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).

• Gen-Y Wants More Than Cool Brands – A new 16-country study of Millennials focused on brands has a lot to offer for insight to nonprofit organizations looking to connect with the same generation. Including: "More than one-half of US Millennials (51%) say they influence the technologies their parents adopt and 41% say they influence the products they buy."
• A Mobile World – whitepaper – A new whitepaper from SmartOnMobile looks at how the constituents of nonprofit organizations are using<br />
  their mobile phones.
• Growing Virtual Roots – How our online efforts led to amazing offline results – A great case study in community organizing, on and offline, from Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure. "From the perspective of a professional planner, an ideal scenario for planning an event would be to live and work in the community in which you are holding the event. However, in the world of nonprofits, where an organization cannot afford to have boots on the ground full time in all of the cities they have supporters, it is up to the event planner to figure out new solutions to the problem of “you can’t be in two places at once”."
• <b>nononprofitspam</b>.<b>wordpress.com</b> – Check out this new blog and campaign from nptechers like Deborah Elizabeth Finn and Peter Campbell targeting an issue many of us in the nonprofit sector may not think exists, or maybe ignore: nonprofit spam. "Our message to nonprofits: Your mission is noble, and your intentions are honorable. But if you subscribed us to your organization's bulk email list without our permission, then you are sending us spam."
• Lights. Camera. Help. Film Festival for Nonprofits – "Lights. Camera. Help., the nation’s first film festival for nonprofits and cause advocates, is officially accepting entries for the 2011 festival. Exclusively dedicated to cause-driven films, the festival and it's cash prizes for winning films gives nonprofits a new forum for promoting their causes. Last year, the festival grew in entries, reach, attendance and prize money with submissions increasing from 140 in 2009 to over 235 documentaries, PSAs and short films focusing on cause-driven issues from around the world. Submissions will be open until May 31 and the submission form can be filled out at the Lights. Camera. Help. web site. It is free for all non-profits and causes to submit their film. The festival will be held July 28-July 30 in Austin, Texas."

Day 23: What Makes a Great Comment?

Describe the feature and characteristics of a great comment: Personally, one thing I think makes a blog post interesting, inviting, and better is the questions it asks and not necessarily the questions it answers. So, this carries over to comments. When I leave a comment on someone else’s blog, I like to take a stab at answering or responding to the main question asked but also like to include another question. This keeps the conversation going and what are blogs and comments for but enabling conversation!

Day 24: Comment on a Blog Written in a Foreign Language

There are growing numbers of translating services available online to help you find and read blog posts and websites that are generated in other languages. Although this isn’t a blog, for this challenge I started following and sent messages to a few Twitter users from Madrid. I was actually feeling nervous when I sent the first message in Spanish, but received kind replies and have enjoyed following the new connections.

Day 25: Take a Break!

I have obviously taken a break from some blogging/commenting but it is all due to heavy work load of a project about to launch that I will blog about in a few minutes!

Day 26: Exploring Other Ways to Comment

Explore how you might use multimedia for a richer commenting experience. Consider whether or not you think multimedia is a better option and how it might impact learning.

I am excited by enriching conversations by multimedia commenting and look forward to incorporating more into my own blog. I often find that I begin to leave a comment on another blog and realize I’ve written a few paragraphs and still have more to say. So, I will just turn that comment into a blog post here and link back to the post as a more interesting and fleshed out comment. This is the same for linking back to posts that spur you to get out thoughts using Seesmic, Utterz or something similar. I’m curious if any of you have enjoyed exploring new options for commenting/posting/sharing.

Day 27: What Do You Communicate About Your Personal Brand Through Comments

To me, this goes back to the “What makes a great comment” question. I think that much of what I try to do both on this blog and in the many events/trainings I coordinate and help with is to ask more questions than answer more questions. I love sharing the ideas, thoughts, experiences and opinions I have about nonprofits and social media. But, I think that there is a great deal of value in the questions we can ask to help guide strategies, adoption, decisions, and work. So, in a face-to-face meeting, email, blog or comments, I’m always trying to stir up, consider and provoke questions. How am I doing?

Day 28: What’s Your Blog Commenting Strategy?

Commenting wasn’t something I really looked at strategically prior to this 31 day challenge. Something that I have taken from all of these wonderful opportunities for self reflection and evaluation is that commenting, just like blogging and other social media practices, needs to be done strategically if it is going to be successful and at the same time not drive you mad. There are so many insightful and interesting blogs out there that I could read and comment all day long, every day. That wouldn’t be very strategic, though. I have decided to try to have ‘blogging’ days and ‘commenting’ days where I do one or the other with the amount of time I would otherwise try to spend on both together. So far, I am really finding it a good balance and much less stressful as I’m not worried about commenting too long and not getting to the blog, or vice versa. Do you have a strategy for your commenting? Or commenting rules you use when leaving comments?

There are lots of questions embedded in the different topics above, but, one thing I’d also like to hear from you is a suggestion for a blog you read but have never commented on and what keeps you from taking that next step in the conversation.