Ethos Roundtable

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

2012-01-10T09:51:00.006-05:00

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!

Kim Charlson on "Access to print: Literacy, information access, assistive technology, and opportunity as a civil right"

2011-11-18T06:16:00.010-05:00

Kim Charlson, director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library, will be our featured guest at the next Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Kim Charlson, Director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library
Topic: "Access to print: Literacy, information access, assistive technology, and opportunity as a civil right"

Here's a little bit about Kim from the Perkins School for the Blind:

Kim Charlson was appointed director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library in 2001 following 16 years as the Service Management Librarian and Assistant Director. She has distinguished herself as a recognized national and international expert on library and information services for people with disabilities, braille literacy, adaptive technology in libraries, and information access.

Ms. Charlson serves on a number of committees for the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and as a national member of the Braille Authority of North America, the standard-setting body for braille in the United States and Canada. She is chair of the Massachusetts Braille Literacy Advisory Council, past treasurer of the international Council on English Braille, and has served as an appointed member of both the Governor’s Advisory Council on Disability Policy and the Secretary of State’s Help America Vote Act Advisory Committee. She is first vice-president of the American Council of the Blind.

She is also active in a wide range of consumer advocacy arenas including arts access and audio description, civil rights, guide dog access issues and special education.

In addition to her many other responsibilities, Ms. Charlson has published Establishing a Braille Literacy Program in Your Community: A Handbook for Libraries and Other Community Organizations. She has contributed to numerous other publications including a chapter on braille library services in the book, Braille: Into the Next Millennium, which was published by the Library of Congress. She is a contributing author to the book, Making Theatre Accessible: A Guide to Audio Description in the Performing Arts, published by Northeastern University Press. Recently, she has published Drawing with Your Perkins Brailler, an instructional book for using Braille to create tactile pictures that blind children and adults can share with sighted people.

In 2004, she was inducted into the Massachusetts Library Association Hall of Fame. In spring 2005, she was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker, in spring 2006, she was honored as the Alumni of the Year by the University of North Texas, School of Library & Information Science, Denton, Texas. In the fall of 2008, she was honored with a Special Recognition Award for outstanding community service by the Watertown-Belmont Chamber of Commerce.
Ms. Charlson has a master’s in library science, summa cum laude, from the University of North Texas.

Here's a little bit from Kim herself about the topic:

Most people can participate in reading by going to their local bookstore or public library to borrow the latest bestseller, browse newspapers and magazines, or check out videos or CD's. The convenience of having a community library available is a resource often taken for granted.

However, for people who are blind, visually impaired, have a reading/learning disability, or have difficulty holding a print book, access to information and reading materials in a format they can use is not always readily available.

For an estimated 150,000 individuals across Massachusetts who have difficulty reading standard print, the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library is their equivalent of a local public library. The Perkins Library is the primary source for borrowing audio books and magazines, materials in braille, or in large print (with over 125,000 audio titles and 19,000 braille titles in the collection). Users access daily newspapers through Newsline, a computer-generated speech output phone service, and check out audio-described videos that announce the key visual elements of a movie including action, settings or facial expressions. The Perkins Library also loans special digital players for talking books, has staff to assist in finding materials that meet each person’s needs and interests, and provides online and downloadable access to its vast collection. Like public libraries, the Perkins Library’s services are provided free of charge and all materials are delivered to a borrower's home through the mail at no cost.

Sounds like a great service, doesn’t it? Yet, only about ten percent of Massachusetts residents eligible to utilize the Perkins Library are being served because of limited state funding and/or people not realizing the service is available and that they are eligible to use it.

As the Director of the Perkins Library, and a person who is blind, I know what a difference this resource makes. Patrons come from all walks of life -- from the child who is blind and reads books in braille to develop lifetime literacy skills, to the teenager who has a learning disability and borrows audiotapes for class, to the young professional who listens to The Boston Globe on her cell-phone while riding the "T" to work, to the senior citizen who takes great pleasure in listening to talking books by her favorite authors.

Like those who are sighted and use print materials, people with disabilities still depend heavily on books, magazines, and newspapers for valuable information to help them participate fully in the life of the community, satisfy their thirst for knowledge, and enhance the quality of their lives through the sheer joy of reading.

We will discuss assistive technology, have demonstrations of specialized equipment, show web access with a talking computer, and explore the myriad issues surrounding providing access to information in accessible formats. This will be a very hands-on presentation with equipment demonstrations, discussions and question and answers. My role as Director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library is to ensure that reading is for everyone, including those of us with disabilities. Reading for the sighted community is not a luxury, it is a right. It should be no less so for people with disabilities.

After the Ethos Roundtable session adjourns at 6:00 pm, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 20th!

New ways to support the Ethos Roundtable and the Boston 501 Tech Club

2011-11-16T13:45:00.005-05:00

As many of you know, TechFoundation (TF) has underwritten the Ethos Roundtable and the Boston 501 Tech Club for a number of years. These two events bring together many local technology professionals who work with and for nonprofit organizations. We are extremely grateful for TF 's many years of support!

TF is now changing its focus to work on international projects, and is ending its support of our two local groups. Therefore, we are looking for the following kinds of help. This is not an all-or-nothing deal; it's quite feasible for several different groups or individuals to step forward and offer different pieces of the puzzle.

Here's what we need:

1) Conference room facilities for the Ethos Roundtable's monthly sessions. (This would include internet access, a data projector, and a screen. No food is served, but ice water is always appreciated. Attendance ranges from 15 to 40 individuals)

2) Meeting room facilities for the Boston 501 Tech Club's monthly events. (Attendance ranges from 20 to 50 individuals, and the room is usually arranged with six or eight tables that seat about six people each. A bar and a buffet table are convenient but not necessary.)

3) Donations of food and drink - or a monthly lump sum to cover them - for the Boston 501 Tech Club's monthly events. (This could be as simple as pizza or as elaborate as a Thanksgiving dinner, which is what TechFoundation generously provided at yesterday's gathering.)

4) A volunteer to serve as the head honcho, organizer, and point person for the Boston 501 Tech Club's monthly events. (The ideal volunteer for this task would be a technology professional employed by a nonprofit, since that describes exactly the kind of person 501 Tech Club was created to serve.)

If you want to step up to offer support, or you are willing to contact potential donors or volunteers, please email Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org) and me (ethos DOT roundtable AT gmail DOT com).

Many thanks!

Come to the Ethos Roundtable, and learn about the Boston Foundation's new online Giving Common!

2011-10-25T09:38:00.008-05:00

Update: Jennifer Aronson will not be able to join us, so Katherine Westlund will be our sole featured guest. We will miss Jennifer, but look forward to welcoming Katherine.

Please join us for our November session!

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Jennifer Aronson and Katherine Westlund, the Boston Foundation
Topic: The Giving Common

Here's a little bit about the topic from Jennifer and Katherine:

Please join us to learn about The Giving Common (TGC), an exciting new tool being developed by the Boston Foundation to launch in the spring of 2012. Powered by GuideStar, TGC is a forum for Massachusetts nonprofits to share their story with potential donors, funders and the community-- free of charge. Learn how nonprofits can increase their online presence and enhance their fundraising capacity; and how funders can augment their knowledge and strengthen their due diligence and research capabilities around grantees and areas of investment. You will leave this conversation with early knowledge of this new local resource as well as the tools you need to take advantage of it.

Here's a little bit about Jennifer and Katherine:

Jennifer Aronson is the Director of Nonprofit Services at the Boston Foundation. In this role she oversees TBF’s work to enhance the long-term vitality of the Massachusetts nonprofit sector which is focused on increasing the transparency and visibility of the sector & building the capacity and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. The Giving Common is a cornerstone of this work. Jennifer holds a BA and an MA from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Jennifer serves as the Board Treasurer for the Lenny Zakim Fund.

Katherine Westlund is the Nonprofit Services Associate at the Boston Foundation focused on the development and launch of the Giving Common database. Katherine moved to Boston from San Diego where her work was instrumental in the launch and management of a similar database. Katherine has a passion for helping nonprofits and has worked at community foundations across the country. She holds a BA from Wittenberg University and a MA in Philanthropic Studies and MPA from Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis.

We recommend that you visit the Giving Common web site, in preparation for the tour that our featured guests will provide at our Ethos Roundtable session.

After the Ethos Roundtable session adjourns at 6:00 pm, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 15th!

Valerie Fletcher on assistive technology for positive social change!

2011-10-03T13:35:00.006-05:00

Please join us for our October session!

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Valerie Fletcher, Institute for Human Centered Design
Topic: Products and Technologies that Change People’s Lives: Universal Design and Assistive Technology in Massachusetts

Here's a little bit from Valerie about the topic:

A fortunate intersection of evolving technology and demographics shows promise for Massachusetts to lead the nation in inclusive technology. Across the developed nations, we live longer and survive illness, injury and congenital conditions more than ever before. Difference in ability is mainstream, a key element of 21st century diversity. And the profile of functional limitations is changing. Baby boomers who led the disability rights movement were move likely to focus on mobility limitations, given the impact of the polio epidemic and the high rates of amputations and back injuries in the Vietnam War. Today, we still need solutions responsive to physical issues but equally to sensory limitations and conditions of the brain that include developmental disabilities, mental health conditions, learning disabilities, brain injury and dementia.

Emerging and cutting edge technologies can improve everyone’s ability to live independently, to work, to learn and play for a lifetime. Trends like mass customization and personalization start from the premise that everyone is different, ideally suited to a vision of design-for-all. Valerie will share the experience of a recent conference, expo, design competition and policy summit conducted for the Commonwealth and explore the potential of adding universally designed products, information and communication technology (ICT) and assistive technology (AT) to the Massachusetts’ Innovation initiative.

Here's a little bit about Valerie herself:

Valerie Fletcher has been executive director since 1998 of the Institute for Human Centered Design (IHCD), an international educational and design non-profit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts founded in 1978 as Adaptive Environments. The organizational mission is to advance the role of design in expanding opportunity and enhancing experience for people of all ages and abilities through excellence in design. Fletcher writes, lectures and works internationally. She currently oversees projects ranging from the development of a global, web-based collection of case studies of universal design in the built environment to user-expert research in cultural facilities, national parks and service businesses. Her research focus is social and environmentally sustainable solutions for classrooms, workplaces and homes.

Fletcher’s career has been divided between design and public mental health and she is the former Deputy Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health where she oversaw the largest participatory planning process ever undertaken in a state mental health system.

She is a special advisor to the government of Singapore and to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Fletcher has a master degree in ethics and public policy from Harvard University. The Boston Society of Architects awarded her the Women in Design award in 2005. She’s a trustee of the Boston Architectural College and co-chairs the Executive Committee of the Design Industry Group of Massachusetts.

Here are some web pages that Valerie recommends to attendees who want to brief themselves on the basic principles that will be under discussion at the Ethos Roundtable:

After the adjournment of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 18th!

Shava Nerad kicks off our new season of Ethos Roundtable sessions!

2011-09-13T07:16:00.005-05:00

Please join us for our September session!

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Shava Nerad

We are delighted to be back after our summer hiatus, and grateful to Shava Nerad for stepping up to be the first featured guest of the season. This will be a return engagement for her; in 2007, she joined us to talk about how tools for online anonymity can facilitate civic engagement.

The topic on September 20th is "What's in a name? Google+ and the #nymwars."

Here's how Shava describes the issue:

Google recently raised the hopes of many online privacy and social media watchers with the launch of the beta of Google+, their social network and answer to Facebook. Praised as a match to the collegiality and depth of early 1980s Usenet by old Internet hands, and embraced by many Internet natives, Google+ ran into one major snag with a good many of the early adopters who'd hoped to see one of their favorite Internet companies show a "do no evil" social network could leave Facebook in the dust.

Google+ insisted on every user register under their name on their wallet ID. That wasn't exactly their stated policy, but that did end up being their policy as it was enforced. Within a week, the EFF and a small crew of the oldest and youngest of the articulate bloggers on G+ were speaking out for the "nyms," the people who wished to use pseudonyms on Google+. Some wanted privacy, some wanted to be known by the names they were known on other services. Some needed to segregate their blogging identity from their professional life for various reasons. Women and others were concerned about stalkers.

Come to the Ethos Roundtable to hear how online and on the streets and in the press, the nymwars have played out -- and why Google has seemingly abandoned their long vaunted motto of "Don't be evil" and may be shedding young engineers over the issue of pseudonymity on their most recent social media effort on the rocks.

Here's a little bit about Shava:

Shava Nerad will be celebrating thirty years of professional life on the Internet in 2012. In 1982, she was chief software engineer at DEC, working on prototype applications for IVIS (the Interactive Video Information System), the first commercial multimedia authoring system, integrating color graphics, video, and audio for educational software and marketing applications, pre-PC. She's devoted most of her career to public interest Internet, technology, and society issues.

Recently Shava is probably best known for her work as the founding executive director of the Tor Project), the anonymity software that acts as the "caller ID blocking" for IP addresses on the Internet, used to protect journalists, democracy activists, and many others -- notably many of the major players in the Arab Spring revolutions.

Shava recently recovered from a years-long illness that took her away from full time work, and has been building up her networks on G+ while writing her book and advocating for the nymwars issues.

She's currently working on a book on online/offline organizing and leadership for digital/Internet natives called "How to Save the World in Your Spare Time" and is actively seeking consulting in nonprofit consulting, grant writing, social media, speech writing, blogging, and ghosting.

Here are some links that Shava recommends to those attending this session:

My Name Is Me: Supporting your freedom to choose the name you use on social networks and other online services

My Name Is Me resources

Real Names: Google+, Government & The Identity Ecosystem

Your name and Google+ Profiles

After the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on the 20th!

Our sessions resume on September 20th! Please save the date!

2011-09-06T12:05:00.001-05:00

We will be posting information about our featured guest and the topic as soon as we can. Meanwhile, please note these logistical points:

Tuesday, September 20, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

As always, we will stroll down the hall after the Ethos Roundtable adjourns, to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the Boston 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

The Ethos Roundtable will be on hiatus in July and August!

2011-06-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

The Ethos Roundtable will be on hiatus in July and August, and so will the Boston 501 Tech Club.

However, we will be actively recruiting featured guests for September and beyond, so please send us an email (ethos.roundtable AT gmail DOT com) if you have any ideas.

Mark Tomizawa and Barry Stein at the Ethos Roundable on June 21st

2011-05-29T14:06:00.006-05:00

Please join us for the June session of the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Mark Tomizawa and Barry Stein

We're waiting for a short bio from Mark, and have received the following from Barry:

Dr. Stein is President of Goodmeasure, Inc., co‑founded with Rosabeth Moss Kanter, which advises executives and organizations on productivity, innovation, leadership and design. Representative past clients include Ford, IBM, Washington Hospital Center, P&G, BID, AA, Royal Bank of Canada, Robert Bosch, the UK Foreign Office, OTA, NSF and the US Congress.

With IBM, Dr. Stein developed a user-guided web suite of leadership and management tools. One version is being used in US public schools, and a second version (BoldStroke) is available more generally. He has published in many professional journals, books and magazines, on both technical (materials science and pattern recognition) and social issues. Life in Organizations (with RM Kanter) was named a best business book of the year. Quality of Work Life in Action was written for the AMA. He co-authored The Challenge of Organizational Change. Organizations: A Repair Manual, is due in 2012. He is also a frequent public speaker, and wrote and hosted "Management Speaks," ten videotapes on business issues.

Earlier, Dr. Stein was on the senior staff of Arthur D. Little, Inc., Research Manager at the Center for CED, and President of OD Associates. He has taught Organization Behavior at Harvard, Socio-economic Development at MlT, Management at UNH and was a Visiting Lecturer at Yale. He holds a SB, SM (ChemE) and PhD (Planning) from MIT and was elected to Sigma Xi.

The topic that Mark and Barry have chosen to discuss is structuring success. Here's the summary that Barry gave us:

Almost without exception, our hopes and wishes, both as individuals and enterprises hinge on our success at persuading people to help us raise the odds of realizing those wishes – or at least to avoid people’s acting to oppose those wishes. Some of this is inevitably a matter of individual persuasion, but the heavy lifting almost always requires working with and through social units such as groups, organizations and communities.

The overall record of attempts to bring about significant and deliberate change is pretty awful; details vary but most experts agree that about 2/3 of these efforts have either been only marginally success or outright failures. Most experts also agree that the root problems are usually related to cultural constraints and individual resistance. However, since most change approaches inevitably stress just these strategies, that seems to be asking for trouble – and so it proves in practice. We really need new ways.

The core issue, in my view, is to understand what, exactly, brings about the actions – and results – we seek. What makes deliberate change possible at all? Can we reliably increase our success rate? Can we cut the cost, the time, the struggles? Can we even imagine a situation in which those involved, even passively, actually enjoy the trip? I think the answer to all of those questions is: Yes. The trick is to understand how change really comes about in social systems, and particularly, to learn to take advantage of the context in which the people are embedded.

Rick Heller on "Compassionate Comments" and bringing nonviolent communication online

2011-04-18T13:43:00.004-05:00

Please join us for the May session of the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Rick Heller, creator of Compassionate Comments

Here's a little bit of background about the session from Rick:

Rick Heller is the editor of the online magazine The New Humanism, a publication of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University. He is the creator of the Seeing the Roses project, which provides online videos teaching mindfulness with the aim of encouraging consumers to make more environment-friendly choices.

His writing has appeared in Free Inquiry, UUWorld, and Buddhadharma magazines, as well as the Lowell Sun and Boston Globe. His fiction has appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. He holds degrees from Boston University, Harvard and MIT.

Rick is also a Web developer, currently working in Ruby on Rails. He created Compassionate Comments using Javascript inserted into a standard Wordpress template, to demonstrate the 4-step nonviolent communication process and how it potentially could be adapted for web comments. The steps, developed by Marshall Rosenberg, are:

1. Make nonjudgmental observations.

2. Note one’s feelings.

3. Identify the personal needs that give rise to those feelings.

4. Optionally, make a request.

For more information, please see Rick's recent article on the Public Conversation Project's blog.

After the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on May 17th!

Lisa McNeill talks about online tools for volunteer matching on April 19th!

2011-03-23T18:54:00.005-05:00

Lisa McNeill of Cape Cod Volunteers will be joining us at the April session of the Ethos Roundtable. We hope that you'll be there as well!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Lisa McNeill, President of Cape Cod Volunteers

Here's a little bit about our esteemed featured guest:

Lisa McNeill started Cape Cod Volunteers in November 2010 after researching and developing the initiative for almost 4 years while at the Cape Cod Foundation. As Vice President of the Cape Cod Foundation, Lisa’s responsibilities included oversight of grantmaking and special program initiatives as well as various aspects of organizational management and donor services. Prior to joining the Cape Cod Foundation, Lisa was Executive Director of the Cape Cod Center for Sustainability and worked with community leaders to publish the first Sustainability Indicators Report for the region in 1999. Lisa served as a member of the Sustainability Indicators Council through 2006.

Lisa holds a Masters degree in International Development and Community Development from The American University in Washington, DC, and a Bachelors degree in Business Management and Marketing from St. Joseph College. She has worked on democracy building and nonprofit support programs in El Salvador, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and she spent two years living in Japan and teaching English to students of all ages.

Here's a little bit about her organization:

Cape Cod Volunteers is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to link people with meaningful opportunities for volunteering on Cape Cod. CCV does this by informing Cape Codders—residents and visitors alike—about the many opportunities, programs, and agencies that exist in our community, and by helping people identify their own interests, skills, talents, and passion for service to the community. The vision of Cape Cod Volunteers is to create a network of organizations and opportunities that will inform, inspire, and engage people of all ages and backgrounds in strengthening our community through volunteering.

A website launched in July 2010, provides an online matching tool for nonprofits to list their volunteer opportunities and a place for Cape Codders to search for openings that match their interests. We also provide one-on-one service for those community members who want personal help in identifying their own interests, and identifying a meaningful way to contribute to their community. Cape Cod Volunteers also promotes volunteering to involve more people in service to their community, and it provides learning and networking opportunities for nonprofit organizations in order to strengthen volunteer programs on Cape Cod and to make them more effective for the organization and the volunteer.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you on April 19th!

Rescheduled: George McCully at the Ethos Roundtable

2011-01-24T19:30:00.007-05:00

Those of you who missed the opportunity to learn about the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory because of the inclement weather in January will have another chance! We are delighted to announce that we have been able to reschedule George McCully for the March session of the Ethos Roundtable.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: George McCully, founder of the Catalogue of Philanthropy and the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory

Here's a little bit from George about the Philanthropic Directory:

We all know that Massachusetts philanthropy is becoming systematic, enabled by internet technology. The Catalogue for Philanthropy, in collaboration with a statewide consortium of foundations, corporations and individual donors, is launching momentarily an on-line, complete, analytical, directory to all Massachusetts charities of interest to donors generally, for free use by everyone in and around philanthropy?donors, grant-makers, philanthropic advisors, strategic planners, journalists, scholars, students, et al.

The new system will embody many "firsts": It will be the first complete dataset to distinguish definitively between philanthropic charities and the vast majority of other "nonprofit" organizations, proving that the word "nonprofit" should no longer be used as a synonym for philanthropy. It will be the first presentation of philanthropy as a coherent whole, organized by the first systematic, comprehensive, taxonomy (i.e., not just an unsystematic "list") of about 200 fields, branching out logically from three fundamental fields: Nature, Culture, and People. It will be the first to identify user-designated complete groups of charities?by field, location, budget size, year of IRS authorization, and demographics served, or any combination thereof. It will be the first to offer direct links to the websites of all group members. It will enable new kinds of questions to be asked and answered?about the histories, fiscal, geographic, and demographic, distribution, of philanthropy or parts thereof in designated groups and regions; the distribution of services within and among fields in communities and regions, as well as what fields or regions are not adequately developed (because the taxonomy and data are complete, gaps will important to public policy and strategic development of the sector); comparative analyses of philanthropic activity between and among fields and regions; and in time, since "Give Now" buttons are distributed throughout the site, statistical data on giving. After testing the system in Massachusetts, the Catalogue will extend it to all other states.

Here's a little bit about George himself:

Philanthropy is George McCully's second career. Trained in Renaissance history at Columbia University (M.A., 1961, Ph.D. 1967), he taught and published articles on history, the philosophy of history, and higher education, for nearly twenty years—as a graduate student, at Queens and Bronx Community Colleges, Barnard and Columbia; then at Swarthmore, Princeton, Yale, and Wellesley, with two years in academic administration at Brown, as Assistant Dean of the Faculty.

In 1980 he entered philanthropy as Executive Director of the Center for Field Research, awarding $1.5 million annually in grants for field research in the sciences and humanities world-wide. This put him on a number of boards, and by 1983 he was a full-time independent consultant in philanthropy, serving since then as fundraiser, strategic planner, trustee, and advisor to charities, foundations, families, and individual donors.

In 1984 he was founding Board President of the national Center for Plant Conservation—a consortium of 12 (now 31) leading botanic gardens from Boston to Hawaii, created to manage plant endangerment in the United States. He conceived its Priority Regions Programs in Hawaii, California, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, and as a spin-off for the New England Wild Flower Society, the New England Plant Conservation Program. For 20 years he has helped to build the Boston Early Music Festival as today the world’s leading institution of Early Music. He is a 20-year trustee of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation (Boston), and has helped to create four community foundations, serving for ten years as founding trustee of the Community Foundation of MetroWest (Boston).

He is also a founding Board director (2008) of the Davlin Fund, a philanthropic mutual fund, and of its corporate Foundation. In 1997 he led a coalition of 20 foundations, corporations, and individual donors, to create in Massachusetts the first Catalogue for Philanthropy (incorp. 2002), to promote charitable giving and strengthen the culture of philanthropy through donor education. He wrote vols. I-XI (884 pp.) of the Catalogues —articles about philanthropy supported by descriptions of (in twelve years) over 900 charities, which is cumulatively the most thorough and detailed description, defense, and advocacy of philanthropy ever published. Also in 1997 he created for public awareness purposes the "Generosity Index," which became the nation's leading stimulus for media discussions of charitable giving. Together the Catalogue and the Generosity Index played a leading role in doubling Massachusetts charitable giving in only four years (1997-2000), from $2 billion to $4 billion.

In 2008 the Catalogue published his book, Philanthropy Reconsidered—a concise but comprehensive introduction to, and strategic overview of, philanthropy, from ancient Greece, through the American Revolution, to the current national paradigm-shift, which he first identified as such in two articles of Foundation News, in 2000, and of which the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory is at the cutting edge. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Conversations on Philanthropy, and is a main author of the Wikipedia article on “Philanthropy,” which in the last year attracted over 1.2 million hits.

See you in March!

Kudos to Robbie Samuels and Socializing For Justice!

2011-01-19T13:12:00.003-05:00

Many of us were disappointed when George McCully had to cancel his presentation on the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory. However, yesterday's Ethos Roundtable session was a great success as an "open-mik e" event, and we owe a vote of thanks to Robbie Samuels for that!

We had a really good turn-out, considering the weather, and a terrific session. Fifteen or twenty people attended, and Robbie Samuels gave a truly inspired impromptu presentation about his project, Socializing For Justice. His model for cross-issue community building among activists, and his use of web tools to support face-to-face interaction was very much in keeping with the Ethos Roundtable's themes of expanding ethos and using technology for positive social change!

George McCully will not be able to join us today for the Ethos Roundtable session.

2011-01-18T14:46:00.003-05:00

It's 4:00 (eastern time) on January 18th, and I've heard from George McCully's colleague, Carl Mastandrea. Neither of them will be able to make it to our 4:30 Ethos Roundtable session.

I am already at the hotel, and will be here to hold a very informal, "open-mike" Ethos Roundtable session with anyone who decides to attend.

I hope that those who are disappointed or inconvenienced will accept my apology for the short notice.

Best regards from Deborah

If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now: Civic Engagement Online in a Disconnected America

2011-01-03T22:22:00.003-05:00

Lisa Williams, CEO & founder of Placeblogger, the largest searchable index of local weblogs, will be joining us at the Ethos Roundtable in February to talk about what knits geographic communities together online. Please join us!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Lisa Williams, founder of Placeblogger

Here's a little bit about Lisa and the Placeblogger project:

Placeblogger was a winner of the Knight 21st Century News Challenge, which gives out $5 million dollars annually to innovators with projects that aim to define the future of journalism. Placeblogger helps companies who want to start an online community or increase their success with social media; the company also helps media buyers and strategists for political campaigns assess the blog/social media landscape. She recently won the 2009 New Media Women Entrepreneur of the Year award for her work at Placeblogger.

Ms. Williams is also a fellow at the MIT Media Lab’s Center for Future Civic Media. The Media Lab is one of the most well-known university-based technology and innovation centers in the world. The newly formed Center for Future Civic Media focuses on meeting the information needs of humanity over the next 100 years.

Prior to founding Placeblogger, in 2004 Ms. Williams founded H2otown, an online community and news site by and for the residents of her hometown of Watertown, MA. H2otown became a nationally-recognized model for what came to be known as “citizen journalism,” or news created by nonjournalists as a way to create a sense of community in their neighborhoods.

Lisa has worked with the Boston Globe, Dan Gillmor’s Center for Citizen Media, and countless startups and media organizations. She was named Peter Jennings Fellow at the National Center for the Constitution and was recently named one of the “Top 25 Women to Watch in Tech” by AlwaysOn/Stanford Innovation Forum. She lives in Watertown, MA, with her spouse and two children.

George McCully returns in January to the Ethos Roundtable to unveil the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory!

2010-12-12T18:59:00.014-05:00

Please note that George McCully will not be able to join us for today's session

It's 4:00 (eastern time) on January 18th, and I've heard from George McCully's colleague, Carl Mastandrea. Neither of them will be able to make it to our 4:30 Ethos Roundtable session.

I am already at the hotel, and will be here to hold a very informal, "open-mike" Ethos Roundtable session with anyone who decides to attend.

I hope that those who are disappointed or inconvenienced will accept my apology for the short notice.

Best regards from Deborah

Many Ethos Roundtable members will remember George McCully's first appearance as a featured guest, soon after the publication of his groundbreaking book, "Philanthropy Reconsidered." During that session, he discussed his idea of an online philanthropic directory, and now he is returning to show us this soon-to-be-launched tool.

Please join us as he unveils the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: George McCully, founder of the Catalogue of Philanthropy and the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory

Here's a little bit about George:

Philanthropy is George McCully's second career. Trained in Renaissance history at Columbia University (M.A., 1961, Ph.D. 1967), he taught and published articles on history, the philosophy of history, and higher education, for nearly twenty years—as a graduate student, at Queens and Bronx Community Colleges, Barnard and Columbia; then at Swarthmore, Princeton, Yale, and Wellesley, with two years in academic administration at Brown, as Assistant Dean of the Faculty.

In 1980 he entered philanthropy as Executive Director of the Center for Field Research, awarding $1.5 million annually in grants for field research in the sciences and humanities world-wide. This put him on a number of boards, and by 1983 he was a full-time independent consultant in philanthropy, serving since then as fundraiser, strategic planner, trustee, and advisor to charities, foundations, families, and individual donors.

In 1984 he was founding Board President of the national Center for Plant Conservation—a consortium of 12 (now 31) leading botanic gardens from Boston to Hawaii, created to manage plant endangerment in the United States. He conceived its Priority Regions Programs in Hawaii, California, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, and as a spin-off for the New England Wild Flower Society, the New England Plant Conservation Program. For 20 years he has helped to build the Boston Early Music Festival as today the world’s leading institution of Early Music. He is a 20-year trustee of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation (Boston), and has helped to create four community foundations, serving for ten years as founding trustee of the Community Foundation of MetroWest (Boston).

He is also a founding Board director (2008) of the Davlin Fund, a philanthropic mutual fund, and of its corporate Foundation. In 1997 he led a coalition of 20 foundations, corporations, and individual donors, to create in Massachusetts the first Catalogue for Philanthropy (incorp. 2002), to promote charitable giving and strengthen the culture of philanthropy through donor education. He wrote vols. I-XI (884 pp.) of the Catalogues —articles about philanthropy supported by descriptions of (in twelve years) over 900 charities, which is cumulatively the most thorough and detailed description, defense, and advocacy of philanthropy ever published. Also in 1997 he created for public awareness purposes the "Generosity Index," which became the nation's leading stimulus for media discussions of charitable giving. Together the Catalogue and the Generosity Index played a leading role in doubling Massachusetts charitable giving in only four years (1997-2000), from $2 billion to $4 billion.

In 2008 the Catalogue published his book, Philanthropy Reconsidered —a concise but comprehensive introduction to, and strategic overview of, philanthropy, from ancient Greece, through the American Revolution, to the current national paradigm-shift, which he first identified as such in two articles of Foundation News, in 2000, and of which the Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory is at the cutting edge. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Conversations on Philanthropy, and is a main author of the Wikipedia article on “Philanthropy,” which in the last year attracted over 1.2 million hits.

See you in January!

Josh Shortlidge and InterEthos at the Ethos Roundtable in December!

2010-11-15T18:45:00.005-05:00

We'd like to invite you to attend our December session, which will be an extra special one, because the featured guest will be the Ethos Roundtable's co-founder and co-convener, Josh Shortlidge.

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
4:30 - 6:30 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Featured guest: Josh Shortlidge, InterEthos and the Data Collaborative
Topic: InterEthos

Here's a little bit about Josh:

Josh Shortlidge is very happily over-employed at the Data Collaborative, in Arlington, Massachusetts, where he and cohorts are constantly challenged to "go where no database has gone before". The list of clients and the complexity of data infrastructure projects are both world-class, with a wonderful blend between for-profit and non-profit work.

From the time he could walk and talk, Josh was always told by his mother to "go out and change the world". So in addition to working on Data Collaborative menageries, Josh is always looking for ways to improve the world, with the ultimate goal of bringing peace.

He holds an MBA in entrepreneurship from Babson College, and sports a long list of entrepreneurial endeavors, with a healthy balance of successes and failures. See his LinkedIn home page for more details.

Josh became possessed by the word "ethos" over a decade ago, while playing the technical lead in an editorial services startup. He co-created and co-hosts the "Ethos RoundTable" with Deborah Elizabeth Finn.

The InterEthos project is all about enhancing the interoperability of how ethos is measured and shared.

Five other team members have committed time to the project including Ruth Koch-Ashton (Ruby on Rails / Open Source Developer), Molly Hitt (Project Manager of the Ever-Changing), Jay Gardner (Brainiac about Things Not Yet Imagined), Rachael Stark (Chief of Library Sciences... a key part of what InterEthos does), and the incomparable Deborah Elizabeth Finn (Interoperability and Spiritual Maven). Without these five cohorts the project would not have taken shape as it has over the past 12 months, and Josh would still be talking to himself about pipe-dreams, as he did for the preceding decade.

Josh enjoys the unflagging devotion of his wonderful wife and "tent buddy" Terri. She continues to support, guide and encourage his pouring of countless hours into the InterEthos project. His daughter is pursuing an acting career in Hollywood, and his son Rocky is pursing a degree in Mechanical Engineering at WPI, and is Rush Chair for his fraternity.

Here's a little bit about the InterEthos project:

Mission

To create an interoperable cataloging system for collections of data and content, so that those collections can be more easily accessed by internet users. Our focus is primarily on the human services sector.

Demo Login:

To take a peek, you can access the system via "username=test" and "password=tester". Or you can create your own login and start using InterEthos right now.

The InterEthos Elevator Speech

Ethos is the spirit or core beliefs of a group of people.

Ethos is measured and cataloged by many organizations around the world.
Taxonomies are often used in such cataloging efforts.
Taxonomies are structure groups of categories.

For example, an organization may catalog the core beliefs about education for various villages. There are many different aspects that can be cataloged about the ethos of education. Examples include
cataloging important content published by residents of the villages, and
surveying the level of education that residents may have achieved.
A problem arises when multiple organizations catalog ethos using taxonomies that have different category names. For example other taxonomies may name their "college" category as "undergraduate" or "bachelors degree". Also, many taxonomies use foreign language names for their categories. The Swahili for "college" is "chuo".
How can all of the content and data in those separate catalogs be brought together, and made more "interoperable"?

InterEthos offers interoperability services for taxonomies.
The three main services are:
Sharing, where one taxonomy can be shared out to mulitple servers or applications on the Internet,
Correlation, where the categories of different taxonomies can be classified as synonyms for each other, and
Internationalization, where taxonomies can be translated into foreign languages.

The goal of InterEthos is to enhance the way ethos is measured, cataloged and shared across the internet, by creating interoperability between taxonomies.

InterEthos is online at interethos.net, where you can also view introductory videos about the project.
InterEthos is an open source project, with the full "Ruby on Rails" code stack awaiting to your enhancements at github.com/swithin/interethos.

Two videos are also available for those who want more information about InterEthos: a three-minute overview, and a more detailed nine-minute introduction.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.

See you in December!

Georges Grinstein unveils a powerful data visualization application that will be free to nonprofits!

2010-10-25T09:14:00.003-05:00

We'd like to invite you to attend our next session:

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
4:30 - 6:30 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Featured guest: Georges Grinstein, Open Indicators Consortium, and UMass-Lowel l
Topic: Launch of the WEAVE ((Web-based Analysis and Visualization Environment) platform

Here's a little bit about Georges:

Georges Grinstein is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, head of its Bioinformatics Program, Co-director of its Institute for Visualization and Perception Research, and of its Center for Biomolecular and Medical Informatics. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1978.
His work is broad and interdisciplinary, ranging from perceptual foundations of visualization to techniques for high-dimensional visualization, with the emphasis on the modeling, visualization, and analysis of complex information systems.
He has over 30 years in academia with extensive private consulting, over 100 research grants, products in use nationally and internationally, several patents, numerous publications in journals and conferences, a new book on interactive data visualization, founded several companies, and has been the organizer or chair of national and international conferences and workshops in Computer Graphics, in Visualization, in Visual Analytics and in Data Mining. He has mentored over 25 doctoral students and hundreds of graduate students. He has been on the editorial boards of several journals in Computer Graphics and Data Mining, a member of ANSI and ISO, a NATO Expert, and a technology consultant for various public agencies.

Here's a little bit about WEAVE:

After two years of development at the University of Massachusetts Lowell supported and guided by eight Founding Members, the Open Indicators Consortium (OIC) will release the code for version 1.0 of the data visualization platform Weave (Web-based Analysis and Visualization Environment) free to public and nonprofit users. A hard launch is planned for early 2011, by which time the Founding Members will be showing new websites showcasing Weave's full capacity as expressed by four states, four US regions and many municipal and sub-municipal geographies.

Weave allows a range of users to explore, analyze, visualize and disseminate data on-line from any location at any time. The platform offers multiple levels of user proficiency from novices to advanced researchers, advanced security features, and the ability to integrate, disseminate and visualize economic, social and environmental data and indicators at "nested" levels of geography-from micro to macro.

We will highlight the key aspects of Weave using partner indicator projects examples and others. We will discuss Weave's groundbreaking technologies making it one of the most flexible interactive visualization system.

Partner indicator projects and planning agencies from Arizona, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Atlanta/Metropolitan Atlanta, Boston/Metropolitan Boston, Metropolitan Chicago and Columbus/Central Ohio invested substantial funds to create the Consortium and guide the software development. Together with the UMass Lowell leadership (Georges Grinstein, an internationally recognized expert in analysis and visualization, and William Mass, a leader in the field of regional and industrial economic development), they govern the Consortium, support and shape design priorities and provide continuous testing and feedback to advance Weave's software development.

Join Peter Miller for a discussion of political theory and community technology!

2010-09-28T18:10:00.005-05:00

We'd like to invite you to attend our next session:

Tuesday, October 19, 2010
4:30 - 6:30 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Topic: Political theory and community technology
Featured guest: Peter Miller

Here's a little bit about Peter and the upcoming session:

After a 35 year hiatus, longtime community technology activist Peter Miller is completing his doctoral work in political theory and community technology and will present an overview with an eye towards contributing to the give and take that characterizes good Roundtable sessions, answering questions about the wide array of topics he is covering and getting suggestions from the tech-savvy, concerned group of attendees about wiki sites for resources at the intersection of technology and democracy.

Peter's work touches on matters as diverse as the Berkeley School of Political Theory and Manuel Castells' Information Age / Network Society trilogy; key and informative moments and models in the development of community technology centers across the country and internationally; the contours and wider world of community media and technology; neighborhoodsonline.net, neighborsforneighbors.org, and forums.e-democracy.org/groups/locals; the CyberMarxists who publish CyRev, the Journal of New Organizing, and the Journal of Community Informatics.

Peter was the founding network director of the Community Technology Centers Network, founder and initial director of the CTC VISTA Project now operating as the Transmission Project, and founder and editor of the Community Technology Review (1994-2005).

Sneak preview at the Ethos Roundtable: "Nonprofit Management Resources"

2010-08-29T21:39:00.006-05:00

Topic: The Nonprofit Management Resources project

Featured guests: Ndela Nkobi, Third Sector New England and Deborah Elizabeth Finn, Strategist and Consultant

Tuesday, September 21st 2010
4:30 - 6:30 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

After its summer hiatus, the Ethos Roundtable will be kicking off a new season on September 21st! Ndlela Nkobi (of Third Sector New England) and I will be the co-presenters, and will be offering you a special sneak peak at a work in progress.

As many of you know, Third Sector New England and the Boston Foundation have joined forces to create a free online search and aggregation engine that is designed to deliver answers to questions that nonprofit managers in Massachusetts frequently ask. Although the web site, "Nonprofit Management Resources," has not yet been launched publicly, we have been given TBF and TSNE's blessing to provide the Ethos Roundtable with an overview of the strategy and history of the project and a special preview of the working prototype.

The Ethos Roundtable session will be followed immediately by the Boston 501 Tech Club event, which also takes place at the Charles Hotel. The Tech Club is for technology professionals in the region who work for or with nonprofit organizations. All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at Tech Club gatherings, and vice versa.

No reservations are ever needed for Ethos Roundtable sessions, but if you plan to attend the Tech Club event, then you need to notify Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwinAT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let Kathleen know how much to order.

See you on September 21st!

We'll be on hiatus in July and August

2010-06-14T13:32:00.005-05:00

The Ethos Roundtable will be meeting on June 15th, and then taking the summer off!

There will not be an Ethos Roundtable session in July or August. The Boston 501 Tech Club will also be on hiatus during those two months.

We're looking forward to seeing you again in the fall. Please save the date of September 21st.

We are currently booking featured guests for the fall. If you have an idea for a session, please email us at ethos.roundtable (at) gmail (dot) com.

Ethos Roundtable sessions in the fall:

Tuesday, September 21st, 4:30 - 6:00 pm, Charles Hotel, Harvard Square. Topic: "Nonprofit Management Resources." Featured guests: Ndlela Nkobi and Deborah Elizabeth Finn.
Tuesday, October 19th, 4:30 - 6:00 pm, Charles Hotel, Harvard Square. Topic: Political theory and community technology. Featured guest: Peter Miller.
Tuesday, November 16th, 4:30 - 6:00 pm, Charles Hotel, Harvard Square. Topic: The WEAVE platform. Featured guest: Georges Grinstein.
Tuesday, December 21st, 4:30 - 6:00 pm, Charles Hotel, Harvard Scquare. Topic and featured guest: to be announced.

Kathryn Engelhardt-Cronk and Apricot.Info at the Ethos Roundtable

2010-04-19T17:30:00.004-05:00

Please join us in June at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Kathryn Engelhardt-Cronk, Community TechKnowledge

The topic will be Apricot.Info, Community TechKnowledge's new platform for small nonprofits. We'll have more details as soon as our featured guest sends them along.

In the meantime, here's a little bit about Apricot from the folks at CTK:

"Developed by leading nonprofit service provider Community TechKnowledge (CTK), Apricot is an online data management system for small and growing nonprofits that tracks and reports information on clients, services and performance....Now your nonprofit will have the same advantage as large sized organizations to confidently demonstrate accountability and ensure continual funding. With a sophisticated web-based application, your organization will have the resources necessary to maintain your data without the costly expenses."

Laura Quinn and Idealware.Org at the Ethos Roundtable

2010-04-19T17:13:00.008-05:00

Please join us in May at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Laura Quinn, Idealware.Org

Laura Quinn will talk through some early findings from their not-yet-published research as to what social media tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) are useful to achieve what goals and reach what audiences.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. Laura will be signing copies of Idealware's new book, Field Guide to Software for Nonprofits: Fundraising, Communications, and Outreach, and TechFoundation will be raffling off free copies of the book as well.

The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations. All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let them know how much to order.

See you in May!

NPO Connect - isn't that what you've wanted all along? (To connect with nonprofit organizations?)

2010-03-24T12:07:00.005-05:00

Please join us at the next Ethos Roundtable session, in which the topic will be NPO Connect, the online tool that assists in matching nonprofit professionals with peer mentors. It is currently being piloted by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Boston and the Metrowest Nonprofit Network.

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Kenny Weill and Gavin Murphy (developers of NPO Connect), and Marc Baizman (Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Boston)

Here's how the NPO team describes the project:

The mission of NPO Connec t is to build the capacity of the non-profit sector by enabling individuals working in the sector to connect, to learn from one another, and to build their skills as non-profit professionals. At NPO Connect, we envision a non-profit sector where individuals can more easily:
Share best practices (or just what works) in particular operational areas by mentoring peers seeking to improve in those areas;

Gain the tools and knowledge to more efficiently and cost-effectively meet the needs of their constituents;

Strengthen the capacity of the sector as a whole by honing their skills and adding more value to their non-profit organizations.
NPO Connect facilitates skill transfer between professionals in the non-profit sector by allowing professionals to connect with one another through a web-based platform. Once connected through this site, the peer mentorship is developed and carried out primarily offline - in face-to-face meetings, phone conversations and/or email communications.

A six-month pilot with the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network-Boston was launched February 2010 (in parallel with a pilot launched November 2009 with the Metrowest Nonprofit Network). Quantitative and qualitative feedback from pilot users will enable the NPO Connect Team to further shape the platform to serve as an effective tool for non-profit professionals. After the pilot period is complete (summer 2010), the goal is to expand NPO Connect over time to provide additional functionality and serve a larger geographic area.

This is really an important initiative for the local nonprofit sector, because there are a thousand things about our organizational culture that you can't learn in an academic program or from books. NPO Connect is also an important working prototype for online tools that match resources and needs for nonprofits, philanthropies, community groups, and other mission-based organizations.

Here's a little background on our featured guests:

Kenny Weill brings more than a dozen years experience in the non-profit sector to his consulting work. Since launching K. Weill Consulting in 2002, Kenny's grant development work has helped his diverse clients raise on average $1.5 million each year. He delivers additional services to help build his non-profit clients’ capacity, including program development, research, and other writing and editing services such as web and newsletter content. Kenny has held management, research and direct care positions in community-based, academic, health care and government settings. He is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Nonprofit Consultants Network, MA Public Health Association, and Third Sector New England's Consultant Pool. Kenny received an M.S. in Health Policy and Management from Harvard University School of Public Health and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.
Gavin Murphy founded Annkissam in the summer of 2007 with the goal of bringing innovative technology solutions to the nonprofit sector. Mr. Murphy has been a technology consultant to a wide range of clients since graduating from Duke University with a double major in Economics and Computer Science. He volunteers 10% or more of the workweek to being President of the Duke Club of Boston.
Marc Baizman, a Board member for the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network-Boston, has been involved with nonprofits and technology for the past ten years. Currently, Marc is consulting for nonprofits in and around Boston, helping with Google Apps and Salesforce implementations. Up until the end of 2009, Marc was Technology Director at Root Cause, a nonprofit in Cambridge, MA that helps social innovators and educates social impact investors. As the first and only technology staff person, he was responsible for all things tech, from debugging network cables to disaster recovery planning. Before joining Root Cause, Marc was working at NPower New York as a Senior Project Manager in Consulting Services, specializing in helping nonprofits customize Salesforce.com and building Drupal-based websites. He has a passion for the nonprofit sector and connecting organizations with technology in a positive way. Marc has an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a TESOL Certificate from Columbia Teacher's College in New York City.

News you can use from the Open Indicators Consortium

2010-02-17T13:34:00.005-05:00

Please join us in March at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Georges Grinstein and Mary Beth Smrtic, Open Indicators Consortium

We'll have more details as soon as our featured guests send them along, but in the meantime, here's a little bit about the consortium:

"The Open Indicators Consortium is an international consortium dedicated to improving access to data about communities and regions. The Consortium is developing an open source software system for the analysis and visualization of economic, social and environmental indicators at the neighborhood, municipal, county, regional, national and international levels. The effort is led by University of Massachusetts Lowell faculty members Georges Grinstein (Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Institute for Visualization and Perception Research) and William Mass (Director of the Center for Industrial Competitiveness), and by Charlotte Kahn, Director of the Boston Indicators Project at the Boston Foundation.

"The mission of the Open Indicators Consortium is to transform publicly available data into visually compelling and actionable indicators, to inform public policy, research and decision making. The Consortium brings together technical and academic experts, data providers and users, to create and sustain a highly interactive, high-performance, open source platform for measures, indicators and data. Numerous tools are available and being developed for personalization, customization, collaboration, uploading data sets, session history, and generating modern interactive web-based reports."

And when the Open Indicators Consortium promises you "visually compelling and actionable indicators," they are not making frivolous promises. I've already seen a demo, and can assure that this is amazing and powerful software for individuals and organizations that care about positive social change.

See you in March!

The Massachusetts Nonprofit Database comes to the Ethos Roundtable!

2010-01-08T11:31:00.007-05:00

Please join us in February at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Tom Pollak and Doug Denatale, developers of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Database

In my opinion, the Massachusetts Nonprofit Database is an "epic win" for our sector, and I have high hopes that it will become a national model.

Here's a description of the project, from Tom Pollak:

Massachusetts Nonprofit Database, a collaboration of the Urban Institute's National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Boston Foundation, will provide nonprofit organizations, community leaders, and citizens with comprehensive data, information and tools to build stronger nonprofit organizations and communities, promote greater citizen engagement, and link to other data and information resources. It includes a number of modules:

Starting with a core of mostly IRS data from the NCCS databases, the Community Inventory enables users to view, update and add nonprofit organizations, schools, churches or other organizations or resources and to overlay with data on community needs via maps, charts, lists or tables.
TheFinancial Analyzer permits users to compare an organization’s performance to similar organizations (a user-defined peer group or general category) and to graph key ratios.

The Programs and Service-Delivery Area Mapping Tool lets users combine program descriptions from IRS Form 990s with additional data from 2-1-1 and other community databases and define and map the service delivery areas of the organizations to create a comprehensive picture of the programs and services in a community. (Urban Institute outcome measurement tools may be integrated into this system, as well.)

The Shared Goods and Services Tool provides a convenient system for nonprofits to communicate with one another about both their needs and potential excess capacity.

Project Management Tools enable nonprofit organizations or groups of citizens or students to collaborate efficiently in mapping community resources and needs.

Advanced Tools for custom analysis of nonprofit data are also available for registered users.

A Knowledgebase of resources to help citizens create their own projects and learn more about the how to create stronger communities and nonprofits is linked into the system.

We expect to incorporate resources from the Foundation Center, the Mass. Charities Bureau and possibly others through our Data Sharing Infrastructure, which permits real-time sharing of NCCS data and viewing of non-NCCS data with key partners.

We believe that the key to making this project successful is to get its tools used on the ground to meet the practical needs of nonprofit organizations and communities. Potential users include United Ways, high school and college student outreach organizations, nonprofit associations, place-based education and human service initiatives and others. If you are interested in working with us, we would like to hear from you!

Here's a little bit about Tom himself:

Thomas Pollak is program director of the nonprofit National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute, a Washington DC-based research organization, which he joined in 1996. He has his law degree from Georgetown University and has been actively involved with a range of other nonprofit organizations as a director, volunteer, consultant and employee.

Here's a profile of Doug:

Douglas DeNatale is the President of Community Logic, Inc., an independent consulting firm that specializes in the development of information systems for the cultural sector and managing qualitative research projects. Dr. DeNatale has consulted for national foundations and institutions including the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Library of Congress, Heritage Preservation, and the Smithsonian Institution; as well as a variety of regional and local organizations. He served as co-director of the ethnographic documentation component of the Ford Foundation’s six-year “Internationalizing New Works in the Performing Arts” initiative; and directed a year-long ethnographic documentation project in Lowell, Massachusetts, for the Library of Congress. He has authored a range of articles, monographs, and white papers, including a handbook on documentation for cultural organizations; a white paper on current data systems in the Humanities for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; a white paper on cultural support to Cambodia for the Rockefeller Foundation (co-author with Khatharya Um)); and a series of studies examining the economic health of the creative economy in New England (co-author with Gregory H. Wassall) Dr. DeNatale holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He has served as Deputy Director of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Director of Research at the New England Foundation for the Arts, and Director of the Folklife and Oral History Program at the University of South Carolina.

Liz Keating, the third developer in this project, won't be able to join us in February, but I think that every friend of the Ethos Roundtable should be aware of her expertise, so here's her bio:

Elizabeth Keating CPA PhD is a Lecturer in Accounting at the School of Management at Boston University. She is also an Associate Scholar at the Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on nonprofit and governmental accountability, financial health retirement funding, employee compensation and benefits, and overhead. In the past year, she has produced two reports for the Boston Foundation: "For the Benefit of Our Workers: The Massachusetts Nonprofit Employee Benefit Study" and "Purpose Restructuring, Repositioning and Reinventing: Crisis in the Massachusetts Nonprofit Sector." She has taught at Harvard University, Northwestern University, and New York University. She received her PhD in management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and her MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

See you in February!

Ringing in 2010 with the Ethos Roundtable

2009-12-28T18:14:00.008-05:00

We have some wonderful Ethos Roundtable sessions lined up for the new year, and hope that you'll join us!

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Clay Ward, developer of Procrasdonate

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Tom Pollak and Doug Denatale, developers of the Massachusetts Nonprofit Database

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Georges Grinstein and Mary Beth Smrtic, Open Indicators Consortium

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests, Kenny Weill and Gavin Murphy, developers of NPO Connect

Remember, no reservations are required. Just show up, and feel free to invite others.

Learn about ProcrasDonate at the Ethos Roundtable in January!

2009-12-16T13:10:00.008-05:00

Please join us in January at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Clay Ward, Founder, Buy It Like You Mean It

Here is a summary of the our upcoming session:

ProcrasDonate is a new kind of hybrid fundraising tool for non-profits. It works like this... users improve their time management by donating to selected websites whenever they waste an hour online. Our preliminary research suggests that people will give five times more as a charitable incentive than they would as a traditional donation. So we're very excited to sign up worthwhile charities and to learn how else to spread the word about this fun new software."

Here's a little bit about Clay himself:

Clay Ward is an artist/entrepreneur who is a graduate of MIT and Parsons School of Design who worked on numerous community art projectsbefore moving to the virtual realm. He recently founded Buy It Like You Mean It, a tool for educational discovery about the real world impacts of product supply chains. As a co-founder of ProcrasDonate.com he remains committed to strategic service and to responding to the deeper needs of virtual communities."

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company and free food at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in January!

Come talk with Joe Edelman about Groundcrew at the Ethos Roundtable!

2009-11-24T14:01:00.002-05:00

Please join us in December at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Joe Edelman, CEO, Citizen Logistics

Here is a summary of the our upcoming session:

"Joe will present about Groundcrew — a framework being used for real-time volunteer coordination — and the PosX system of rewarding the organizers, leaders, and nonprofits which do the most good and cause the most positive experience. He will cover the immediately practical uses of Groundcrew, from field and community organizing to volunteer mobilization, and then discuss the direction we want to go, towards creating a world and an economic system where doing good is tracked and well-rewarded, and where people have both the information and the availability to rapidly assemble to help one another. He'll talk about the steps necessary to reach that goal, some of the missing pieces, and how everyone can be involved."

Here's a little bit about Joe himself:

"Joe Edelman was instrumental in scaling CouchSurfing.com from 100,000 members to more than a million members, and in designing the trust and reputation metrics and rules involved. CouchSurfing connects 180 people per hour with a stranger and a place to stay, and has led to almost 4 million real-world positive experiences between strangers, and 100,000 close friendships. He is passionate about using the web, and more recently mobile devices, to create community, build friendships, and bring people together in the real world, and this passion has brought him from stunt groups like ImprovEverywhere to disaster relief operations to alternative schools. In fifteen years of work with research labs and internet startups, including research work at the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab, Paul Allen's Interval Research, and a research faculty position at Dartmouth College, has remained focused on the problems of the real-time, real-world web, and the use of computational tools to navigate continuous data sources. He was educated at Dartmouth College and MIT."

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in December!

At the Ethos Roundtable in November: David Weinberger on the moral architecture of the web

2009-10-26T18:29:00.005-05:00

Please join us in November at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: David Weinberger, fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Here's a summary from David of our upcoming session on the moral architecture of the web:

Of course technology is neither good or bad in itself. You could use a hammer to build a home for the needy or to hit the needy on the head. Yet, it also seems wrong not to be able to draw any moral distinction between, say, the H1N1 vaccine and a device designed to torture people. In that light, is the Web good or evil…or at least good-ish or evil-ish? In this speculative talk, we'll look quickly at the usual theories about what makes something moral or immoral, and wonder how the distinctive architecture of the Web fits.

Here's a little bit about our featured guest:

Dr. David Weinberger writes about the effect of technology on our ideas. He is a co-author of the bestselling "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and the author of "Small Pieces Loosely Joined." His latest book is "Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder." He writes the well-known blog Joho . His work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, USA Today, Wired, Salon, The Guardian, Foreign Policy and many others. He is a commentator on National Public Radio and is a columnist for KMWorld and Il Sole 24 ore. He has been a strategic marketing consultant to startups and Fortune 500s, and has been an Internet adviser to presidential campaigns. He is a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society and has a Ph.D. in philosophy.

See you in November!

Learn about the World Community Grid with Cathleen Finn on October 20th!

2009-09-27T15:20:00.004-05:00

Please join us in October at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Cathleen Finn of World Community Grid and IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs

Here's a preview of our upcoming session:

World Community Grid, launched in November 2004, is dedicated to becoming the world's largest public computing grid working on humanitarian research. The initiative enlists the support of hundreds of thousands of volunteers to donate unused computing capacity to researchers around the world. Current research projects include cancer, AIDS, influenza and environmental research as well as others. IBM donates the infrastructure and services needed to support World Community Grid, which currently includes over one million devices.

Here's a little bit about our featured guest:

Cathleen Finn is the IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs New England Program Manager. She is responsible for managing the IBM discretionary grant making program, the employee volunteerism program, the employee charitable contributions campaign, and special community events for Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island. Cathleen's community affiliations include serving as a director for the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, membership in the Greater Boston Corporate Volunteer Council, serving as an advisor to Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education, and serving as a mediator for Community Dispute Settlement Center and Mediation Works Incorporated.

Prior to joining the Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, Cathleen held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility in the Information Systems department, and was a Senior Consultant in the Process Engineering, group where she completed internal management consulting assignments in Massachusetts and internationally. She has been with IBM since October of 1992. Cathleen graduated with honors from Boston University with a B.A. in Mathematics and Psychology.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in October!

(Please note that, despite having the same surname, Cathleen Finn and I are not related, except insofar as all human beings are - at the very least - distant cousins.)

Dan MacNeil and Carolyn Thompson of the Community Software Lab at the Ethos Roundtable

2009-07-03T10:30:00.004-05:00

Please join us in September at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, September 15th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Dan MacNeil and Carolyn Thompson of the Community Software Lab

Here's what Dan says about the session:

Our primary presentation goal is to show off our software websites designed to connect people to the social services they need. A secondary goal is to connect to people who want to share source code and data. Time permitting, we'd also like practice telling jokes.

We'll start with a 5 minute video. This video is designed to demo our software in such a way as to hid the weak spots.

We'll pause for questions and discussion. If there are no questions or discussion, we will punish the group by pontificating bombastically on the weak spots of our software, the minutia of free software licenses and the syntax of the Perl programing language.

We asked our featured guests to tell us a little bit about themselves, and this is how they responded:

Dan MacNeil, is a stereotypical computer geek in everything except for personal hygiene. He's been trying to get a BS in CS since 1982. He's crawled under desks to re-connect network cables for organizations with $20 in the checking account and for organizations with millions of donors. In 1998, he started the Community Software Lab to help bring about the post scarcity society and have an excuse to print "Fearless Leader" on business cards.

Carolyn Thompson, outreach coordinator of the CSL, has a degree in Psychology from Philadelphia University and a long, impressive but boring resume. Once, as a summer life guard, she prevented (on average) one drowning per week.

Here are a few links to visit before the session:

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in September!

Join us this fall at the Ethos Roundtable!

2009-07-01T15:25:00.006-05:00

We have some exciting guests lined up for the fall, and hope that you'll mark your calendars now:

Tuesday, September 15
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Dan MacNeil and Carolyn Thompson, Community Software Lab

Tuesday, October 20
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Cathleen Finn, World Community Grid and IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs

Tuesday, November 17
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: David Weinberger, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

We look forward to seeing you in the fall!

We'll be on hiatus in August

2009-06-30T16:25:00.003-05:00

The Ethos Roundtable will be taking a break in August, as will the Boston 501 Tech Club.

There are no sessions scheduled for the month, and we plan to resume on September 18th.

We look forward to seeing you at our July session, and in September when we resume.

Have a happy summer!

Social Actions at the Ethos Roundtable on July 21st

2009-06-18T10:31:00.004-05:00

Please join us in July at the Ethos Roundtable!

Tuesday, July 21st
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Peter Deitz and Christine Egger of Social Actions

Social Actions is an aggregator and search engine for actions that you can take on any issue that concerns you. Instead of checking over 50 web pages, you can go to Social Actions, type in some key words, and run a search. You'll see opportunities that include volunteerism, political action, jobs in nonprofit organizations, fundraising campaigns, social networking, and micro philanthropy. The partners include Kiva, Pledgebank, Changing The Present, Idealist, Six Degrees, Modest Needs, Volunteer Match, and many more.

Here's a little bit about our esteemed guests:

Peter Deitz is a blogger, social media consultant, and the founder of Social Actions. He is a guest blogger on Social Edge, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and PopTech. Peter has spoken at several 2009 venues including the Nonprofit Technology Conference, the NetSquared Conference, Connecting Up Australia, Semantic Technology Conference, and My Charity Connects. Peter holds a BA in History from McGill University and an MA in History from the University of Toronto. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Christine Egger is a founding team member of Social Actions. She holds a master's in International Development from Michigan State University and brings 15 years' experience in for- and non-profit project management, fund development, networking and collaboration, and strategic planning to the Social Actions team. Her work focuses on the intersection of international development, philanthropy, and the complexity sciences. She lives in southeast Michigan.

Here are some links to visit before the session:

This is definitely a project that exemplifies the spirit of the Ethos Roundtabl e, by using information and communication technology to create positive social change! If you'd like to participate in a brainstorming session on this topic, we welcome you to the table.

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!

Please also note that there will be no Boston 501 Tech Club event in July. The latter usually follows Ethos Roundtable sessions. However, our wonderful hosts at TechFoundation are taking a well-deserved break for the summer. Therefore, Ethos Roundtable attendees will need to make their own arrangements for food and drink after we adjourn at 6:00 pm.

See you in July!

Online Capacity Mapping and Resource Matching for Nonprofits

2009-05-08T10:24:00.007-05:00

Having served as a co-convener of the Ethos Roundtable since 2006, I have finally scheduled myself as a presenter for June 2009:

Tuesday, June 16th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Deborah Elizabeth Finn, Strategic Technology Consultant to Nonprofits and Philanthropies

I was first inspired to think about one giant web-based tool for capacity mapping and resource matching for nonprofits by a conversation in 2003 with my buddy Tim Gassert. Since then, I've looked for ways to make it happen. Within the last year, some sort of tipping point occurred, and all sorts of esteemed clients and colleagues started pulling me into conversations about pet projects that were closely related to the pipedream that Tim and I had.

I've been actively working on the big picture, and bringing together these folks who are converging on the concept, for about six months. It's clear that this could be a tremendous asset to nonprofits, philanthropies, and communities in the region - at a time when money is tight, it's important to ensure that surplus assets, capacities, and resources do not go unused. It's also clear that this could be many separate projects with clever mash-ups and data interchanges. In the age of XML, it does not have to be a monolith with one owner, one web host, and one platform.

This session will not be a nuts-and-bolts discussion of technical specifications or organizational arrangements, but an exploration of the big picture. What if we had web-based tools to help mission-based organizations use every possible resource and meet every possible need? If you're interested in this question, please come and brainstorm with us.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in June!

Melinda Wittstock on Web 2.0, populism, and professional journalism at the Ethos Roundtable

2009-05-03T08:59:00.029-05:00

Please join us for our next Ethos Roundtable session:

Tuesday, May 19th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Melinda Wittstock, founder of Ask Your Lawmaker, Capitol News Connection, and Pundit Productions

Melinda Wittstock is an award-winning broadcast and print journalist with 20 years of experience in New York, Washington, and London. Her writing and hosting work spans BBC Radio and TV News, ABC News, National Public Radio (NPR), MSNBC/CNBC, as well as London's Times, Guardian, and Observer newspapers.

Melinda founded Capitol News Connection (CNC ), which covers Congress from a local perspective for more than 200 public radio stations nationwide, reaching three million listeners. She also created "Power Breakfast", which airs daily on WAMU 88.5 FM in Washington.

She conceived and launched the Ask Your Lawmaker web site and widget, which lets citizens directly question their lawmakers. Users ask questions and vote on the ones they most want CNC journalists to pose to lawmakers. Audio answers are uploaded for users to listen to, comment and share.

Melinda will be sharing her vision of collaboration between citizens and professional journalists to foster accountability and transparency in government. She calls this "truth-squadding," and will be leading a discussion about how Web 2.0 makes this possible.

Although we don't often carry over an Ethos Roundtable theme from one month to the next, we do have an opportunity to do this in May. During our April session with Susan Labandibar, we brainstormed about ways to call Congress to account about the hazards of recycling e-waste overseas, and one of the strategies I suggested was posting a question about this to Ask Your Lawmaker. I posted a question on this topic, which you are welcome to vote up. You're also welcome to post a question of your own (on any topic whatsoever) to Ask Your Lawmaker - it only take about three minutes.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you on the 19th!

Full disclosure of financial relationship: I serve as a paid consultant to Capitol News Connection and Ask Your Lawmaker.

Join the Ethos Roundtable for a discussion with Susan Labandibar about green IT

2009-04-04T12:33:00.007-05:00

Please join us for our next Ethos Roundtable session:

Tuesday, April 21st
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Susan Labandibar, founder of Tech Networks of Boston

Susan Labandibar is an expert on green information technology for small nonprofits and businesses, an ardent environmental advocate, and a leader of Boston's Sustainable Business Network. Her organization, Tech Networks of Boston, is creating a free web-based tool to allow any company to create a baseline for IT energy use. Businesses will be able to use the tool to forecast energy savings as they design and implement new IT solutions. Susan's presentation, Real Green IT, covers the three big reasons IT departments should go green, the five focus areas, and a sneak preview of the web-tool and its underlying methodology.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you on the 21st!

Ken George joins us at the Ethos Roundtable for a discussion about public radio, social media, and civic engagement

2009-02-25T19:50:00.004-05:00

Please join us for our next Ethos Roundtable session:

Ken George, online production manager of WBUR
Tuesday, March 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Ken George, new media production manager at WBUR-FM, is a self-described "public radio guy stumbling along the digital highway." He will be leading a discussion about public radio, social media, and civic engagement.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you on the 17th!

Brian Reich on "Mastering Today's Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience"

2009-02-02T13:51:00.005-05:00

Please join us for our next Ethos Roundtable session:

Tuesday, February 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest:
Brian Reich, co-author of the book "Media Rules: Mastering Today's Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience," and principal at EchoDitto

Brian is a veteran of online communications for political and nonprofit causes, and we'll have a lively discussion about how to use what he's learned to support positive social change.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you on the 17th!

Starting off right in 2009 with the Ethos Roundtable

2009-01-06T19:34:00.008-05:00

As 2009 begins, we are grateful to have some very exciting featured guests scheduled:

Jeffrey Wood, founder of eHope
Tuesday, January 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Brian Reich, co-author of the book "Media Rules: Mastering Today's Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience," and principal at EchoDitto
Tuesday, February 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Ken George, online production manager of WBUR
Tuesday, March 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Susan Labandibar, founder of Tech Networks of Boston, and green IT expert
Tuesday, April 21st
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Melinda Wittstock, founder of Ask Your Lawmaker, Capitol News Connection, and Pundit Productions
Tuesday, May 19th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Deborah Elizabeth Finn, Strategic Technology Consultant to Nonprofits and Philanthropies
Tuesday, June 16th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Peter Deitz and Christine Egger of Social Actions
Tuesday, July 21st
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

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!

Jeffrey Wood and eHope will join us at the Ethos Roundtable on January 20th

2008-12-26T19:44:00.007-05:00

Please join us for the first Ethos Roundtable session of the new year!

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guest: Jeffrey Wood, founder of eHope
(This session was originally scheduled for Tuesday, September 16th, 2008.)

Jeffrey Wood is the founder and president of eHope, a non-profit which facilitates caring communities which provides non-medical physical, emotional, social, emotional and spiritual support for people facing a life-threatening illness. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Jeffrey served 20 years as a U.S. Army leadership instructor, as Human Resource Manager for Teledyne, and also as a web developer & IT Consultant. His volunteer work on the oncology wing at Maine Medical Center and then with Hospice of Maine serving ALS families in Southern Maine, provided him with the vision and inspiration for birthing eHope. To date, eHope has launched 55 caring communities mobilizing approx. 2,600 volunteer caregivers throughout Central and Southern Maine.

Jeffrey recommends the following links for attendees of the session:

Please note that Ethos Roundtable events are usually paired with meetings of the Boston 501 Tech Club. However, this month's501 Tech Club meeting has been rescheduled for Tuesday, January 13th. If you have any questions about the 501 Tech Club, or would like to make a reservation to attend it, please send an email to Kathleen Sherwin (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

As always, we are very grateful to TechFoundation for underwriting the conference room in which Ethos Roundtable sessions take place.

There's never any need to make a reservation to attend EthosRoundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others!

George McCully at the Ethos Roundtable: Philanthropy reconsidered in the internet age

2008-12-13T08:39:00.003-05:00

We invite you to join us for our next session:

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: George McCully, Founder of the Catalogue For Philanthropy, and author of "Philanthropy Reconsidered"

George's new book has some very striking and useful insights about (among other things) the transition that it in progress from the industrial age to the internet age of philanthropy.

There's never any need to make a reservation to attend EthosRoundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others!

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who
work with nonprofit organizations. All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

See you on Tuesday!

Doc Searls at the Ethos Roundtable on November 18th

2008-10-27T12:30:00.003-05:00

Please join us for our November session!

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Doc Searls, Fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and author of "Doc Searls Weblog"

Doc Searls is a fellow with both the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Center for Information Technology & Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, a business bestseller, and Senior Editor at Linux Journal, where he has been covering open source development since the mid-90s. He is also one of the world's best known and widely read bloggers.

In "The World is Flat," Tom Friedman calls Doc "one of the most respected technology writers in America." J.D. Lasica, author of "Darknet," calls Doc "one of the deep thinkers in the blog movement." In 2005, Doc won the Google O'Reilly Open Source Award for Best Communicator.

Here's the word from Doc about the topic for our session:

The Intention Economy: What happens when free customers prove more valuable than captive ones.

Are you tired of carrying around "loyalty cards" for retailers who speak to themselves about "acquiring," "owning" and "controlling" their "relationship" with you? -- and do little more than clog your wallet and slow down checkout lines?

Are you tired of login and password hell? In the everyday world you don't have to become a "member" of a store to shop there, or to click "accept" after not reading "agreements" that are anything but.

Wouldn't it be cool to rent exactly the car you want (for example, one that seats six and has an AUX input for your iPhone), rather than whatever the rental car agency decides to give you?

If you answer Yes to any of those questions, you should know about VRM, for Vendor Relationship Management. It's how we manage them at least as well as they manage us.

VRM tools are being developed right now by a community of developers and other volunteers, organized around ProjectVRM at Harvard's Berkman Center and led by Doc Searls, the originator of the VRM concept and a fellow at the center.

Here are a few web pages that he recommends that attendees read before the Ethos Roundtable session:

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in November!

Upcoming at the Ethos Roundtable: Four unusually special guests

2008-10-07T13:49:00.012-05:00

Check out this incredible line-up of featured guests for upcoming Ethos Roundtable sessions:

Joseph Porcelli
Director of Online Operations and Partnerships of Be The Change Foundation, founder of Neighbors For Neighbors, and many other civic engagement projects
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

Doc Searls
Fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and author of "Doc Searls Weblog"
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

George McCully
Founder of the Catalogue For Philanthropy, and author of "Philanthropy Reconsidered"
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

Jeffrey Wood
Founder of eHope
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
(This session was originally scheduled for Tuesday, September 16th, 2008.)

Details on the topics of each date will be forthcoming, as our featured guests send in their blurbs.

At the conclusion of each of these Ethos Roundtable sessions, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing free food and drink, it's courteous to let their team know how much to order.

Joseph Porcelli at the Ethos Roundtable, 10/21/2008

2008-09-21T19:29:00.003-05:00

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Joseph Porcelli

Joseph Porcelli wears a lot of hats. He's been a coordinator of the Neighborhood Crime Watch Unit of the Boston Police Department, the executive director of Neighbors For Neighbors, the founder of the Name Tag Project, and is now with the Be The Change Foundation. In all his work, he has been an innovator in using online tools to increase social capital in local communities, so we're very excited that he'll be the featured guest in October at the Ethos Roundtable.

Please join us at the table!

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Reservations are never mandatory to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in October!

Change of format for the September 16th Ethos Roundtable session

2008-09-11T11:26:00.003-05:00

Unfortunately, our featured guest for Tuesday, Jeff Wood of eHope, will not be able join us as scheduled. He will be with a critically ill patient and his family. Of course, our thoughts and prayers are with them all. We have rescheduled Jeff's presentation at the Ethos Roundtable for Tuesday, December 16th.

However, the Ethos Roundtable will definitely meet this Tuesday, even though Jeff will be unable to be there.

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

Instead of the scheduled presentation, we will be having an "open mike" Ethos Roundtable session.

This doesn't actually mean that there will be a microphone or that anyone will be asked to perform; it does mean that it's an open discussion of any ideas that attendees might want to bring to the table. These ideas might pertain to your own projects, or to presenters that you'd like the Ethos Roundtable to invite to future sessions.

John Hopkins has very graciously agreed to kick off the session on September 16th with a brief presentation about HubUnity, a web-based service that provides tools to collect, organize and manage connections with everything local, such as local schools, groups, businesses, events, and news.

If you'd like to give a brief presentation on an concept or ongoing project that is relevant to ethos and technology for positive social change, please feel free to email us at ethos.roundtable (at) gmail (dot) com. Or just show up!

At the conclusion of the Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

As always, there's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

See you on Tuesday!

eHope at the Ethos Roundtable

2008-08-26T12:16:00.003-05:00

September's featured guest will be Jeffrey Wood, the president and founder of eHope .

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest, Jeffrey Wood, eHope

eHope's mission is "to form caregiving communities which provide non-medical physical, social, spiritual and emotional support, for a loved one who faces a life-threatening illness." Their innovative use of online tools to support caregiving communities is very much in the spirit of the Ethos Roundtable, and we hope that everyone who is interested will join us for this session.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Reservations are never mandatory to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteously to let them know how much to order.

Please join the team from Speakeasy and Asian CDC at the Ethos Roundtable on August 19th

2008-07-20T10:14:00.003-05:00

August's featured guests will be the team from Speakeasy and the Asian Community Development Corporation.

Tuesday, August 19th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Jeremy Liu, Speakeasy and Asian CDC

Speakeasy is a service that offers non-English speaking individuals convenient, free and easy access to a network of well-informed, multilingual “Guides” who would be able to provide on-demand, confidential language interpretation via the telephone. Aside from their interpretation services, Guides would also be able to effectively address callers’ concerns and needs as they are more familiar with the social service options available in this country. In practice, Speakeasy is not a new concept as many multilingual individuals are already serving as informal interpreters for their family members and friends, but often with uneven or inappropriate results. Instead of having to depend solely on this informal social network and to ease some of the unduly burdens placed upon family members and friends, Speakeasy would be able to take advantage of the ubiquity of cell phones and connect non-English speakers to Guides promptly.

Technically, Speakeasy consists of three components – a web service for Guides’ registration and scheduling, a telephone server for call routing and conferencing, and a database that stores Guides’ phone numbers, language capabilities and available times. Callers – any non-English speakers, including immigrants, refugees and other limited English proficiency individuals – would place a call to Speakeasy from any telephone and then be greeted by pre-recorded messages and prompts in English, Cantonese and Mandarin. After callers navigate the voice menu by pressing the appropriate buttons, Speakeasy then queues their calls through the database, and connects them to available Guides who would act as “linguistic liaisons” to city service agencies, community organizations and local businesses via their cell phones. In that sense, Speakeasy transcends geographic, spatial and temporal boundaries as it allows Guides to provide assistance wherever they may be and whenever they are available.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Reservations are never mandatory to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

Please join Quintus Jett at the Ethos Roundtable on July 15th for a discussion about the Gentilly Project!

2008-06-21T16:27:00.004-05:00

Please join us for the next Ethos Roundtable event!

Tuesday, July 15th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Quintus Jett, Gentilly Project

The Gentilly Project uses a prototype mapping system designed to deploy after neighborhood devastation, follow progress, and pinpoint what aid is needed where. By using this new public mapping system, everyone—researchers, developers, politicians, and local citizens—will be able to see what has been done, and what needs to be done, with the sole purpose being to accelerate rebuilding.

The first application of this mapping system is the mapping of the entire district of Gentilly, a severely flood-damaged area in New Orleans, home to over 40,000 residents pre-Katrina. The project's public mapping of over 12,000 homes is the most current, and comprehensive look at the rebuilding progress in the city.

Here are some links to more information about the project:

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Laura Jaseviciute of TechFoundation (lauraj AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in July!

Good2gether at the Ethos Roundtable on June 17th

2008-06-06T16:02:00.003-05:00

Please join us for the next Ethos Roundtable event!

Tuesday, June 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Greg McHale, Good2Gether.Com

Good2gether is a social enterprise that mashes up mainstream media web sites with content provided by mission-based organizations. Nonprofit organizations can participate at no cost.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in June!

The Stargazer Foundation is coming to the Ethos Roundtable on May 20th!

2008-04-22T18:31:00.003-05:00

If you're interested in free resources for emergency management, please join us at our May session:

Tuesday, May 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Art Bushkin, Stargazer.Org

It is our great good luck that Art Bushkin is traveling up to the Boston area to talk about the Stargazer Foundation's online resources for emergency preparedness.

Stargazer has devoted millions of dollars (and untold amounts of effort and expertise) to creating this absolutely free resource for nonprofits, families, and individuals. The foundation's slogan is "online services for social good," which could not be more congruent with the spirit of the Ethos Roundtable. Art will share his vision with us, and will also be available to meet with nonprofit professionals and community leaders who are vitally concerned with emergency management and disaster relief.

At the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Laura Jaseviciute of TechFoundation (lauraj AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in May!

Social Capital Inc at the Ethos Roundtable

2008-03-06T17:26:00.003-05:00

Please join us at the April Ethos Roundtable session!

Tuesday, April 15th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guests: David Crowley and Mike Sances, Social Capital Inc.

Here's what Mike and David have to say about the upcoming session:

'We are in the age of the network yet we don't know our neighbors. The connective capabilities of the evolving computer technologies and the internet are fostering incredible growth in communication networks. The "social" networks abound with millions of users exchanging information through such entities as MySpace, Facebook, and craigslist. There is tremendous potential to harness this communication energy and technology to enhance community involvement, civic engagement, and social capital.

'However the verdict is still out whether the new technologies and the internet can foster civic engagement or isolate and reduce it. As Robert Putnam put it in his book, "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community ", "The Internet may be part of the solution to our civic problem, or it may exacerbate it, but the cyber-revolution was not the cause." In fact, Putnam indicts an older technological innovation—the television—as one of the primary reasons for declining social capital. In Bowling Alone, Putnam also reports a: 25% decline in voting rates; a 40% drop in people attending meetings on town/school affairs; a 50% drop in membership rates in 32 national organizations; and a 45% drop in frequency of having friends over for dinner.

'We need to reverse the tide and build community and civic engagement – now more than ever. SCI believes that the evolving networking technologies can be used as powerful tools for crafting stronger, more
vibrant communities.'

Online reading recommended by Mike and David:

Putnam, Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital, Journal of Democracy 6:1, Jan 1995, 65-78

Ellison, Nicole B. et al, The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites

"On the Web, a new home for Dot dwellers," by Dan Devine, BostonBanner

Debate between David Weinberger (Everything is Miscellaneous) and Andrew Keen (Cult of the Amateur)

More about our featured guests:

David B. Crowley (President and Founder, SCI) brings over fifteen years of leadership in the nonprofit sector to the founding of SCI. Prior to starting SCI, David served as Executive Director of Generations Incorporated, which under his leadership grew into a national model for intergenerational programming. He also started and directed the Kentucky Community Service Commission, a state entity appointed by the Governor responsible for AmeriCorps and other service programs. David graduated from Harvard College in 1991 with an A.B. in Government, and from Woburn High School in 1987.

Mike Sances (Network Coordinator, SCI) has been with SCI since August 2006, starting as an AmeriCorps*VISTA and continuing as Network Coordinator in September 2007. Mike is assisting with the development of SCI's Network Sites, and also provides Drupal support for SCI's community websites. Mike graduated from UMass Amherst in 2006 with a B.A. in political science.

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! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

See you in April!

May, June, and July at the Ethos Roundtable

2008-02-26T11:32:00.004-05:00

We hope that you'll join us for these upcoming sessions:

Tuesday, May 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Art Bushkin, Stargazer.Org

Tuesday, June 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Greg McHale, Good2Gether.Com

Tuesday, July 15th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guests: Quintus Jett, Gentilly Project

Details on the topics of each date will be forthcoming, as our featured guests send in their blurbs.

At the conclusion of each of these Ethos Roundtable sessions, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing free food and drink, it's courteous to let them know how much to order.

Robin Chase at the Ethos Roundtable, March 18th

2008-02-25T10:41:00.008-05:00

Please join us at the next Ethos Roundtable session!

Tuesday, March 18th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Robin Chase, GoLoco

Addressing sustainability and climate change will require changes in the way we do things in both the immediate and long terms. Robin Chase will talk about the unique role businesses can and must play as providers of goods and services, as consumers of goods and services; and as roles models to employees and other companies.

Links recommended by Robin:

Here's a little bit about our honoured guest:

Robin Chase is founder and CEO of GoLoco, an online ridesharing community. GoLoco helps people quickly arrange to share car trips of all lengths between trusted friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and handles online payments from passengers to drivers for their share of the trip costs. GoLoco's innovative combination of social networks and online payment systems recasts how we think about car travel, making it a time for socializing and with a new emphasis on trip efficiency, in order to reduce per passenger costs.

Robin is founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world. Zipcar’s use of the Internet and wireless technology enables rental cars to emulate personal cars. Zipcar's disruptive technology gives its members on-demand access to cars by-the-hour, revolutionizing people's relationship to their cars and improving the quality of urban life for all.

Robin also founded and leads Meadow Networks, a consulting firm, where she is frequently consulted by transportation and planning departments, city and state government agencies, and NGOs about wireless and mesh networking applications in the transportation sector, and impacts on innovation and economic development. She served on the Boston Mayor’s Wireless Task Force, and the Governor-elect’s Transportation Transition Working Committee.

Robin lectures widely and has been frequently featured in the major media including the Today Show, The New York Times, National Public Radio, Wired, Newsweek and Time magazines, as well as several books on entrepreneurship. She has received many awards, including the Massachusetts Governor's Award for Entrepreneurial Spirit, Start-up Woman of the Year, Business Week’s top 10 designers, Fast Company's Fast 50 Champions of Innovation, technology and innovation awards from Fortune, CIO, and Info World Magazines, and numerous environmental awards from national, state, and local governments and organizations.

Robin graduated from Wellesley College and MIT's Sloan School of Management, and was a Harvard University Loeb Fellow. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and three children.

February 19th at the Ethos Roundtable: "Is Wikipedia Helping or Hindering Social Change?"

2008-02-04T18:21:00.000-05:00

Please join us at the next Ethos Roundtable session!

Tuesday, February 19th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Jayne Karolow, LocaModa

Here's the word from our featured guest:

'Last roundtable, I spoke about Wiffiti, in particular its goal of encouraging organic, proactive conversations amongst people who would typically never interact with each other; it's been a highly successful social model. Now I'd like to take a look at the flip side of community media... When information comes into the mix, are we doing more harm than good by venerating "groupthink"?'

Online reading recommended by Jayne:

A brief biography of our featured guest:

'Jayne Karolow is the Director of Community at LocaModa, Inc, a technology company in Cambridge, MA, focused on connecting people and places. She is also a part-time instructor and Emerson Colleage, currently teaching a course entitled "Studies in Digital Media and Culture." In her free time, she enjoys running marathons and cooking in her tiny Somerville kitchen.'

Please save these dates for the Ethos Roundtable!

2008-01-25T17:45:00.000-05:00

We hope that you'll join us for these upcoming sessions:

Tuesday, February 19th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest: Jayne Karolow, LocaModa

Tuesday, March 18th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guest:: Robin Chase, Goloco

Tuesday, April 15th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Featured guests: David Crowley and Mike Sances, Social Capital Inc.

Details on the topics of each date will be forthcoming, as our featured guests send in their blurbs.

At the conclusion of each of these Ethos Roundtable sessions, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

What's Up, Boston? Join the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative at the Ethos Roundtable on January 15th!

2008-01-07T14:51:00.000-05:00

Please join us at at the next Ethos Roundtable session:

Tuesday, January 15th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Special Guests: David Feigenbaum, Rick Borovoy, Meaghan Smith (Boston History & Innovation Collaborative)

"What's Up, Boston," which is a project of the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative, makes innovative use of text messaging to encourage civic engagement in Boston. We are thrilled that three members of the team will be joining us at the Ethos Roundtable to talk about their work.

Here's a summary from the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative 's web site:

As part of efforts to jump-start civic conversations and get people “talking” live and publicly about important topics of common interest, the What’s Up Boston task force has developed an innovative way to facilitate more public dialogue. The pilot public conversation medium, an "electronic whiteboard" though which participants can share their experiences and solutions in real time by sending text messages to a publicly located screen, will be part of the Oct. 4 IdeasBoston conference.

At the conclusion of the Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

Michelle Murrain on the ethical and philosophical implications of open source software for nonprofits

2007-10-15T17:00:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, December 18th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Michelle Murrain, Nonprofit Open Source Initiative

The Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI) recently launched an updated version of its excellent guide, "Choosing and Using Free and Open Source Software: A Primer for Nonprofits." Michelle Murrain, who is coordinator of NOSI and a strategic technology consultant, will lead a discussion on the ethical and philosophical implications for nonprofits. She describes her approach to technology as "conscious, minimalist, neo-luddite."

At the conclusion of the Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

Please join us!

Nolan Bowie at the Ethos Roundtable

2007-10-14T08:06:00.000-05:00

On November 20th, Nolan Bowie, lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School, and senior fellow emeritus at the Berkman Center, will be giving a presentation at the Ethos Roundtable on his vision for global telecommunications.

Tuesday, November 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

At the conclusion of the Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

Please join us!

Keith Taylor, founder of Modest Needs, presents at the Ethos Roundtable on October 30th

2007-10-07T11:03:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, October 30th*
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
Keith Taylor, Modest Needs Foundation

If you're not familiar with Modest Needs Foundation, which uses the web to empower us all as micro-philanthropists, please check out the Modest Needs web site and blog, and prepare to be blown away.

When I consider that Modest Needs gives one-time grants to folks who are at risk of poverty and homelessness, and that 65% (Yes! Sixty-five percent!) of grant recipients become Modest Needs donors, I just want to swoon. Sorry about these rhetorical excesses, but I can't seem to help myself.

* Please note that this date does not coincide with the Boston 501 Tech Club event on October 16th. We changed the date of the Ethos Roundtable event to accommodate Keith's schedule, since he is coming up from New York City.

Please join us for Josh Shortlidge's InterEthos presentation on September 18th!

2007-09-11T09:57:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, September 18th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

When you meet someone on the Internet, how do you know what they are really like? Are they trustworthy? Knowledgeable? Also, how do you share your impressions of them with everybody else? You could go to Facebook and MySpace and LinkedIn and any number of other social networking sites, Google their name and so on. But that's a lot of work! Couldn't there be an easier way? Wouldn't it be nice if you could get to know people right away, right when you encounter them, and with no conversations or clicks required?

On September 18th Josh Shortlidge will present a new technology designed to "catalog and share the character of internet users in real time".

Ethos Profiles are comprised of pointers to documentation on all internet locations. For instance a person's Ethos Profile can include pointers to articles they authored in a local newspaper, to web pages documenting their membership activities in certain activist groups, to their MMOG gaming standings, to their good standing as an EBay seller, to their Myers Briggs personality profile, to their profile on CouchSurfing.com, etc.

These Ethos Profiles will be stored in a shared "ethos" data layer, which will be accessible by everyone, from everywhere on the net, with no clicks, and at zero cost. Ethos profiles will be created for all users, and by all users. We will share our spirit and passions more seamlessly, and thereby more easily forge life-changing relationships.

The basic concept of InterEthos is that whenever you meet a new person via the internet, then you should be able to instantly learn that person's core character, or ethos. Getting to know someone shouldn't require hours of face-to-face conversation or extensive internet searches. Rather, you should be able to glean their ethos at the exact place and instant that you meet them.

For more details please visit the InterEthos wiki. The wiki is public, so you can add your ideas to any page by clicking the "Edit This Page" button. Also, if the topic grabs you, then please click "Join this Space."

Josh Shortlidge's contact information (and old-style profile) can be found on the wiki.

Please join us for our fall presentations: 09/18, 10/30, and 11/20/2007

2007-08-28T13:07:00.000-05:00

Please join us this fall for our series of discussions about technology for positive social change!

September
Josh Shortlidge, founder of InterEthos and co-convener of the Ethos Roundtable
Tuesday, September 18th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

October
Keith Taylor, founder of ModestNeeds.Org
Tuesday, October 30th*
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge
* Please note that this date does not coincide with the Boston 501 Tech Club event on October 23rd.

November
Nolan Bowie, lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School, and senior fellow at the Berkman Center
Tuesday, November 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

This is really an extraordinary fall line-up, so please mark your calendars now. There's no need to make a reservation if you want to attend; please come if you can, and feel free to invite others.

Open mike at the Ethos Roundtable on August 21st - please join us!

2007-08-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, August 21st with be an open mike session at the Ethos Roundtable, and we hope that you'll join us.

Ethos Roundtable
Tuesday,August 21st
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

This doesn't actually mean that there will be a microphone or that anyone will be asked to perform; it does mean that it's an open discussion of any ideas that attendees might want to bring to the table. These ideas might pertain to your own projects, or to presenters that you'd like the Ethos Roundtable to invite to future sessions.

At the conclusion of the Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

Please join us for the SocialMarkets.Org presentation on July 17th

2007-07-08T08:54:00.000-05:00

The next Ethos Roundtable event will be on Tuesday, July 17th, and is scheduled to complement the Boston 501 Tech Club gathering that will follow immediately afterward. Allan Benamer and Jeff Tuller will be giving a presentation on SocialMarkets.Org, their newly founded nonprofit initiative.

Ethos Roundtable
Tuesday, July 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

SocialMarkets.Org embodies a new model for going online to channel untapped charitable dollars from individuals and organizations in the financial services industry. Nonprofit organizations that are serious about funding both programs and outcomes measurement will be particularly interested in Jeff and Allan's approach to transparency and accountability.

At the conclusion of the Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

There's no need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org).

Full disclosure of financial relationship: I serve as a paid consultant to SocialMarkets.Org, so I'm not exactly a disinterested party. However, I am also an avid fan in my own right.

Update on our plans for June 19th

2007-06-11T12:19:00.000-05:00

Norris Prevost will be presenting at the Ethos Roundtable at 4:30 pm on June 19th, and is planning to speak about his "E-One Carribbean" program. He has very graciously allowed us to make an executive summary of E-One Carribbean available online through this blog; to review it, please click here.

Our Ethos Roundtable event will conclude at 6:00 pm. The Boston 501 Tech Clu b will not be meeting on that evening. Instead, all who are interested in the Mass NPtech Working Group will assemble at 6:00 pm in the Charles Hotel conference room where the Ethos Roundtable meets, and then stroll into Harvard Square for an informal dinner together.

Deepening our local nonprofit technology conspiracy

2007-05-31T18:52:00.000-05:00

I love the word "conspiracy". I'm a mediocre Latinist, but by my reckoning, to conspire is "to breath together," or possibly "to be in spirit together." Therefore, I like to refer to the local (or international) network of nonprofit technology advocates as a conspiracy.

As I've previously mentioned in my blog, Michelle Murrain and I have been brainstorming about creating a regional school for circuit riders. It's important to think of a range of options for ensuring that nonprofits in our region get the tech support that they need, and this is a conversation I've had at various times with Khalid Mustafa of the Urban League e, Steve Backman of Database Designs Associates, and Wayne Glynn of Third Sector New England.

At the Boston 501 Club's May event, a few of us began to talk seriously about spinning off a working group for those who are interested in the future of tech support for nonprofit organizations in Massachusetts. Khalid, Steve, and I all felt ready to schedule a meeting, and Claire Murray joined in enthusiastically with offers to find us a good space for convening.

We have now created an email distribution list, "MassNPtechWorkingGroup," for nonprofit technology advocates who are interested in strategic discussions, and we'll see where it goes from there.

Several years ago, I sat in with a group that explored the possibility of a statewide nonprofit technology capacity building network in Massachusetts. The guiding spirits were extremely smart and dedicated people, and it was a noble effort, but the plan did not come to fruition. Alas. If that previous group was unable create an infrastructure and a formal network for service delivery, I doubt that the MassNPtech Working Group can do it - and in fact I don't think we should aspire to do it.

Instead, I think that our working group will probably remain a kind of forum and peer learning community, somewhat akin to the Ethos Roundtable in scope. Perhaps we'll gather for presentations and discussions, and perhaps we'll be "in spirit together." If various members of the group are able to discuss new strategies and forge collaborative relationships, then it will be a modest success.

Please save the date for our June 19th meeting

2007-05-19T19:35:00.000-05:00

Norris Prevost, member of parliament from the Commonwealth of Dominica (and a Kennedy School of Government affiliate), will be giving a presentation on E-One Carribean. This is a nonprofit project that seeks to link nongovernmental organizations in the Carribean with the intellectual, financial, and human resources of the region and its diaspora.

We are eager to learn about Norris's vision of how internet tools can help immigrant communities maintain strong ties with their home cultures and contribute to sustainable economic development.

Ethos Roundtable
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

There's no need to make a reservation if you'd like to attend any of the Ethos Roundtable meetings - just come if you can, and feel free to invite others.

Please join us!

SJ and the One Laptop Per Child Project: Recommended Links

2007-05-10T09:51:00.000-05:00

Here are some links that you may want to review before SJ Klein's presentation about the OLPC project on Tuesday:

Please save the date for our May meeting

2007-04-18T17:58:00.000-05:00

Samuel Klein, also known as "Sj," will be speaking about his work with the One Laptop Per Child project.

Ethos Roundtable
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Business center conference room
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

Our meetings are scheduled to complement the monthly get-togethers of the Boston 501 Tech Club, which begin at 6:00 pm at the Charles Hotel. All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at Boston 501 Tech Club events, and vice versa.

Please join us!

Please save the date for our April meeting

2007-03-25T16:44:00.000-05:00

Gary Goldberger will be speaking about his work with Games For Change, Fablevision, and the Research Centre for Media Psychology.

Ethos Roundtable
Tuesday, April 17th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Business center conference room
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

Our meetings are scheduled to complement the monthly get-togethers of the Boston 501 Tech Club, which begin at 6:00 pm at the Charles Hotel. All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at Boston 501 Tech Club events, and vice versa.

Please join us!

Next Ethos Roundtable event: Tuesday, 03/20, 4:30 pm

2007-03-14T12:04:00.000-05:00

The next Ethos Roundtable event will be on Tuesday, March 20th, and is scheduled to complement the Boston 501 Tech Club gathering that will follow immediately afterward.

Ethos Roundtable
Tuesday, March 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Business center conference room
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

Stan Labovitz of Infotool will be presenting on Tuesday. He is the designer and CEO of the Infotool Organizational Analysis Tool, and lawyer by trade. He was formerly an active OD consultant for 15 years with Organizational Dynamics, Inc (ODI).

InfoTool is a shared online tool used by OD consultants to measure and coach organizations worldwide. It facilitates the detailed analysis of cross-silo operations, interactions across multiple external stakeholder groups, and 360-degree reviews, just to name a few.

In just 2 short years Infotool boasts clients such as Liberty Mutual; Insurance, Staples, Yale, Harvard, Dannon, Nextel, The Cotton Industry, CSC Consulting, and many others. Infotool has resellers in India, South America, Australia, Central America and throughout the US.

Infotool was founded in Boston, Massachusetts by a team of organizational research consultants that needed an effective tool to measure and analyze key organizational business drivers in a simple and cost-effective manner. The team needed a web-based application that was dynamic, interactive and intuitive enough to empower clients to analyze the root cause needs of their employees and their customer's perceptions, as well flexible enough to meet the changing requirements of the marketplace.

At the conclusion of the Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, food, and drink at the 501 Tech Club that is so generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.

All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.

Introducing the latest new technology

2007-02-18T10:38:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of YouTube.

Where have all the developers gone?

2007-02-15T17:58:00.000-05:00

These days, it seems like the constant refrain in the Boston area is, "Deborah, can you find us a database and web developer who is highly qualified and willing to work with small nonprofits?"

It's really difficult right now, but I'm not surprised, because it's part of a larger trend that I started to worry about two years ago.

We've had a real dry spell in funding for nonprofit technology in our region. In the past few years, a lot of extremely talented young techies, who would have been thrilled to take jobs with organizations that strive to make the world a better place, have searched in vain for work. I hear from the ones who have become embittered and taken jobs in other regions or other sectors. It isn't difficult for them to find work, because they have solid skills in the proprietary web and database platforms that are used in every sector.

Fortunately, the developers who have stuck around (in the region and in the nonprofit sector) are very good. Unfortunately, even the most brilliant web and database developer, no matter how utterly devoted to serving the nonprofit sector in Massachusetts, only has 24 hours in any given day.

Meanwhile, the new cohort of young idealists is emerging. These folks tend to be recent college graduates who want to make the world a better place, through open source software. (The latter is variously known as free , libre , FOSS, and FLOSS.) They aren't waiting for nonprofit organizations to create staff positions for them as web and database developers; they are starting their own development and consulting firms, and working on the FLOSS projects that interest them.

This new cohort of idealistic techies - and the tools that they are developing for use in the nonprofit sector - comprise an amazing boon to our work. In the future, we will probably reap benefits that we can't begin to foresee right now.

However, in the meantime, the nonprofit sector in our region is stuck with an embarassing problem of our own making. Most of the FLOSS tools currently under development are not mature enough to serve the immediate, every day needs of nonprofits. So we have a cohort of idealistic young techies who don't want to develop databases or web sites with the platforms that we are currently using, and a cohort of embittered techies who have the skills to work with the platforms we use but have already fled the scene.

What are we going to do? I'd like to encourage my colleagues to brainstorm about this.

(This item is based an article from my blog, "Technology for the Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector.")

Please save the date for our February meeting

2007-02-08T20:29:00.000-05:00

The next meeting of the Ethos Roundtable will be on Tuesday, February 20th, from 4:30 to 6:00 pm at the Charles Hotel.

Shava Nerad, executive director of the Tor Project, will speak about how tools for online anonymity can facilitate civic engagement. This may seem counter-intuitive, but in settings where freedom of expression leaves the speaker open to reprisals, anonymity is a crucial safeguard.

We hope that you'll join us for Shava's fascinating presentation and for the discussion that will follow.

Thinking locally and acting globally with Ethan Zuckerman

2007-01-17T17:12:00.000-05:00

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!

Next steps for the Commonwealth Civic Roundtable

2007-01-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

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 .

Links recommended by Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices Online

2007-01-11T18:42:00.000-05:00

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!

Now online: MassNonprofitNet.Org

2007-01-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

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."

Sunlight, local politics, and information in the internet era

2007-01-08T20:03:00.000-05:00

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."

Social bookmarking with the Ethos Roundtable

2006-12-23T11:29:00.000-05:00

If you have web links that are relevant to the Ethos Roundtable's interests, it's easy to share them online by using Delicious.

If you've never used Delicious before, register for a free account first. Otherwise, go directly to login.
Post the link that you'd like to share with members of the Ethos Roundtable.
Type in the name of the link in the "description" field, and some brief notes about why it's of interest in the "notes" field.
Type in ethosroundtable in the "tags" field, and hit "save."

That's all it takes! The web link that you are sharing will (eventually) appear on this blog - in the right hand column, under the heading "From the Ethos Roundtable del.icio.us tagstream."

Please save the date for our January meeting

2006-12-21T12:16:00.000-05:00

The next meeting of the Ethos Roundtable will be on Tuesday, January 16th, from 4:30 to 6:00 pm at the Charles Hotel.

Ethan Zuckerman, one of the co-founders of Global Voices Online, will discuss this facinating non-profit global citizens’ media project, sponsored by and launched from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law Schoo l.

Its motto is "The world is talking. Are you listening?"

I can't imagine an initiative more congruent with our interest in using technology to expand ethos and support positive social change.

Please join us!

The M. N. Adamov Memorial Fund: Bridging language, culture, governments, and (not so incidentally) the digital divide

2006-12-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

The Ethos Roundtable is much obliged to Harris Sussman for yesterday's presentation on the work of the M. N. Adamov Memorial Fund.

The Adamov Fund's efforts to bring computers to blind university students in Saint Petersburg, Russia are especially intriguing.

If you have suggestions for the Adamov Fund or links to resources, please post them here as blog comments.

What's it all about, Ethos Roundtable?

2006-12-17T07:44:00.002-05:00

Here are some questions that I've been asked recently about the Ethos Roundtable, along with some answers:

Q: Is the Ethos Roundtable a nonprofit organization?
A: No, we are just an informal group.

Q: What do you do?
A: As a group, we meet once a month for discussions and presentations. As individuals, we are actively involved in a wide range of projects.

Q: How did your group form?
A: Four of us (Josh Shortlidge, Naava Frank, Anne Marie Bellavance, and Deborah Elizabeth Finn) had lunch together. We did some brainstorming about topics that interested us, and had such a positive experience that we decided to gather on a regular basis, and to invite others to join the conversation.

Q: What does "ethos" mean?
A: Please see the bottom of this web page for both a brief and an extended explanation.

Q: With what other organizations are you affiliated?
A: TechFoundation underwrites our meeting space, and our meetings are scheduled to complement Boston 501 Tech Club events. However, these arrangements are all very informal, so please don't assume that any official endorsement is involved.

Q: Can you give me money for a project?
A: We don't have an operating budget, let alone a grant program. Sorry about that.

Q: Can you help me with my computer or my web site?
A: As a group, we do not offer technology support services to individuals or organizations. Sorry about that.

Q: Can you give me advice about how to expand ethos or use technology for positive social change?
A: If you have a project in mind, and would like to solicit feedback by presenting it at an Ethos Roundtable meeting, we may be able to put you on the agenda. Please send us an email at ethos.roundtable (at) gmail (dot) com.

Social capital "factoids" from the Saguaro Seminar

2006-12-09T13:51:00.000-05:00

The Saguaro Seminar is headquartered at the Kennedy School of Government, right next door to the Ethos Roundtable's customary meeting place.

I was browsing through the seminar's web site, and came upon a page devoted to social capital "factoids." Here's a sample:

Joining one group cuts your odds of dying over the next year in half. Joining two groups cuts it by three quarters.

What a great excuse to join the Ethos Roundtable! Our next meeting is on December 19th. If you stick around and attend the Boston 501 Tech Club, which meets immediately after the Ethos Roundtable, you can easily boost your life expectancy in the next year by another 25%.

Links recommended by Harris Sussman of the M. N. Adamov Memorial Fund

2006-12-06T22:16:00.000-05:00

Harris Sussman of the M.N. Adamov Memorial Fund will be making a presentation at the next meeting of the Ethos Roundtable, and has been kind enough to recommend some links for us to review:

Coming soon to the world wide web: MassNonprofitNet.Org

2006-12-01T12:23:00.000-05:00

Odd but true: Unlike most states in the U.S., Massachusetts does not have an association for nonprofit professionals or the organizations that employ them.

The historical reasons for this are too complex for my mind to encompass, but my best guess is that the biggest obstacle is what has been called "a fractious and exclusionary civic culture."

Fortunately, things are changing. The Nonprofit Working Group (sometimes known as the Nonprofit Strategy Working Group) is making steady progress toward an association that will be known as the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network. The Boston Foundation is providing substantial funding, Third Sector New England is providing fiscal sponsorship, and a whole host of local worthies are bringing their knowledge and influence to bear on this project.

Susan Nicholl has been brought on as the project manager, and I've had a few conversations with her about MassNonprofitNet.Org, the web site that is currently in development. Although a great web site is no substitute for a spirit of collaboration, I'm hoping that the new spirit that exists in Massachusetts can be supported by an online presence that makes use of Web2.0 (or NetSquared) tools. I also hope that if you have ideas you'll share them by emailing Susan at nonprofitstrategygroup (at) gmail (dot) com.

Please save the date for our December meeting

2006-11-29T17:20:00.000-05:00

The next meeting of the Ethos Roundtable will be on Tuesday, December 19th, from 4:30 to 6:00 pm at the Charles Hotel.

Harris Sussman of the M.N. Adamov Memorial Fund will discuss his organization's efforts to foster access to information and communication technologies among blind people in Russia.

The Ethos Roundtable is interested in accessibility, universal design, and using technology for positive social change, because we believe that they are congruent with our conversations about the expansion of ethos.

Please join us!

Another Roundtable Reconvenes

2006-11-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

After a hiatus, Commonwealth Civic Roundtable is reconvening on December 8th! This is the group that brought you CivicSource, the free online civic calendar for Massachusetts.

The Civic Roundtable's goal is rebuild civic life in the 21st century by promoting more effective participation in community life and public affairs. The participants are working together to:

Create a leadership forum for the exchange of ideas and information about civic engagement,
Support new and existing programs that promote civic engagement, and,
Advance opportunities to expand civic participation and promote civic health.

Some of the organizations that participate in the Commonwealth Civic Roundtable are:

Some topics proposed for discussion and action at the December 8th meeting are:

What can be learned from the most recent election about efforts to improve civic life?
What practical steps can be taken to encourage people to "stay checked in?"
How can individudals stay engaged in the state policy process, and how can they be active in their local communities?
What can organizations and communities do to foster civic engagement and the building of bridges between diverse groups?

If you're interested in learning more about the Commonwealth Civic Roundtable, or in attending the upcoming meeting, please email John Schneider at jschneider (at) massinc (dot) org.

Mission-Based Massachusetts: An email distribution list

2006-11-26T14:59:00.000-05:00

Mission-Based Massachusetts is an email distribution list for people who care about nonprofit, philanthropic, educational, community-based, grassroots, socially responsible, and other mission-oriented organizations in the Bay State.

Announcements about meetings of the Ethos Roundtable are regularly posted to the MBM list.

It is a moderated, flame-free email distribution list that is open to anyone who is interested in the topic and willing to adhere to the basic principles of civil society.

The name of the group was chosen to encourage inclusion of persons from all sectors and demographic categories, rather than just nonprofit and philanthropic professionals.

If you'd like to browse recent messages, please go to t he MBM archive. If you'd like to see a map of group members' locations, please go to the MBM community map.

You are very welcome to join the list, and to invite others to join! Because it is an "opt-in" list, your email address will not be added unless you confirm that you wish to participate. To do that, just send a blank email to this address:

mission-based-massachusetts-SUBSCRIBE (at) yahoogroups (dot) com

You can also stay up to date on messages posted to the list through the MBM RSS feed.

Ethos, social capital, civic engagement, caring, and connectedness: A few links

2006-11-25T16:01:00.000-05:00

I return to these links again and again, as I work to understand the unique ethos of Massachusetts.

What links would you like to nominate for this blog's permanent collection? Please feel free to add your own, and to comment on these.