Category: Tech

community application of technology for public benefit

Big NPtech news

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Seven months ago, I lamented about Convio buying GetActive, now Convio’s going public. I call this more bad news for nonprofits.

However, our day is also brightened by the news that the lovely and (extremely) talented Holly Ross is taking the helm at NTEN. She has ably and patiently run their Nonprofit Technology Conferences for many years and is a great choice to continue to lead NTEN. Congrats, Holly.

It must be noted that I bitched about the fact that the last time they hired a new ED (14 months ago) I only got an e-mail from NTEN and had no blog entry to link to. This time, that is certainly not the case. Well done, all.

Also, good luck to my friend and outgoing ED Katrin Verclas, who will surely find success in whatever she does. I hope it’s kicking butt with MobileActive.

Geeks for Good

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So at BarCampRDU a few weeks ago, I facilitated a session on how geeks can use their powers for the forces of good. It was mostly a brainstorming session for all of us. I was very pleased to see how much interest there is in community engagement on the part of these guys (I was the only woman in the room). I was pleased to see that one person I met at DCampSouth a few months ago has since started a new local politics blog in Raleigh.

We came up a with a good list of resources for techies who want to help make the world a better place. Please add more at the wiki page: http://www.barcamp.org/geeks4good

– BarCamp / geeks4good

Categories icon Tech

Virtual registration of real voters

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Since you read my blog religiously (what? you don’t???) you know that I have been facilitating weekly meetings of the SL Netroots group that emerged from RootsCamp in Second Life back in November. In January, this group put on Avatars Against the War, bringing over 100 people to a peace protest held at Second Life’s Capitol Hill. Since then our participation has ebbed and flowed. I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to put into it, and many of our leaders were also engaged with other important activities like organizing against fascism in SL and putting on Yearly Kos in Second Life (YKSL).

At last week’s meeting we had a lively group with some regulars and some newcomers and folks came up with a great idea: a voter registration drive to make SL residents aware of the need to register and vote and to make it easier for them to do so. Being the voice of reason (a.k.a. seasoned cynic), I recommend that our volunteers bring us a plan to be discussed at our next meeting. (We’ve had issues with folks bringing good ideas but not following-through.)

Sure enough Jamming Independent (a.k.a. John Breyault in RL) has come up with a plan, and we will be discussing it at our weekly SL Netroots meeting tomorrow (Thursday) at noon PDT/3pm EDT. We will also be talking about the Netroots Nation group that emerged from YKSL and how to work together with them in the future.

This is great stuff going on and I am very excited! If you’ve been meaning to come or if you used to and haven’t been in a while, this one is the meetup to attend. Hope to see you there.

NPC opening now!

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I’m settling in at the Nonprofit Commons (NPC) opening in Second Life. I will be liveblogging by adding stuff to THIS POST rather than posting a new blog entry each time, so please come back and scroll down…

8:40 pm EDT
The sim is already full and folks can’t get in. There is an overflow space at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Lake%20West/127/1/26

8:47
My first pictures are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubyji/sets/72157601449952247/
070814NPC 002

8:50
We are currently listening to a woman doing a nice solo guitar-and-singing thing. Enjoyable, but I always find it funny to hear folk music in virtual worlds…

Here are the ladies of the hour, from left to right: Glitteractica Cookie (Susan Tenby of TechSoup, organizer of this event and this community), Jeska Linden (NP liaison for Linden Labs, not sure if LL did anything in particular for this besides create Second Life), and Anshe Chung (SL real estate baron and donor of the island and buildings that house the NPC)
070814NPC 014

9:05
SL crashed my computer, as it does about once per visit on average.

I am back in-world, amazingly was able to get back to NPC, and the live video from San Fransisco is now starting. Susan Tenby is telling the crowd about TechSoup’s work in Second Life. 300 group members, thousands of avatars have come to their weekly meetings.

9:09
I’m told the video is also available at http://dss7.streamhoster.com/lv_slcompumentor/sltest.sdp

9:13
And crash #2.

9:22
I was in for about a second and then crash #3. Restarting SL now…

9:25

OK, I’m back in and I’ve got more pictures up. Here’s Susan Tenby appearing by video (behind the stage where her avatar is sitting).
070814NPC 017

Anshe Chung’s avatar is on the video and she is speaking from China. Susan is pointing out the avatars to people in the audience.

9:33
Susan reports that there about 100 avatars in attendance including the overflow area.
Next up: Coughran Mayo from Preferred Family Healthcare speaking via Skype.

9:40
Here’s Evonne Heyning on screen while her avatar In Kenzo is on stage.
070814NPC 029

Oh no! Evonne says that Vivienne Cassavetes was not able to get in to the event! She has been doing great nonprofit stuff in SL! Also we are being reminded of the URL: nonprofitcommons.org

Now there will be a Q & A with questions from SL.

9:46
Question: what predictions do you have for the future of non-profit activity in Second Life in the coming year?
Susan: Don’t know but has ideas about how to grow NPC.

me: I predict: it will grow.

9:58
Some discussion of volunteer efforts in SL and funding. Rik shared this link about Macarthur’s announcement today: http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2007/08/macarthur-found.html

Here are some folks hanging out:
070814NPC 027 070814NPC 030

10:02
There was a question from the SF audience about how a nonprofit employee could justify SL to their organization. I think they meant how to do you get your org to support using SL. Here’s what I and others said:

Ruby Glitter: Do you also have to “justify” using the web?
Ruby Glitter: Let’s not use this word “justify!”
Ruby Glitter: My org trusts me and I do it during 9-5.
Spirals Sol: we told our org. that it’s a new fancy way to reach out to the world
Master Quatro: if you volunteer then you don’t have to justify .. use your volunteers to do this
Fletcher Dovgal: I think results speak, so someone has to do the legwork, but then more get on board when it works
Huckleberry Fargis: justify is appropriate as an eval of effectiveness
Ping Rau: thanks
Ruby Glitter: This is just as important as doing online outreach in any other medium. True we don’t reach everyone, but there is an important constituency here and it’s growing.
Carmen Gray: I think it is a a great idea
Fletcher Dovgal: sometimes I just say ‘it’s email/chat with pictures’
Rik Riel: pepole with aspergers and autism use Seoncd Life
Carmen Gray: that is needed
Rhiannon Chatnoir: This space has allowed the extension of real life programs for non profit organizations I work with like Global Kids who are able to do outreach programs … just in a different way
Ozma Malibu: my org gives input into what we want
Dru Rossini: /deaf people can read

10:27
Now folks are visiting the 32 nonprofits who have offices here at NPC. I am mostly visiting one that is Yehoodi, the swing dance society run by the fabulous Rik Riel. Rik is DJing for us a real time, the swing music is great! Here we are getting down:
070814NPC 036

10:32
It’s about bedtime for me so I think that’s end of my updates. All my pics are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubyji/sets/72157601449952247/

Go visit nonprofitcommons.org on the web and http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/130/125/22/ in Second Life. Good night!

Nonprofit Commons gala opening tomorrow

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The Nonprofit Commons is an island in Second Life that houses 32 virtual offices and meeting space for NGOs. They’ve been up and running for a month or so, but tomorrow will the be their gala mixed-reality opening celebration. I recommend showing up early before it gets too crowded. (It shouldn’t be too hard to come early as they are doing it on west-coast time. The challenge will really be staying until the end.)

Much more information is posted below and check back here for live reports and pictures from the event tomorrow night.

Continue reading “Nonprofit Commons gala opening tomorrow” →

Advocacy 2.0: the slideshow

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I had a few requests for the presentation on network-centric advocacy that I did at Yearly Kos and at BarCampRDU last weekend (two sessions for the price of one PowerPoint!). I’ve posted it on Flickr, and am also working on a more substantial blog post about our session on “Politics 2.0” at yKos. Until that comes together, here are notes from two people who were there: Michael Hoffman at see3 communications and Kenneth Quinnell at T. Rex’s Guide to Life.

I promise, most of the slides are more fun than this one. But if you only see one, it has to be this:
Slide5
Click above, then select ‘View as slideshow’ for optimal experience.

Progressive/nonprofit guide to Second Life

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I just compiled this list of resources for a colleague and thought it might be helpful for others:

Nonprofit Commons – http://www.nonprofitcommons.org
Weekly meetings (Friday at 8:30 am PST) for their community of 32 nonprofit offices and other orgs, manged by TechSoup.org.

Commonwealth Island – http://commonwealth.wikispaces.com
A natural-themed home for progressive advocacy groups, especially environmental groups. FOR’s virtual office is there as well as ACLU, Code Pink, and the Prison Dharma Network.

A Better World in Second Life – http://www.levjoy.com/blog/betterworld
Short documentary by a grad student exploring the potential for social change in Second Life.

SL Netroots – http://rootscampsl.org
Progressive activist group with weekly meetups (noon PST Thursdays) on Progressive Island in Second Life. I am the facilitator and co-founder of this group.

MacArthur Foundation, Digital Media and Learning – http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org & http://spotlight.macfound.org
“five-year, $50 million digital media and learning initiative … to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life”

Daily meditations for global peace – http://viviennecassavetesblog.vox.com/library/post/global-meditation-for-peace-update.html

Interesting discussion of faith-based groups in SL and how to deal with “decency” issues: http://www.socialsignal.com/blog/rob-cottingham/matters-of-taste-when-second-life-gets-too-explicit

What did I miss?

What is local

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At Yearly Kos I kept hearing that local blogging is where it’s at. There were two panels and a caucus on “state-local blogging.” The San Francisco Chronicle reports that “Local blogs are key to future of politics.” People are learning that the smaller the area represented, the more impact each constituent has (as was also pointed out in this article I blogged about last week).

And yet, there was hardly a mention of county or municipal politics at Yearly Kos, other than how to work with local Democratic Parties. I’m certainly not opposed to advocacy targeting state and federal reps – in fact BlueNC.com does a great job of this and more power to them and their brethren across the country – but I think that truly local politics transcends party and hinges much more on individual relationships and reputations in a way that even state house races really don’t.

Accordingly, local blogging also has much to do with the authority and connections of the author. If I had started OrangePolitics under a pseudonym, not many people would have read it and even less would care what I had to say. The elected officials and other people I blog about are often my friends, or at least people I am likely to see at the grocery store. We all have to remember to treat each other as human so we can get along for the next few decades.

Another big difference is in publicity, the ostensible topic of one of the panels I was on at yKos. When we are writing on OrangePolitics, we are writing to the people of Orange County, NC. That is our solitary audience. Almost every method available for blog promotion reaches out to people irrespective of location. I can think of a few exceptions, like Facebook’s regional networks, but for the most part these tools feel sort of irrelevant to me. Links from national sources like LeftyBlogs.com may help with Google Ranking, but how likely are people in my county to go looking to a national source for local information?

I’m really glad to see political bloggers becoming aware of how much power they can have at the state and local level. But I hope folks will try to step away from a lot of what they know about politics and get their hands dirty meeting their neighbors and learning about local issues that aren’t easily painted in black and white.

Being in two places at once

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I’m in Raleigh at BarCampRDU today, but I’m still following Yearly Kos through Twitter. To be fair, I’m not feeling entirely “there” though.

Later at BarCamp I plan to facilitate sessions on network-centric advocacy, and on geeking for good (using web 2.0 for civic engagement on OP and other stuff). I am one of about 10 women at this 150-person event and the only woman proposing/leading any sessions.

Yearly Kos’s schedule offline

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Oops, I was just about post some links to the panels I am on at Yearly Kos, but it appears the online schedule has been removed to avoid “inaccuracies” in favor a of PDF (which unfortunately does not list the sessions by time and day). So you can check that out if you want to browse the whole enchilada.

Anyway, here are the two sessions that I am participating in:

Promotion, Publicity, Powncing and Partnerships
Say hello to my little friend — marketing. Get the low down from successful bloggers on building readership, creating innovative partnerships, making the most of links/trackbacks/hat tips, and cool new tech tools to increase your outreach to get your hard-earned work noticed. Bring your problems for on-the-spot troubleshooting.
Panelists: Ruby Sinreich, David Kravitz, Raf Noboa, Bob Neer, Conor Kenny
Thursday, Aug 2, 12:30-2:00 10d

The above session was supposed to be about local blogging, which is why I agreed to participate. Not only do I not do anything to “promote” OrangePolitics, I’m a little bit opposed to the idea. But I can certainly talk about social networking in general, and how it’s always good. 😉 And then there’s this, where I expect to talk about network-centric advocacy principles in 10 minutes or less:

Politics 2.0: How Social Networks and New Media Are Changing Politics
Social networks and new media are playing an increasingly visible role in our politics and activism. YouTube videos, MySpace bulletins, Facebook friends, not to mention new communities like Change.org, Eventful.com and Twitter, are being used by politicians, organizations and activists to communicate, connect and campaign. This panel will explore the unique ways in which this new media environment is having an impact on politics as usual, the strategy and tactics being employed and best practices that are emerging in this 2.0 world.
Panelists: Stephanie Taylor, Amy Rubin, Beka Economopoulos, Ruby Sinreich
Friday, Aug 3, 10:30-11:30 404a-c