Category: Tech

community application of technology for public benefit

Working for peace

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Almost a month ago, I wrote about leaving my job at Netcentric Campaigns in search of something that would make me happier while continuing my own growth professionally and personally. I laid out what I wanted from a new job:

  1. Collaborative organizational structure supported by democratic management.
  2. Openness to innovation at the strategic and technological levels.
  3. Ability to telecommute…
  4. Passion for what I’m doing…

– lotusmedia 2.0 » A brave new world

And I also mentioned in that post that I had a job interview the following day. It was with the Fellowship of Reconciliation for the position of Communication Co-coordinator. That phone interview went very well, which led to an in-person meeting, which led to a job offer, which led to a bit of a dilemma for me. I was at the point of looking ahead at the wide world of options, activating my social networks, and also looking forward to a break from work. Along came a perfectly good offer that more than met my criteria, but I was just starting my job search, not ready to end it.

I spent some time contemplating (while participating in the NetSquared conference), I spoke to colleagues, I listened to friends. I finally decided that although the timing was not ideal, this job was a very good fit, especially in terms of the criteria I had already developed. I took the job!
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Is Mt. Gravel a symbol?

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Cross-posted at techPresident.

Astrophysicist being interviewed For this installment of my series of visits to each candidate’s Second Life efforts, I was joined by PDF Associate Editor Josh Levy, also known as Spencer Mukerji. We had the good fortune of running into Astrophysicist McCallister who is the official (but unpaid) Second Life Coordinator for Mike Gravel’s presidential campaign.

This is the first campaign we have seen with an officially recognized and at least nominally supported presence in Second Life. Other efforts are entirely volunteer-generated with little or no contact with their respective campaigns. Overall, I was impressed with Gravel’s site. It has a professional feeling (not overly showy nor amateurish) and is quite functional as well.

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More microformats

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Today, Brian and I attended DCampSouth in way way north Raleigh. Congrats to Jackson on organizing a fun and stimulating unconference around design and user experience.

Thomas Vander Wal started the day with a keynote about tagging and folksonomy. His talk led me to thinking about the incredible value we invest in sites where we not only post our content, but also indicate what it means by tagging it for the community to see.

I think that microformats are a key way that we can organize and share our own data, while still taking advantage of community sites. So I led a session on this topic. There were about 10 participants including Mr. Vander Wal. It was a very interesting discussion and I think we all learned something new about microformats and open standards on the web.

Here are the notes I just posted on the DCampSouth wiki…
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Mind the gap, part 1

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This is the first part of a rant I have been mulling over for about 3 years now. I want to get it up before the end of the event, so I will save my proposal for a second post. Cross-posted at http://www.netsquared.org/blog/rubyji/mind-gap-part-1

Advanced nonprofit technology practitioners need a place to connect and learn from each other. Who will fill this gap?

For years this was the collective whine from the hundreds of NTAPs who attend the Nonprofit Technology Conference to help other colleagues in the sector. When NetSquared was announced in 2005, I was excited to hear they would be bringing together the best minds from the nonprofit world with the leading technologists. Would this be the long-awaited venue for advanced “NPTECH” conversation?

In 2006, I attended NetSquared and it was one of the most useful and impactful conferences I had been to in years. (See my blog post here.) I eagerly signed up to come and participate again this year.

As you know if you are reading this, N2Y2 has a different goal, which is to connect innovative projects with the funding they need to succeed. I question whether $25,000 is enough to really make much impact, but I appreciate that this is a good goal. But it’s one that I don’t have any personal investment in, and it leaves the need for interaction largely unmet.

Tune in for Part Two: Eating our own dogfood, and meeting our own needs. To be posted here and at http://www.netsquared.org/blog/rubyji

Changing Change

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Inspired by conversations with Tantek Celik and Chris Messina, I’ve started a group on Change.org to support microformats, starting with XFN and Change itself.

As we invest our relationships and data there, I think we should demand that Change.org allow us to share and export our networks. XFN is an open standard for social network data. If they are really serving the community, Change should give us the ability to own and use our own data.

BTW, I am very excited about what Change.org aims to do, and their new political fund raising features have revolutionary potential, but the site is still in beta, whether they say so or not. (In other words, a lot of stuff stuff doesn’t work quite right.)

CLick here to see and join my change: http://www.change.org/changes/change_page/1187

Following NetSquared

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So NetSquared is going well. As expected: tons of great people and too much information (in a good way). I’ve been posting updates on Twitter, you can see mine and other people’s comments at http://twitter.com/NetSquared/with_friends

I also started a new “back channel” as the official IRC wasn’t working for everyone. We’re using the free and very easy Meebo (as inspired by Alan Benamer’s NPtech chat). See us at http://wwwl.meebo.com/room/netsquared/

There are already a bunch of pictures posted at http://flickr.com/photos/tags/n2y2/

NetCubed

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I’ll be getting up veeery early tomorrow morning to head west for the second annual NetSquared conference-thingy. Last year’s event had a profound effect on me. It’s where I first started using Second Life , and it’s where I had the opportunity to deepen my relationship with the brilliant Micah Sifry which led to my eventual involvement in techPresident and the Personal Democracy Forum. In other words, some of the most interesting and professionally beneficial things I’ve done in the past year grew out of NetSquared.

N2Y2 (as they are calling this second event) is going to be very different from last year’s conference. In fact, they’ve thrown out the standard conference format and instead are focusing the entire event around 21 projects that were selected by the NetSquared community (ie: anyone who wanted to vote). The entire event will be about improving the projects from a technical, financial, and management perspective.

I’m not really sure yet how I feel about this change, but as with many conferences, much of the value comes in the wonderful people you can meet, and I’m sure this year will be no exception. You can follow the action via the N2Y2 tag and NetSquared’s Twitter friends page. Read Beth’s Blog or the NetSquared community blog for more goodness.

As I mentioned before, my special part to play will be as one of 21 “champions,” each of whom is helping one of the projects through the process. My project is the Genocide Intervention Network, which aims to utilize social networks and social media to build the movement against Darfur and other atrocities. For my homework, I plan to spend some quality time on the plane reading their excellent proposal. If you get the chance to read it, I’d love to hear any feedback.