From Flickr User Philswin2003
The above flickr photo is from the Nonprofit Software Development Summit and some flipchart notes illustrating what's going on right now: inspiration, matchmaking, and practical methods!
The Nonprofit Software Development Summit
Lots of notes and blog posts over at the 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit wiki to read. Integration is the hot button topic, as noted by Holly Ross in her "Integration is King" post. There's lots more to digest and lots more to come. Here's a few sessions notes in the wiki: NpTech Tag, definition of Open API For-Profit/Nonprofit Software Collaborations and where are the biggest tool gaps? There's an interesting idea for "emergency NGO in a box" in the notes about Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Tools and an interview with Gregg Swanson of HumiNet by Britt Bravo from the Summit.
The Summit runs until Saturday and the correspondent reports and notes are being filed. I'm looking forward to reading the reflections next week.
Tools
Creating Passionate Users Blog asks "Are our tools making us dumber?" and offers some advice to tool makers, teachers, and users.
An article called Free Software, Handpicked for Nonprofits by Tactical Technology Collective and iCommons just published on Techsoup.
Open Content, Online Privacy, and Virtual Worlds
Where Most Needed points out that few US Universities jump on MIT's Free Courseware Bandwagon.
Tor is a toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improvie their safety and security on the Internet.
Lucy Bernholz summarizes what NY Times Columnist, David Pogue has shared about his experience in Second Life and suggests his comments are revealing regarding the development of an independent sector in the virtual world.
Carnival Collaboration
The Carvinal of Nonprofit Consultants and The Giving Carnival will join forces next week. Deadline is March 2n.
Reading Minds and Telling You What's on Their Minds
Mary Joyce from DemoBlog has a post called "Think Digg: How NGOs Can Read Their Members' Minds"
Sean Stannard-Stockton from Tactical Philthanthropy writes about the potential for "donor-created social media philthanthropy research" and thinks it should encouraged. There's a thoughtful comment from Givewell that points out the work flow involved. "We're using social media because the technology is here and it's helpful, but if it weren't here, we'd make a newsletter and Xerox it for everyone we know. What really defines GiveWell is collecting the information that nonprofits are surprisingly hesitant to share, and centralizing and coherently summarizing it. Information-sharing tools are great, but they don't magically make this happen. There's a lot of work to be done, whether the results go on a wiki or a blog or a stone tablet."
Colin Delany got a little hacked off at a social media critic and decided to respond.
The On-Demand Nonprofit
Katrin Verclas at NTEN examines the implications for nonprofits about the recent announcement of the free Google Premier Apps, a suite of on-demand Google services.
ZdNet post raises the question "Salesforce.com pulls back on releasing subscriber totals; is that worrisome?"
Michele Martin talks about the barriers to adoption of google tools in government agencies and nonprofits. Here's ten steps towards Association 2.0, a remix of Marnie Webb's Ten Ways to Use Web 2.0 Tools To Change the World.
Rules of Thumb
Michael Stein (East Coast) describes how "rules of thumb" used in the medical field can be applied to nonprofit management.
Random Thoughts on Life and Work blog points us to a recent article from the Wharton School about Internet Collaboration and suggests that nonprofits should pay also attention.
Email Newsletters
So, What's an E-mail Address Worth is the title of this week's Tip Sheet Tuesday from the Democracy in Action Blog.
Nancy Schwartz writes about the importance of email newsletter welcome messages because your audience is most engaged as a new subscriber.
New Blogs
Yes, Tobias Eigen blogs and we've just discovered his blog in the NpTech Tag stream. It's called saidia.org It's Swahili and means help.
A Better World In Second Life Blog is tracking political activism taking place in virtual worlds.
Privaterra blog showed up in the tag stream. It focuses on the area of data privacy, secure communications and information security.
Last Call for the Oscar Pool
Jason Z reminds us that Oscars on Sunday and it's the final call to enter the NpTech pool.
The NpTech Tag started as an experimental community tagging project in 2005. A loosely coupled group of nonprofit techies and social change activists decided to use the tag "NpTech" to identify web resources that would create an ongoing stream of information to promote and educate those working in nonprofit technology. Many individuals tag hundreds of resources each week. Through TechSoup's Netsquared project, blogger Beth Kanter, was commissioned to write a weekly summary.
You can find the columns here: http://www.netsquared.org/blog/kanter.
The summaries are released on cc 2.5 license and you are encouraged
to use, remix, and forward, with the appropriate attribution!
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