Archive for the 'Philanthropy Online' Category

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Published by Jarred on May 19, 2008 in Blogging, Business, Microfinance, Philanthropy Online, Social Networks and Web 2.0. View Comments

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In March 2007, Alex Iskold wrote about the emergence of the "attention economy", a marketplace "where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention." The always-on nature of digital media has increased the scarcity of human attention, and in turn has increased its value. Order Pilex from mexican pharmacy, To put it concretely: the more time a company can get you to spend on their website, the more ad revenue they can potentially earn or the higher the likelihood that you'll purchase one of their products, buy cheap Pilex. Where can i order Pilex without prescription, I mention the attention economy not to wax theoretic about it, but to share my personal struggle with choosing how to invest my attention, Pilex for sale. Real brand Pilex online, I've been thinking a lot recently about the purpose of all this technology reading and writing that I do. I enjoy thinking about the topics that I regularly cover, buy no prescription Pilex online. The evolution of web 2.0 and social network is fascinating to me, and it plays well to my geek tendencies, BUY Pilex ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION. Buy Pilex from mexico, But my brain has been flirting recently with what bloggers have started to call "social media fatigue," an exhaustion resulting from the overexposure to and overanalysis of those topics, purchase Pilex online no prescription. Buy Pilex online no prescription, There's Hope

However, my passion for social media was reinvigorated last week when I was directed to a web page where a friend was raising money to support her marathon run in honor of her college roommate's struggle with cancer, rx free Pilex. Pilex trusted pharmacy reviews, I put the link up in my Gmail status and sent an email to some of my fellow classmates to let them know about it. Though I certainly can't and wouldn't claim to have made a huge impact, purchase Pilex, Order Pilex online overnight delivery no prescription, I think a few of the donors that day decided to act because of that simple message and link from a friend. BUY Pilex ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, By the end of the day, my friend had raised several hundred dollars, and as of today she has raised over $1,000 from over 25 donors.

Though the story is not unique or especially exciting, where can i buy Pilex online, Order Pilex online c.o.d, it brought home for me how much potential there is for social media. So much good can be done! And people create applications on Facebook that allow you to.., buy cheap Pilex no rx. Where to buy Pilex, throw sheep. Give each other cupcakes, canada, mexico, india. Come on, BUY Pilex ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION. Buying Pilex online over the counter, Luckily, some people have caught on, Pilex price, coupon. Buy Pilex online cod, The Obama campaign has tapped into social networking and the "cognitive surplus" of the wired electorate not only to raise money, but also to organize a decentralized political canvassing machine that has thousands of people knocking on doors and making phone calls, australia, uk, us, usa. Online buying Pilex hcl, Kiva turns web users into micro-lenders by connecting them with entrepreneurs in developing economies. Social Actions "helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, Pilex samples, Order Pilex from mexican pharmacy, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that grassroots solutions to local and global problems can flourish." These are but a few examples of how a well-implemented social networking strategy can enact positive change, buy Pilex from canada.

The Echo Chamber

Steve Hodson wrote an excellent post last night that called out the tech blogosphere for what it (largely) is: a self-perpetuating eddy BUY Pilex ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, on the side of a much more important river, muddied by ego and privilege. Buy Pilex without a prescription, Big words like "revolutionary," "game changing, Pilex gel, ointment, cream, pill, spray, continuous-release, extended-release, Purchase Pilex online, " and "unprecedented" make strings of code sound like columns of soldiers on the march to battle. I am as guilty as the next social media fanatic of too often populating the tech echo chamber with even more useless resonance, kjøpe Pilex på nett, köpa Pilex online. Pilex over the counter, I do not disparage the importance of blogs about the politics, business, buy Pilex no prescription, Fast shipping Pilex, and theories of the Internet. That content is valuable and important, buy Pilex without prescription. But when bloggers and their readers become so wrapped up in the study of these new tools that they lose sight of the greater potential of those tools, then something is dreadfully wrong, BUY Pilex ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION. Comprar en línea Pilex, comprar Pilex baratos, Attention Has More Potential Value Than We Often Realize

It is certainly important that we pursue our interests, and that we "spend" a good amount of our attention on them, online buy Pilex without a prescription. Pilex from canadian pharmacy, But, as with any currency, ordering Pilex online, Order Pilex no prescription, it's important to think about not only spending it on what we desire, but to think about investing it so that value beyond its intrinsic worth can be created, where to buy Pilex. Where can i find Pilex online, I spend too much time reading and writing about social media, when I could invest my time by learning about how social media can help do good in the world, where can i buy cheapest Pilex online. Order Pilex from United States pharmacy, Images used under Creative Commons licenses courtesy of Flickr users veo and nicdalic.
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Published by Jarred on May 4, 2008 in Philanthropy, Philanthropy Online and Tropophilia. View Comments

In conjunction with his participation in the Council on Foundations' Leadership Summit BUY Cefaclor ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, this week, Taylor is going to be guest blogging for Tactical Philanthropy. The blog's founder, Sean Stannard-Stockton, has invited Taylor and a handful of others to post their thoughts on different seminars and presentations that they attend. We'll be sure to include links to his posts here, as well as some excerpts.

As the conference gets ready to begin today, order Cefaclor from mexican pharmacy, Buy generic Cefaclor, Taylor has introduced himself to Tactical Philanthropy's readers and described his plans for the week:

I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this excellent blog, as I’m a ‘blog junkie’ and have a great appreciation for the role of social media in spreading information and advancing our work, fast shipping Cefaclor. Buy Cefaclor without a prescription, I’ll be attending sessions at COF focused on the intersection of philanthropy and technology; sessions with titles like “Innovation in Philanthropy,” and “Wired Philanthropy.” I also hope to attend sessions focused on improving the grantmaking process in a way that empowers grantees (without overburdening organizations with unnecessary work), purchase Cefaclor online, Online buying Cefaclor hcl, and focuses foundations on strategic thinking and learning.

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Published by Taylor on March 17, 2008 in Philanthropy and Philanthropy Online. View Comments

BUY Pimozide ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, At first blush, FreeRice.com might appear to be more of an SAT or GRE study tool than a web-based philanthropy portal. Visitors to the site identify synonyms for a wide range of words (that increase in difficulty according to success rate), online buying Pimozide hcl, Buy Pimozide from mexico, in a never-ending game. For each correct answer, where can i buy cheapest Pimozide online, Rx free Pimozide, 20 grains of rice are donated to the UN World Food Program--paid for by FreeRice's advertisers. Unlike other addictive diversions (like this ridiculous game Jarred loves), buying Pimozide online over the counter, Order Pimozide from United States pharmacy, FreeRice feels wholesome and intellectual...sort of like the geography game, but with a greater purpose, Pimozide samples. Order Pimozide from mexican pharmacy, While FreeRice is by no means a new phenomenon (many of you have likely participated), I was struck by a recent NY Times Magazine piece describing the site's history (emphasis mine):

"[I]nspired by Jeffrey Sachs’ book “The End of Poverty, where to buy Pimozide, Japan, craiglist, ebay, overseas, paypal, ” [John] Breen created Poverty.com to encourage first-world nations to give antihunger aid. That site presents a series of names and faces that roll by at a pace illustrating the number of hunger deaths per hour; it’s vivid — and, Breen acknowledges, depressing, BUY Pimozide ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION. So he created FreeRice.com."

Thoughts after the jump.., purchase Pimozide online. Buy Pimozide online no prescription, I love FreeRice, and it's wildly successful at: a) channeling volunteer, buy cheap Pimozide no rx, Pimozide over the counter, at-work minutes that (at least in my case) would be otherwise wasted on more frivolous pursuits; and b) presenting a concrete, micro-level activism equation (one correct answer=20 grains of rice for people in need) that I think is a more effective "ask" than sites encouraging petition letters, ordering Pimozide online. Order Pimozide online c.o.d, But I wonder if we shouldn't be concerned by the very reasons for its success; namely:

That I'm more likely to spend 20 minutes at my desk playing a vocabularly game than I am to donate $20 to the UN World Food Program.

That I'm more likely to work for grains of donated rice than I am to write a letter to congress or the president urging aid that could send billions or trillions of grains of rice to areas of need.

That I'm naturally drawn to philanthropic activities that answer the "what's in it for me?" question in a compelling way, offering both the intrinsic satisfaction of trying to address inequality and selfish personal improvement (or gain).

Is this a case of channeling natural and selfish impulses for good, where can i order Pimozide without prescription. Purchase Pimozide, Should we be concerned that the "depressing" poverty.com model of attaching human faces to intractable problems like hunger to increase awareness is less effective than a game. BUY Pimozide ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, Does the success of FreeRice speak to disturbingly short attention spans and a lower tolerance for serious issue awareness, or is it simply a pragmatic approach to encourage tangible action on important issues, in a clever format.

I'm inclined to give FreeRice the benefit of the doubt, purchase Pimozide online no prescription, Order Pimozide no prescription, on the basis that at least visitors to the site can't avoid the hunger issue--it's thankfully in your face, and success in the game is measured by rice donated, online buy Pimozide without a prescription. Comprar en línea Pimozide, comprar Pimozide baratos, And the issues I describe are, I believe, order Pimozide online overnight delivery no prescription, Where can i find Pimozide online, less about FreeRice than the general state of engagement in deep issues like hunger, poverty, australia, uk, us, usa, Pimozide gel, ointment, cream, pill, spray, continuous-release, extended-release, and preventable disease. So I'll keep playing, Pimozide trusted pharmacy reviews, Buy Pimozide no prescription, but I hope we all keep thinking too.

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Published by Jarred on January 19, 2008 in Computing, Environment, Philanthropy Online, Science, Space and Web 2.0. View Comments

A few weeks ago I read an article in The Economist about distributed computing BUY Pyridium ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, , defined by Wikipedia as "a method of computer processing in which different parts of a program are run simultaneously on two or more computers that are communicating with each other over a network." Basically what you do is download a program that, when you're not around, uses your computer's processor (which would otherwise be mostly idle) to crunch data sent to it from a central server. Your computer joins thousands of others crunching data at any one time, forming a giant networked supercomputer with each unit working on a different piece of the puzzle. Buy Pyridium without a prescription, What's the puzzle? It can be anything, or at least anything that requires a whole lot of computer power to figure out. Some puzzles are humanitarian in nature; for example, where to buy Pyridium, Buying Pyridium online over the counter, the World Community Grid (sponsored by IBM) currently has projects tackling cancer, AIDS, order Pyridium online overnight delivery no prescription, Purchase Pyridium online no prescription, and Dengue fever research, as well as African climate change. Others are more geeky (or, where can i buy cheapest Pyridium online, Buy Pyridium no prescription, should we say, scientific), purchase Pyridium, Where can i buy Pyridium online, like the SETI@home project which is searching for extraterrestrial intelligence by analyzing radio telescope data.

So the bottom line is this: while one way to save the planet and contribute to science is through the donation of time and money, online buying Pyridium hcl, Canada, mexico, india, another way is through the donation of your computer's processing power. Why let your computer idly sit while you're at work or school all day -- occasionally using a small processor burst to throw the next picture from your hard drive onto your screensaver, which no one but your dog is watching -- when you can have it use its full capacity to solve some of the world's toughest problems, buy Pyridium online cod. Comprar en línea Pyridium, comprar Pyridium baratos, The buzz word for this phenomenon is "donating spare cycles." Basically, a cycle is the process your computer goes through to retrieve a command from its memory and execute that command. It's how your computer works and, Pyridium for sale, Buy generic Pyridium, in a way, it's how our minds work too. A human cycle, buy Pyridium from mexico, Pyridium over the counter, then, would be the process our brain goes through to retrieve and process information from our memory. But do humans have spare cycles to donate? You bet, buy no prescription Pyridium online. Kjøpe Pyridium på nett, köpa Pyridium online, Meet Luis von Ahn. I first read about him in this article in Wired magazine. You know those pictures of twisted letters and numbers that you have to enter to sign up for an e-mail or other online account? Those are called "CAPTCHAs", and von Ahn invented them. CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." While optical character recognition has advanced far enough to allow computers to "read" standard text, purchase Pyridium online, Pyridium samples, the technology is not (yet) capable of deciphering the contorted figures presented in CAPTCHAs. By entering the letters you see, you prove to the system that you are a human, buy cheap Pyridium no rx.

So we've established that CAPTCHAs are essentially good, because they protect the integrity of such services as Facebook, Gmail, and so on. But aren't they annoying? Do you feel like you've just wasted 10 seconds of your life when you fill one out? Well, what if I told you that those 10 "wasted" seconds could, when correctly harnessed, actually be used to do some good, BUY Pyridium ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION. Ordering Pyridium online, Enter the reCAPTCHA, also invented by von Ahn. What is it? The website for reCAPTCHAs informs us that while it takes about 10 seconds for one person to fill out a CAPTCHA, australia, uk, us, usa, Buy Pyridium from canada, "in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day." 150, Pyridium trusted pharmacy reviews, Buy Pyridium from mexico, 000 hours of "wasted" time every single day. Imagine if those man-hours were put to use.

reCAPTCHAs do just that by asking you to enter slightly distorted characters from two word images in a CAPTCHA. One image's solution is known by the computer, where can i buy cheapest Pyridium online, Pyridium gel, ointment, cream, pill, spray, continuous-release, extended-release, and the other is not. This second, unreadable image has been pulled from the book scanning project being undertaken by the Internet Archive, Pyridium price, coupon, Pyridium for sale, similar to the Google Books project. If you get the first word right, then the system assumes that the answer you provide for the second word is also correct. The system verifies the answer through several users before sending it back into the database. In those otherwise "wasted" 10 seconds, where to buy Pyridium, Buy Pyridium without a prescription, you have more or less helped in the effort to render the world's libraries digital. How 'bout that.

Von Ahn has several projects that are studying and implementing this idea of distributed human computation. The ESP Game randomly matches up two players who are presented with a single image. They are tasked with "tagging" that image with words that describe it. When the two players agree on a word, fast shipping Pyridium, Buy Pyridium online no prescription, they get points based on the time it took them to enter the common word and then move on to the next image. After an image is used in several games, commonly tagged words are considered "taboo" and cannot be used as the agreement word between the two players. This forces players to be creative and find more descriptive or more contextual terms to describe the picture, online buy Pyridium without a prescription. Where to buy Pyridium, So what's the deal? Most image search engines have only two things to go on when scouring the web in response to your query: the title of the image, and the words surrounding the image on a webpage. By using the information gathered from The ESP Game, where can i find Pyridium online, Ordering Pyridium online, however, search engines now have human-generated and -verified terms that describe the subject of the image, order Pyridium from mexican pharmacy, Order Pyridium online c.o.d, the colors of the image, even the quality of the image. By playing a (fun and addictive) game, purchase Pyridium online no prescription, Real brand Pyridium online, players help make the web more searchable.

Another example of distributed human computing is the Mechanical Turk, order Pyridium online overnight delivery no prescription, Japan, craiglist, ebay, overseas, paypal, a project hosted by Amazon.com. The philosophy is similar: the site recruits users to complete tasks that computers simply cannot -- a "human intelligence task", or HIT. Last summer, the Mechanical Turk was famously used to distribute discrete sections of satellite imagery of the Nevada desert to thousands of humans, who in turn clicked "yes" or "no" as to whether there was any sign of Steve Fossett's downed aircraft. Fossett was not found and the search was ended, but as many as six previously unknown crash sites were discovered in the process. Because this project is not in game-form, users are enticed to stay through monetary compensation -- mostly pennies per task, but that can add up in the end.

In a presentation to Google (video here), Luis von Ahn talks about The ESP Game and some of his other initiatives in human computation. If this stuff sparks your curiosity, it's worth the 50-minute watch. But here's the money quote, as paraphrased by Bob Wyman:

Ahn estimates that during 2003, 9 billion human-hours were consumed [...] just by people playing Solitaire on their computers. [...] To provide some scale to that number, Ahn shows that the Empire State Building in NYC took only 7 million human-hours to build (6.8 hours of Solitaire play) and the larger Panama Canal took only 20 million human-hours to build (less than a day of Solitaire.)

Idle human time is valuable. If there's a way to harness it to do good in the world, then I'm all for it. And in that spirit, I have created Team Tropophilia on the World Community Grid. Sign up, download the program, and get everything set up correctly, and then click here to access the team page and join. We can track our total team time and "points," compete against other teams, and generally find some blog unity. Come on, what are you waiting for? It's not like your computer has anything else to do while you work and sleep.

Images courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University, and Flickr users saschaaa and tmartin.

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Published by Taylor on January 17, 2008 in Microfinance, Philanthropy and Philanthropy Online. View Comments

BUY Microlean ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, In this, the first in a series of posts on philanthropic efforts utilizing the social web, I look to the microcredit site Kiva.org.*

Let me preface my comments by saying that I think the Kiva is a net positive contribution to the web (and microcredit), and that the good it is doing outweighs any of the secondary negatives I describe below. Right now, where to buy Microlean. Microlean gel, ointment, cream, pill, spray, continuous-release, extended-release, But my concerns about Kiva are less relevant to the still young and still expanding site as they are to what Kiva could become.

Kiva links willing donors in the developed world with opportunities to capitalize small loans for local entrepreneurs in developing countries, order Microlean no prescription. Purchase Microlean, From Kiva's site:

"Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence, BUY Microlean ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), purchase Microlean online no prescription, Where can i find Microlean online, you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, Microlean for sale, Where can i buy Microlean online, you get your loan money back."

As Kiva's nearly 9,000 devotees on Facebook, buy cheap Microlean no rx, Microlean samples, or its growing group of microfinanciers, would tell you, online buying Microlean hcl, Buy Microlean from mexico, Kiva connects individuals across the globe with opportunities to lend a hand on a person-to-person level...and unlike charity, you'll likely see your loan repaid to lend again or use for other purposes, order Microlean online overnight delivery no prescription. Where to buy Microlean, Sounds good, and it is...with a few qualifications and questions worth pondering:

Will Kiva experience a drought of donor engagement if the only choices present on the site are between projects judged to be loan-worthy by professional microfinance groups, buy cheap Microlean. Order Microlean from United States pharmacy, Right now, nearly every project (as far as I can tell, where can i buy cheapest Microlean online, Rx free Microlean, every project, but I've not followed the site daily so I can't be sure) on Kiva eventually receives a full loan, buying Microlean online over the counter. BUY Microlean ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, When waves of good press send droves of new visitors to the site, Kiva suffers from a limited supply of projects and even has to do things like institute a $25 limit on contributions so that as many individuals as possible can lend. Fast shipping Microlean, This shortage is no doubt driven by the time-consuming due diligence performed thousands of miles away by local microfinance partners who supply Kiva with loan-worthy projects. There are great reasons why professionals are making the real selections, where to buy Microlean, Where can i find Microlean online, but doesn't this system stagnate when donors realize that their choices are in fact a formality. What level of engaged and informed choice is appropriate with the sensitive subject of persons livelihoods, Microlean gel, ointment, cream, pill, spray, continuous-release, extended-release, Microlean for sale, and what level is necessary to sustain donor interest.

Maintaining high donor attachment/engagement and preventing trivialization of low income individuals abroad is a challenge I believe Kiva will need to confront continually, buying Microlean online over the counter. Kiva provides a partial fish-bowl effect: we’re watching the progress of people half a world away, BUY Microlean ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION. Buy Microlean without a prescription, As such, it has the potential to divorce donors from the reality of conditions in the developing world, buy no prescription Microlean online, Purchase Microlean online, turning their loans into a sort of game gambling on the success of poor people.

I think the lenders could prevent this negative effect by making a stronger case for funding their projects on the front end—more information and specifics about individual enterprises, rx free Microlean, Microlean over the counter, community needs and conditions, and potential markets for loan recipients’ businesses, order Microlean online overnight delivery no prescription. Comprar en línea Microlean, comprar Microlean baratos, Demonstrating the thought and planning behind individual projects costs time and resources for the lenders (primarily non profit organizations), but in turn engages donors in the success of the project from a more informed perspective, buy Microlean online no prescription. Where can i buy cheapest Microlean online, The best case scenario here seems to be threefold:

donors who are genuinely invested in the lives of other people thousands of miles away and encouraged to learn more about development issues

lenders who receive the financial backing they need to make loans

loan recipients who receive the necessary monies to finance a new business or grow an existing one (which in turn makes them self-sufficient)

In its current incarnation, KIVA serves the latter purposes well but faces an ongoing challenge with the first, canada, mexico, india. BUY Microlean ONLINE NO PRESCRIPTION, This may come off as a fairly harsh critique of a site that undoubtedly introduces new folks daily to the idea of microfinance and (to some degree) issues in the developing world. Australia, uk, us, usa, I don't mean to be too harsh; as I said above, I think Kiva is a good thing, purchase Microlean. Japan, craiglist, ebay, overseas, paypal, But just because something is a step in the right direction doesn't mean that it can't go further, do more, online buy Microlean without a prescription, Microlean trusted pharmacy reviews, and not lose the momentum that IS so inspiring.

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*For those who are unaware, microcredit and microfinance (different things, kjøpe Microlean på nett, köpa Microlean online, as microcredit is limited to small loans while microfinance includes savings programs, insurance, and other banking products targeted to low income individuals) represent on a basic level the extension of banking services to low income individuals--particularly in the developing world--who are considered too risky to qualify for loans from traditional financial institutions. Small loans are intended to build assets by supporting entrepreneurs with no other avenue for securing start-up or growth capital for their business. This idea was pioneered in Bangladesh by Muhammed Yunus (who won a Nobel Prize for his efforts) in the 1970s. The impact of microfinance is an open question, though lenders can track loan repayment rates as a measure that funds were not squandered and presume that those dollars improved the financial situation of a loan recipient.