Tuesday

We are now planning a new cycle of Ethos Roundtable sessions!

Please feel free to let us know if you have any recommendations for topics or featured guests.

Saturday

The Ethos Roundtable at will be webcasting from Brookline Access Television this month!

Please join us for the March session of the Ethos Roundtable, either in person or online!

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Brookline Access TV
46 Tappan Street (top floor)
Brookline, MA, USA
Webcast courtesy of BATV and MassAccess
Featured Guests: Chuck Sherwood, Principal, Community Media Visioning, and Senior Associate, TeleDimensions, Inc.; Jeff Hansell, Executive Director, Belmont Media Center; Peter Zawadzki, Executive Director, Brookline Access Television.
Topic: Innovations in community cable access

If you cannot join us in person, please view the live webcast on March 27th online at MassAccess.

Here's a little bit about our featured guests:

Chuck Sherwood has thirty-seven years of experience in the community cable Public, Educational, and Government (PEG) Access and Community Media Center (CMC) field with a focus on management and consulting. As one of the pioneers in the field, he co-founded the Channel L Working Group, Inc., in New York City, one of the first Government Access operations, serving as Executive Producer and the Executive Director. He has been Executive Director of Cincinnati Cable Access Corp. and Cape Cod Community TV.

Chuck has served in Alliance for Community Media (ACM) leadership positions on the Central States and Northeast Region and National Boards of Directors. As part of his involvement with national advocacy associations, Chuck serves as a member of the ACM’s Public Policy Working Group and the Policy and Legal Committee of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. He has organized and spoken at many conferences and workshops dealing with cable, telecom and broadband network infrastructure issues with a focus on how they can be used for community, educational and economic development.

Jeff Hansell and Peter Zawadzki are experienced PEG access directors, both having served as Executive Directors for other Massachusetts access centers as well as at their current venues, Jeff at Malden, Peter in Watertown. Both have served on the board of the Northeast Region of Alliance for Community Media; Jeff has served as its Chair. Jeff has also been a Community Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and studied community organizing under Marshall Ganz at the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations.

Here's a little bit about the session topic:
This Ethos Roundtable program will focus on innovations in community cable access — what do we need to understand about the vision and the implementation of PEG access over the past thirty years to better understand how we got to where we are and what the possibilities are for where we are going in the future. Instructive new models and experiments will be offered, including recent developments at Brookline Access Television and MyMassTV Network, the statewide access TV distribution network that is a project of MassAccess, the state association of PEG Access Cable TV Centers. The program will also provide an overview of policies and programs that can support on-going and innovative projects such as these.
Here are some links that you might want to explore before you participate in the session.
We are no longer meeting in our usual venue, but experimenting with new sites. In March, we will meet at Brookline Public Access TV, which is located in the Unified Arts Building, next to the Brookline Hills T stop on the Green Line (D).

Please note that there is never any need to reserve a seat at Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others. However, since we will be webcasting live, we recommend that you arrive by 4:15 pm on March 27th.

See you in March!

Friday

We are on hiatus in February

The Ethos Roundtable will be on hiatus in February, since I am recovering from surgery. (The outcome was excellent, and I am making a full recovery.)

However, we are working behind the scenes to explore options for a new home for the Ethos Roundtable. We might even make changes to the format, as this seems like a good time to experiment.

Please watch this blog for announcements about future plans!

Tuesday

A temporary location, and Greg McHale of good2gether returns to discuss smartphone innovations!

We are hard at work, finding a new home for the Ethos Roundtable.

Meanwhile, we're pleased to announce that the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at the Kennedy School (Harvard University) has offered us space in January. Moreover, an awe-inspiring featured guest has agreed to return and talk about new innovations with smartphone applications. Please join us for our January session!

Tuesday, January 17th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Belfer Building
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Featured guest: Greg McHale, founder of good2gether
Topic: "Using smartphones to bring people and causes together"

Here's a little bit about Greg:
Gregory McHale is both a serial and a social entrepreneur.

In 2002, he founded cMarket (now BiddingForGood), his first ‘social’ venture. BiddingForGood has changed the $18 billion per year nonprofit auction market by delivering a web-based tool that enables nonprofit organizations to better manage and market their charity auctions to their constituencies. Today, BiddingForGood is used by thousands of nonprofits to raise more money with their charity auctions.

After meeting with hundreds of charitable organizations he became intrigued with another challenge facing the nonprofit community: finding a more efficient and effective way to bring people and causes together. He founded good2gether in 2007 to build web solutions that efficiently connect nonprofits and supporters. Watching the incredible proliferation of smartphones – over half of cell phone customers in the US will have a smartphone in 2012 – and how ‘digital natives’ and moms – both groups are important supporters of nonprofits – have become heavy smartphone users, it became clear that a new solution needed to be built around mobile platforms. The concept is simple – smartphones can’t just be smart, they need to be good too.
Some of you may recall Greg as our featured guest in 2008, when he first unveiled good2gether to our group. We are usually rather aggressive (though friendly) hecklers, and this session was notable for the number of usual hecklers who only had glowing praise for Greg's work. It will be interesting to see whether this month's session is more like a fan club meeting or a raucous debate.

Here's a little bit from Greg about the topic on January 17th:
It began with Do Good Channels – connecting people who care to doing good in their community. Now it’s time for what’s next.

Over 50% of adult Americans will have a smartphone in 2012. Doing good needs to go mobile.

We’re going to connect smartphones to nonprofits, volunteering, events, in-kind donation needs, and more.

Importantly, we’re introducing an amazing way for consumers who care to connect to businesses that are doing good. From the insurance agency to the realtor, from the pizza shop to the big box retailer – you’ll be able to see how businesses are helping to make your community a better place.

And while using your smartphone to do good, you can take advantage of a very cool and very powerful rewards program - you’ll accumulate points and the nonprofits you care about will get the rewards.

One more thing - you’ll be able to do impulse giving in a way you’ve never imagine.

Doing good will be mobile. Social. Fun. Rewarding. And make an incredible impact in your community.

Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others.

See you on the 17th!