The Faces of the 21 Featured Projects on NetSquared
NetSquared Community Briefs
NetSquared site has a "gallery" of the 21 Featured Projects that were chosen to go to the NetSquared Conference.
A new Help Wanted section on the NetSquared site is where you discover what kinds of expertise these projects are looking for in order to achieve success. Maybe you have the expertise they need to make it happen and would like to share it!
Seattle Net Tuesday is looking for a co-organizer.
Come join the NetSquared Group on LinkedIn!
NpTech Tweets
Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" via SM, IM, Twitter Web or other applications. Educators have noted that "Twitter is like walking to school with your friends and hanging out, while reading blogs is reading their homework." Perhaps the nonprofit metaphor is "Twitter is a business lunch with co-workers and colleagues, and blogging is a formal meeting with the same people" as noted by David Brazeal.
(For more on Twitter from NpTech community see Michelle Martin post about Robin Good's Guide To Using Twitter and these resources http://del.icio.us/tag/twitter+nptech)
The word "tweet" refers to the brief posts (140 characters or less) that people make on Twitter. Here's a round up tweets overheard on Twitter from a few NpTechers:
- Allan Benamer asks whether Kintera is going open platform and writes a blog post.
- Sheldon Manes tells us why his wireless connection was flaky this week.
- Chris Brogan points to WikiHOW - a How To Manual that anyone can write.
- Ed Schipul reflects after reading a recent Chronicle article says Twitter is for narcissists.
- Judi Sohn announces that she has finished an article with a detailed comparison of web-based email services for Web Worker Daily
- Marc Sirkin shouts out the name of a potential key note speaker for NTC 2008
- Peter Gulka mentions a new nonprofit job site called Jobs At Nonprofits
- Aldon Hynes says video blogging as is an antidote to too much TV and points some recent articles on the topic.
- You may get a postcard from Ben Sheldon
- Nancy White points to this post about how Twitter amplifies serendipity.
NpTech Tagged Resources and Conversations of Note
In the NpTech group over at ma.gnolia, someone bookmarked the Nonprofit Tech Search Pipe (Alpha) created by NTEN. You can browse by tag as well as filter by type of resource.
An interesting post about from Read/Write Web about how much textual information we consume on a daily basis.
Jon Stahl points to a thoughtful article by Michael Gilbert called "Ten Things We Look for In A Client."
Chipin got Delled! Students can now use a Chipin widget to ask Mom, Dad, relatives and friends to contribute to their new Dell computer.
Where Most Needed Points blog points out that while national advertisers can pull their ads from programs they don't agree with, charities working with the Ad Council don't have that right.
Folks that Rocked the NTC lists the most highly rated speakers at the NTC. On the top of the list is Barry Joseph from Global Kids who presented from Second Life!
Want a one-pager filled with techie headlines? Check out the daily rotation!
Social Networking and Social Change
Dan McQuillan, guest blogger on NTEN blog this week, writes about the issues related to larger NGO's exploring Social Networks.
Sean Stannard-Stockton offers his thoughts about Project-Agape, an attempt to bring viral principles to nonprofit fundraising and volunteer recruiting from Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and Plaxo and founding president of Facebook. Nick Geisinger at Washington Grantmakers Daily blogs his reflections too.
fresh + new blog introduces us to a social networking site for museum professionals to share their exhibit development case studies and others to comment. It's called Exhibit Files.
Julius Huijnk informs us that the beta for the Helpalot site is now live.
Rob Cottingham from Social Signal gives an excellent primer on how to make friends on social networks.
Two Good Reports
The Pew Internet and American Life project released a new study that looks at Internet use profiles and reveals that a 8% are Web2.0 power users compared with 49% described as having few tech assets and engaging with the online world on occasion or not at all. TechCrunch described as the "growing digital divide in America."
NTEN Blog points to a report called "Bridging the Innovation Divide: An Agenda for Disseminating Technology Innovations within the Nonprofit Sector." Laura Quinn says it is a must-read. Glad it showed up in the NpTech Tag Stream!
Upcoming Events
Ethos Roundable on May 15th will feature Samuel Klein speaking about the One Laptop per Child Project in Cambridge, MA.
Michael Stein will be moderating a panel discussion on Friday, May 18 on "Engaging Constituents and donors in an online and mobile world" in San Francisco.
What do Kevin Bacon and Open Source Software Have in Common? They're both topics of upcoming NTEN Webinars ... further information can be found here.
The Grassroots Use of Technology 2007 will take place in Lowell, MA on June 22-24 and is co-located with the Grassroots Radio Conference. Check out the agenda where you will find lots of workshops. Friday, June 22nd starts with Penguin Day!
Games For Change 4th Annual Festival is taking place in NYC on June 11-12th! It will bring together non-profits, game designers, foundations, and academics from across the US and overseas to explore best practices in social issue gaming.
And, there's still time to participate in the TechSoup online event about Disaster Planning and Recovery hosted by Henry Kumagai. Be sure to check out the Disaster Planning ToolKit. Earlier this week, TechSoup celebrated its 7th Birthday!
Social Media
Kim Roach at LifeHacks shares 101 Tips for becoming a better blogger.
ELSUA blog gives us five reasons why ghost weblogging for CEOs (and executive directors?) is not such a good idea.
Content to be different publishes an article called "Working the Wiki Way" written for the Media Trust and the ICT Hub and includes some nonprofit case studies.
Do you track your Technorati authority? Susie's Blog ponders her Technorati authority in the nonprofit workplace. The Democracy in Action blog shares some of the tools they use to maintain a commanding presence among Technorati's top half-million blogs. What are the strategies?
The Give and Take Blog points to some examples of Second Life for Social Good.
The Tajikistan Travels blog points us to their YouTube video about how small individual actions can make a difference.
The Hip Hop Project Movie Trailer in YouTube was tagged with the NpTech tag with this annotation, "Be the change you want to see. If you bill yourself as an activist .. you need to watch this movie on opening Weekend - May 11th!!"
David Wilcox has a post summarizing a seminar entitled "My Space Not Yours: Public Engagement and the YouTube Generation."
Check giss.tv, a free streaming solution for nonprofits as recommended by Roq on TechSoup Forums.
NpTimes article "Building Meaningful Relationships Online By Being Quiet" by David Lawson from Kintera.
First Monday has a paper that explores notions and rationales of gift exchange among participants of the social networking site ‘LiveJournal" by Erika Pearson/
Lee LeFever gives us some ideas about how to go beyond message boards and think more broadly about designing online communities to enable people to participate.
Some slides from a Web 2.0 Expo presentation called "Designing for Web 2.0" from the functioning form blog.
Invite for Good is a free online invitation tool for events and parties, with the option of adding a Charitable Gift Registry to the invitation.
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.
Thanks... I'm glad you liked the primer!
Posted by: Rob Cottingham | May 11, 2007 at 12:39 PM
Nice to see the mention of ExhibitFiles (via Fresh + New) It might be too specialized for much of your audience, but we have high hopes for museum professionals and others in the exhibit world. As always I enjoy reading your blog.
Posted by: Jim Spadaccini | May 11, 2007 at 03:25 PM
In case anyone reading doesn't receive one of Ben Sheldon's postcards, the AmeriCorps social networking site he built is at http://meetamericorps.com/
Posted by: cheryl | May 12, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Hi Beth, thanks for mentioning Helpalot. Could you personally also take a personal page on Helpalot? I'd love to hear your feedback.
Posted by: Julius | May 13, 2007 at 03:41 PM