Flickr photo from jhritz
NpDigg: The Insect Antennae?
npdigg.org, cooked up by the nonprofittech blog, is up and running. It is based on some open source code called Pligg that creates a "digg" like interface. The nptech tag stream (plus other sources) has been imported, so you can comment and vote on tagged items.
If you are interested in community plumbing, here's rough diagram, although it might have changed since a few days ago. It will be interesting to see how this evolves given the technology platform came before the social design, but as online community pundits note, web2.0 applications have changed the rules of online community.
There are two sets of social roles here. The tagging community that lies beneath the npdigg structure has taggers, consumers, aggregators, and meta aggregators. The npdigg community roles include consumers, voters, and submitters.
Someone on the 501 Tech Club NY list (NTEN Affinity Group) suggested a name change might be needed. There is now a poll to vote on names suggested by people. One suggestion is vikono.org, Swahili plural for insect antennae.
So, let's take a quick look at the most highly rated items this week - which are about money, content, software, jobs, and some geek humor.
Netsquared Technology Innovation Fund which is high on the agenda of this year's Netsquared Conference. More than $100,000 is on the table for innovate projects. Follow the links from here.
Who has time for Video? isn't as negative as it sounds. The point made is: Some content is going to be very well suited to video -- but other
content will be better when it's delivered in other, more appropriate
formats. The question is "When is video a good
choice and when it is not. And, if you want to see some excellent nonprofit examples of video, be sure to check out the entries in the NTC Video Contest. (And you have until March 11th at midnight to enter.)
CEO Kintera steps down. Some reactions here.
A quick review of the results of Isovera Survey of Open Source Content Management Satisfaction in Nonprofit Organizations. Commentary on the data here. What do you think?
Web Worker Daily describes five new jobs of the Web2.0 Generation. Although most nonprofits are probably still using more traditional job titles, the Agitator describes how the job Webmaster has changed.
A Blast from the Past
Gavin has posted some really early photos of the founding meetings for Aspiration, NTEN, and the NSNT on flickr. He notes they were all taken with a Sony Picturebook mini-laptop with built-in camera. Hence, they're pretty lousy photos. (But at least they were preserved) An early video from the Riders Conference in Kansas City in 2000 was discovered on Blip.TV. Maybe we need an NPtech History Archive?
Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building Online Community by John Coate was first written in 1992 and will give you a good context of online community practice.
Phil Agre's How To Help Someone Use A Computer, circa 1996, is still relevant to anyone who is teaching someone how to master a new piece of software or Internet service.
Events and Conferences: Live Blog Notes, Upcoming, and How-Tos
FLOSS Usability Sprint is taking place this weekend. The wiki is here and they welcome remote participation. As part of the activities, people are invited to kick the tires of the new version of Social Source Commons.
If you are reading this roundup, and you haven't registered for NTC in Washington, DC, go do it now and while you're at it, register for Penguin Day too.
Check out NOSI's plans for NTC.
Technology in the Arts is accepting session proposals for its October 2007 conference. Deadline March 23, 2007.
DIA blog reports from the Freedom To Connect conclave today, and came back with a bit of darkly indistinct video of the feature presentation by Yochai Benkler.
Heather from Aspiration shares her process for securing a venue for Penguin Day.
Nonprofit Software (and hardware)
Ryan at PicNet hacks Email to RSS for NTEN Affinity Groups! TechSoup has RSS feeds too! Loud cheers and happy dances from people who overwhelmed with email.
The I Pulled My Hair Out Blog tells us how to consolidate google accounts and here are the top ten gmail hacks.
The Power of Partners Summit in NYC last week brought together business and nonprofits to embrace
the integrated philanthropy model in honor of National Corporate Philanthropy Day. Also announced 2.0 Strategy, Wealth Management Edition. Commentary here.
Gobuki Blog identifies the steps from migrating nonprofits from stand-alone email tool to Salesforce. He also shares some process maps for donor management. (If you want to learn more about mindmapping and diagramming tools, the Web Worker Daily has a review here)
Share the Technology, a computer recycling database that matches requests with donations.
Online Organizing, Online Communities, and Social Networking
New Organizing Institute conducted a jam-packed three-day training for nonprofits on online organizing and technology. Usha from Beaconfire Consulting notes that it was conducted in the Louise Bethune conference room and fills us in on why this is symbolic.
ForumOne Communications blog answers the question "How do you engage 5% of your audience that are most important to you?"
Nancy White's slides from TALO and some audio from Nothern s about the new rules for online communities. Yikes, there are no rules.
Andy Roberts has a good roundup of advice for encouraging participation on wikis, yet another new kind of online community. Lee Romero has posted a nice guide to using wikis to support his Idealist group's work.
Some reflections about the newest web2.0 bleeding edge tool, twitter.
Online/Offline and Open/Closed Content
A story in CIO talks about how the Internet has boosted employee productivity and points to Pew Research that shows that the boundary that existed in people’s lives between the workplace and the home has broken down. This was a topic for an entire book called "Crazy Busy."
Donor Power Blogs describes the online/offline generation gap, although some members of the great generation have been spotted on YouTube.
David Wilcox shares an example of growing divided in the UK nonprofit sector between "traditional" online communities (listservs) and those who are adopting Web2.0 platforms.
How to remix content with having a law degree is a simple guide to how to use material from the internet without getting in trouble.
Flickr/Photo Sharing, Video, and Games for Change
An interesting comparision between photos on flickr and Getty images. Also see the Top Ten Flickr API Hacks and Top Ten Tips for Getting Attention on Flickr. There's a nice write up how Oxfam Uses Flickr To Advocate for Ethiopian Coffee Farmers via the NTEN Nonprofit Flickr Affinity Group which is meeting at the NTC in Washington, DC. (see here)
In celebration of International Women's Day, Joe's Blog showcases some games that are designed to teach us about this issue, along with ways to support NGO's doing work in this area.
Check out this disaster simulation game from the UNISDR called Stop Disasters! If you're interested in seeing more examples, Teresa Crawford, has been adding them into del.icio.us here, using the ICT4peace tag.
Social Media Blog points us to column by Walter S. Mossberg called "Web Video Beyond YouTube."
Marketing and Fundraising
Charitable gift catalogs ignites blog buzz notes the Donor Power Blog, providing context and a roundup of blogosphere reaction. If nothing else, go watch the video clip by Robert Thompson it's a powerful example of using a story telling technique on video for personal fundraising.
Kayta Andresen started a blogopshere debate on cause-related marketing with her post "Seeing RED and Pink," and continued her reporting on the topic from Marketing Sherpa's Email Conference. Tactical Philanthropy weighs in on the debate. The Give and Take blog has coverage here.
Nancy Schwartz has a terrific post about getting your audience to spread the word about your cause.
Techies often lapse into jargon (me included) and we're always challenging ourselves to speak english. Other sectors, like philanthropy, have vocabularly challenges as well.
Some New (to me) Nonprofit Blogs
BlackBus is a blackbaud user site.
NonprofitCMS blog focuses on practical advice for needs, wants, and woes of nonprofit son the Internet.
Pulling my hair out blog jumps into the nonprofit blogosphere.
Why do we have so many lists of lists of lists of nonprofit blogs? Sounds like it could be part of a future wiki carnival ...?
BlackBUS is a User Society for Blackbaud software users, not Blackboard.
Let them get their own :P Thanks for the plug :)
Posted by: Peter Gulka | March 09, 2007 at 02:08 PM