It’s so obvious, but nobody does it. We say we’re working for “The People” (or poor people, or immigrants, or women, or African Americans, or whoever) but do we really accept their leadership? Do we even listen to the voices we think we are empowering? Zack Exley’s manifesto “An Organizer’s Guide to Trusting the People” …
Continue reading "Reality check for grassroots organizers"My boss Marty, who is a great communicator himself, read this article by the lingust George Lakoff on The Framing of Immigration, and came up with this great redux: 1. The US is dealing with an “Economic Refugee Crisis” that is pushing 800,000 people a year across our borders. 2. We are dealing with a …
Continue reading "Economic Refugee Crisis"I just got home after a very long day of inter-coastal travel. I will post a longer thing tommorrow about the rest of the awesome people I met at NetSquared. So I was recruited to lead a Making it Happen: Tips & Tricks session at NetSquared. I called it: how to be more cause-based, aka …
Continue reading "Thanks for making it happen with me"For the flight to San Jose for NetSquared I borowed this book from Brian, who borrowed it from Justin. I think this is the book that The Wisdom of Crowds wanted to be.
Continue reading "Emergent reading"Do you ever write someone an e-mail and then think “this might be helpful for others.” Well I just did. Here’s a quick-and-dirty list of suggested links and reading for organizations looking to utilize blogs as advocacy and movement-building tools:
Continue reading "So you wanna start an advocacy blog"The Austin Chronicle invited some attendees of the upcoing South by Southwest Interactive to write short essays about what they were looking to get out of the event. It was a nice way to let people speak for themselves, and also gave their reporters a break by not having to interview all of us. 😉 …
Continue reading "SXSW in my own words"Lest you think that the end of my job at Planned Parenthood meant the end of my globetrotting… I have got my own personal world tour coming up in March. I will be out of town on 3 different trips for a total of 15 days. I will be doing a presentation for work on …
Continue reading "March madness"You may recall that I was laid off by Planned Parenthood last summer, started consulting again, and then took a new job with Aspiration back in September. Well, sooner than I had planned, it’s now time for a new chapter.
Continue reading "Meet the Web Maven"Next week, TechSoup is hosting a week-long discussion of the Impact of Web 2.0 on Nonprofits. Now, I must admit that the buzz around this “2.0” idea is getting out of hand, and of course the obvious backlash has already started. For the non-geeks out there, web 2.0 is a shorthand term to explain the …
Continue reading "The new web for old organizations"Get yer red, hot (and free) tickets for Converge South, October 7 & 8. A group of Greensboro volunteers recently announced that Greensboro has organized to host the inaugural year’s edition of ConvergeSouth, the South’s first free conference focused on moving North Carolina toward breakthroughs in creativity and diversity on the Internet. Exploring the digital …
Continue reading "Step right up and come on down"