Blog Action Day: What Isn’t Measured Can’t Be Managed

It is ironic that I write this while traveling from Seattle to New York by airplane.  Three years ago I set out to measure my carbon footprint from air travel.  Back in 2007 I clocked nearly 70,000 miles and a carbon footprint on the order of 25 tons of CO2. In 2008 the number dropped to 56,000 miles and about 22 tons of CO2. This year, I’ve only flown about 29,000 miles for around 10 tons of CO2. Sure the year is not yet through, but at this time in 2008 I’d flown 44,000 miles and in 2007 56,000.  Certainly the economy has some part to play in my reduced air travel, but I have also reduced my travel consciously by grouping trips, and simply opting not to travel whenever possible. Each year I do purchase offsets as I’ve written about before (and here), and I will do so again this year, and encourage others to consider doing so too.  Many services are available and offer easy ways to calculate your footprint.  It is important to buy offsets or RECs from reputable groups, and I have provided some of those details in my earlier posts.  The best I have come across, and one I will continue to use is Native Energy.  But beyond measuring, reducing and offsetting it is important to support the work of organizations like 350.org, The League of Conservation Voters and campaigns like TckTckTck. When I started talking about my Carbon footprint it was a relatively new concept to most people, and now just 3 years later, it is widely understood, in large part thanks to...

CivicActions Sponsors Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit

In just over a week, over 150 Drupaleers will gather in Seattle Washington for the first Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit. CivicActions is a proud Platinum Sponsor of this event.  I have helped other CivicActions team members Robin Barre and Jared Stoneberg along with many others from the local Drupal User Group with the planning and coordination for this event. Just as in 2006 Seattle was at the forefront of the birth of DrupalCamps, I hope that the Summit will create a new paradigm for regional Drupal events that cater to people with Advanced Drupal experience and those making their livings with Drupal.  Not everyone can fly across the country or half way around the world to make it to DrupalCons. We hope that this Summit will provide an affordable option for people in the Pacific Northwest to get together learn and share, as well as advance the Drupal framework. There is not that much difference in the mechanics of the summit and the camps that have come before it. Much of the difference is in intention.  We decided to organize an event that goes beyond the basics and the intros.  We invited people submit advanced sessions, to look at Drupal 7 coming down the pike.  And the community stepped up.  There are some fantastic sessions scheduled over the two days of the Summit. I’m excited to present a session on usability and Ubercart and another on selling Drupal 7 to and the decision on when an upgrade is appropriate.  I intend both sessions to be structured discussions with ample opportunity for participants to share their ideas and experiences. I...

Voting on NTEN NTC Sessions for 2010

I just took some time to review all, ALL of the 10 pages of sessions proposed for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) organized by the Nonprofit Technology Entrepreneurs’ Network (NTEN).  There are some great  proposed sessions, and I encourage everyone who is considering attending to take the time to review and vote on the sessions. I always here some people grumble a little at the final agenda (before or after the conference), and this is our opportunity to really shape it. I noticed a few big themes in reviewing the proposed sessions: User Centric Web Design Social Media and Twitter Video Cloud Computing Green Technology There were multiple sessions proposed that address each of these topics.  There were of course other topics that showed up in multiple session proposals, but these are the ones that stood out for me.  I think that it would be helpful to determine within each of these topic areas, what the subtopics are and ensure there there are strong sessions to address them.  Perhaps this step will take place after the voting has concluded. Another observation of serious concern is that as I reached the last few pages, the total number of votes cast for sessions decreased (by more than half) compared with votes on the first few pages.  It took a fair amount of time to get through all the sessions and I suspect that many people are bailing out about half way through. Perhaps the order should be reveresed for the second week of voting? And now, a few good looking sessions proposed by me, my colleagues, and others: From content...