the time.

What I use it for now

• Reading. I use the Kindle App as I've found that most books are significantly cheaper than on iBooks. I've read more on the iPad in the last two months than I did in the last year. I read faster on the iPad, and highlighting specific passages or taking notes is all too easy. The one thing I miss about reading on an e-reader vs a real book: I always enjoyed flipping to the end of a chapter to see how many pages I had left. I can't do that as easily on the iPad.
• Watching TV/movies. If I want to watch something before I go to sleep, or in the airport or on a plane, the portability and lightness of the iPad (vs. having a laptop on your lap) makes it worth it. I wish they had thought to put speakers on either side of it, though. I only ever watch in landscape mode, and it takes some getting used to to hear audio on one side only.
• Docs. Much of my time at EchoDitto is spent using Google Docs and Dropbox. I can edit, save, and email docs using Gdocs and Dropbox all too easily. App of choice here is Quickoffice HD.
• Watching baseball. The MLB.tv app on this thing blows me away. I canceled my cable earlier this year, and the one thing I missed the most was baseball.
• Games. Orbital, Smiles HD, Carcassonne are my top 3.
• I don't use it for email as much as I thought I would, but when I do I enjoy the experience. I wish there was a way to view my inbox on one page, instead of in the dropdown on the side.

I've also recently fallen in love with the Wired App. It's a completely new magazine reading experience, but also totally intuitive, and it can only get better.

What I want to see in the future

• I'd like to see more of a mesh of the Mac OS with iPhone OS. It's actually already a little bit of a combination of the two - those who claimed it was just a giant iPhone, well, they were partially right. But a) what is so bad about having a giant iPhone? and b) there are aspects of the iPad that remind me of using my Mac. But being able to have actual files on my iPad desktop, that then open with the Pages app would be amazing. Some semblance of Finder, folders, better spotlight search, a dashboard, would all be huge additions to the device.
• I want multitasking (who doesn't?). Folders. Dual view for apps, so I can have safari open on one side, and a document open on the other half, and use both at the same time. Texting. I know it's not a phone, but for those of you who have an iPad just imagine if you could text from it. I dream ...
• Built-in video converter. This will probably never happen. But, dearest Apple, not every video that isn't iTunes compatible is stolen. Some, like the ones I have, were made by my brother in his travels, or by me on my flip video. But instead of being able to sync them easily to my iPad I have to spend hours converting using Handbrake.
• UI standards. Not every app has to work/act the same, but I can see that Wired is setting the standards for magazines on larger touch devices like the iPad. It just works so well. There were standards set for apps on the iPhone for the most part, and I'd like to see that happen on the iPad more broadly than it has thus far.
• Fix the glare issue, por favor.
• It'd be nice, though would likely make it heavier, if there was some kind of built in stand. Something you could pop out of the back to prop up the iPad. That would certainly cut down on the number of iPad case purchases, so again, I dream...

I'm curious if others have found it as useful a device as I have. Tell me your favorite apps in the comments, or what you think it's missing, or why you hate Apple so much (okay don't tell me that ... or at least make it constructive).

In our company staff meeting the other day, Michael brought up what he thought was a core takeaway from the recent PDF conference, and something he wrote about here. The gist is, people in our industry, and in general, care less about how big your email list is, and more about "your ability to leverage technology and a community of interested citizens in creative ways to solve problems and make a positive social impact." A 100k email list doesn’t make you influential anymore, or at least, it’s not the most important aspect of an organization or campaign. Your email list could be huge, but it doesn’t matter unless you try to engage people in something real.

I just read this post by Julie Germany, and thought she made a good point:

"As we convince more of our clients to invest money in online tactics like email (or online advertising), we need to realize that the more sophisticated we get, the more sophisticated people will get at filtering us out."

I think what’s interesting is that we often separate "people" from ourselves. It’s hopefully obvious that "people" in this sentence also applies to us. There are so many of us who work in this industry, who are regularly advising our clients on online tactics like email or advertising, and while we do it I think most of us try to imagine what would inspire us to click through on this email, or this ad. What would inspire me? 99.9% of the time, unless I get an email from someone I know personally, I delete bulk emails without even looking at them. These days, especially with the iPhone (Blackberry, etc), deleting emails from your phone is easier than unsubscribing. As Julie said, "Congratulations! You just received more advocacy and political email! Delete."

But I digress.

My takeaway from all of this is that we don't just need to re-examine the value of email lists, but the effectiveness and importance of bulk, and often impersonal, emails. More importantly, we should take a closer look at the types of emails we send. Just as a website isn't always the best solution to your online presence, "standard" bulk email isn't always the best form of outreach. I don’t have any hard numbers to back this up, but my feeling is that most people know exactly what they are looking for online, they know exactly which organizations they want to support, what events they’d like to participate in, and more often than not a bulk email is the last thing that inspires someone. We are no longer bringing information to the people, people are going out and finding the information they want.

When asked about social media, Nicco said, "…It’s not mass. Nothing about social media is mass. It's many to many, one to one, it's my friends and family. You can't reach large numbers of people through it. …The Internet is much more analogous to the telephone than it is to TV or newspapers. Everyone has an email account and they use it to talk to their mother."

The most successful form of outreach I implemented this month was not a bulk email, but rather emailing 20 of my friends, asking them to take 2 minutes to do something, and seeing it expand into 200+ responses within 5-6 hours. I think sometimes we forget, and we forget to remind our clients, that our personal networks can often be the most influential audiences we know. Reaching out to 100 people from your Gmail account quite possibly will have a greater effect than reaching out to a bulk list of 5k.

I'm not saying that we need to stop sending bulk emails, building our email lists, or appealing to people's greatest interests. As I said earlier there's great appeal to reaching 20k or 100k or 1 million people with the click of a button. And reaching that great mass of people is still important. But we shouldn't forget the point that Michael made – we need to stop focusing on building lists, and start focusing on making a positive social impact. What exactly are we trying to accomplish when we send an email? Are we simply checking something off of our to-do list? Are we aiming to have a high open rate, click through rate, or do we want to increase actual active participation? Do we want people to click, or would we rather they understand our objective and then tell their friends about it in their day-to-day conversations? Have we strayed from caring about organic Word of Mouth to focusing too much on statistics and data? Numbers are important to any organization, so how do we shift our focus and still satisfy our organizations' needs?

But I have to ask, in regards to the name iPad... are there ANY women working at Apple?? I took an informal poll a few days ago when rumors were surfacing about the possible name for Apple's new product. When I asked my friends what they thought of the name, most men didn't think twice. But my female friends, well:

"There's clearly not a single female on that team"
"It kinda reminds me of iPeed."
"Like... a tampon?"

And after today's announcement, a coworker said "the bigger version is going to be called the iMaxiPad." Who knows, maybe one day it'll have wings.

Come on, Steve, for someone so smart... you really didn't think this one through. I get it - I get that there's alliteration with the names iPod iPhone and iPad. Wow. Someone call up Dr. Seuss. Write a kids book. But don't name your new great invention after what 50% of the population will associate with menstruating.

I know in the long run it won't affect the success of this device, and it probably won't prevent me from buying one. But I just want to hear from some women who work at Apple. Did anyone really think naming it iPad was a good idea?

Today Stefany encouraged her readers, and I encourage you, to help bring diabetes supplies to Haiti. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has committed to raising money for diabetes supplies for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. So far, they've delivered.

You can donate here: http://www.idf.org/donate-idf-diabetes-trust-fund-haiti

I personally find it difficult, when a tragedy like this occurs, to figure out what I can do to help. Where is the right place to donate? Is "throwing money at the problem" really the right thing to do? In speaking with Stefany and reading about the IDF's efforts I realized that in the end this tragedy is too big for any individual. There is no "right way" to help. There's only your way.

For Luke Montgomery, it's traveling to Haiti to find the 13 orphans he's been helping over the past few years. For Jim Ansara it's donating and traveling to Haiti to see what he can do on the ground, and spreading the word as much as possible.

For Stefany it's writing on her blog, tweeting, and donating specifically to help those suffering from diabetes - people in need not only of food and water but insulin, clean glucose needles, and so on. If this seems right for you, I encourage you to donate as well.

So, regarding resolution #3, I've become obsessed with not letting anything get lost in the shuffle. For me, it has become a three-step process:

1. My inbox. We all get way too much email, and it's often very difficult to manage. We hear so much about declaring inbox bankruptcy. Since EchoDitto recently switched to using Gmail (the best email system EVER), my solution is three-fold: filters, labels, and multiple inboxes. Almost every email I receive is filtered and labeled in some way. Generally, if I get an email from a specific client, I'll apply a filter (from:client@clientemail.com) that automatically labels the email "client name." If I'm constantly receiving emails sent to a group that I know I can read later, our tech team for instance, I'll apply a filter (to:group@groupemail.com) that labels it, marks it as read, and skips my Inbox (automatically archives).

So, what if I get something important that I've filtered to skip the inbox? This is where multiple inboxes comes into the equation. For me, at the LEAST, each client has its own inbox. The EchoDitto tech team also has an inbox, my bug assignments for any/all websites I'm working on have their own inbox (we use Mantis), and so on.

Finally, what I consider to be the most-helpful trick of all: I refuse to have pagination in my main Gmail inbox. I limit the number of displayed emails in my MAIN inbox (not any of the multiple ones) to 25, and every morning I spend 30min responding to emails, acting on them, or archiving them if there is no action. The only 25 emails I keep in my inbox are those I need to act on immediately. If I miss a day of going through email, I make sure to do it at least every other day. Without fail.

Also, if you know you need to act on something, but not immediately, why keep it in your inbox? This is when multiple inboxes and advanced gmail search come in handy, as well as #2. So keep reading...

PS: My Gmail ninja level? Master.

2. Paper & Pen. I've gone through so many time/task management apps - Things, Remember the Milk, etc. Usually I'll start out with an efficient and well organized list of projects and tasks, but eventually just managing the app itself becomes a daunting task, and time-consuming. So I've given up and am now doing it old-school using pen and paper. I have a notebook, and every day AFTER acting on the things I can act on immediately in my inbox, I'll date the page and write down each project I need to be working on, and list tasks for each one that need to be completed that day. For tasks that need to be completed by the end of the week, I'll asterisk. As I complete tasks, I cross them off. Asterisked tasks that don't get completed that day are re-written on the next page the next day. Sometimes a task can be as simple as: finish all Mantis items for X project that are due today.

For longer-term tasks, things that I can just do "eventually" I block out the last 5-10 lines at the bottom of the page and write these tasks in that block. These tasks carry over every day, and I try to cross one off a week, depending on the urgency of each task. But it's a good way of keeping them on my radar.

3. My calendar. I've found that my calendar can be more than just a place to schedule meetings. Why not block out time during the day to work on projects? 9-9:30am attack email, 9:30-9:45 update task list, and by 10am I'm hard to work on all of my projects. Normally I'll book myself through to 6 or 7pm to account for the 30-60min I've been planning, and haven't really been doing client work. I find that if I fill up my Gcal with the things I need to do that day, in blocks of 1-2 or even 3hrs, I'll actually get more done and be less prone to distraction. Setting a time limit (i.e. 1hr to fix X bug on X website), also makes me more efficient in getting that task done.

Conclusions? This all sounds like a lot of work. But there are so many benefits to this system! Once you set all of this up, you get into a rhythm and it actually doesn't involve much work to do 1, 2, and 3 on a day-to-day basis. It takes me about 15-30min to get set up every day with a list of things I need to do and when I need to do them. The other benefit is that when I go to do my Timesheet for the day, I can look both at my sent email, my task list, and my calendar, and have an extremely accurate record of how I spent my day.

Now obviously this doesn't work to perfection every day. There are distractions, there are days when ... as Forrest Gump said ... stuff just happens (he didn't say it exactly like that, but you get the idea). Sometimes you get behind. For instance, writing this blog post was not blocked out in my calendar, or on my list of to-do's for today. Whoops.

I'm curious how others do the same. Do you have a system? Are the comment text boxes on our website long enough to accommodate? If not, send me an email! My email address is my first name @echoditto.com. And if you spam me, that's okay, I've got a filter ready. From: jerk@spammyjerk.com, mark as read, send to trash. Done.

But I’m straying from the point. I have yet to have the honor of meeting Elle Shaheen but I have had the honor of meeting her mother, and building her mother a blog. Elle Shaheen is a ten-year-old girl with juvenile diabetes, and her mother Stefany just launched a blog to talk about the struggles of parenting a child with diabetes. You can find it at goodmeasures.com/blog. In putting the site together I watched every video and saw every picture, and have been amazed by the stories Stefany has shared.

For one, can you imagine being a child on Halloween, and knowing that the bags of candy at each house in your neighborhood are pretty much poison to your body? Or, can you imagine being that child’s mother, and knowing that all she wants to do is be a “normal” kid on Halloween and eat gobs of candy until she feels sick? Something I never considered before I worked on this site was the fear that must come with letting your child sleep over at another child’s house when you can’t be there to check her blood sugar in the middle of the night. Something as simple as a sleepover can become an all night panic attack, a self-judgment on ones own parenting abilities.

So I’m writing about this site and this family because I have always understood how strong children can be, and that they are inexplicably able to get through almost anything. This is especially true of Elle. But also, this particular blog shows a mother's resiliency in supporting her daughter through a difficult disease. If you have your own story to tell, or are just interested in Stefany’s, I definitely recommend checking out goodmeasures.com/blog. Post a comment, send an email, or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/goodmeasures. If you have your own blog of a similar subject, let us know and we'll put you in touch with Stefany. We all know that kids are strong and resilient, but they and their families still need our support -- like a babysitter who pads the livingroom floor with pillows. We need a community of people willing to talk about the good times and the struggles. We need someone who has already done the somersault, and knows how to land feet-first.

I'll also follow Newsjunk and I'm planning on watching the whole line-up of television news. I have my computer, some popcorn, pajamas, and a comfy couch where I am looking forward to flipping from channel to channel and hitting "refresh" a lot.

Others at EchoDitto will be checking The Washington Post - check out their map and timeline that includes photos, video, articles, tweets, posts and audio related to the election. One of us will be watching the results roll in at Meetup HQ for a TechPresident blog-a-thon, and some of us are checking results via Marc Ambinder's blog & Twitter feed.

If you're looking for something a bit more interactive (or something to keep the kids busy), you could alwayscolor your own Electoral College map!

For those of you reading this who haven't voted yet (hopefully that doesn't apply to any of you), this is my plea: go vote! After you vote, tweet how it went on Twitter Vote Report. I have never before cared so much about an election, and I think that's true for a lot of people. And I think this one is probably the race of my generation. I have heard from both Obama and McCain supporters that they registered to vote for the first time because a candidate inspired them. It has been fascinating to watch, hasn't it?

And not to get cheesy, but I find simply taking advantage of our right to vote is enough. Even if this wasn't a crucial election, a historic election, to not vote seems irresponsible. Forget "you can't complain if you don't vote" - of course you can (see First Amendment). But take a look at citizens in Iraq who literally risked lives to vote. We are lucky. Go vote!

I just went to a panel called, “The female takeover of casual gaming.” Not sure what I was expecting, but I did learn some interesting statistics. I’m wondering, though, if the panelists really analyzed the statistics in an accurate way. A few notes from the panel, and then I’ll make my arguments:

- Statistically, females don’t like the first person shooter games, or “core” games (as the panelists called them) as much as they like games like “Diner Dash” (which I had never heard of until today). So basically, female gamers are generally more attracted to casual games than they are to core games like Counter Strike, Halo, World of Warcraft, etc. The panelists argued that this was because of the nature of the game – females are generally not attracted to virtual killing sprees or violence in general

- Women don’t want to compete online, they want to collaborate

- Less than 1% of game coders are women (at pogo.com it’s actually 1.01%). Females tend to be the “artists” in gaming development – working mostly with UI and design

- Women are generally more attracted to games with a strong social networking component. So, for instance, Scrabulous on Facebook, or something called imview which I can’t currently find online.

- More people have played Diner Dash (on playfirst.com) than have played Halo or The Sims (this one really got me. I had never heard of Diner Dash until today.)

To address the first statistic, that most women aren’t attracted to first person shooter games and would rather participate in something less violent and with more of a social networking component, well, I tend to think that this statistic mis-represents what is really going on in gaming right now. I am a big fan of Counter-Strike. I play a few times a week, mostly to relieve stress in the most banal of ways. And really, I’d rather not socialize with anyone while playing any game.

But I’ve noticed, while playing CS, that when a player admits she is a woman, two things happen: one, she immediately has a huge target right on her forehead – the rest of the server (generally all male) go all out trying to kill the female player as fast and as violently as they can. And second, the male players are generally embarrassed that they have been killed by a woman (it’s really offensive, actually) – and men who weren’t killed by this particular woman, rag on the other guys who were. Pairing this with the second statistic, that less than 1% of game coders are women, well, clearly core gaming is a mans world. There is NO respect for female gamers unless their skill level far exceeds most men that they are playing against.

The statistic that women generally don’t want to compete online, and would rather collaborate, well, I question the foundation of that statistic. I want to compete online, but I want to compete on a level playing field, and not have my game play effected by the fact that I’m a woman (and I don’t want to hide the fact that I’m a woman either). I wonder if many women don’t even consider playing first person shooter games like Counter-Strike because they know they will be surrounded by men, not be taken seriously, and will be used as target practice.

The reason, in my opinion, that women are not attracted to these ‘core’ games like Counter-Strike is not necessarily because of the nature of the game, but rather the nature of the community. There is already a well established and very closed male community in most of these games, and to break through as a woman is extremely difficult, and often unpleasant.

So the large influx of women playing casual games, I think, is more a result of there being few other options elsewhere. It’s generally not fun to play as a woman on Counter-Strike, and the only times I have revealed myself as a woman while playing Counter-Strike have been when I have dominated the game and am ready to leave that particular server. It takes a lot of work to establish yourself as a serious and to-be-reckoned with female gamer.

The last statistic, that more people have played Diner Dash in the last year than have played Halo or The Sims, well, I tend to question this statistic as well. With Diner Dash you can play online for free, download a 60 day free trial, or pay to download the game. I am curious as to what the panelists definition of “play” was – was it downloads? Was it the number of times people played the game for free online? If I wanted to play Diner Dash for free online every day, am I a separate statistic each time I play?

This all got me thinking about what we do at EchoDitto – a large part of what we do is build communities online. It seems to me that these “core” games have a huge flaw in their community building. Obviously Counter-Strike, Halo and the like all have very large and dedicated communities – but the communities are so established that there is almost no room for growth. I have no evidence to support this, but my guess is that the men playing these types of games get older, stop playing, and are replaced by younger teenage males. The cycle continues. What little advertising and outreach there is, is mostly targeted towards males.

So how can we translate this to what we do at EchoDitto? Obviously we are not involved as an organization in the gaming community just yet, but when we work with clients to help build their online community, we naturally try to reach out to males and females equally. In general, with community building online, the process is to find the core demographic and target that demographic, right? So theoretically, if we find that males are generally more attracted to what a site offers than females are, it makes sense to target that demographic – to target men. By doing that we are surely building a community, but aren’t we also significantly limiting the growth of that community?

Shouldn’t Steam (where you can play Counter-Strike and the like) start targeting women more aggressively to better grow their community and diversity? But then again, why change what you are doing if it is working, right?

I’ve surely made some generalizations here, and maybe I’m totally off, but in my opinion, the reason there aren’t more women playing these first person shooter, or more violent games like the ones I have talked about here, is because we just aren’t welcome. So what’s the next best option? Apparently it’s Diner Dash.