[HOT] HOT is now on LinkedIn

[Blake Girardot]

On 2/12/2015 12:25 PM, nicolas chavent wrote:

> Reading through your points in favour of Linkedin, I still fail to see
> the gain in audience since after more than 5 years, both the HOT Project
> and HOT US Inc (the US NGO) are well established entities not only
> within the OpenSource and OpenData communities but truly within the
> Hum/Dev actors. The website, the lists and the social media have a real
> audience. And specific emails (info at hotosm or individual emails) provide
> avenues for groups who won't engage through public lists. All those
> tools have proven to establish connection and build relations with an
> important ecosystem.
>
> If I fail to see the benefits for HOT on being in Linkedin, I can see
> clearly drawbacks in terms of promoting HOT members and contributors of
> the HOT communities in the work of the Organization. What comes first,
> the engagement in the HOT work (member/community) proven into continued
> volunteerism or a solid track records of professionals who did not pay
> attention to the HOT project and its supporting organizations after 5
> years of action (outreach included).
> To a certain extent, the same applies to donors and partners where time,
> understanding are key to build trust in relations.


Nicolas,

I 100% agree we need to emphasize HOT US Inc.'s and the HOT Project's 
core values, open data, open software, volunteer collaboration, 
humanitarian work, community empowerment. We need to make sure it is 
clear it is a volunteer organization first foremost and that HOT US Inc 
is an entity that promotes, supports and helps organize the Project, but 
it is the volunteers and local mappers that make the HOT Project work. I 
think the description on the LinkedIn page can be improved and we will 
make sure it gets improved as soon as possible.

I just want to point out that most, if not all, of our humanitarian 
partners have a presence on LinkedIn. For example:

Red Cross, UK, US, Australia, Philippines, ICRC, etc
OxFam
WFP
UNHCR
UNDP
UNESCO
WorldBank
USAID
CartONG

The list goes on. They have together (and some individually), hundreds 
of thousands of followers on linkedin. Why would HOT US Inc., on behalf 
of the HOT Project not want to be a part of that outreach channel?

If we change the HOT US Inc. page to make our core values clear, what 
are the negatives to being on LinkedIn?

Blake