What to Expect at the STT

I wrote to all of our STT participants today, letting them know what to expect out of our training, what our focus is, and inviting them to create space for others on our 90+ person waiting list if they aren't sure it's the right fit for them:

Hello STT! Congratulations for registering for this unique event. It is set to be an even more fabulous expereince for skill building, learning, inspiration, and community building than it was last year.

I’m writing to tell you how excited we are that you are coming, but also to ask you a question. We are quite a bit over capacity (again) this year, with a massive wait list of organizations who really want to send someone to this event. So I wanted to make sure everyone who has registered so far truly fits our ideal profile, because, if after reading this you want to back out to give someone else a slot, we’ll give you a full refund, and lots of free positive karma for creating space for others!

The STT was designed to help people inside social change organizations gain the skills, tools, networks, and most importantly confidence and leadership abilities so they can become stronger advocates + executers of innovative web campaigns for the social change sector. We are bringing together some of the most experienced and successful trainers in our industry who will be sharing with you industry leading examples of how organizations are using digital tools to make social change happen.

But there are 4 things that I want to be crystal clear about ahead of time!

1. This is a solidly intermediate level training. Last year, despite our warnings, many participants did not have “the basics” in place, and the content ended up being a little too advanced for them. This year, we partnered with Canada Helps’ My Charity Connects “Social Media 101” conference, happening at MaRS, Monday and Tuesday of the same week, to help people who are less well established with the digital world. We define well established as having a decent website with a CMS, a solid email program, and have dabbled with Facebook or Twitter.
    
2. The training is focused on advocacy, public education, constituency building, and fundraising. Most of the stories that our trainers will share are from organizations that do public engagement work: shifting public opinion, mobilizing support for a policy change, fundraising from small donors, or spreading ideas. If your organization does not do these things, their stories may not be particularly relevant to your work.
   
   
3. This training is designed for people who want to make online engagement their career, or are building a digital team. People who are merely intrigued by this space might be a better fit for My Charity Connects, or our open Wired Wednesday event, or other NetChange week events.
    
4. This training is intense. It’s designed to be a mini-MBA course. We work you hard, from morning until night, for 3 very full days. Why push so hard? Because a) there is so much to share to gain expertise in this always changing field, b) our time together is so precious and short, and c) you’re paying good money for this training and we’ve spent 6 months designing it for you

As I said, I am telling you this now to get you excited and prepared (it’s going to be amazing), and also to extend to you an escape clause: if you are starting to wonder if the STT is right for you, we have almost 50 people on our waiting list, and it’s growing every day, so if you want to bow out, we will give you a full refund on your money which will create space for someone else to participate.

Hopefully you are even more excited, and merely daunted in a good way, after reading this. ;] Thanks for being interested in this exciting field, and mostly thanks for helping grow the community of purpose driven social change innovators who are building a better world through the web. See you soon.

Jason Mogus
Conference Producer