We are in a unique moment of people organizing. At this time, our culture becomes both increasingly tied together and fragmented ( danah boyd ). Organizers dreamed for years to be able to reach millions of people (YouTube) and they pined for the day thousands of allies could collaborate in synchronizing efforts (Iranelection ish) to agitate for change of culture, industry or policy. Now we sit in among vast networks of supporters, allies, friendsters and professionals (1000+ at PDF) as committed to our issues as we are, but working together alludes us. change remains just out of reach.

Here’s a broad ranging list of interesting tidbits I’ve found recently. Heard of RDFa? A List Apart has a great introduction to it. Have a Mac? Have an iPhone? Want to use it as a remote? Learn how . Interesting strategy for wireframes: add color shading for emphasis. Example 1 . Example 2 . Top 10 Firefox 3.5 features from Lifehacker. I’m loving 3.5 so far. 10 Disruptive Technologies to have on the radar. A thoughtful, interesting example of where Drupal can work better over Wordpress. ...Tags: Nonprofit Tech nptech.

Social Actions had the opportunity to share its story in the July 2009 issue of Open Source Business Resource (OSBR), a peer-reviewed monthly publication for individuals and organizations contributing to, and interested in, open source projects and technologies. Guest Editor Stephen Huddart extended an invitation to feature Social Actions as an example of collaborative, open source principles in action. Peter and I had a great time co-authoring what effectively is the most comprehensive description of Social Actions' development to date.

Despite all of the delayed campaigns, lower donations, budget-cuts, and general angst caused by the economy, major gift fundraising is still happening. Of course it is only happening for organizations that are staying engaged in the major gift process. The old maxim “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” is more true than ever as donors stop their impulse giving and move towards a more thoughtful approach that focuses their diminished capacity where they can receive the maximum return on their philanthropic investment.

Last month we mentioned GivingUSA's annual assessment of individual giving which showed that donations from individuals had dropped 5.7% overall in 2008. Things were even worse on the corporate side. The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy's 2008 assessment of corporate gving (PDF) reports that corporate giving was down nearly 8% overall ($30.78 million compared to $33.19 million in 2007). Although 53% of corporations surveyed said they had increased their giving, and 27% had increased giving by at least 10%, it wasn't enough to make up for the overall decline.

Submitted by Susan Tenby, publisher of Online Communities for Social Change Today I had several discovery moments of serendipitous learning via Twitter. I am noticing lately, that I am hearing all my news before it even hits the web, let alone TV, via Twitter. There is something so gratifying about reading a news-ticker on the bottom of MSNBC TV and saying , “Yeah, old news, read a tweet about that 5 minutes ago.” Twitter is becoming more important to us every day, and it will soon change the way we live .

You have to be able to make fun on all this stuff that we live on the web. Here’s a good one: See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today’s Big Thing . Link: [ College Humor ] ...Tags: Video Web Tech.