Even thought I am still reflecting on that Pew report and the comment from Weinberger's blog
Even if just 1% of Web users tagged resources with some regularity, they would be creating handholds for the other 99%. That 1% will add a layer of meaning (or "semantics," if you prefer the way that sounds) that will seed enough innovation and connectedness of ideas.
I'm also still trying to force myself to leave my comfort zone of certain work processes and squeeze in some experimentation. I'm caught between being a Myers-Briggs J or Getting Things Done person (as fast as possible) and making space for reflection or rather reflection in action.
Reflection is a process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice.
Is reflection in action the way to integrate small amounts of experimentation with Web2.0 tools?
Okay, it is time to actually do some (billable) work. After posting a query about various conferences people attended on some peer listservs, I got only one reply with four more leads -- two of which I had discovered via cha cha guide and search engine by digging deeper into the leads provided. My blog post generated a referral.
So, now it is time to dig into using combination of tags in delicious. One trick you can do is search by combination of tags by adding the "+" between tags.
Nptech + Conference produced about 75 links most of which were actual conferences (either nonprofit technology or technology) and helped me add half dozen more leads, including a site packed with nonprofit related resources. Wow, better than a listserv!.
There were, of course, a few other resources that were not about specific face-to-face conferences, including this one on how to improve your conference panel presentation and some online conference resources.
Nonprofit + Conference produced less than 100 resources. I had to giggle because the first one on the list was the Omidyar workspace where I'm compiling the list (and other people are adding to it too). Yeah, found another 3 conferences.
Social Change + Nonprofits turned up less than 100 resources, but several solid leads that were not uncovered by google searches. SocialEnterprise + Nonprofits turned just a tiny few of really good resources
So, I added about 25 leads to my list in less time than using non-social search. While browsing the resources, I also noticed users that I knew and decided that these people, taggers, would be good people to ask for recommendations.
Of course, if you have recommendations for the best conferences to attend in the areas of nonprofit, nonprofit technology, technology, social change, or social enterprise, please let me know.
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