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
Hi Ruby — sorry to hear that N2 was not as useful for you this year. We had some great feedback from the NTC (Nonprofit Technology Conference) where there was much more space for affinity conversations and judging by the lively conversations on the 100+ lists we run at groups.nten.org, there is plenty of affnity there as well. As in everything, it’s still imperfect and there is always room for improvement to have better conversations and learning and (god forbid) knowledge aggregation in the NPTech field, but I am curious what specifically you would suggest to make this happen. I am all ears – and hope this is not just another whine 🙂 They tend to not be that fruitful in actually advancing the issue whined about. So, let’s hear it!
Katrin