I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of September 16th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).
- Understanding Facebook Places Functionality Opens Possibilities | Community Organizer 2.0 – Debra has a great post walking through the steps to setting up, using, and understanding Facebook’s new geo-social tool, Places. Thanks, Debra, for a thorough guide!
- Is online community engagement “real” « Bang the Table – This is a great conversation starter and thinking piece about community engagement, not just online community. “I am sometimes confronted by a prejudice in my travels; that the relationships developed through online community engagement are less real than those created via face-to-face engagement processes. Like most prejudices I believe it is based on fear and misunderstanding. Earlier this week I was lucky enough to be asked to chair a mini-conference in Sydney about Interactive Community Engagement for the Public Sector. While there were many interesting and engaging presentations one particularly stood out for me because of the challenge it presented to online engagement methodology.”
- RSA – Connected Communities – “Traditional approaches to community regeneration which define communities in solely geographic terms have severe limitations. They often failed to deliver on key social capital improvements such as improving trust between residents or fostering a greater sense of belonging. In this report we argue for a new approach to community regeneration, based on an understanding of the importance of social networks, such an approach has the potential to bring about significant improvements in efforts to combat isolation and to support the development of resilient and empowered communities.”
- Internet Founder Tim Berners-Lee Details 4 Concerns About Future of Mobile Web (Nokia World 2010) – “This morning at Nokia World 2010 in London, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, widely known as the inventor of the Web, addressed the audience in a keynote speech where he spoke about the future of mobile technology, including both the positive impacts it brings as well as the areas of concerns. After encouraging developers to build for the Web, so as to deliver applications that work on all types of devices, even the ones that haven’t been invented yet, he then proceeded to detail areas which need addressing, specifically privacy, accountability, network neutrality and the 80% of the world that doesn’t have access to the World Wide Web.”
- How Useful is Social Media to Nonprofits? – Online Fundraising, Advocacy, and Social Media – frogloop – No matter where you look, social media is on everyone’s radar. The big question nonprofits ask is, how useful is social media? In an attempt to help nonprofits answer that question, Idealware, in partnership with NOI, recently released “The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide.”