NTEN: Podcasts coming soon…

<p>I did a little recording of some NTEN sessions, well one session, and then an adhoc round table with some great folks on friday evening. As soon as I get my powerbook I will start editing the audio and get some podcasts up. But while on the topic of podcasts… I am going to work with the medium differently than ones i have heard so far. Instead of assembling a long "show" I am going to great the building blocs of a show, "stories" if you will. Probably about 5 to 7 minutes. And a few stories will make up the show, but i think this will give the listener even more control of their listening experience.</p> <p>I had hoped to aske these 3 questions of a few more people that i had the opportunity to ask, so if you feel like answering them, call 206-203-3531 and leave your answers on the voice mail and will include them.</p> <p>1) Who was the most influential person you met at NTEN NTC this year? This should be a person you did not know before, and who opened your eyes, or taught you something that just blew you away. And why were the they most influential person you met?</p> <p>2) What do you do (in a nut shell) just a quick blurb about who you are and what your job is.</p> <p>3) Do you think you will come to NTC or a regional NTEN in the...

More on Pols Blogging

<p><em><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0324/p02s01-uspo.html" target="_blank">Yet politicians are beginning to see blogs are more than forums for snoops. To some, they are the ultimate cyberspace soapbox.</a></em> This is from a Christian Science Monitor article this week. Glad the pols are coming around. But i wonder, how will a politician's blog be treated in the context of political expenditures? This article is more helpful than was <a href="http://gregoryheller.com/?q=node/73">Mena Trott's keynote at NTEN NTC</a> I think this is the key, the hook, that will get more and more pols blogging "In many ways, the blog provides politicians an opportunity to recast themselves away from the mainstream media."</p> <p>Speaking of interesting or helpful content about blogging. I started reading Lawrence Lessig's book <b>Free Culture</b> on the plan home today, and pages 41 to 47 of the chapter titled "Piracy" about the rise of blogging far surpassed Mena's...

A method for open source software development funding

<p>One major problem of open source development is funding it. In talking to some people at the nTEn NTC it came up that there are certain aspects of the <a href="http://www.civicspacelabs.org/" target="_blank">CivicSpace</a> suite of tools that are not funded, particularly porting <a href="http://www.citizenspeak.org/" target="_blank">Citizen Speak</a> to <a href="http://www.civicspacelabs.org/" target="_blank">CivicSpace</a>/<a href="http://www.drupal.org" target="_blank">Drupal</a>.</p> <p>Jo Lee and Dan Robbinson (<a href="http://www.civicactions.com" title="http://www.civicactions.com">http://www.civicactions.com</a>)told one session that it would cost about $5500 and take a month to port citizen speak over. Jo Lee later told me, no funding has been identified. I told her i would fund it if i could, but more importantly I would pledge $100 towards the funding of it. The day before <a href="http://www.organizenow.net" target="_blank">Rich Cowan</a> loosely outlined a way to organize distributed funding for open source software development (he suggested tweaking <a href="http://www.mantisbt.org/" target="_blank">Mantis's</a>, the bug tracking software, feature request functionality). I will try to outline it a bit here.</p> <p>A need/project is identified. Multiple people are interested in seeing it developed, none of these people individually have enough money to fund it. So lets take the citizen speak porting as an example:</p> <ul> <li>The project gets outlined </li><li>the cost (or total needed to complete it) is identified </li><li>People then pledge to pay for a piece of the development, but they do not pay the pledge until the goal has been reached. </li><li>Once enough people have pledged and the goal has been met everybody pays, the development takes place and the ap is made available. </li></ul> <p>So can someone (<a href="http://www.nosi.net/" target="_blank">nosi</a>? or <a href="http://www.opensource.org/" target="_blank">open source institute</a>) create a tool that facilitates this? I will pledge $100 towards...

NTEN: Webtools for Activists (How to pull it off if you are not MoveOn)

<p> Different communities engage on different levels or with different technologies. It is important to think about the audience when deciding on a means of communication.</p> <p><i>I am so sick of power point presentations at this point. If you are going to write it down then don't just read it out. I can read.</i> </p> <p>I have been in a few sessions now with some of the same panelists, or at least folks from the same orgs/vendors. [lk:democracyinaction|Democracy In Action's] April Pedersen is giving the same presentation that the Chris used 45 minutes ago. </p> <p>Interestingly a major point both made was that Orgs need to trat the people on their email lists like <i>real people</i> and encourage a dialogue, thought neither presentation did this.</p> <p>Johanna (last name?) talked about how her group in Amherst MA is using Mambo and Democracy in action.</p> <p>Gunner from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.aspirationtech.org/node">Aspiration</a> thinks <a target="_blank" href="http://www.moveon.org">moveOn </a>holds too much power and doesn't push it out to the fringes, but in other cultures around the world, it is a cultureal thing, you can't take initiative as a non leader, it is not socially acceptable.</p> <p>In many other countries computers don't have the penetration as they do in the US, but cell phones and text messaging is becoming universal. Other countries are Blogging for social change better than in the USA.</p> <p>[lk:cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/ethan_zuckerman|Ethan Zuckerman] at Harvard is encouraging people to blog from remote locations.</p> <p>The Community Wireless movement is an e-advocacy "thing" in many developing areas will be the key to get people online. (We were talking about [lk:www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3423026|Strattelites] at a small dinner on Wednesday, and...

NTEN: Watering the Grass Roots

<p>Chris from Democracy IN action is talking about nurturing online relationships by being personal, especially in email, and solicit their input, think of it like building a freindship.</p> <p>Establish regular communication: I have been telling this to everyone i work with for what seems like ages, it is the first step on the ladder of engagement, and it makes perfect sence.</p> <p>think about distribution and chapter development.<br /> Events are a good way to build "chapters" or local groups.</p> <p>Ok, this stuff is really not rocket science. Again, as was a thread in an earlier session: Online organizing and outreach efforts have to have a meat space counterpart. You can't ignore the real non online work.</p> <p>Chris just showed this software <a href="http://forwardtrack.eyebeamresearch.org/" title="http://forwardtrack.eyebeamresearch.org/">http://forwardtrack.eyebeamresearch.org/</a> as used by network for justice (also highlighted by marty kearns or dan robinson yesterday)</p> <p>Don't think of your list as just a list, really think about subscribers as people, two way communication with teh org and also communicate with each other—> GET LOCAL<br /> The psychology right now of established non profits is that you can raise money online and then use it off line.</p> <p>Andrew Hoppin from CivicSpace starts his presentation with a look at the Dean Campaign, he also talked about the Draft Clark campaign.</p> <p>OhMyNews is the biggest online news source in South Korea, all citizen reporting.</p> <p>Now he is tlaking about the blogospher, the progressive movement and civic organizations as separate from the blogosphere. CivicSpace is about building tools that help people more effectively work together. Civic envolvement and politics should not be thought of as completely separate. How can...