Recommended viewing

NetSquared it at it again: augmenting their project with new streams of communication. I recommend two things you can find at Net2:

1. A vlog of Alexandra Samuel shot by Geek TVs Eddie Codel at NetSqured’s Northern Voice meeting in Vancouver, BC. A good explanation of what the opportunity is for nonprofits with new media.
2. NetSquared’s Community Builder Britt Bravo (good name for a female movie action figure, don’t you think?) has started doing a weekly podcast about what’s new at NetSquared. Good idea.

Here’s the other thing to notice: the tools and technology for podcasts and online videos is inexpensive, not difficult to use, and readily available.  With it worthwhile messages can be created and made widely available. I use a simple digital recorder the ACS bought to do the Net Tuesday podcasts, and Eddie’s equipment is modest also. So…go use it!

The new ACS skunkworks

I just got some information about ACS Labs. No, not cancer research with mice and all that, but an ongoing part of the organization working on web and online projects and their applicability to our work. Sounds great. At the pace that online technologies and services are changing, it makes sense to have development happening all the time. Shouldn’t take and act of Congress to try something new in a relentlessly evolving environment. Check it out.

Why we should fully embrace the internet

Remember a few years back when naysayers were warning the
internet would make us alienated and isolated, and maybe it would destroy our
family and social life? The highly
respected Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released a report
titled "The Strength of Internet Ties" finding that those worries were unfounded. I think this report is so
significant I’m going to quote from the report’s summary extensively. It is
available free here.

Instead of disappearing, people’s communities are
transforming: The traditional human orientation to neighborhood- and
village-based groups is moving towards communities that are oriented around
geographically dispersed social networks. People communicate and maneuver in
these networks rather than being bound up in one solitary community. Yet
people’s networks continue to have substantial numbers of relatives and
neighbors — the traditional bases of community — as well as friends and
workmates.

Rather than conflicting with people’s community ties, we
find that the internet fits seamlessly with in-person and phone encounters.
With the help of the internet, people are able to maintain active contact with
sizable social networks, even though many of the people in those networks do
not live nearby. Moreover, there is media multiplexity: The more that people
see each other in person and talk on the phone, the more they use the internet.
The connectedness that the internet and other media foster within social
networks has real payoffs: People use the internet to seek out others in their
networks of contacts when they need help.

READ MORE

CPsquare

A big thank you to Marshall Kirkpatrick for pointing me toward CPsquare.org CPsquare is the community of practice on communities of practice. From their site.

CPsquare is like a town square, a place where people gather to connect and learn together. Where many of us are joining in this enterprise from a variety of organizations in the private and public sectors.

Communities of practice are emerging as the most promising structures for building knowledge-based organizations. They are the key to the knowledge strategy of a growing number of leading companies, government agencies, and non-profits. The development of communities of practice is new to most organizations, however, and there is an urgent need for accelerated learning in this area.Since we believe that communities of practice are the way to organize for knowledge, learning, and innovation, we are applying the method to ourselves.

If you have a chance, pop on over to Netsquared and both read and listen to excerpts from Marshall’s interview with John Smith, CPsquare’s community steward.