Join us for our next Net Tuesday event on August 4. This will be the second of our Summer Ale Series, “Homebrewed Rumination”.

We’ll have an interactive discussion about what to consider when integrating social elements into a website. We’ll be looking at such themes as how a website can:

• Help people connect to one another
• Aggregate information
• Foster collaboration
• Encourage self-expression
• Reach out to the rest of the world

We’ll explore each of these themes in general, and then focus on applying them specifically to: a) Philly NetSquared’s own new, drupal-based site, phillynetsquared.org; and b) other sites represented or suggested by those who show up and participate.

In this way, we hope to accomplish two things… Let’s think together about how the new Philly NetSquared website might foster our individual and collective ideas and ambitions about “using the social web for social change”. And, at the same time, let’s talk about these principles in general, and how they might enhance your own site or cause.

So, bring your own perspective, creativity and open mind. RSVP’s are desired, but not required.

Looking ahead to September… Network For Good, Causes and change.org, oh my! These days there are so many portals to use for raising money and engaging members in action on behalf of your cause. How do you choose which one(s) to be on? Does maintaining them take away from your other online efforts (e-news, blog, etc.)? Which ones have you been successful on? These questions and others will be discussed at our Portal Pilsner session, the last of our Summer Ale Series, on September 1. Have a story about a non-profit portal you want to share? E-mail Judah at jferst@buzzing4change.org.

As warm weather settles in, nothing’s more refreshing than a flight of Net Tuesday Summer Ales.

First up, on Tuesday, July 7 starting at 6 PM at Buffalo Billiards, 118 Chestnut Street: Communi-Lager! Chris Bartlett will present Activist Communities in the Midst of Social Media. He’ll share how he has used the tools of the trade — social networks Twitter, Facebook, Stickam, and Ning — to create a series of communities that support his community organizing. He’ll engage Net Tuesday participants in an inquiry about how we can use these tools to build community, strengthen social networks, and bring about powerful change in our communities. Key ideas for the night:

•  The importance of connecting others — and not only yourself to others — as a strategy for social network organizing.
• The timeline for face-to-face — how to bring about in-person connections that strengthen online ones.
• Pitfalls of online organizing– fitting your strategies into your overall plan for getting things done.
  Most importantly, Bartlett will facilitate a conversation among participants to hear what is working for all of us. If Twitter (and other social media tools) are in fact transformative, we’ll hope to hear some stories of those transformations.

Chris Bartlett is a gay men’s health community organizer from Philadelphia. He directed the SafeGuards Gay Men’s Health Project in Philadelphia for ten years, and has acted as lead consultant to the LGBT Community Assessment in Philadelphia, a project that gathers data about LGBT communities in order to make recommendations regarding community organizing, health, housing, and economic development. He co-facilitates the Gay Men’s Health Leadership Academy, a national meeting of leaders in the field of gay men’s health and wellness, and has helped to convene the Gay Men’s Health and LGBTI Summits. Most recently, he has received support from the Arcus Foundation to develop a strategic plan for LGBT leadership development in the United States. Community organizing through social media is his greatest current passion and commitment.

RSVP’s are optional via the Meetup page. Or, just c’mon down, and bring a friend.

Looking forward to what’s on tap for the rest of the Net Tuesday Summer Ale Series…

August 4: Homebrewed Rumination. We’ll be using a modified version of our Extreme Makeover: Web Strategy Edition format with Philly NetSquared’s own website: phillynetsquared.org. Together, we’ll identify specific steps we can take to enable the growing Philly NetSquared community to use our website as a place to connect with, learn from and inspire one another to realize each person’s dreams and each organization’s objectives.

September 1: Portal Pilsner. Change.org. Network for Good. Razoo. And many other sites are out there, committed to using social tools help nonprofits achieve their mission. How do you sort through the clutter and use these sites to advance your own cause?
Join us at our Net Tuesday Summer Ales, where we’ll sit back, relax and explore ways social technology can help organizations and individuals advance social change in Philadelphia.

David Wilcox, Amy Sample Ward and I ran an event on Tuesday night taking non-profits through a process of brainstorming and developing projects using social technologies for social impact.

The event, called the Social by Social Game, was inspired by the Social Media Game and also by the book we’ve been writing for NESTA called Social by Social.

Rather than repeat the details here, those of you who are curious should check out David’s excellent blog post and videos documenting and explaining the event. The whole game is Creative Commons but still in development, so please take it and rework it, and let us know how it might be improved. And if you’d like us to run a similar event in your organisation or community, please do drop me a line.

You are probably already aware that our next Net Tuesday (June 2, starting at 6:00 PM at Buffalo Billiards, 118 Chestnut Street) is going to be about Mobile Technology and Social Change. This was the theme of the fourth annual NetSquared conference (N2Y4) that Ivan and Seth just attended in San Jose. The centerpiece of the conference was a “challenge”, in which 14 new, innovative projects competed for prize money up to $25,000.

We were blown away by some of the projects we saw, and want to share on Tuesday evening. Some highlights:

• First prize winner FrontlineSMS:Medic is saving lives in Africa with cell phones that rural health workers can use to access medical records and expertise, and (this is amazing) re-purposing the cell phone’s camera to perform breakthrough in-field diagnoses for malaria and other diseases. We’re planning to have the Clinical Programs Director participate in our meeting via videoconference to discuss it.
• Second prize winners, the Extraordinaries, are developing a way for people to use their cell phones during “spare minutes” (like, on the bus) for a growing array of “micro-volunteer” projects, like tagging photos for the Library of Congress or translating subtitles for short videos.
• Third place winner VoxMob – Mobile Voices / Voces Moviles is testing its project with immigrant workers in L.A. It empowers these people to express themselves in words, sounds and pictures to tell their stories and document abuses.
• SeeClickFix is working on a project to enable regular people to take and upload a picture of a non-emergency problem they see (e.g., a pothole or drug deal), and then automatically map it and generate notices to pressure local agencies, politicians and others to address the problem. The mapping aspect of SeeClickFix is being prototyped on Philly.com.
• The Mobile Giving Foundation enables non-profits to set up campaigns in which people can contribute small donations (e.g., $5 or $10) via their cell phones and charged on their phone bills (in which 100% of the contribution is passed through to the non-profit).

We also want to hear about your experiences or ideas about mobile tech and social change. In addition to illustrating these various initiatives, we’ll have a chance for folks to delve into the technology and/or how we can apply these capabilities to our causes here in Philly.

We’re at the very early stages of what promises to be a profoundly powerful movement to use these small and ubiquitous devices to advance social causes. Come discover and discuss what’s happening now, and get a glimpse into the future.

We’ll start gathering at 6:00 PM and begin the program at 6:30 (and we have the room until as late as 9:00). RSVP’s via the Meetup page are appreciated, but not necessary. Feel free to come and bring a friend.

If you are in London tomorrow evening, June 2 with a couple of hours to spare, and an enthusiasm for exploring how to use social technology for social benefit, join us for a run of the Social by Social Game at Net Tuesday.

As organiser Amy Sample Ward explains here:

The Social by Social game is a fun session to help people explore how social technology can be used for social benefit: whether that’s by a nonprofit, a social innovation startup, within a neighbourhood, or across a community. We’ll invent some of those places, then challenge each other in groups to develop plans using a pack of specially-developed cards and other props. It will be a mix of collaboration and competition that should give you lots of practical ideas that you can use in your own projects.

We facilitated a version of this game recently at SHINE09 and this should be a greatly improved second version. The game will be run by me, Amy and David Wilcox, and we’ll also give you news of the Social by Social handbook we’ve written, with Cass Business School, for NESTA.

Our intention is to link the game to the book content, which will also be available online under a Creative Commons license, so after developing your social technology plan in outline during the game, you can use the Social by Social content to follow through. The game is Creative Commons too.

* Date: Tuesday, 2 June
* Time: 5:30pm doors, 6 pm start
* Location: Charity Technology Trust – 1 London Bridge, SE1
* RSVP: London Net Tuesday group

Mobile technology is one of the fastest growing areas of digital technology. And developing applications for social change is following apace.

Our next Net Tuesday on June 2 will be about mobile applications for social change. Again, we’ll be meeting at Buffalo Billiards, 118 Chestnut Street. We’ll start gathering at 6:00 PM, and the program itself will begin between 6:30 and 6:45. RSVP on Meetup.

What does mobile technology for social change mean?

Ivan and Seth will discover part of the answer attending the 4th annual NetSquared Conference (N2Y4) in San Jose May 25–26, which is featuring a number of mobile projects, competing for $50,000 in prize money to further their development. (This page provides ways to follow along with the conference.) Ivan and Seth will report back on what we thought were the most interesting projects.

And, we also want to hear your thoughts and experiences (and hopes) about using mobile technology for social change. If you know of any local projects in this arena, please let us know. If you think it’s interesting, please come and share your perspectives.

The featured projects at N2Y4 include:

• Agricultural Market Information Service (AMIS) Project
• DatAgro: Increasing the Yield of Latin American Farming Cooperatives
• Digital Democracy’s Handheld Human Rights
• Equobility
• FrontlineSMS + Cell Alert = FrontlineSMS Alerts
• FrontlineSMS:Medic – SMS for Medical Records and Mobile Lab Diagnostics
• IJCentral: A Movement to Support Global Rule of Law
• IPeace
• Local SMS Community Newsletter for Promotion of Self-Employment
• PublicStuff–The Craigslist for Local Government Interaction!
• SeeClickFix: Report Non-emergency Local Problems and Collaborate to Solve Them
• Slave-Free
• The Extraordinaries — On-demand crowdsourcing volunteerism via smartphones
• VozMob: Mobile Voices/Voces Moviles

So come, bring your mobile device, and discover and talk about how these little machines are starting to play their part in improving the world.

The next Net Tuesday will be next Tuesday, May 5 from 6:00 – 9:00 PM at Buffalo Billiards at 118 Chestnut Street.

Come learn about how nonprofit and social change organizations are using the micro-blogging service Twitter.

The popularity and creative use of Twitter by organizations has been growing exponentially.

• How are nonprofit and social change organizations using Twitter to engage with their audiences?
• What strategies are useful, and what pitfalls should you avoid?
• Can you really say anything in 140 characters?
• And how can you tell if your efforts in the “Twittersphere” are effective?

Join an interactive discussion about lessons learned and future plans of local nonprofit and social change organizations for using Twitter. The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance will be discussing its recent use of Twitter to engage its members in online advocacy efforts and “live reporting” from events like Philadelphia City Council meetings. Take a look at their Twitter stream.

We’re also inviting other local groups — if you work with or know of a local organization using Twitter, let us know!

Philadelphia Net Tuesday organizers will be Tweeting in advance of our gathering as well as at the event. We encourage you to Tweet about it as well — just use the hashtag #phlnet2 — and if you’re not on Twitter, you can follow along here.

We have a special sponsor this week: bg Theory, an Internet marketing training company. In support of Net Tuesday, bg Theory is offering a discount off of their upcoming Google Adwords seminars in Philly May 20 and 21.  To get the discount, go to the registration page, and enter meetnet as the discount code.

RSVPs via the Meetup page are helpful, but not required. Feel free to show up, and bring a friend. See you next Tuesday!

—Seth (Twitter: @sethhorwitz) and Ivan (Twitter: @rootwork)

Our next Net Tuesday gathering will be for an “Extreme Makeover: Web Strategy Edition”.  We’ll meet at 6:00 PM on Tuesday, March 3 at Buffalo Billiards at 118 Chestnut Street.

Learn how Web 2.0 strategies can be used for nonprofit and social change causes by participating in an interactive “extreme makeover” session.  This format provides a chance for our diverse group of activists and techies to focus our attention on a particular cause.  We will NOT be creating or directly affecting any website; we WILL be thinking and strategizing together about how Web 2.0 tools and principles can be used most effectively to help an actual client achieve their goals.

Who should attend?

• Nonprofits and activists who have used the social web: Come share your insights about what has and hasn’t worked for you in the past, and learn about considerations for more effectively using these tools in the future.
• Nonprofits and activists who have NOT used the social web:  Come share your perspectives, and learn how to think about applying these tools to your own situations.
• Techies who work with the social web: Come share your technical experience, and learn more about the perspectives and expectations of nonprofit and social change activists who want to use these tools.

Our makeover client will be Carl Ewald, who runs TerraMar Adventures.  Carl wants to use social web tools to engage people in TerraMar’s increasing community service and environmental protection efforts.

RSVP via our Meetup page is appreciated, but not required.  Feel free to just show up, and bring your friends (and your thinking caps)!

So, come participate in a shared endeavor to strategize about the most effective ways to apply Web 2.0 tools in a real situation, and perhaps, ultimately, to help out our natural environment as well.

Hope to see you there!

Seth

Here’s Steve Anderson and Kris Krug (sitting) at January’s Net Tuesday. They’re letting Vancouver’s social net scene in on the issue of Net Neutrality. (You can read all about it on humminbird604’s blog.) The two of them are also in an informative video about Net Neutrality at Vancouver I Am.

Net Neutrality is important for anyone concerned about Canadian democracy, and that’s pretty much everyone, so let the CRTC’s decision makers know what you think. You can send a letter from here to make your voice heard.

Canadians must seize this opportunity to tell the CRTC that it must ensure we have an open, fast and accessible Internet in this country.

I recently agreed to contribute a few of One Degree’s Week in Review posts.   So now, I should probably admit that my Google Reader has been feeling mighty neglected these days…  The problem is that I’m on Twitter where I follow some pretty smart people, so I am constantly reading (or at least bookmarking ) interesting links I see there – at the expense of looking for information on other places.

Now, there’s a chance that “Just Noticing Stuff on Twitter” is the best way to go, but, you know, that seems somewhat unlikely. So, inspired by Social Media Sensei Joe Solomon’s “Top Secret Twitter Secrets ” at the last Net Tuesday, I have figured out how I’m going to stay on top of the social media goings on.

Here are some of the Sorta-Secret Search techniques I’ll be employing:

• Google Reader. Go through Google Reader (and share posts I like) (OK, this one is not too secret, but given my behavior recently, it’s pretty much a secret to me)
• Twitter Search Feed.  Using one of Joe’s brilliant tricks, I have created a feed from Twitter Search which contains only items people are  Retweeting (RT)  about “marketing” or ”social media” or  “Crowdsourcing”(and a few other related topics) and which contain a link (I’ve also included “social” and “media” alone – because sometimes people will use terms like “social network” or “online media”   (You can also use Tweetdeck’s Preset searches for this purpose, and they are nice, but you don’t seem to be able to choose to see only those tweets with links, so a search feed might work better)
• Delicious Find what’s popular in Delicious for “socialmedia”.  Also look at network – just in case popular vote didn’t capture all the neat items that friends did.
• Social Media News Aggregators on Twitter.  Hey, what the hell, these seem like they have some good stuff, so perhaps a quick peek at something like SocialMedia411

There are likely many more techniques and I would be happy if you shared yours on the comments below.  (I might add one or two to my repertoire, with the self-awareness that if I over-subscribe, it’ll become overwhelming and I just won’t look at it for fear of information avalanche. (Hello, dear Google Reader….  No, no it’s not you, it’s me, really.  Let’s try and work this out.)

Of course I’ll be still picking up what I come across when I look at my Tweetdeck.  But at least now it will be a little more organized (and by “organized” I mean: “less likely to make me weep and pee on the rug”.)

Want More re: How to Find the Info You Want?

Read:

• ReadWriteWeb’s “How to Find the Weirdest Stuff on the Internet” – even if you don’t want to find weird stuff (though, I can’t relate to that)
• Great tips from Duct Tape Marketing’s “Social Media Schedule” to see what John Jantsch does to keep up (seemingly even while he sleeps)

by Monica Hamburg

We gratefully acknowledge this meeting’s sponsorship by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, leading the effort to increase awareness of, participation in and support for arts and culture in the Greater Philadelphia region.

• What can non profits and social change agents learn from these early experiments?
• How can our efforts reflect and reinforce this new political paradigm?
• What implications  does Democracy 2.0 present for how we engage with clients, with our causes and with one another?

We’ll have an interactive discussion with a great panel, including:

1. Ian Storrar, Chief Operating Officer of Mobilize.org, an all-partisan network dedicated to educating, empowering, and energizing young people to increase their civic engagement and political participation. He is heavily involved in the Democracy 2.0 process, which is the central theory of change at Mobilize.org.  Ian is based in Washington, DC.
2. Rob Stuart, Founding President of Evolve Strategies (a full-service communications firm serving issue advocacy, nonprofit, and political organizations) and the Evolve Foundation (which supports efforts to increase citizen participation in government). He has been an activist and lobbyist for over 20 years, and will talk about the dynamics of advocacy and Democracy 2.0.
3. Michael Tweed, organizer of the Ben Franklin Thinking Society will present what his group is about and their initiative (and Meetup) called Democracy 2.0, an attempt to generate ideas that will use technology to improve the democratic process by making representatives more accountable and people more knowledgeable.

Plus, there will be plenty of time for schmoozing, networking and meeting other folks who want to use the social web for social change.

NOTE THE NEW TIME AND PLACE:

When: 6:00 – 9:00 PM on Tuesday, February 3

Where: Buffalo Billiards, 118 Chestnut Street in Olde City.  (We have the 2nd floor private room to ourselves.  The first two hours (until 8 PM) are Happy Hour with half-priced appetizers and $3 draft beer.)

RSVP’s via our Meetup page are requested, but not required, for this fun and informative event.  Feel free to just show up, and bring your friends.  Hope to see you there.

We had a terrific meeting on Tuesday with a record 50(!) people who turned out in the rain.

The 5 panelists (described in the previous blog post) spanned a range of perspectives and Sam Cohen moderated an active and engaging discussion.  Here are some pictures taken by Meg Rider:

And Reed Gustow was kind enough to share his (very rough) notes from the panel discussion, which are appended at the bottom of this post.

After the panel discussion, we broke into two breakout groups for about 15 minutes:

1. Nate Gasser, in his calm, competent way, demonstrated for about 15 folks how to set up a new blog in about 15 minutes.  Asking for a volunteer from the group, Whitney Blunden raised his hand, and Nate walked through setting up a blog for Operation Restoration Enterprises.  I think it’s safe to say that Whitney was thrilled with the results.  In the last day, he has added a bunch of content, and it looks great!
2. The other breakout discussed ways in which we could support nonprofit blogging in Philly in an ongoing way.  I don’t have notes from that session, but after speaking to a number of those who participated, I’m sure we’ll be implementing something shortly to try to provide that sort of support.

All in all, I think most people enjoyed themselves and got a lot out of the evening (I know I did).  Thanks to everybody who worked on this event.

Seth

——–  Reed Gustow’s rough notes:  ———-

Blogging for Not for Profits. 01-06-09

Sam Cohen moderated. One of his projects is, Coming of Age – Inspiring Opportunities, channels baby boomers to opportunities to give back to their communities. Coming of age is made of The Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning, WHYY, Wider Horizons, United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, AARP Pennsylvania

Apparently, they only located about 30 not-for-profit organization blogs in philly. Thousands of nfp orgs though. They use them for many things: advocacy, fundraising, staff recruiting etc.

The Panel:

Mary Ann Devine. Smarts and Culture is her biz, consulting. Does mktng for arts and culture organizations. Her blog is smarts and culture. Why?  She was dir of mkt and pr at Acad of vocal arts but saw nothing out there in the way of arts mkting blogs. Writes for clients. Gives a voice to arts marketing and social media. Spends 14-16 hours a week on the blogging.

Andrew Schwalm.  MalcomXpark.org = does a lot of video on his blog. He has a 501c3 for this.  Also he is first person arts. Present an annual festival, yr round programming at Letage, also a salon series, people who can do memoir and documentary art. He is the comm/mkt person at First person Arts.  He is moving it to Drupal from WP. Spends 3-4 hrs on first person arts, and 8 hours on malcolmx park blog.

Judah Ferst, buzzing for change. Runs events at which people cut their hair off and donate it childrens cancer. 501C3, volunteer run. He is pres. Blog is to drive people to the home page. One of his problems is keeping content updated. He does 3 hours a week. Looking to get other board members to contribute.  And other parts of program

Dan Pantano.  Danny’s adventures at Acad of Vocal Arts. This is the premier opera conservatory in the us. Maybe 2-4 hours a week. Development is primary. Target audience (the goal) is getting the name out there internationally. Strategy is to be very up, positive. There are personality issues. Has a 3-4K person email list.

Larry Blumenthal. Resp. for web strategy Robert Wood Johnson foundation. 450Mil in grants, all in healthcare. NPR sponsor. Their Pioneer team does the blogging, they look for new ideas. Looking for alternatives to malpractices; getting health records online. They blog to break down walls. These surround the foundations, ivy tower, disconnected. This is an outdated model and they want to break those walls down. Their blog has been up for??time. Their freelance blog mgr works 8-10 hours a week.  The whole thing is building relationships. You have to give people a compelling reason to come to your blog. Like Las Vegas. Why come out to the desert unless there is a good reason to do it?  Blogs are a way to build your community. You want to reach out to and build the community you are interested in. Engaging them via your blog is one way; this is why the conversation is so important.

Sam: an issue is/can show an authentic voice. But orgs are not made of only one voice, so resolving it is hard. So how do the panelists deal with the authentic voice problem?
First Person Arts: encourage the interns to do some writing on the blog. Not as concerned with a unified voice.
RWJ – Board and management were aware of the possibility of criticism, and were nervous about it. But it didn’t happen – very few inappropriate comments. Now think they are not compelling enough, not controversial enough. Now found someone who will say controversial things and evoke a response. The person is an authority on x, so her voice is ok, even if provoking. There is a need for balance though. Be prepared for outside criticism but use it to grow. Read Naked Conversations, business oriented, how to grow from criticisms.

Another thing to do is offer comments on other people’s blogs.

Be clear with the audience about how often you will update. There is no minimum but do meet the expectations. If you start and cannot keep it up you will have a problem.

How build traffic? You have to think about other social media like twitter, other blogs etc. to let others know about your blog. Facebook allows an RSS feed to your blog. For older people, make a newsletter out of it, and email it to your list. RSS feeds can be limited to the first few lines of the blog post so they have to go to the blog to read the rest of it.
Important to ask who your audiences are.

How much does RWJ use the recipients blog? (Not the right person to ask. )

Look at your goals – what do we want? Donors? Members? Funds? Staff?
The numbers per se are not as important as  the results you get from those who do read. Quality is more important than quantity IF you get the needed results from those who do follow you.
How can the blog most help us?

January’s Net Tuesday will be about Blogging for Nonprofits.

Whether you’re thinking about starting a blog or want to make your existing blog more effective, we’re planning a program that will :

• feature nonprofits that are using blogs successfully to raise awareness, raise funds, find volunteers and achieve their mission — and how they are doing it
• share techniques, strategies, tools and resources for effective nonprofit blogging
• explore thorny issues , such as how to reconcile the need for a blog to have a personal voice, yet also represent the many voices of an organization

We’ll be using an “open panel” format, featuring some local non-profit bloggers, including:

• Andrew Schwalm and the First Person Arts blog and Malcolm X Park Blog
• Daniel Pantano and the Academy of Vocal Arts Opera Blog
• Judah Ferst and the Buzzing 4 Change blog
• Larry Blumenthal and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton blog
• Maryann Devine and the smArts and Culture blog

In addition to an informative, interactive discussion about issues confronting new and veteran nonprofit bloggers, we’ll have lots of practical tools and opportunities.

Nate Gasser, of Rock River Star, will demonstrate creating a new blog during the evening with one of the attendees (maybe you?).

We will also introduce an idea to provide ongoing support and encouragement for new and current nonprofit bloggers.

You are encouraged (though by no means required) to RSVP via the Meetup page for this event.

This promises to be another intersting, fun and useful Net Tuesday.

Hope to see you there,

Seth

January’s Net Tuesday will be about Blogging for Nonprofits.  This is an important, growing topic (which generated a lot of interest at December’s Social Web Carnival).

Whether you’re thinking about starting a blog or want to make your existing blog more effective, we’re planning a program that will :

• feature nonprofits that are using blogs successfully to raise awareness, raise funds, find volunteers and achieve their mission — and how they are doing it
• share techniques, strategies, tools and resources for effective nonprofit blogging
• explore thorny issues , such as how to reconcile the need for a blog to have a personal voice, yet also represent the many voices of an organization
• work on concrete ways we can help one another to achieve our own nonprofit blogging goals

We’re still building the program.  If any of you know of any local nonprofits that are blogging – especially (but not necessarily) whose blog we might feature or who we might approach to present — can you please help out by emailing their blog URL (and contact person if you know it) to Seth Horwitz at ReachSeth@gmail.com.  (If you’re not sure if what they are doing is technically a “blog” send it on anyway; we want to gather the information.)

RSVP’s are requested (but by no means required) via the Meetup page.

When: This Tuesday, December 2, 2008 6:30 – 8:30 PM

Where: Independents Hall, 32 Strawberry Street in Olde City (Strawberry Street runs parallel to and between 2nd and 3rd Streets, and IndyHall is between Market and Chestnut.)

Plans for the Net Tuesday Social Web Carnival are coming along nicely. Here’s how it will work…

People will visit each of 5 stations throughout the room. At each station, we will brainstorm ways in which that station’s tools have been or can be used for social change causes, as well as ideas for future Net Tuesday programs and other ways we can support, learn from and inspire one another in the Philly area. Then, we’ll come back together to share some of the insights and ideas that were generated. The stations will be:

• Writin’ Roller Coaster (blogging, microblogging …)
• Multimedia Midway (photo, video, audio, slide sharing services; podcasts, vlogs …)
• Ferris Wheel of Friends (social networking sites)
• Folksonomy Funhouse (tagging, social bookmarking …)
• Freaks and Geeks (everything else: wikis, mashups, e-democracy, RSS, mobile apps …)

What will you get out of this fast-paced event?

• Non-profit and social change activists will discover more about the tremendous power of these tools, and will likely come away with new ideas about how they might be used for their own organizations or causes.
• Techies will learn about the hopes and needs of people who can imagine using these technologies to make the world a better place.
• Visionaries and career changers may discover opportunities and gaps that have not yet been revealed or filled.
• And all of us will have a chance to make friends and contacts, to help shape Net Tuesday (and NetSquared) programs for 2009, and to generally continue advancing Philly as a place for progressive social innovation.

If you haven’t already RSVP’d, it would be helpful to do so via the Meetup page. But that’s not required; feel free to show up and bring a friend.

Questions? Contact philly@net2tuesday.org.

Come join us for a Social Web Carnival on December 2!

blogging and microblogging — wikis — podcasts — social bookmarking — videoblogs — social networking — picture and video sharing — mashups — RSS feeds — e-democracy — tagging and folksonomies

How do these social web tools relate to social change?

Come to participate in a highly interactive and dynamic event to address this question. We’ll also generate ideas for future Net Tuesday gatherings. And we’ll think of ways for those of us in the Philly area who resonate with these ideas to find, support and inspire one another.

• Are you experienced in using these tools? Great. Bring your perspective and examples. 
• Are you inexperienced with these tools, but curious? Great. Bring your perspective, questions and ambitions. 
• Are you a non-profit or social change activist? Find out how some of these tools might help you realize your mission. 
• Are you a techie? Discover how nonprofits, fellow techies and others think about using these tools to make a difference in the world. 
• Are you a visionary or career changer? See if you can find some opportunities and gaps that need to be filled. 

Join us on Tuesday, December 2 from 6:30–8:30 PM at Independents Hall (the co-working space) at 32 Strawberry Street in Olde City. (Strawberry Street runs parallel to and between 2nd and 3rd Streets, and IndyHall is between Market and Chestnut.)

RSVPs via our Meetup Page are helpful, but not required.

Note about these notes:  These are raw notes taken by myself (Seth), and comprised primarily of the contents of sheets of brainstormed topics.  Being brainstorms, we wrote down whatever was contributed, despite some internal inconsistencies.   I’m including everything from the brainstorms into these notes, since this is the only documentation of the meeting (and I want to throw away those big sheets of paper!).   I’ve also composed an “Executive Summary” of my own, subjective “takeaway” from the meeting.  I invite others who attended to share their own recollections or perspectives.  And, of course, anyone who reads this is more than welcome to add their own comments.    – Seth

Executive Summary:  Net Tuesday Philly (the monthly meetings) and Philly NetSquared (the more broadly defined group) exist among a rich variety of related groups and events in the Philadelphia area.  Our core differentiation and value lies in creating a space for techies, social change agents and others who are interested in “using the social web for social change” to come together.  Nonprofit and social change folks can learn about these emerging technologies; techies can better understand how their skills and knowledge can be applied for social change; and all of us can learn from, support and inspire one another.  We want our monthly Net Tuesday meetings to emphasize cases, examples, practical applications, strategic considerations and effective networking.  And, under the Philly NetSquared banner, we want to develop additional opportunities for members to build relationships and benefit one another outside of monthly meetings.  This is really exciting, timely and important stuff.

(Full notes after the jump.)

A dozen of us met at MANNA’s  offices:  Larry Miller, Powen Shiah, Meg Rider, Meg Paszko, Jeremy Heffner, Katie Edwards, Ivan Boothe, Sam Cohen, Marina Sout, Jim Wurster, Thomas Taylor and myself.  Special thanks to Meg Rider of MANNA for hosting us, and for providing samples of MANNA’s pies.  (These famous gourmet pies are a major fundraiser for MANNA, and must be ordered by November 19 to be available for Thanksgiving.  Hint, hint.  Yum, yum.)

After introductions, we began by reviewing the first 6 meetings:

• May (Aaron & Mark on AFSC’s Friends for Peace & Ivan on social networking to engage members)
• June: Larry on extensible meeting and process mgmt & Seth and Ivan on NetSquared conference
• July:  Extreme Makover: Web Strategy Edition (Ruth Ann’s Wiki-Theater)
• August:  Web 2.0 tech (Thomas on Twitter, Nate on RSS, Mark on video)
• September: Web 2.0 tech (Rod on podcasting, David on videoblogging)
• October: peer to peer social change sites (Ivan, Kane and Hatef)

… and indicating what worked well and what could be improved.

What worked well:

·         Case studies

·         Usage examples

·         Learning about tools in general (2 per session worked better than 3 per session)

·         Networking

What could be improved:

·         more concrete metrics

·         trying the “Extreme Makeover” format again with clearer requirements and more prep.

·         some discussions were too abstract

·         some discussions were too “sales-y” (like a vendor pitch)

·         need more “how to apply this to my situation”

·         need stronger tie-in to non-profit/social change work

The Net Tuesday Philly group has a number of faces, including:

·         The Meetup group (140 members)

·         Other attendees not on Meetup (20 names)

·         The general Google Group (56 subscribers)

·         The Organizers (Advisors) Google Group (17 subscribers)

·         This WordPress blog

·         a Facebook page

·         a MySpace page

·         a LinkedIn group

We talked about consolidating some of these, or at least being clear about what was the most definitive source.  It would be nice to have a particular, robust and flexible site that we could do more with.  How this would be done wasn’t discussed.  Seth is going to renew our request for a subdomain from NetSquared (e.g., philly.netsquared.org).

As far as promoting our monthly meetings, in addition to using the groups mentioned above, we’ve variously used:

·         flyers

·         upcoming.org

·         Craig’s List

·         United Way’s What Matters newsletter

·         the PHENND newsletter

·         the SBN newsletter

It was suggested we should also promote through:

·         City Paper

·         Philadelphia Weekly

·         PANMA

·         phillynewmediahub

We brainstormed other groups in the Philly area which are in the same or related space, including:

·         Bar Camp Philly

·         JUNO – P’unk Ave

·         PLUG

·         Media Tank

·         Philly IMC

·         Philly Geek Dinner

·         Philly Perl Mongers

·         Web Analytics

·         SEO Grail

·         Philly Salesforce NP

·         Philly Mac Alliance

·         Phillypreneurs

·         Philly Young NP Leaders

·         Web Standards group

·         PANMA

·         Social Media Club

·         Ignite Philly

·         Drupal group

·         Sustainable Business Network (and other sustainable groups)

·         phillynewmediahub

·         Technically Speaking Radio

·         NTEN 501 Tech club

·         Agile Philly

·         PACS

·         PIFVA

·         WordPress groups

·         Independents Hall

·         University groups?

After naming a bunch of these groups, we tried to identify what was unique about Net Tuesday Philly in relation to many of these other groups, and came up with :

·         Affiliation with NetSquared (part of TechSoup), and 2 dozen other Net Tuesday groups

·         Focus on the nonprofit / social change world

·         Having a program (not just a gathering in a bar)

·         Range of attendees

·         Focus on social media bridges the gap between techies and social change agents

·         Attempt to address people on the periphery of this space

·         “Helping non-profits achieve social change through technology”

·         Value of informality

We identified some things we thought were needed by the audience we are addressing, including:

·         identifying outcomes and measurements

·         web (and web 2.0) literacy

·         social change literacy

·         more case studies, examples, models

·         (a comment was made that the need is greater for the social change agents than for the techies)

In terms of goals and ideas for Net Tuesday meetings, we mentioned:

·         Continue to try to address a range of people, including both techies and social change agents

·         Present “tools framed in case studies”

·         Challenge people’s assumptions

·         Help people understand whether and how they should use these tools

·         Discuss what works and what doesn’t

·         Presentations should be “unbiased” (i.e., not sound like a sales pitch)

·         Provide inspiration

·         Help techies and nonprofit/social change folks understand one another and work together

·         Appeal to program staff and consultants

·         Help people think about strategy

·         Put our programs out as audio and video podcasts

We also talked about goals and ideas for Philly NetSquared in general.  (A way to think about this is what can we do besides for monthly meetings.)  We came up with:

·         Have a directory of members

·         Create a “clearinghouse” way for members to collaborate on ideas or projects

·         Share reviews of resources (books, websites…)

·         Share information and resources with Net Tuesday groups in other cities

·         Have a sort of “think tank” for people to focus on using the social web for social change

Summary of actions:

·         Larry and Thomas are a “space exploration committee” to investigate other potential venues.  We don’t need to leave IndyHall, but want to know what our options are.  Some ideas suggested were: UArts, the Ethical Society, United Way, Triumph and Valanni.

·         Larry, Meg (Rider), Sam, Ivan and Seth are forming a programming committee to come up with programs, most immediately for December 2.

·         Meg Rider will begin to draft a survey to go out to our broad membership

·         Seth will check on obtaining a NetSquared.org subdomain

·         We’ll change the name of the Organizers group to the Advisors group, and invite anyone to join who wants to have input into these sorts of discussions.

finis

The next Net Tuesday is this week!   It will be October 7,  from 6:30 – 8:30 PM at Independents Hall, the coworking place at 32 Strawberry Street in Olde City.

This Net Tuesday is looking better and better.  The focus of the evening will be “peer to peer social change sites” – those websites which enable individuals, non-profits and others to provide convenient, grassroots support for one another’s causes.

• How do these sites work, and what can they do?
• How can you or your organization use them to attract and engage supporters?
• What’s coming next?

We’ve lined up a great panel of three presenters (bios further below):

1. Ivan Boothe will give an overview, and preview a major initiative of change.org, scheduled to launch this week.
2. Kane Bender will talk about YouChoose.net, which he co-founded, and their “distributed social network“.
3. Hatef Yamini will discuss Care2, where he was Business Development Manager.
   Special thanks to our sponsor for this evening, Evolve Strategies, a full-service communications firm, which uses new media technology to serve issue advocacy, nonprofit, and political organizations. 

Special thanks to our sponsor for this evening, Evolve Strategies, a full-service communications firm, which uses new media technology to serve issue advocacy, nonprofit, and political organizations.

RSVP’s via the Meetup page are appreciated, but not required.  Feel free to just show up!  But please try to get there by 6:30; we’ve got a very full program, and many folks will want to get home to watch the presidential debate at 9:00.

The next Net Tuesday gathering will be on October 7 @ 6:30 – 8:30 PM at Independents Hall (the co-working space at 32 Strawberry Street in Olde City).

This month’s Net Tuesday will focus on “peer to peer social change sites”. These are the sites which enable people and organizations to list their cause, and then help others to engage with those causes with their time (e.g., Volunteer Match), money (e.g., Kiva and other microphilanthropy sites) or other support (e.g., change.org). Many of these social change platforms are aggregated in SocialActions, created by Montreal’s Net Tuesday organizer Peter Deitz. This is a fast-growing field that is still in its early stages, and will likely offer profound opportunities for non-profits and others to engage grassroots support for their causes.

• How have these sites helps causes in the past?
• How can you or your organization use these services to engage current or potential supporters?
• What’s coming next in the world of peer to peer social change sites?

We are pleased to have as our guest Kane Bender, co-founder of YouChoose.net, which is headquartered in Thornton, PA. YouChoose.net has created an online distributed social network of over 350K passionate people who have joined with others to take action on issues or causes through online petitions or pledges. YouChoose.net provides its users with an online environment that freely facilitates exchange of ideas, debate of issues and access to related information beyond the destination site via interactive widgets. Its structure naturally encourages and enables individuals to easily tell others and join members’ personal networks.

Kane Bender has been in involved in online marketing for over 9 years beginning with Crystal Signatures, InternetSeer, EnterURL, Marine.com and Sailnet.com before YouChoose. InternetSeer grew to the largest website monitoring company in the world with over 1 million members and SailNet is the largest online sailing community.

We have lots of leftover beverages, donated by LIVE Energy Drink, which donates 50% of its profit directly to charity. And, of course, we’ll have our usual snacks and beverages.

It would be helpful to RSVP via the Meetup page, but not necessary. Feel free to just show up.

We realize that October 7 is also the date of the second presidential debate (at 9:00 PM). So, please arrive by 6:30, so we can begin promptly, and folks can leave at 8:30 (or earlier) to get home to watch the debate if they want.

This promises to be another interesting and informative Net Tuesday evening. Hope to see you there.

Seth

We had a really fun and informative meeting on September 2, anchored by Rod Murray talking about podcasting and David Kessler talking about videoblogging.

Thanks to Anthony Farrior, who ustreamed the event, you can see videos here:

• Rod Murray and Podcasting
• David Kessler and Videoblogging

Dr. Rod Murray is an educational technology leader with 20 years of experience, mostly at Thomas Jefferson University where he teaches pharmacology to 2nd year medical students. He produces a podcast on e-learning technology, Rod’s Pulse Podcast, with over 70 episodes so far. Rod also does web technology consulting with his company, MCS Consulting.

David S Kessler is a fine artist and filmmaker who has been using videoblogging as a medium and a means of distribution for his own work. He is currently working on a body of video work that explores the people and places that David encounters under the El tracks of Kensington, Philadelphia, called Shadow World.  And more of David’s work can be found at Studioscopic.

Join us for our next Net Tuesday gathering on September 2 to learn, share and imagine the possibilities of podcasting and videoblogging . We’ll have a dynamic discussion of these technologies so that:

• Newbies can learn what these technologies are all about, and how to get started
• Experienced podcasters and videobloggers can share tips, insights and challenges
• Nonprofit activists can discuss how these technologies might help advance their cause
• All of us can envision how these empowering tools might help us express our thoughts, feelings and dreams

The facilitated discussion will be kicked off by two experienced practitioners:

Rod Murray on podcasting. Dr. Rod Murray is an educational technology leader with 20 years of experience, mostly at Thomas Jefferson University where he teaches pharmacology to 2nd year medical students. He produces a podcast on e-learning technology, Rod’s Pulse Podcast, with over 70 episodes so far. Rod also does web technology consulting with his company, MCS Consulting.

David Kessler on videoblogging. David S Kessler is a fine artist and filmmaker who has been using videoblogging as a medium and a means of distribution for his own work. He is currently working on a body of video work that explores the people and places that David encounters under the El tracks of Kensington, Philadelphia, called Shadow World. And more of David’s work can be found at Studioscopic.

As usual, our meeting will start at 6:30 PM at Independents Hall, the co-working space located at 32 Strawberry Street in Olde City (between 2nd and 3rd, and Market and Chestnut).

Thanks to our sponsor for this event, NorthStar Asset Management, specializing in the individual management of portfolios of private clients, foundations, corporations, and institutions.

And this meeting has an extra something special. We want to give a big Thank You to this meeting’s “beverage sponsor”: LIVE Energy Drinks, which donates 50% of the profit from every purchase directly to charity, which means every purchase is an opportunity to contribute to a cause. They’ve donated a case of drinks to our Net Tuesday meeting. (Plus we’ll have the usual snacks.)

It would be great, but not necessary, if you can RSVP via the Meetup page. Feel free to just show up.

Should be a fun, stimulating and delicious evening. Hope to see you there.

Time: 6:30 – 8:30 PM on Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Place: Independents Hall, 32 Strawberry Street (Olde City)

RSVP: via Meetup (nice, but not necessary)

Questions?: contact philly@net2tuesday.org

Whether you’re a newbie or an old hand, we’ll use our August meeting to share thoughts about how particular Web 2.0 technologies have been used (and could be in the future). We’ll have an open, facilitated discussion about various elements of the Web 2.0 landscape. Those who are unfamiliar can ask questions; those who are experienced can share insights and tips; and we can all envision how these tools might be applied to our present circumstances and dreams. We’ll touch upon some combination of:

• Blogs
• Twitter
• Wikis
• Photo sharing services
• Video sharing services
• Podcasting
• RSS feeds
• tagging
• mashups
• SMS, mobile apps and making your site mobile-friendly
• and whatever other tools people want to bring up

Which technologies we spend time on will be determined by the group. We’d like to start off our discussion of each tool with a quick (less than 5 minute) overview or demonstration presented by different Net Tuesday members. We’d like people to volunteer in advance, though that’s not necessary. If you’d like to get our discussion started about one or more of these technologies, please let us know by sending an email to philly@net2tuesday.org.

We’ll be able to go online for demonstrations, though time limits will preclude getting into great depth on any of these tools. So, we’ll take plenty of notes to be made available afterward.

In addition to this, we’ll also discuss plans for Net Tuesdays this Fall and Winter.

Hope to see you there.