These are some links I wanted to share from June 16th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• Social Networks Spread Iranian Defiance Online – NYTimes.com – Watching the #IranElection hashtag stream on Twitter, more and more videos on YouTube and the BBC, and the way citizens create and the global networks share updates about the reality of post-election mayhem in Iran has distracted me from work and ignited many conversations with friends about both what we've seen or read so far each day and what the power of social media has unlocked. Here's a story from the NYTimes addressing just that.
• Association Jam | Association Management News :: Submit. Vote. Learn. – I'm checking out this new "Digg for associations" from Wild Apricot. It looks like users can find, read or submit stories and vote on them; have discussions; and generally network. Interested to see if any readers here are part of an association and what you think of this new news portal!
• Junction49 – Junction49 want to challenge the negative perception that young people don't volunteer in traditional ways anymore. They do this by giving them the chance to do something they believe in, when and how they want. The site has become a place for young people to showcase the work they are doing to make a difference.
• Mozilla Service Week! – Are you a techie who could donate some skills? Are you a nonprofit that could benefit from some techie help? Check out the Mozilla Service Week, taking place September 14-21, and sign up to participate – whether you want to help, or want to get some help!
• Summer of Social Good by Mashable – "Summer of Social Good is the first large scale online charitable campaign to raise funds strictly online through the power of Social Media and the Internet. The goal is to use the power of "Social Influence" via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blogs and other online media to raise an unprecedented amount for our fund benefiting The Humane Society, LIVESTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF from June 1st until August 28th, 2009."

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on June 16th

These are some links I wanted to share from June 12th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• Case Study: World Vision’s ‘Week For Children’ | Bright One – Check out this case study of World Vision's "Week for Children" – World Vision is a UK charity, and this case study discusses the use of various social media tools (include Facebook, Flickr, Yoube, Twitter, and Blogs) for the Week for Children campaign.
• 50% of British Foundations Plan To Decrease Giving – Philanthropy.com – "According to a survey of 92 grant makers by the Association of Charitable Foundations, a London group that represents about 300 charitable funds, 51 percent said they will reduce their giving, 39 percent said it would remain the same, and 10 percent said it would increase."
• Knowledge Wiki Workshop – I really wish I could go to this event and hope there are some tweets, blogs, or videos we can follow online to get a peak into the conversations. "The wiki: a good tool for organisational knowledge management?" How can we best capture and organise the knowledge assets of an organisation, make them widely available to everyone who needs access, and keep them fresh and current? From filing cabinets to electronic document management systems, there has been no shortage of solutions, but many have been experienced as too costly, too complex to manage easily, and hard to make accessible across the enterprise."
• Charitable Giving Declines, a New Report Finds – NYTimes.com – "Charitable giving fell last year by the largest percentage in five decades, according to a new study by the Giving USA Foundation."
• American Open – GlobalGiving – "The American Open is a great opportunity for new projects, based and working in the United States, to join the GlobalGiving community. Through the American Open Challenge – which runs from June 8 – 30th, projects will use the GlobalGiving platform to raise at least $4,000 from 50 donors. If they are successful, they will earn a "permanent" spot on the GlobalGiving website, enabling them to continue to leverage new donor networks, technology, and partner relationships, and expand their fundraising presence online."

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on June 12th

These are some links I wanted to share from June 9th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• Reboot Britain – David Wilcox, Andy Gibson and I are going to faciliate another round of the Social by Social Game at Reboot Britain – I'm really looking forward to the innovative ideas groups come up with! I'm also looking forward to the rest of the day as a participant and not just a facilitator. If you are going to be in London July 6 – check this out! You can also follow it online at @RebootBritain and elsewhere.
• Youth Taking Action: A 15 Year Old Invents the Future – Check out this interview with Javier Fernández-Han who just won the Invent Your World Challenge from Ashoka's Youth Venture and the Lemelson Foundation for his innovative answer to the need for a system that can "improve the quality of life in a village by providing the basic necessities of food, sanitation, energy-fuel, and income in an environmentally sustainable and technologically appropriate fashion."
• onion network – "The onion network is an international mixture of socially aware freelancers and companies. Our aim is to help groundbreaking non-profit organisations with their work, communication strategies and advertising."
• Look beyond the label – Refugee week 2009 – Interested in light-weight online campaigns that can really get people's attention and start conversations? Check out this example from Refugee Week that asks supporters to change their profile pictures on their online profiles to show solidarity and spread the message.
• Social Networks Around the World – Check out this great visualization of users on social networks around the world from ReadWriteWeb. The way we choose tools based on our networks/friends' choice is really clear when you map it like this!

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on June 9th

These are some links I wanted to share from June 8th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live – TIME – There's a great article in Time about Twitter, and what the community of Twitter users has done to make the tool more than first meets the eye. "In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it."
• A conceptual model of value for social media | Juice Digital – Check ou thte "4 Cs" model developed by Gaurav Mishra: Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence, as an example of the progression of what kind of value you can create online for your organization and the larger community.
• The Buzz Bin » Livingston Communications – Check out this great list of 200 social change blogs! If you're looking to find a new blog to add to your reading list, there are more than enough here to find one new to you!
• Twitter’s Ten Rules For Radical Innovators – Umair Haque – HarvardBusiness.org – Check out this great list of 10 Rules for Radical Innovators based on the changes Twitter has helped affect on the way we communicate and innovate. My favorite: Ideals beat strategies. Finally, we've learned that making money is not the only value we can create.
• HopePhones.org | Old phones save lives. Donate yours to a medical clinic in a developing country today – "HopePhones, a new campaign, launched today that enables anyone to provide health services to those in the developing world – by donating your old cell phones! The HopePhones campaign is a project of a nonprofit organization, FrontlineSMS:Medic that uses mobile technology to empower rural healthcare networks in the developing world. FrontlineSMS:Medic is also an N2Y4 Featured Project!" – Joe Solomon
• Using PeopleBrowsr for NetSquared | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – Jean Russell has a terrific post about using a tool called PeopleBrowsr to monitor all the conversations and content emerging from the N2Y4 Conference. "Enrich your experience of the N2Y4 conference by getting the information you want from the social media streams. Try using Peoplebrowsr.com in the following 5 ways, and then adjust to fit your taste and needs."

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on June 8th

These are some links I wanted to share from May 20th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• Join us in a UK hyperlocal alliance… « Talk About Local (alpha) – Will Perrin is on a mission to engage and convene localities via the web. "After running successful community websites in London's challenging Kings Cross I wanted to help other communities achieve the same sense of empowerment and communication. So i quit my job and set up Talk About Local to bring locally created and locally owned websites to communities across the country."
• Flickr Photo Download: Twitter trending topics – Anatomy of a hashtag as trending topic from Meg Pickard on Flickr. If you like charts for understanding trending and relationships, this is a great one!
• #charitytuesday is your charity taking part on Tuesdays? – Are you on Twitter? Have you seen hashtags (#) being used and curious what they mean – maybe for #FollowFriday for example. Well, #CharityTuesday was started as a way of creating visibility for orgs using Twitter, get them talking to each other instead of just broadcasting information, and more. Learn more here.
• The Current Nonprofit Landscape: "We are all in this together" – Are you a nonprofit or foundation in Portland/Oregon? "It is not much of an exaggeration to observe that the downturn in the economy presents unprecedented challenges in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. This is an uncharted landscape for us all. There have been efforts across the field to gather data about the impact and outlook for nonprofits and funders alike. This joint program is developed to help ensure we are working from the same assumptions and telling the same story. The goal is for funders and nonprofits to explore strategies and share solutions for the future. This program is a chance for us to gather as a community, learn from one another and move forward together."
• DemocracyInAction Green Grants – DemocracyInAction Green Empowers grants provide organizations with the Salsa platform for free. Apply by filling out the application on their site. If you looking for a tool for free, could be worth checking out.

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on May 20th

These are some links I wanted to share from May 14th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• New ‘WSJ’ Conduct Rules Target Twitter, Facebook – The Wall Street Journal circulated a newly compiled list of "professional conduct" covering social media, social networking, and so on. Take a look at their entire list!
• 10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media – Max Gladwell has a guest post at Mashable: "Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. And they’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment."
• Techcafeteria Blog » The ROI on Flexibility – Peter Campbell has a great blog post addressing the common reality inside foundations and nonprofit organizations when it comes to IT management: total lockdown. Does limiting the internet and computing options of your organization's staff actually limit what they could be doing to deliver on your mission?
• Traveling Geeks – The Traveling Geeks are an informal group of technology influencers and bloggers rooted chiefly in the San Francisco Bay Area who are traveling to London and Cambridge in July 2009 as part of Innovation UK. Follow them at tg2009.com!
• http://www.lightscamerahelp.com/ – "Lights. Camera. Help., the premiere film festival exclusively for nonprofit and grassroots organizations, officially opened its submission process last Thursday." The submission deadline is June 30th so get your video in today!

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on May 14th

These are some links I wanted to share from May 6th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• Google Open Source Blog: Student Applications Open for 2009 OpenUsability Season of Usability – "Inspired by Google Summer of Code™, the OpenUsability Season of Usability is a series of sponsored student projects to encourage students of usability, user-interface design, and interaction design to get involved with Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects. Students experience the interdisciplinary and collaborative development of user interface solutions in international software projects while getting into FLOSS development."
• OpenMRS – OpenMRS – Such a great group doing great work. Check them out if you are interested in new technologies breaking down walls in the world of health. "OpenMRS® is a community-developed, open-source, enterprise electronic medical record system framework. We've come together to specifically respond to those actively building and managing health systems in the developing world, where AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria afflict the lives of millions."
• The Forrester Blog For Interactive Marketing Professionals – Forrester "found that technologies trigger changes in consumer adoption, and brands will follow, resulting in five distinct waves…" You can check out the 5 eras of the social web along with recommendations for "brands" preparing for the future.
• Who’s to Blame for Creating the Digital Ceiling? | Radical Tech | Fast Company – Allyson Kapin has a great article about women on the web on the Fast Company blog: "Pew studies show that women now outnumber men on the internet–including major social networks like Twitter and Facebook. However, many women in technology and social media still face a digital ceiling."
• Nonprofit Social Network Survey | Common Knowledge – "Learn how commercial social networks and house social networks fit into your nonprofit's online ecosystem. Understand the importance of both community size and data ownership in your social network strategy." This report is from NTEN, Common Knowledge, and The Port.
• UK and Europe developer camp and user meetup | CiviCRM Community Site – "The developer camp is aimed at those that want to learn more about CiviCRM from the people involved in it's development. If you are interested in improving your CiviCRM admin skills, learning more about developing with CiviCRM or helping improve the product in any other way, then this camp is for you."

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on May 6th

These are some links I wanted to share from April 17th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• Silos Culture Inside the Walls of Nonprofits Prevent Effective Social Media Use – Beth Kanter's post about internal silos in nonprofits reminds me of a post and the ensuing conversation that happened in the comments on my blog about a month ago. The idea of a networked organization is fascinating to me and hinges, truly, on organizations taking a networked approach both IN and OUT of the organization's "walls."
• Apps for America Contest – Check out some of these really innovative (and cool!) open source applications for helping make the government more transparent from Sunlight Labs. Would love to hear if there are any you especially think are useful to your work!
• Sharing by the numbers in the USA – Check out this report and the accompanying data figures from USA Today – some spotlights include: 14 million Americans are employed by or volunteer full time in the nonprofit sector; and the Chicago Meals on Wheels program is cutting its budget by 35%.
• Ten campaigning tips for lobbying MPs – "nfpSynergy has a wealth of back-data regarding MPs' opinions of charities and their campaigns, comments from those who work in this area and experience of the sector. This has enabled us to compile a report containing ten tips, which extract the most salient issues to emerge from our research, to help you in your future charity campaigns and lobbying. These top tips are quite literally a starter for ten when looking to elicit a successful campaign and lobbying approach."
• Help seeking behaviour in young adults – NFPSynergy Report – nfSynergy's "newest free report takes an in-depth look at what young people's needs are and how they seek help. The report was commissioned by the Vodafone Foundation and is packed with useful case studies and supporting data. It includes recommendations for local and national not-for-profit organisations who provide support to young adults."
• Share Actions | Social Actions – Check out all of the great Social Actions Change the Web Challenge applications! I'm already using some and looking forward to watching how they continue to evolve and leverage other platforms.

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on April 17th

These are some links I wanted to share from April 15th. Find me on Delicious for more!

• N2Y4 Mobile Challenge: 15 Featured Projects Announced | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – Last week, the NetSquared Community voted on the N2Y4 Mobile Challenge to determine the 15 Featured Projects who will be invited to compete for $50K in cash-prizes and additinoal in-kind resources at this year's N2Y4 Conference. Check out the 15 Featured Projects and how you can be part of the N2Y4 Conference.
• Change the Web Challenge: Finalists Announced – I'm really excited about the 24 Finalists in the Change the Web Challenge – this Challenge called for new applications that use Social Actions' API which aggregates and surfaces all kinds of actionable opportunities from around the web. Check them out!
• Vodafone Americas Foundation Announces Wireless Innovation Project Winners – "The Vodafone Americas Foundation announced the winners of its Wireless Innovation Project, a new initiative that identifies and funds unique innovations using wireless related technology offering the best potential to address critical social issues around the world. The three winning innovations will share in prizes totaling up to $700,000 USD to support their next phase of advancement and implementation."
• Does social media help you find a job? – Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEBA) of Maastricht University are conducting a survey: "We are investigating the effects of online social network memberships on your daily life. In particular, we are interested in the role of social network sites and receiving information about job openings."
• DoGooderTV Contest 2009 – Vote for your favorite Nonprofit videos – DoGooderTV's 2nd Nonprofit Video Awards have seen almost 400 submissions from 175 organizations and causes! The winners will be announced at NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference on April 25 in San Francisco.

… Continue readingGreat reads from around the web on April 15th