I’ll be going on the air at 10 pm PST with my dear friend Marie (@mariadeathstar) in support of an organization that is incredibly important to us: Free Geek (you can see the notes about the birthday fundraising I did last year in support of Free Geek here).

Learn more about how you can get involved in the 30 Hour Day from wherever you are in the world!

Net Tuesday: Effective Websites for Nonprofits

We will learn about conversion, testing your website and campaign language, and the attributes of effective nonprofit websites (especially for fundraising!).  It should be a great opportunity to examine websites from organizations in the group and relate new learning.  Hal Newton will be our opening presenter, but we want everyone to participate when we open it up to discussion and conversation.

Do you have resources you want to be sure are included?  What about a great case study?

501 Tech Club: Municipal Wireless

Join with members of the Personal Telco Project, NTEN and the City of Portland to learn more about and discuss the history, progress, and future of municipal wireless.  This is a great opportunity to hear about efforts like MetroFi and Personal Telco, as well as how you can get involved in improving your neighborhood’s networks.

If you aren’t from Portland, what have been successes or failures in your city with municipal wireless?

If you aren’t in Portland, don’t worry!  I’ll be sure to share with you the conversations and resources from these two great events!

An off-line extension of the Women Who Tech online network, this picnic hopes to bring together women from many industries that use technology to do their jobs or to help their organizations. You can learn more about the national network of women and join in by visiting the organization’s website: http://womenwhotech.com

DETAILS:

• When: Sunday, June 22, 11 am – 2 pm
• Where: Laurelhurst Park, picnic area A
• Why: Join with the growing community of women in technology
• What to bring: A potluck item to share (beverages will be provided)
• Who to invite: Other women colleagues and friends using technology in their work

We look forward to meeting you in person, igniting friendships, and sharing an afternoon and a meal.  (Check out the event page on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14414677220 or UpComing – http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/710176/?ps=5 )

If you have any questions about the organization, the event, or anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact either organizer.

Amy Sample Ward (amyrsward@gmail.com) & Carolina Velis (carolinavelis@gmail.com)

You can also see pictures of the offline events that took place after the telesummmit on the Flickr group, here:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/womenwhotech.com

Women Who Tech brunches in cities across the country are in the works for the early summer.  Contact Women Who Tech if you want to be involved, or contact me if you want to be part of the Portland event!

It was a great chance to talk between conference goers about highlights and questions and even more exciting to have folks who hadn’t been to the conference ask questions to start conversations. Some of the areas that we touched on include:

• Leadership: Technology staff have a great opportunity for developing leadership skills and helping navigate the organization, with technology-related issues as well as non-technology-related issues. It strengthens the organization to have technology staff a part of the leadership team. Likewise, it is incredibly important for execitve directors to gain technology knowledge so that when new, shiny, tools/toys come out (which seems to happen every day!), there is an understanding of what the organization can and can’t adopt and how.
• ROI (Return on Investment): Specifically that of Social ROI, for social media, is a growing body of thought and practice with lots of conversations about different ways to measure social media work that doesn’t relate specifically to fundraising dollars. The most prominent component of social media is the community building and conversational nature of the tools, so the development of ways to measure and evaluate your organization’s use of these tools is integral.
• Social Media Adoption: I was part of or overheard many conversations reinforcing the idea that organization’s can’t, and don’t have the staff/time/support/money, to adopt every tool that comes out. Instead, campaigns and projects need to be designed around the organization’s missions and then appropriate technology can be used when it is appropriate.
• Communities of Practice: It was interesting to see puddles of people form because of common job functions and experiences that transcended session tracks or table topics. Groups like IT directors, peer-to-peer fundraisers, and non-technical staff that manage or work with online tools in their campaigns. It was great seeing the offline communities form with people who only knew each other online or through other friends. It is very important for people to build their support community because so many of us work in situations where we are the only IT staff person and it can be a lonely position.
• Vendors: Many people enjoyed the opportunity to meet with and talk to vendor company representatives IN PERSON. Shaking the hand of someone from PayPal or Salesforce really changed the faceless, distant organization to companies with human employees that nonprofits can connect with.
• Mobiles: A constantly growing field in the nonprofit technology world is that of mobile technology and the changing opportunities for nonprofits leveraging the power mobiles hold for reaching out to communities in need and in crisis. It is a great field to watch, and if you are interested in learning more about mobile technology, Mobile Active is an awesome organization to check out.

If you are interested in attending the next 501 Tech Club meeting in Portland, it is May 28th from 1-2:30 at the NW Health Foundation. We will focus on ‘Storytelling in Crises’ with a presentation from Roger Burks of Mercy Corps. You can find out more and join the community online at http://groups.nten.org.

Firstly, Google Earth now has a layer for “placemarks” of New York Times articles. A month’s worth of stories at a time will be held for viewing and Google is open for additional partnerships with other news outlets. It is a rich way to experience your news browsing and a great way to combine many of the other layers of Google Earth’s geographically integrated information like YouTube videos and organizations. You can check it out by downloading the most recent version of Google Earth.

Also making news, is the partnership program with Google Earth and the United Nations Refugee Agency that allows for the combination of satellite maps, photos, videos and personal accounts providing an insider’s view of the crises in places like Chad, Iraq, and Darfur. You can read one of the news articles about the partnership here.

In May, our 501 Tech Club brown bag event for Portland will feature a presentation from Roger Burks of Mercy Corps: Connections in Crisis – Around the world, relief agencies are working to bring their clients the tools they need to find their loved ones. From web sites to cell phones to databases, a variety of tactics have been used. Come explore this case study from Mercy Corps whether you have attended a 501 Tech Club event before or not. They are a great place to spend your lunch hour and connect with others in the local nonprofit technology sector. You can join the affinity group online or email me with questions.

Has your organization considered using Google Earth to map its work or changes in the service area? How could you use maps to better tell your organization’s story for you?

I started the meeting with a Twitter overview, as it came up in the January meeting as something people have heard about but not many had experienced. Here is the short slide show, really used as a jumping off point for conversation based on each slide (not a text-heavy person!).

My awesome co-organizer then launched from my presentation forward into a broader discussion of all the various forms of and relating to “micro-blogging” which was a great conversation, but lead into an even greater one on open source alternatives for micro-blogging and design work.

We even talked about the Net Squared Mashup Challenge as we had many questions about the challenge and what mashups were and could be. We had some great ideas for proposals (so I’ll let you know if and when those go up!). We also had with us the father of a current proposal – Howard from EcoTrust is part of the Portland Net Tuesday group and we think you all should check out the mashup proposal from EcoTrust on mapping watersheds – you can read about it here!

If you are in the Portland area, we’d love to have you join our group online to stay connected, and come meet up with us at our next meeting: March 25th at 6 pm! We have a great thing going, so far, and would love to have you on board to make it even better!

Thanks to those who came last night and created such dynamic conversations and offered experiences, ideas, and questions!

501 Tech Club – Brown Bag Series
I am working with NTEN to build a 501 Tech Club (http://nten.org/techclub) and make it the hottest new place to learn, connect, and CHANGE within the Portland community! To get started, you can join the Portland 501 Tech Club online to connect with all the other local folks who are talking about technology in nonprofits. The first event is coming soon: January 14th.

• Topic: Organizing your Information: RSS readers!
• Presenter: Marshall Kirkpatrick
• Location: Northwest Health Foundation, 221 NW 2nd Ave, Suite 300 (in Bamboo room) Portland, OR 97209
• Time: 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
• Food: Bring your own lunch and we’ll bring some goodies!

Portland Net Tuesdays
A friend and I have teamed up to sprout a Net Tuesday monthly event here in Portland. The fourth Tuesday of each month, social changemakers and web innovators can get together to network, mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships and learn at these Net Tuesdays, produced by NetSquared, http://www.netsquared.org a project of TechSoup, http://www.techsoup.org. All those interested, involved, or employed in nonprofits and that recognize the importance and utility of technology in the sector are invited to join us for discussion and exchange. The first event is this month: January 22nd.

• Topic: Introductions, goals, topics, and open source
• Presenter: Everyone!
• Location: AboutUs.org, 107 SE Washington, 5th Floor (SUite #520), Portland, OR
• Time: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
• Food: We’ll see what we can do, feel free to bring something to share!

I hope that you will be able to attend both and I can’t wait for these engaging monthly events to start!

Let me know if you want more information on either event. I hope you are as excited as I am!