Posts from — August 2007

Blogs can let groups provoke change the way static websites cannot. Find out some ways this has been put into practice in the Have Fun • Do Good blog. Britt Bravo writes in Do Good Blogging: A Free, Fun Way to Change the World:

In a world where mainstream media tends to focus on celebrities and sensationalism, important problems and possible solutions are often overlooked. Blogs provide a much needed venue for sharing innovative thinking.

… Blogs are an organizers dream. Not only can building a base of regular readers create a group of potential activists, blogs’ linking and cross-posting culture spreads information quickly, and can have an added level of trust, if the reader already knows the source.

Read the article to find out how these, and many other blogs made a difference:

• 100 Mile Diet
• Racialicious
• Race in the Workplace
• Treehugger
• Starbucks Challenge
• Drilling Santa Fe
• Menu for Hope

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If your community groups sends messages to supporters, clients, sponsors, colleagues or others via email you must make yourselves familiar with the NZ Spam Act 2007:

The new NZ Spam Act or 'Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act' comes into effect on September 5th 2007. … failure to comply can lead to fines of up to $500,000.

For more information visit: www.antispam.govt.nz

The folks at Mohawk Media have a fuller post with an excellent summary of the legislation’s key points.

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Have you heard of Twitter? How about Jaiku or Pownce? All of them allow you to send out quick notifications to ‘followers’ and they may be of use to your organisations.

The notifications are instantaneous, worldwide in reach and not limited to email or web, as they may also use text messaging. There are many places where cellphones have a reach not possible with landline phones or computers.

Here’s an edited report from a blog called State of Grace about how Twitter got the word out about a recent big earthquake in Mexico. Why Twitter May Matter in a Huge Way:

I was on Twitter when a 6.0 to 6.5 earthquake hit Mexico City. Robert Scoble spotted the Twitter reports — Tweets — coming in with the quake news from Mexico City. He put out his own Tweet. Then, not unlike a news agency, he began to compile the information on Scobleizer.

At the same time, Chris Pirillo was broadcasting from his live web TV show as well as taking calls and hosting a chat room. He sent out a Tweet asking for anyone from Mexico City to call in. An English speaking Mexican got through on a video feed and provided an eyewitness account.

Twitter users around the world began to call in and Chris’ show became a global conversation.

I’m thinking:

That this is Citizen Journalism 2.0, a mix of new web social networks and tools — Twitter, flickr — hooked in with blogs, webcast, chatrooms, video feeds, and mobile devices.

That Twitter and jaiku may be a valuable tool for disaster relief and recovery. What if we had these streams of incoming information from regular folks around the world before the Indonesian tsunami? Could we have saved some people in Thailand, letting them know through Twitter and jaiku, that a major earthquake had occurred and a tsunami was headed in their direction? The governments in the tsunami affected areas did not have a well coordinated warning system to do this, but now regular citizens have these web tools to initiate their own alert mechanisms.

Meanwhile, Nancy White from Online Facilitation is collecting Twitter Collaboration Stories.

Have you heard of these free tools? If not, it’s time to find someone in your organisation who can look into them, find out what’s involved, think about whether they could be useful in your situation.

Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

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Big corporations with deep pockets pay (hundreds of) thousands to get tailor-made software developed. My budget would stretch to more like $20 on a good day. Which is why microPledge may be just the thing for others with shallow pockets:

What is microPledge? The big buzz-phase is “collaborative funding”. But basically it’s a website that will get people together to get software made. Imagine — what if 1000 people around the world need a product, and each person pledges $5 for it? You get a happy developer who pockets the $5000. And quality software.

[Source: microPledge blog.]

And, hey, it’s a Kiwi thing. How cool is that?

When I checked just now I see a request for A web service that matches Peace Corps volunteer projects to people around the world that can help.

The Project Tags for this one include:

• activism
• philanthropy
• volunteers

Is there a software project your organisation needs that you could request?

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One of the problems community groups have is when people want to do stuff for them, rather than with them. A danger of the recent Full Code Press challenge was that the beneficiary community groups would end up with a superb new website but no support or assistance with using and maintaining it.

While the organisers had some plans in place for keeping an eye on things, it’s thrilling to read that the Code Blacks have volunteered an ongoing relationship:

The true winners, though, were the clients. We’d formed a really strong bond with Debbie and Mr Debbie from Grampians disAbility Advocacy Association, and it was all quite teary at the end. Thomas gave a lovely speech and we presented Debbie with a thankyou card from all of us - and a promise in writing that in addition to “smoothing out the rough edges of the site” (as Thomas described it) over the next couple of weeks, we will also provide them with 15 hours per month of Code Blacks time for the next year at least - to grow the site and to show them what web 2.0 is all about. We’re really looking forward to it.

The boys are going to do some initial training with Debbie in Sydney tomorrow (they are all staying an extra day - Thomas and I were the only ones to come home tonight) and we’ll also put together some training documentation for them. There’s so much stuff we want to add to the site (quite a bit of which we’d either finished or nearly finished over the 24 hours but just didn’t have a chance to implement), and we hope we can really make a difference with this website - both for Debbie and her team, and for the people she helps. It’s an awesome organisation. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.

[Via WebWeaver's World: FullCodePress - we won!!!.]

How pleasing to see this partnership arise. I hope it’s the start of a greater liaison and understanding between web designers and community organisations.

Some points of interest

• I (Miraz) was one of the selection team for the beneficiary community groups, and am one of the organisers for the Webstock Conference.
• Several NZ groups applied to be the beneficiaries of the Full Code Press challenge but just didn’t get selected.
• There will be another Full Code Press challenge in February 2008. Keep an eye on this blog for notices about your opportunity to apply for a free professionally designed website.
• The next Webstock Conference is being held in Wellington in February 2008. You should consider attending. We’re trying to make some scholarships available for community groups, as we did for Webstock 2006.
• On 15 September 2007 a BarCamp¹ around making a difference to egovernment in New Zealand will take place in Wellington. Stephen Blyth and I plan to run a workshop for people interested in community groups / non-profits and Internet. I hope you’ll join us there.

¹Never heard of BarCamps — don’t worry: it’s a kind of relaxed conference with lots of participation, rather than a bunch of ‘talking-head experts’ making presentations to a passive audience.

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