Wednesday

Thinking locally and acting globally with Ethan Zuckerman

We are very much obliged to Ethan Zuckerman for coming to the Ethos Roundtable to speak about Global Voices Online yesterday! Geeks and non-geeks alike were enthralled with the stories about the work that he and his colleagues do.

If you have follow-up comments, links, or suggestions that are inspired by GV, please feel free to post them here as blog comments.

If you'd like to join the GV team, the good news is that they are currently seeking to hire an advocacy director!
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Sunday

Next steps for the Commonwealth Civic Roundtable

The Commonwealth Civic Roundtable's next meeting will be on January 26th, and the agenda is centered on prioritizing ideas for creating sustained civic engagement.

If you are interested, please send an email to John Schneider at jschneider (at) massinc (dot) org .
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Thursday

Links recommended by Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices Online

Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices Online, will be giving a presentation at the next meeting of the Ethos Roundtable, and has been kind enough to recommend some links for us to review:
We hope that you will feel free to comment here about these links or about the presentation. If you have ideas, recommendations for further reading, or suggestions about other resources, you are welcome to share them!
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Now online: MassNonprofitNet.Org

The eagerly anticipated web site for the Massachusetts association for nonprofits is now online at MassNonprofitNet.Org!

It is now possible to go online to join as a founding member of the network, to review the network's timeline for future action, or find out about the network's "common agenda."
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Monday

Sunlight, local politics, and information in the internet era

Last week, I was very flattered to receive an invitation from the Sunlight Foundation to participate in a working meeting about local politics and information in the internet era at the Berkman Center.

Nisha Thompson of the Sunlight Foundation emailed me to say:

Today the Internet provides access to candidate information which was unimaginable a decade ago, and yet citizens still have trouble finding the basic information they need concerning candidates in their districts. The problem is a result of data that is scattered or difficult to understand, and when a good resource does in fact exist, it cannot be found easily. Your work in making this knowledge accessible is exemplary, and we would like to take the time to discuss methods with others in the field.

Actually, I would say that my work in this area is hopelessly goofy and idealistic, rather than exemplary. Still, I do care very deeply about deepening civic engagement, promoting inclusiveness in discourse and decision-making, and using technology to increase knowledge in the public interest. In the last few years, I've greatly enjoyed belonging to and volunteering my time with the Commonwealth Civic Round Table, the civic engagement advisory group of the "What's Next?" seminar series, the "Hello Boston" campaign, and the Ethos Roundtable. However, I have to admit that while I'm all for supporting civic engagement by taking public information online, I'm not that much of an expert on local politics.

I'm ready to assist the Sunlight Foundation and others with internet strategies, if it means that we'll all be better informed and more deeply engaged in local politics, but I'm a little vague when it comes to having a platform or a slate of candidates to call my own. In this, I feel some kinship in to W.H. Auden, who apparently said, "We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for I don’t know."




Related blog articles:



This item is based on an article that was originally posted to my blog, "Technology for the Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector.")
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