the love of change
Hey folks- over the next two days I’ll be posting dispatches from the Netroots Nation conference in Austin. The beauty about a conference for bloggers is that nobody gives you a funny look when you’re in the audience for a panel hacking away at your laptop.
I’m waiting for my first panel to start:
I’m continuing what I’m now calling “Jet-Set July” this week with a jaunt down to Austin, TX for the Netroots Nation conference. Those of you who follow progressive political blogs will recognize this as The Conference Formerly Known As Yearly Kos (TM). I’ve wanted to attend since the first Yearly Kos was held in Las Vegas two years ago, and I’m enormously grateful for the opportunity to be there this year.
I’m heading to Netroots Nation for what might seem like less-than-obvious purposes. This is in many ways a politically-focused event, but I’m planning to attend sessions that emphasize progressive policy advocacy online, building and supporting communities of activists, and driving change with the most innovative and inclusived tools possible. As someone who has been at times both inspired and flabbergasted by the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors’ creativity with or resistance to emerging technologies, I’m really hoping to reconnect with the folks on the cutting edge of these innovations. I expect to return from Texas brimming with new ideas to test in my own field and state.
I focused my senior thesis on the use of web-based technologies on the campaign trail; at this point, I’m much more interested in how social technologies can be brought to bear on governance, advocacy outside of the campaign season, and building public awareness around pressing issues. With those interests in mind, here are a few of the sessions I plan to attend this weekend:
Working from the Inside Out: Success Stories in Netroots Organizing
Debunking the Issue Silo Myth: Why the Broader Progressive Movement is Green
Lobbying Congress: Advocacy and Digital Empowerment
Insanely Useful Tools You Can Use to Keep Track of Congress and State Lawmakers
Culture Clash or Fellow Travelers? How Should Progressive Non-Profits Engage the Netroots?
Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user supervillain.
For whatever reason, I’ve stumbled upon two spectacular stop-motion YouTube bits in the last 24 hours.
This one is the most impressive, and relates to cooking…so it’s first on the docket:
This one is geektacular…and involves two of my childhood passions: Lego and Star Wars:
Hat Tips: Signal Vs. Noise and Geekologie.
Hey folks– as you may have noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus recently. That’s primarily the result of not staying in the same state for more than a few days over the past two weeks…my travel schedule continues to be hectic, but with Jarred pursuing his manifest destiny out West, I’ll try to keep the blog fresh this week.
I’m way behind the blogosphere, but here are a few links to kick things off on Monday morning…nothing about Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac because, let’s be honest, we don’t actually know what those entities are supposed to do:
eBay disintermediated shopping. Napster initially did the same for music and Wikipedia for information [...] What paradigm shifting changes has the Internet brought to the slowest sector of them all, the philanthropic sector? The answer might be online giving markets.
These organizations can be loosely defined as web-based, informational and transactional platforms that help donors and volunteers more easily identify and then contribute to or volunteer at high performing nonprofits, social projects or needy individuals. They empower pre-vetted organizations to access a wide and diverse base of primarily individual contributors and volunteers.
[...] The fact that it is taking the philanthropic sector a decade longer than the private sector to identify and support this inevitable and emergent trend is quite disheartening and one of the main reasons why the smartest and brightest young professionals leave the sector (let’s not only blame salaries) [...]
[Y]ou knew it, but…in case you needed more proof: “A direct comparison of drinking water from the tap with unrefrigerated bottled water shows an environmental impact of tap water which is less than one percent of that of bottled water. Even when refrigerated and carbonated, the environmental impact of tap water is approximately only one fourth of that of bottled water.
Today we’re going to do something a little different with our traditional “Questioning Things.” Instead of having you respond in the comments, you’ll be able to simply and quickly respond through the polls below. Hopefully we’ll get more participation this way.
These questions are a little frivolous, but I thought it would be interesting to see the numbers. Next week, we’ll use this system to ask more relevant/serious questions. But, as this is my last day of work at my current job, I’m not in a very serious mood. Roll it.
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