Following Proposition 8 Protests Today

November 15, 2008 § Leave a comment

While I haven’t been able to give as much time and attention to these protests as I would have liked, it is clear that the Internet has changed activism and grassroots organzing.

The nation-wide action was organized by grassroots movements in communities everywhere using Internet tools. I found the protest here through the Join the Impact website, which had resources and links to local websites, blogs, and Facebook pages. Word has been spread by Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed. I found many resources here in Chicago, including Chicago Against Prop 8, and the Great Lakes Against Prop 8 (GLAP8 – gotta work on that acronym).

Almost overnight I connected with old friends and made new ones, all of us in far flung locations acting in solidarity for marriage equality.

Today, I will be one of the featured livebloggers at the many rallies around the country.

All of the action and planning has inspired and reinvigorated me! I am eager to see the results of our efforts, and I will be sure to report on it here.

My Article in Searcher Magazine

November 8, 2008 § Leave a comment

I’m published! W00t!

I worked on an article about nonprofit technology over the summer, and it was just published in this month’s Searcher Magazine. Searcher is a great industry rag for database and information professionals. I devour every issue when it arrives.

The full article is only available in print or if you pay for it online. Your local library might have access to it through its electronic resources. The list of online resources that I cite is available here, if you want to check that out.

Thanks to everyone who helped out, particularly to: Marnie Webb from TechSoup, Larry Halff from Ma.gnolia, and the folks at Community Voice Mail who gave me the tour of their office on Second Life.

I’m really happy to promote all of the organiziations and the movement for social change on the Internet in my own small way.

More Election Tools

October 2, 2008 § Leave a comment

Clearly, I’m only scrating the surface. Since my earlier post about the Twitter Election feed, I’ve learned about some other interesting online tools:

My Debates is a plitical forum through the MySpace social networking site where participants can submit question for consideration to the debate. People can also use various tools to debate the issues with other citizens.

CSPAN Debate Hub is a site where in addition to watching the presidential debates, citizens can use tools like Twitter and YouTube to share their observations.

Patchwork Nation from the Christian Science Monitor is an interactive tool which breaks down different cultural epicenters across the country and their political leanings.

And because I’m liberal, I have to give a plug for this site: Living Liberally. This is a real-life social networking tool that allows you to find like-minded social groups in your region where you can gather and watch the debates while engaging in your favorite activity, like drinking and eating.

I’m sure there are more, and I’m still looking for them!

Making Heads or Tails of It

September 29, 2008 § Leave a comment

I have been trying to educate myself about mortgage backed securities and commercial paper within last two weeks, as I indicated in my earlier post about the information resources I have been collecting that best explain the economic crisis.

By far the best resource that I have found so far is the Planet Money blog and podcast from NPR. Thier stories are featured on some of the regular programs, like All Things Considered and Morning Edition, but the podcast through iTunes has a few nuggets that I haven’t heard anywhere else, so its worth downloading.

The contributing journalists to this effort offer down-to-earth easily understandable break downs for the average listener who doesn’t have a degree in finance or economics.

I need to understand this stuff for my job, and as a citizen I see it as a responsibility. The journalists here clearly see it as their job to educate the public on how some incredibly important decisions might impact our world and our day-to-day life for generations. They do a great job.

Oh, and I was thrilled tonight to find that they also have a Twitter feed.

Twitter Election Feed

September 27, 2008 § Leave a comment

I have discovered another Twitter tool that has captivated my attention: The 2008 election feed.

Twitter has provided this brilliant platform that citizens can use to give their two cents about developments related to the 2008 presidential election. I discovered this while watching the debates last night. Not only did I find a handful of interesting people to follow on Twitter, following the feed allowed me to take the temperature of what the rest of the world was observing about the debates. People are actively using hash tags, which will enable you to more easily follow specific threads, but there seem to be some technical difficulties with this function. The hash tag links always seem to give me an error message. I can’t wait until they iron out the problems with this feature.

I picked up the feed again this morning to find some interesting news items and opinion pieces, as well as to hear the latest controversies, specifically about whether or not McCain muttered “horsesh*t” under his breath in response to Obama’s assertion that McCain wouldn’t meet with the Prime Minister of Spain. Fascinating stuff, let me tell you.

There is a lot of crap that folks are tweeting out there that you would expect from the lowest common denomenator. My overall assessment of this tool, however, is that it has the potential to encourage more people to talk to each other and debate the issues.

Perhaps even *gasp* across state and partisan lines. Now that would be exciting.

Information Resources for the Economic Crisis

September 21, 2008 § Leave a comment

At work this week, I was asked to interpret how the current economic crisis might impact the bottom line of fundraising at the University of Chicago. I thus began to compile the best information resources to help translate what is happening.

So far, the best resource I have found yet is the Planet Money blog from NPR. Here they are compiling their best stories about the crisis. It all started with the story on This American Life: The Giant Pool of Money. Totally worth the $.95 for the download.

Other good resources include

I’m sure that there will be others emergin in the next days and weeks. I’m particularly interested in gathering anything that speaks to fundraising and philanthropy. If you have others to share, I welcome your comments. Thanks!

Chicago New Media Summit

September 14, 2008 § Leave a comment

While I won’t be attending this event, I will most certainly be watching the ning site and following the Twitter feed, looking for content emerging from the happenings there. Being on the periphery of this burgeoning community, this looks to be an exciting event. The organizers want nothing less that to establish Chicago as the “New Media Capital,” which after moving here from the Bay Area almost one year ago seems like a logical possibility. Even coming from Silicon Valley where much of the new media technology was born and is still being developed, Chicago seems the likely place for the creative use of this new technology to really take off and take hold.

This is the heartland, after all, a hub representing a real cross-section of the United States and arguably the world. The diverse cultural representation that exists here is rich soil for creative seeds to be planted. Chicago has a populist tradition of intellectualism here, and people have the ability to dig down into the resourceful working class roots and history of this place to find inspiration of those who have created vibrant communities here before with whatever means they had available to them. Finally, the creativity that exists here makes for a community of artists, writers, activists, and musicians actively creating new works and looking for and finding inspiration in each other.

As a techneophyte and citizen blogger still kind of new to Chicago, I live on the periphery of this community, still feeling kind of on the outside looking in, I’m excited by the possibilities of what inspiration might come out of the Chicag New Media Summit.

Nota Bene

September 7, 2008 § Leave a comment

Regarding my earlier post about election coverage, I would be remiss not to again mention my brother-in-law’s blog, The RNC Is Coming To Town. He has been able to watch the activities from the vantage point of his downtown St. Paul condominium, as well as on the streets of St. Paul. His observations of the media’s coverage of events is enlightening. He’s another citizen journalist taking matters into his own hands.

Watching the Election: The Conventions

September 6, 2008 § Leave a comment

Back in June I blogged about watching coverage of Clinton’s and Obama’s speeches as they vied for the top spot on the Democratic ticket. I had recently discovered Twitter, and I was finding that I was getting better information and insight than I was watching any analysis on CNN, CSPAN, or even PBS or NPR. Folks I follow on Twitter (including some news outlets) were posting links leading to further information, and I was getting better information on FriendFeed, Twitter, and FaceBook.

While watching the coverage of the DNC and the RNC, I again found myself infront of the TV with my laptop simultaneously following my friends on the social networks, and again, I found I was getting more insight and information from the Internet. It have to say that it was a lot more fun, too. The night that Sarah Palin spoke, FriendFeed, Twitter, and even my friends’ FaceBook updates lit up in response. The following night when McCain delievered his acceptance speech, my friend Stacy in Ohio and I were IMing eachother our observations.

There were people Twittering during both conventions. There were alternative news sources tweeting about all of the protests and the police activity around the RNC. I heard nothing about the police raids from CNN or PBS about Amy Goodman’s arrest or the raids on private homes in St. Paul. I learned this from the UpTake’s webcast and Twitter feed.

I am continually inspired by citizen journalism and the movement to reform media. The Chicago New Media Summit is coming up next week, and though I won’t be there, I am eager to learn about the outcome of that event. I’m hoping to learn about more alternative news services as the election approaches. Meanwhile, I’m planning on watching the election returns on The Daily Show’s Indecision 2008, as well as continuing to get information from my Twitter feed.

While I am discouraged by the political discourse that is reflected on mainstream television, I look to my social networks to be reminded that there is a majority of people in this world who, like me, want to get information out there about what is really going on in American politics, and raise the level of political discourse above the drivel that the conservative media is feeding us.

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