The event is called The Big Blue Test because the blue circle is the international symbol for diabetes. The idea of a shared "blood sugar test-in" started with an activity organized in July 2009 by TuDiabetes. More than a thousand people participated then. Now, we seek to reach thousands of people with diabetes through seven other diabetes social networks and Twitter. The activity incorporates 14 minutes of physical activity to reinforce the importance of exercise.

People with diabetes have to test their blood sugar routinely. It can be a very lonely activity. So we want people to take The Big Blue Test, to shed light on this chronic condition and the importance of exercise on World Diabetes Day.

Although we've gotten some amazing submissions for Making Sense of Diabetes so far, we thought it'd be a good idea to collect some tips for those who may not be as inclined to appear in front of the camera and a few others for those who want to do it but are not quite sure how to complete SOME part in the process of putting together a video for Making Sense of Diabetes (or anything else, for that matter). Here you go...

FIRST THING: THE STORY

It’s election fever in British Columbia right now.   Interesting to see how the three major parties are handling their web presence…see how the 3 major parties stack up. Read more

Arun Chaudhary, New Media Road Director for Obama for America, shares his thoughts on how to produce quality online video under tight constraints.

Earlier this month, the world watched as America elected a new president who came from a campaign rich with social media.  The campaigns had much more money and resources than all the nonprofit organizations that I know, but were really succeeding with free, or nearly-free, tools.  The question this month focused on lessons for nonprofits:

What can we learn from the unstoppable Obama PR machine that just rolled over the country? Never mind the politics: the campaign was the smartest publicity siege that’s been seen in a long time. It’s particularly worth paying attention to how Obama and his crew of merry techsters paid attention to the net. They pulled a bunch of cool tools from their utility belt: social networking sites, twitter, text messaging, and even virutal advertising in video games.  Find out more about their strategy and how it could work for your non-profit...

With a few more days to go before our deadline of Nov. 1, I wanted to appeal to the rest of the NetSquared readers to help us reach our goal of 20,000 signatures, in an attempt to appeal to Google so they will consider doing a World Diabetes Day doodle on Nov. 14.

So far we have collected a little under 9,000 signatures (using iPetitions.com, if you are curious) on DiabetesDoodle.com.

We have seen it and heard about it time and again, but the Obama campaign is capitalizing on social media use and setting some great examples for nonprofits and other social change campaigns looking to try something new.  Without any candidate endorsement, we can look at the success the Obama camp has had and try it out in our own work!

Newest in the playbook: iPhone app

On the official Barak Obama website ,supporters can now download and use the Obama iPhone application.  As the site explains, the features include:

This month's Net Tuesday San Francisco will focus on how to creating a successful web campaign for your nonprofit. Our speakers will be David Taylor, the Founder and Director of Radical Designs, and Jon Warnow, an organizer and technology coordinator whose most recent project was Step It Up. Jon received a Brower Youth Award in 2007. Check out the YouTube video (above) about his work with Step It Up.

Net Tuesday San Francisco will be held at the TechSoup/CompuMentor offices (525 Brannan Street Ste. 300) on March 11th from 6-8 PM. RSVP on Upcoming, Meetup or Facebook.

Speaker Bios:

Yesterday at the MediaPost Online Media, Marketing, and Advertising Video conference analysts declared that the starting point for campaign design must be research and testing. This is because the window has grown shorter in getting attention, developing commitment, and converting on your call-to-action. Themes, storylines, and next steps have to be quick, easy, urgent, and readily acceptable. So sort out the highest value concepts and propositions in a closed survey before you jump, so that you can proceed with confidence.