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pHi all,/p pMy name is Michael Brooks and I’m working with Henry Poole on a strategy paper. We are creating a report synthesizing some of the most interesting work in the world of strategy and social change. nbsp;We have read Clay Shirky, Markos Zuniga and Saul Alinsky for a theoretical grounding. Now we’re looking for examples of creative, audacious, smart, and successful approaches to:/ppa href=http://civicactions.com/blog/2010/sep/02/we_are_looking_examples_amazing_breakthroughs_progressive_change_got_any_ideas_3 target=_blankread more/a/p

pCivicActions has been working with Google's “a href=http://code.google.com/speed/Make the Web Faster/a” project team to make some (last minute) improvements that make Drupal 7 faster./ppa href=http://civicactions.com/blog/2010/aug/31/drupal-7-faster-than-ever target=_blankread more/a/p

p img src="/sites/nten/files/images/sarah_durham.gif" border="0" align="left" width="61" height="66" / strongSarah Durham, a href="http://www.bigducknyc.com/"Big Duck/a/strong /p p We're all nerds when it comes to new media. /p p No matter how many a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?scp=3amp;sq=multitaskingamp;st=cse"studies tell us that that the gadgets we're hooked on aren't good for us/a, most of us technology nerds still can't get enough. In part, it's because the technology is now so fast, easy and cheap to use that simply investing our time to figure it out seems like a pleasure. After all, I was that kid who stayed up late playing video games. (Ah, Joust... how I miss thee.) Now I'm that grown up who stays up late building communities for my obscure personal interests on Ning, and aimlessly chatting with my long-lost friends from elementary school on Facebook, and even (cough, cough) playing on a href="/www.polyvore.com"Polyvore/a.  /p p At work, all of this gadgetry often comes in handy, too. After all, who doesn't revel in the wonders of the innovative microsites, campaigns, and transparent goodness that Beth Kanter and Allison Fine wonderfully illustrate in quot;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Networked-Nonprofit-Connecting-Social-Change/dp/0470547979"The Networked Nonprofit/aquot;? I sure do. One of the reasons I love the NTEN community is that I can revel in the joys of hanging out with other geeks like me. (That means you.)    /p p Then there's the flip side: how do we keep these exciting initiatives moving ahead despite such limited staff time to devote to them? Sure, it's easy for that board member to thump her fist on the table and exclaim, quot;We need to use the Facebook!quot; (I know: I love it too when folks call it emthe/em Facebook.) /p p But we all know it's just not that simple.   /p p strongWhen the Fruit Doesn't Much Resemble the Tree/strong /p p Projects of all kinds start with a flurry of activity. If they're digitally driven, they're often conceived, designed, written, and launched in a matter of days -- often with a special name, logo, tagline, color palette, and other unique branding. Staff spend all their mojo getting them up and going and then watering them, like seedlings, as they bloom into full-blown advocacy, outreach, or fundraising projects in a matter of weeks. To work the gardening metaphor even harder, it's almost like the nonprofit is a peach tree bearing fruit that looks more like oranges and lemons: vaguely related, perhaps -- but not much.   /p p Over time, these special projects can start to wither: staff time to devote to them gets limited as new initiatives get started, the community grows so large it requires more time to manage -- who'll be the mayor of the lemons? -- or it's hard to respond in real time to conversations that unfold.   /p p So how can we launch innovative digital initiatives that use all of this rocking technology to advance our missions without driving ourselves stark, raving mad and entirely confusing our target audiences?   /p p strongWhat's a Poor Nonprofit to Do?/strong /p p In my book, quot;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Brandraising-Nonprofits-Visibility-Through-Communications/dp/0470527536/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1280782535amp;sr=8-1"Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Money and Visibility Through Smart Communications/aquot; (Jossey-Bass, 2010), I adapted two tried-and-true for-profit marketing concepts, empositioning /emandem personality/em, for nonprofit use.  /p p emPositioning/em is the big idea we want to establish in the minds of our target audiences. /p p emPersonality/em is the tone and style we'll use as we communicate.   /p p When we help organizations shift their communications here at Big Duck, we often start by establishing clear organizational positioning and personality regardless of whether it's a branding project, website, campaign, etc. That's because it's critical to have some way to weave together all of the communications. /p p And that thing has to emerge from a nonprofit's vision and mission above all else.   /p p For example, let's say the Lead Pencil Association of America (names changed to protect the innocent) launches a revolutionary 'Lead the way' campaign to get folks to throw out pens and go back to the classic yellow #2 pencils. They use a special look and feel (yellow with pink and grey, perhaps), Facebook page, Twitter stream, and so forth, and it's very different from the organization's typical blue and black, rather serious branding. You can bet that the organization's leadership wants to capture the 10,000 people who're connected to the project and be sure they know who's behind the campaign. Better yet, let's convert them to donors or advocates for future Lead Pencil Association work. But with the media and the messaging so unconnected, that's going to be a seriously uphill battle.   /p p On the other hand, a well-defined brand like Apple computers makes sure that every campaign they launch ties back to their core positioning and personality. Remember the quot;a href="http://www.icouple.sg/blog/tech/893"Think different/aquot; campaign featuring Ghandi and Einstein? Or the quot;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac"I'm a Mac/I'm a PC/aquot; commercials of the past few years? Both are different campaigns conceptually, but they're united by a common underlying strategy about how Apple wants to be perceived. Someone who participates in a social media action as part of the 'Think Different' campaign can't help but know that it's an initiative of Apple computers, right?   /p p strongLet's Grow Peaches/strong /p p What I love about empositioning/em and empersonality/em is that they're actually time and cost saving tools any nonprofit can use. Sure, it's work to figure out what they should be for your organization and build buy-in for them. But once that's done, it becomes so much easier and faster to grow peaches. /p p When each initiative you launch clearly links back to the 'mother brand' of the organization, you're building a much more cohesive and valuable community no matter what technology you're using. /p p Want more about how to do it? Well of course, there's a href="http://www.amazon.com/Brandraising-Nonprofits-Visibility-Through-Communications/dp/0470527536/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8amp;s=booksamp;qid=1280782535amp;sr=8-1"my book/a, or you can watch or participate in a href="http://www.nten.org/events/webinar/2010/09/21/webinar-series-brandraising"the brandraising series of webinars/a I'm doing with NTEN.  /p p Here's to tasty peaches. /pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nten/~4/yfweeJST0Sg" height="1" width="1"/

The User Education team has been single-sourcing (a methodology for reusing content) for several years. We started shortly after I arrived at Blackbaud about 12 years ago by using basic conditions to identify the content#39;s purpose, such as quot;Printquot; or quot;Helpquot; and quot;USquot; or quot;UK.quot; Then about six years ago we replaced conditions with the bigger and better attributes, still single-sourcing, just more so. Attributes, authoring elements that better manage complex schemes defining conditional relationships, such as [(CRM + RP + Print) - RE] , allowed us to identify increasingly intricate relationships in our content and filter our output based on each product#39;s requirements. But the underlying approach with both conditions and attributes was to repurpose our content, delivering the same content filtered for different output formats. This era is finally coming to an end. pTo better serve Blackbaud#39;s product lines, and in turn our customers, instead of repurposing, we will start reassembling. Granted, in practice, all single-source approaches involve some degree of both repurposing and reassembling, but the strategic goal differs. With repurposing you create content that works in several output formats, and you then convert the content as needed. In our case we converted content for print and online formats. Reassembly takes this a step further. Not only do you convert your content based on output but you reorganize it based on audience, purpose, or product line. /p pWith this new goal comes a very new workflow. Reassembly rules out the conventional linear authoring formula. You no longer create a chapter. You create the various pieces necessary for a chapter (stand-alone topics) and assemble the pieces as needed. For example, you have five topics, A, B, C, D, and E. When building content for the comprehensive BBEC Constituent Record document, you need to include all five topics, but when building content for the less comprehensive ResearchPoint constituent document, you need only A, C, and E. These are the same three topics also used in the BBEC doc. You are simply reassembling them for a different purpose. /p pIn theory, this seems simple enough, but in implementation difficulties arise, primarily in topic management. Instead of managing one document - a chapter - you are now managing the hundreds of small topics that eventually need to be assembled into a chapter. In addition to leaning this new workflow, the User Education team is also taking on the challenge of a new tool set. Our existing tool adheres to the book metaphor and works best with large chunks of content, such as fully created chapters. Our new tools favor modular writing and assist in managing a large number of topics, topics that will eventually be compiled into a chapter, a book, an online help system, and Knowledgebase articles for each of our product lines. /p pOnce fully implemented, the obvious benefits of this new approach to an old methodology are improved content reuse and team efficiency, but modular writing - a key element to reassembly - also means better documentation sets for our customers. Exactly why is modular writing better? I#39;ll save this explanation for another post. Until then, please let me know what you think of this article and if there are other topics you would like to see addressed. /pimg src="http://forums.blackbaud.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=157643" width="1" height="1"

pRecently, I have spent some time researching, setting up, and designing a Wordpress.org site. I even went through a re-design to learn more about themes, PHP, and CSS. How else do you learn except by practice?/pp In the process, I learned some things about how to optimize the user experience and enhance your Wordpress.org site on the Internet. I#39;m still learning as I go but I#39;ll share my current recommendations and update as needed. Some of my recommendations can be useful for many types of websites. Mostly, my recommendations are all about making your site accessible and easy to find. Because I have so many recommendations, I#39;ve broken this post into a series of three. /ppbPart One - /bbr //pblockquotebGoogle Feedburner/bbr /Don#39;t rely on a basic RSS feed of your site. Use a website like Google Feedburner which enables you to track the number of people following your feed but it also provides other services to help users subscribe to your content. For example, you can set up a service to allow users to email subscribe to your content. Whenever you publish a new blog post, users receive an email update with the content. Spend some time exploring the Feedburner options, there are many to choose from - basic to advanced.br /a href="http://feedburner.google.com" target="_blank"http://feedburner.google.com/abr //blockquoteblockquotebr /bLearn from Peer Bloggers/bbr /Find as many bloggers who produce content similar to yours. Read their blogs, check out their website setups, find out what tools they use, and follow them on Google Reader. The best ideas for how to optimize and make the best blog or website have probably been done previously. Or, something a peer is doing may spark a new idea for your own site. Don#39;t feel as if you are alone in the ocean. Be proactive in your research.br //blockquoteblockquotebSearch Engine Optimization/bbr /For Wordpress.org, find a plug-in which provides search engine optimization (SEO) for your blog. SEO helps search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others not only find your content but provide search users with better search results. Excellent SEO can also move you up the search results. Everyone wants to be #1, right?br / What kind of SEO can you do? For example, every page of your blog needs to have your blog title and your name (if applicable) in the title. Also, where applicable each page should have appropriate meta data. I use the bAll in One SEO Pack /bplug-in./blockquoteblockquotebXML Sitemaps/bbr /XML sitemaps help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.I use bGoogle XML Sitemaps./b For a background on sitemaps, see a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps" target="_blank"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps/a. br //blockquoteblockquotebShareMe or Sociable links/bbr /Make it easy for people to brag about your post on other websites. What ShareMe and Sociable do, is provide icons or a tool at the bottom (or top) of your post to easily share your content on their favorite social media websites. I started out using the ShareMe plug-in but switched to Sociable plug-in because I liked having users click my favorite social media websites with cute little icons at the bottom of my posts. I also took it a step further and used an icon website to change the Sociable icons to icons I like.br //blockquoteblockquotebPublish to Facebook, Twitter, etc/bbr /This one is kinda obvious. Every website you or your organization uses should publish your recent blog posts. You write a new blog, you better announce it on Twitter, Facebook etc. You never know which social media site your users prefer to use. By providing links to your recent news or content on all your websites, you provide them many different access points. For example, when we publish a blog on Blackbaud.com, it often updates the feed on our Blackbaud Facebook page and when it#39;s really good, it gets promoted on Twitter.br //blockquoteblockquotebUse Hashtags on Twitterbr //bWhen you do publish a new update to Twitter with your blog post, use a hashtag at the end of the tweet. For example, you write a new blog post about an event going on in your city. Provide the title of the blog, a link to the blog post (better be a shortened link like bit.ly), and then at the end tag the tweet update with as many hashtags as you can fit like #charleston #nonprofit, etc. Using a hashtag helps other users find content. For example, I can search on #running to find all the most recent tweets about running. Someone may want to find more information about events in your area or about your topic. Just don#39;t provide really abstract hashtags. You#39;re looking for a short hashtag that can aggregate into a common hashtag across all of twitter. For more information about how to use hashtags, use a search engine and google quot;how to use hashtagsquot;, resources galore appear.br //blockquotepnbsp;bUp next, Part Two!/b br //pimg src="http://forums.blackbaud.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=155218" width="1" height="1"

Whole Gang, originally uploaded by travelertrish. The team from Hayden Hall.

a href=http://www.nonprofitmanagementresources.orgimg style=width: 512px; height: 677px; src=http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/nonprofitmanagementanswers.JPG/abrbrbrfont size=2span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;As readers of this blog know, I'm working with /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.tsne.org/Third Sector New England/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; and the /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.tbf.org/Boston Foundation/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;, who have joined forces /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2010/1/13/4425245.htmlto create a free online search and aggregation engine that is designed to deliver answers to questions that nonprofit managers in Massachusetts frequently ask/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;. /spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;br style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;Although the web site, /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.nonprofitmanagementresources.org/Nonprofit Management Resources,/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;* has not yet been launched publicly, we have been given /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.tbf.org/TBF's/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; and /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.tsne.org/TSNE/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;'s blessing to provide the /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://ethosroundtable.blogspot.comEthos Roundtable/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; with an overview of the strategy and history of the project and a special preview of the /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2010/3/1/4469462.htmlworking prototype/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;./spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;br style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;Tuesday, September 21, 2010/spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;4:30 - 6:30 pm/spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;a style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.charleshotel.com/Charles Hotel/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;, Harvard Square/spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;a style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.charleshotel.com/directions.htm1 Bennett StreetbrCambridge, MA 02138, USA/abr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;br style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;This will be the kick off of a new season for the Ethos Roundtable after its summer hiatus./spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.tsne.org/site/c.ghLUK3PCLoF/b.1354271/k.FCAD/Who_We_Are__Third_Sector_New_England_Staff.htm/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; a href=http://www.tsne.org/site/c.ghLUK3PCLoF/b.1354271/k.FCAD/Who_We_Are__Third_Sector_New_England_Staff.htmspan style=font-weight: bold;Ndlela Nkobi/span/a (the esteemed web associate at /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.tsne.org/Third Sector New England/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;) and I will be the co-presenters. We are offering you a special sneak peak at a work that is still very much in progress./spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;br style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;The a href=http://ethosroundtable.blogspot.comEthos Roundtable/a session will be followed immediately by the /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://groups.nten.org/501TechBostonBoston 501 Tech Club/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; event, which also takes place at the /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.charleshotel.com/directions.htmCharles Hotel/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;. The /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://groups.nten.org/501TechBostonTech Club/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; is for technology professionals in the region who work for or with nonprofit organizations. All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://groups.nten.org/501TechBostonTech Club/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; gatherings, and vice versa./spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;br style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;No reservations are ever needed for /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://ethosroundtable.blogspot.comEthos Roundtable/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; sessions, but if you plan to attend the /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://groups.nten.org/501TechBostonTech Club/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; event, then you need to notify span style=font-weight: bold;Kathleen Sherwin/span of /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://www.techfoundation.orgTechFoundation/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since /spana style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; href=http://techfoundation.org/TechFoundation/aspan style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order./spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;br style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;See you on September 21st!/span /fontbrbrfont size=1span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;*nbsp; This project has had several other working titles, including www.NonprofitManagementAnswers.org and www.NonprofitManagement101.org./span/fontbr

pAuthor: Lacey Kruger/pimg src="http://www.connectioncafe.com/assets/author-photos/lacey_kruger-thumb.jpg" style="float:left; margin:5px;" alt="" / pWhile reviewing some new wireframes with a client the other day, we began to compare their own, nonprofit website with some other, commercial sites. In a way, commercial websites have it easy. Typically, they have tangible products orimg height="214" src="http://www.connectioncafe.com/assets/blog-images/relationship_matured_cash_it_in_237155.jpg" style="float: right; vertical-align: top;" width="300" alt="Selling the Relationship" / services to sell, making it really clear what they want users to do on the site (buy, buy, buy!). /p pNonprofit websites donrsquo;t usually sell something tangible. Sure, you may have an eCommerce store or even a Virtual Gift store, but there is always a bigger message than just ldquo;buy, buy, buyrdquo; or even ldquo;donate, donate, donaterdquo;. /p pMy clientrsquo;s feedback on their new wireframe was something along the lines of, ldquo;When I visit a site like Convio.com, I immediately know what you want me to do. Here, itrsquo;s not as clear. What is it we want people to do on our site?rdquo; I responded that itrsquo;s more challenging for nonprofits because yoursquo;re trying to sell a relationship, which can be defined differently for each organization. For some organizations, a relationship may mean that users rely on your site as a source for news on a specific topic. For others, it may mean that they care about your cause and simply want to keep up with what yoursquo;re doing to make a difference. Sure, donating and possibly buying something should be part of that relationship, but not likely at first. It takes time to cultivate relationships and your website should provide something valuable for users and offer a positive experience so that theyrsquo;ll ultimately value your organization./p pTake some time to consider your online goals with respect to your relationship with a constituent. I can bet that your goals may include ldquo;increase donationsrdquo; or ldquo;build our house filerdquo;. What are you offering in return? Yoursquo;ve got to sell a relationship, so what does that look like for you?/p pnbsp;/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?a=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?a=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?i=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?a=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?i=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?a=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?i=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?a=_u_r3j9PjPo:idtljN1czC4:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/ConnectionCafe?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

pThe second day of the Local Phliantropy Workshop, kept in Odorheiu Secuiesc Romania, put on the same table NGO and IT mentors. NGO, found about a lot of tools that will solve the IT problems. There were 4 contents: Communication, Social Media, Web Site Building, Productivity. All the NGO's exposed their problems, and IT mentors, tried to come with the best solution. I were at the Socia Media "table", and we spoken about Facebook, Twitter,nbsp; Linked, Blogs, and how this tools will improve your popularity. He have a great fun here, and also learn about a lot of interesting things... See you later/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=HCKcxPwpq8c:MncRqgSYMek:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=HCKcxPwpq8c:MncRqgSYMek:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=HCKcxPwpq8c:MncRqgSYMek:aKCwKftKxY0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?i=HCKcxPwpq8c:MncRqgSYMek:aKCwKftKxY0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=HCKcxPwpq8c:MncRqgSYMek:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

pEach month you ask us hundreds of questions. To help anticipate your questions in September, we#39;ve listed the top 10 questions, by module, for September of 2009 on a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/support/faqs/fe7.aspx" target="_blank"The Financial Edge FAQs/a. You#39;ll also find answers to the most popular questions from last week and information about critical issues./p pHere are the top questions you asked in August:/p ul style="LIST-STYLE-TYPE:square;" liHow to void checks, bank drafts, and EFT notices: a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/esupport/esupport.asp?resource=amp;number=0amp;id=BB59007" target="_blank"BB59007/a /li liHow to troubleshoot report totaling problems and missing accounts (includes demo img alt="Demo Image" align="middle" src="http://www.blackbaud.com/images/support/news/video.jpg" width="16" height="16" /): a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=contentamp;id=BB63184" target="_blank"BB63184/a li(Resolved) Blackbaud Application Hosting Service Disruption Notification - All Applications (Atlanta Data Center): a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/esupport/esupport.asp?resource=amp;number=0amp;id=BB707306" target="_blank"BB707306/a/li liHow to reconcile to General Ledger: a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/esupport/esupport.asp?resource=amp;number=0amp;id=BB3358" target="_blank"BB3358/a/li liHow to run the General Ledger Report in Summary or Detail (includes demo img alt="Demo Image" align="middle" src="http://www.blackbaud.com/images/support/news/video.jpg" width="16" height="16" /): a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=contentamp;id=BB109130" target="_blank"BB109130/a liHow to reprint a check: a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=contentamp;id=BB44059" target="_blank"BB44059/a liHow to install or update The Financial Edge: a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/esupport/esupport.asp?resource=amp;number=0amp;id=BB273248" target="_blank"BB273248/a/li liHow to import journal entry transactions: a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=contentamp;id=BB53174" target="_blank"BB53174/a /li liHow to lock or unlock optional modules or change the number of user licenses: a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=contentamp;id=BB518546" target="_blank"BB518546/a liHow to add a new account (includes demo img alt="Demo Image" align="middle" src="http://www.blackbaud.com/images/support/news/video.jpg" width="16" height="16" /): a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=contentamp;id=BB75878" target="_blank"BB75878/a/li/ul pTalk to you soon!/pimg src="http://forums.blackbaud.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=157401" width="1" height="1"

pimg class="mceItem" style="margin: 5px; float: right;" src="../../sites/netsquared.org/files/u8710/N2ThinkTank.jpg" alt="" width="150" /Let's face it: finding good volunteers is tough.nbsp;A good volunteer can be a priceless addition to the team, but the process of matching the expertise and timing needs of the project to the skills and availabilities of potential volunteers can take time and resources away from your organization. This month's Net2 Think Tank is exploring ways that organizations can use the internet to make finding volunteers more efficient and effective. Share your tools, tactics, and best practices with the NetSquared Community!/ppspan style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;"Topic:/span/ppa href="http://netsquared.org/blog/claire-sale/net2-think-tank-finding-volunteers" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=wIKkFchlbzU:GCfE1xsiVkI:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=wIKkFchlbzU:GCfE1xsiVkI:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=wIKkFchlbzU:GCfE1xsiVkI:aKCwKftKxY0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?i=wIKkFchlbzU:GCfE1xsiVkI:aKCwKftKxY0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=wIKkFchlbzU:GCfE1xsiVkI:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

pI would like to see marked tourist routes in Bucharest, that would contain monuments, important places, buildings etc... Also marking monuments and other important places is very necessary. Also, maps should be available in important places./pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=1DU-EEhwWsE:To0lu7kggnI:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=1DU-EEhwWsE:To0lu7kggnI:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=1DU-EEhwWsE:To0lu7kggnI:aKCwKftKxY0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?i=1DU-EEhwWsE:To0lu7kggnI:aKCwKftKxY0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=1DU-EEhwWsE:To0lu7kggnI:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

pDo you know what drupal or civicrm are? Or how IT volounteers can help your organization?/p pDuring the last session on the day one of the Local Philathropy Workshop in Romania we were trying to find out and define the ways in which Romanian ITC volounteers could help local NGOs using specific tools that they have the knowlege about and experience in using./p pnbsp;/p pListen to Piotrek Szostkowski from CiviCRM talking about this program as a great example of how ITC can support NGOs/p div class="field field-type-emvideo field-field-external-video" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" div class="emvideo emvideo-video emvideo-youtube"div class="emfield-emvideo emfield-emvideo-youtube" div id="emvideo-youtube-flash-wrapper-1"object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="350" width="425" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/xOuZEfGlnss?fs=1amp;rel=0amp;enablejsapi=1amp;playerapiid=ytplayeramp;fs=1" id="emvideo-youtube-flash-1" param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xOuZEfGlnss?fs=1amp;rel=0amp;enablejsapi=1amp;playerapiid=ytplayeramp;fs=1" / param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/ param name="quality" value="best"/ param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/ param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"/ param name="scale" value="noScale"/ param name="salign" value="TL"/ param name="FlashVars" value="playerMode=embedded" / param name="wmode" value="transparent" / /object/div/div/div /div /div /divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=Lgcll01p_cM:D1GPQmYoTio:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=Lgcll01p_cM:D1GPQmYoTio:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=Lgcll01p_cM:D1GPQmYoTio:aKCwKftKxY0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?i=Lgcll01p_cM:D1GPQmYoTio:aKCwKftKxY0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=Lgcll01p_cM:D1GPQmYoTio:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

p/pdiv class="field field-type-emvideo field-field-external-video" div class="field-items" div class="field-item odd" div class="emvideo emvideo-video emvideo-youtube"div class="emfield-emvideo emfield-emvideo-youtube" div id="emvideo-youtube-flash-wrapper-2"object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="350" width="425" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/xOuZEfGlnss?fs=1amp;rel=0amp;enablejsapi=1amp;playerapiid=ytplayeramp;fs=1" id="emvideo-youtube-flash-2" param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xOuZEfGlnss?fs=1amp;rel=0amp;enablejsapi=1amp;playerapiid=ytplayeramp;fs=1" / param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/ param name="quality" value="best"/ param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/ param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"/ param name="scale" value="noScale"/ param name="salign" value="TL"/ param name="FlashVars" value="playerMode=embedded" / param name="wmode" value="transparent" / /object/div/div/div /div /div /div pa href="http://netsquared.org/blog/alicja-peszkowska/itc-solutions-ngos" target="_blank"read more/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=z8x5JKCb7NA:q2MOF84Ghak:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=z8x5JKCb7NA:q2MOF84Ghak:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=z8x5JKCb7NA:q2MOF84Ghak:aKCwKftKxY0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?i=z8x5JKCb7NA:q2MOF84Ghak:aKCwKftKxY0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=z8x5JKCb7NA:q2MOF84Ghak:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

pA good day at this workshop, found out alot about other programs, organisations, and networked with alot of "geek" persons.br /The first day mainly for getting to know each other and discuss alot about theoretical and ideal philantropy and charity; and after those discutions i realized that alot of us are good, charitable persons, but we all see it as just being a good person, as being polite, or just doing what we feel is good./p pIt had a great start, from my point of view, with an interesting exchange of oppinioins./p pSee you later./p pnbsp;/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=eFpuq7OrjAE:Rb34f5E5IJc:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=eFpuq7OrjAE:Rb34f5E5IJc:dnMXMwOfBR0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=eFpuq7OrjAE:Rb34f5E5IJc:aKCwKftKxY0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?i=eFpuq7OrjAE:Rb34f5E5IJc:aKCwKftKxY0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?a=eFpuq7OrjAE:Rb34f5E5IJc:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/NetsquaredBlogs?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a /div

The Plone community, led by Plone 4 Release Manager Eric Steele, just pushed out Plone 4, a huge upgrade to my favorite content management system.  Incorporating over three years of work from over 300 contributors, there’s a lot to be excited about.  Plone 4 takes Plone to new heights of speed, usability and just plain good looks.  Here at Groundwire, we’ve been developing several client projects against pre-release versions of Plone 4, so we’ve already had a few months to put some mileage on it.  Here’s what I’m most excited about:

1) New graphical HTML editor: TinyMCE

For most day-to-day Plone users, the graphical HTML editor is Plone.  Plone has shipped with a graphical HTML editor included since Plone 2.1 in 2005, and it still amazes me that some major open-source CMS projects don’t include one out of the box.  (Yes, I know some users like “choice,” but that’s no excuse for not having a sensible default.)

Plone 4 now includes TinyMCE as its graphical HTML editor, replacing Kupu, which has served us long and well.  (And which continues to be an optional add-on.)  TinyMCE deliers a much more polished, user-friendly and customizable content editing experience

I waxed enthusiastic about TinyMCE when it was first released as an add-on for Plone 3, and my love for it has only grown deeper with time.  Our not-so-HTML-savvy clients love it, too.

2) New default theme: “Sunburst”

For the first time in its 9-year history, we’ve shipped a new default theme with Plone.  It’s called Sunburst, and it’s a triumph of elegant minimalism in web design.

Sunburst’s beauty is more than skin-deep.  Designer (and Plone co-founder) Alex Limi is User Experience Lead for Mozilla Firefox, so he knows a thing or two about how to make the web beautiful, usable and accessible.  Sunburst incorporates all of the wisdom he’s gained over the years, and a TON of usability feedback from everyday Plone users, Plone integrators and usability experts.

The other great thing about Sunburst is that it’s easy to customize.  We’ve stripped down the templates and the CSS, removing a lot of clutter that had crept into the default Plone templates over the years.  This will make things much easier for site integrators and theme builders and sets the stage for more improvements to “through the web” theming in Plone 4.1.

3) Vroom!

Plone 4 is fast, fast, fast.  If there was a singular obsession of the core Plone developers during the Plone 4 release cycle, it was making Plone go faster than ever before.  Hanno Schlichting was the “speed champion” for Plone 4.  While most of the Plone team has been focused on building new features and refining our UI, Hanno was tinkering in the lab, doing performance profiling to figure out exactly where we were wasting precious milliseconds.  Then, he dove into the code and figured out where to make exactly the  right tweaks to speed things up.

The results speak for themselves. Plone 4 is about 50% faster overall than Plone 3.  It handles heavy user loads far more gracefully (up to 200% better than Plone 3).  It uses less RAM.  And our “out of the box” uncached performance is now over 3x faster than the default installs of PHP solutions like WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal that are often regarded as “good performers.”

And the best is yet to come.  Plone 4.2 is planning to offer another optional 50% performance boost by letting you use Chameleon, a drop-in replacement templating engine that works with our existing Zope Page Templates.  (Brave folks can try out Chameleon right now, but you have to be certain that all of your templates are XHTML-compliant.)

Hanno’s goal for Plone 5 is to boost our performance by another factor of 3 and hit 50 pages/second uncached on commodity hardware.  Vroom!

4) BLOBs: how unfattening!

In olden days, Plone stored uploaded files (aka “BLOBs” — that’s Binary Large OBjects) directly in the ZODB.  That was clean and simple, but unfortunately, meant that sites with massive numbers of documents & images produced bloated ZODBs that could be hard to manage.  Worse, Zope used to be somewhat inefficient at serving up these big files, which could really slow down a site.

There have long been add-on products for Plone such as FileSystemStorage that alleviated these problems, but these were imperfect solutions.  As it turns out, the fix really lies at the level of the Zope database itself.  And Plone 4 uses ZODB 3.9, part of Zope 2.12, which includes native support for filesystem storage of BLOBs and for super-efficient uploads & downloads.   This is a big deal, especially for Plone-powered intranets, who will find their ZODB sizes and RAM usage dropping dramatically and user satisfaction zooming skywards.

(Bonus: Plone 3 users can take advantage of this technology by using plone.app.blob, although getting it installed and configured does require solid intermediate Plone-fu.)

5) More bling!

Plone 3 included jQuery, the awesometacular javascript library that now handles most of our javascript interactivity.  Plone 4 ups the ante by including jQuery Tools, which makes it easy to build super-polished user interfaces with modal popup dialogs and forms.  We take huge advantage of this in Plone 4, by moving lots of commonly-used forms and confirmation dialogue boxes into fast, slick popup forms.  This makes day-to-day tasks like logging in, deleting content, and adding users faster and more enjoyable than ever.

Plus, add-on product authors and themers can now count on jQuery Tools being there, letting them build even more polished and effctive user interfaces for their add-on code.  For example, we’re taking advantage of it in Megaphone to make a really slick wizard for composing online advocacy letters and petitions! Plone.org’s sliding panels and accordions are all built with jQuery Tools.

font size=2span style=font-weight: bold; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;1.nbsp; Very little technical knowledge is required in order for nonprofit CEOs to participate actively in strategic IT planning./spanbr style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight: bold;br style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;span style=font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;As long as you thoroughly understand your organization's overall mission, strategy, and tactics and (are willing to learn a little bit about the technology), you can keep your information technology infrastructure on target.../span/font

Two or three years ago, I received an email from Chris Brogan asking if I would give some advice to a recent college graduate named Avi Kaplan who was interested in a career of using social media for nonprofits.   I chatted with Avi and answered some of his questions.    Not long after that, Avi helped Stacey Monk develop a strategy for the very first Tweetsgiving.

A few weeks ago, Avi asked me if I would participate in a blog tour for the Jewels of Elul focused on renewal and beginnings that benefits a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles.  The Hebrew month of Elul (which started on August 11th), the site will feature reflections from prominent figures on Renewal and Beginnings and a blog tour as well.   While I don’t have a strong connection to the nonprofit or even the cause,  I know Avi and wanted to support his work.   In addition, the theme of new beginnings and renewal has been on mind lately.

This last year has been a year of many new beginnings – a move across the country,  a new title, a new book,   a new blog,  a new company, and new friends and projects.   Starting something new is hard for some people.  It is a change after all.   But with every new project, you always need an end point for reflection.

And that’s the point I want to relate to social media.    Whether your begin a new campaign or a new routine, it is important anticipate a point of reflection.  We begin a new project – sometimes with to high expectations or excitement.   But what we don’t anticipate is the stuff that won’t go perfectly.

When end up avoiding talking about mistakes and we avoid reflection that explores and opens up new breakthroughs because we’re moving too fast into the next action.    So, with your next social media beginning, be sure to hit the pause button at the end asks some questions that might lead you to new insights.   Here’s a list of questions that my colleague, June Holley,  shared with me that I’ve been using.

1.What worked really well in this project?
2.Did it accomplish goals or outcomes? In what ways?
3.Did it fall short? Why?
4.What would you do differently?
5.What surprises came up during the project? What unexpected happened? What could you learn or capture from that?
6.What insights did you get during the project?
7.What processes did you use that worked well? Which didn’t work so well? Why do you think that was?
8.How did people work together? Were there conflicts? How were they handled? Did people get any new insights or perspectives as a result?
9.Were there people or perspectives missing from this project that you would include next time?
10.What skills and processes did you help people learn as part of this project? What skills and processes would you spend time on if you did this over again?
11.What were the most innovative aspects of the project? How did they work?
12.What did you do in this project that you could transfer to other projects?
13.What is the most troubling aspect of the project? What might you do to deal with it differently?
14.What skills came in most handy during this project? What skills did this project make you realize you need to acquire?
15.What really puzzles you about this project? What are unanswered questions you have about what happened?
16.What intrigues you about this project?
17.What would you like to learn more about that would help this (or other projects) in the future?
18.Where did we mess up? Make mistakes? Fall on our face? What can we learn from this?

“This post is part of Jewels of Elul, which celebrates the Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days of the
month of Elul to growth and discovery in preparation for the coming high holy days. This year the program is benefiting Beit T’shuvah, a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. You can subscribe on Jewels of Elul to receive inspirational reflections from public figures each day of the month. You don’t have to be on the blog tour to write a blog post on “The Art of Beginning… Again”. We invite everyone to post this month (August 11th – September 8th) with Jewels of Elul to grow and learn.”

HONK! Festival Photography Exhibit

I am pleased to announce that I am one of the photographers featured in this show. Press release with more information is below. —BG

Photo by Benjamin Greenberg appearing in the show

Featuring work by:

• Greg Cook
• Tiffany Knight
• Mark Dannenhauer
• Jesse Edsell-Vetter
• Benjamin Greenberg
• Chris Yeager & Akos Szilvasi

Exhibit runs through September 30 with an opening on Saturday, September 4, 6-8 pm in Davis Square, Somerville

(Somerville, MA)  The Inside-Outside Gallery (aka the CVS windows in Davis Square, Somerville) will feature work by 7 photographers: Greg Cook, Tiffany Knight, Mark Dannenhauer, Jesse Edsell-Vetter, Benjamin Greenberg, Chris Yeager & Akos Szilvasi. Their photos are inspired by the now annual HONK! Festival and will be on display throughout the month of September.  An outdoor opening reception is planned for Saturday, Sept 4, from 6-8 pm. Free and open to all.  CVS Pharmacy, 1 Davis Square, Somerville, MA. For more information, contact Michael Rome (Photo Exhibit Coordinator), photoshow at honkfest dot org.

In 2006, the very first HONK! Festival was an experiment, a not so humble occasion created on Columbus Day weekend for 12 activist street bands to perform in Davis and Harvard Squares. By 2009, HONK! burst at the seams with over 29 bands [stopped counting for all the impromptu participants]. This photography exhibit chronicles the excitement generated at HONK! 2009. As proven by this exhibition, the now yearly HONK! Festival has clearly become a photographer’s dream. For more information on the photography exhibit and other events leading up to HONK! 2010, go directly to www.honkfest.org/pre-honk/.

Complete information on this year’s 5th annual HONK! Festival [taking place from October 8-10, 2010] will be available soon after Labor Day weekend.  Periodic updates will be posted onwww.honkfest.org, twitter.com/honkfest/, and www.facebook.com/honkfestival. Further information can also be obtained by calling 617-383-HONK (4665).

At this early stage of the game, the HONK! Festival Committee would like to give special thanks to the City of Somerville, the Somerville Arts Council, and Davis Square businesses for their support of this year’s HONK! Festival!

pRegistration fees are refundable up to two weeks prior to the event, minus a $25 processing fee. Two weeks before the event, no refunds will be issued. All refund requests must be made in writing and sent via email, mail, or fax to:/p pemail: info@aspirationtech.org/p ppost: PO Box 880264 San Francisco, CA 94188-0264/p pfax: 415-358-8792/p pRegistration fees may be transferred from one registrant to another. All registration refunds will be processed at the conclusion of the event./p