While I was on vacation last week, Millie Garfield celebrated a birthday and I wanted to make sure to tell her happy birthday. At 83 years young, Millie Garfield is one of the Internet's oldest bloggers, according to The Ageless Project. She is a terrific story teller and blogs almost more often than I do. Millie's blog, My Mom's Blog, really demonstrates the power of telling stories.
Steve Garfield, her son, created a book out of her blog as a gift. The cover includes photos of Millie with different bloggers and friends, including me!
I've had the pleasure of working with Steve Garfield, a well known video blogger, on a couple of projects - and he rocks. I was delighted to see him working with some nonprofits, including Third Sector to introduce them to Sesmic. Steve organizes the Boston Media Makers which meets on the first Sunday of each month.
Hi Beth
Thanks for the birthday wishes. If I receive them before, during or after my birthday they are always fun to receive.
Nice post about Steve and me. ;-)
Posted by: mildred garfield | August 26, 2008 at 06:31 PM
Hey Beth
i did not realize you know my wife, Barbara Sawhill of LanguagelabUnleashed. Barbara has gotten me into blogging which I find cathartic if nothing else. I run a family foundation called The Nord Family Foundation www.nordff.org and we have been keenly interested in supporting nonprofit organizations to make better use of web-based tools. One project we started is called Ideasunleased www.ideasunleashed.org which has had fits and starts. The group there trains nonprofits on the use of web 2.0 and sets up blogs, wikis and websites. It has been a struggle. Time seems to be a huge factor for many directors who are burdened with running programs, raising money and trying to engage their boards. I am curious to know how you get nonprofits to find the time to "push" the social networking tools once the platforms are set up. I find we have too many cases where a beautiful website is set up - blogs, wiki's and even audio feeds, but it dies because they do not have the time to feed it. I feel sometimes we are giving adults the equivalent of a webkin, and they don't feed their pets!
I just started my own blog called The Civic Fabric www.thecivicfabric.org which is a set of musings about philanthropy and its role in the larger civic society. I would love to hear your thoughts (and thoughts from your readers) on the issues I bring up. It can be a place where nonprofit leaders can give a philanthropoid some advice!
John
Posted by: John Mullaney | August 27, 2008 at 05:24 AM
Hi Beth
You are doing amazing work here - let me know if I can help in anyway.
FYI Swarmteams has a new baby SwarmTribes (www.swarmtribes.com) which is designed to enable causes (eg music, campaigns, education) to collaborate with their supporters in a new, more intimate way. Our current focus is UK but looking for opportunities to take it global.
Best Regards
Ken
http://www.bioteams.com
Posted by: ken thompson | September 02, 2008 at 02:01 AM