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div class=eventlabelDates: /label 22 July, 2009 - 23 July, 2009br //div

The question of how many friends you can effectively communicate with goes round and round in social media circles. The “Dunbar’s Number” theory is frequently quoted as a measure of how many connections one person can really engage with at any one time. Usually by somebody who’s having trouble managing what network they have now and can’t imagine how they’ll do it when their network gets bigger.

Dunbar’s number is named after Robin Dunbar, a British Anthropologist who theorized that the average human brain can only effectively maintain a social relationship with approximately150 people at one time. (Dunbar never set an exact number, but this is the one most frequently quoted).You can learn a lot more about Dunbar and his theories here ( the presentation is fascinating), but I wonder how these theories really relate to the communication tools we use today. I argue that social media enables us to reach out to many more people and make more relationships at a time. Although many of those relationships may not be as deep as family or close personal friends, they still enrich our lives and expand what we are able to experience.

Currently I’ve got about 6,000 people at the first level of my various networks, and while I don’t communicate regularly with all of them, I work hard to have some kind of connection and refresh the contact periodically in some way. My connections range widely in interest areas, as does my business, so each of these interest areas has it’s own sub-network as well. I may share some information or a connection within one of these subgroups, thus nurturing the relationship with the group and the people I’ve connected. Generally there will be some feedback, some give and take or conversation resulting from this either on or off line. New introductions will be made and new conversations started.

I’m not supporting building humongous numbers of “friends” for the sake of the numbers. I will never support that kind of list building. What I am saying is–if you do have a large network it’s possible to connect with a lot more people than 150 effectively.

Don’t take my word for it, take Chuck Hester for example. He’s got over 9,000 people in just ONE of his networks, yet I know from experience he does actively engage a large number of his connections regularly. Ari Herzog is another good example. On his blog he talks about connecting with friends from social media connections face to face and it feels like beers with long time co-workers. Both are using social media to create real relationships with large networks and it works.

So what do you think? Are our meager brains limited in capacity to 150 connections? Or are they complex enough to a lot more. Do the tools we have now enable us to reach more people and still have real relationships? How do you manage your network?

Every year Amy and I try to get up to Point Reyes, and at the end of June we spent a week at a cottage up on the ridge in Inverness.  We'd hike all day, pick up some amazing local produce (like Marin Sun Farms steaks), grill dinner on our back porch, and collapse, exhausted.  And then do it all over again the following day.

One of our favorite hikes up there is the Tomales Point Trail.  This stand of cypress is all that remains of the Lower Pierce Point Ranch, about 2/3 of the way from the trailhead to Tomales Bluff.  I always wonder what it was like to live here 120 years ago:

We made it all the way to the end (9.4 miles out and back), and it was so satisfying to rest on the hillside, eat a simple lunch of Molinari salami, bread and water, and watch the loons and pelicans and an occasional seal.  (Or sea lion--I never really know.)

The yellow lupine that looks so charming in the background was out of control this year.  Chest-high and occasionally over our heads and sprawling across the last mile of the trail.

Later in the week we went out to Tomales Point again to hike down to McClure's Beach:

A great discovery this trip was the Estero Trail to Drake's Head (coincidentally, also 9.4 miles out and back.)  We saw 4 people in a full day of hiking, and 2 of them were in the last 1/4 mile.  (In addition to the cows scattered across this section of the park, we saw 2 coyotes, 2 mother deer with their fawns, scores of bat rays swimming in Drakes Estero, and a red dragonfly.)  From the top of Drake's Head, 150 feet above the Limantour Estero:

Another new destination was Marshall Beach.  You have to drive 2.5 miles of gravel road to reach the trailhead, and from there it's only a 1.5 mile hike down to the beach, but here's the view of Tomales Bay (the beach is nestled in among the pines at right):

As I learned last year, the four best happiness strategies for me are Increasing Flow Experiences, Taking Care of My Body, Practicing Acts of Kindness, and Expressing Gratitude.  Although hiking isn't always challenging enough to be a flow experience, there were certainly stretches on the longer days where I felt a sense of meditative peace.  It was a gloriously physical week, from the daily exertion to the deeply satisfying food.  And although we were kind only to ourselves, I am profoundly grateful for the experience.  (Thank you, Phil Burton.)

Do you know about the Grassroots Fundraising Journal? If you fundraise for small organizations, or work with people who do, you really should. It's a great, tactical magazine, full of practical advice on how to raise money without huge budgets or a ton of staff. (by the way, they're not paying or incenting us to say these things - I'm just a big fan personally).br /br /They're in the midst of a big subscription push at the moment, with a great deal available to friends of current subscribers (and to you, by permission): just a href="http://www.grassrootsfundraising.org/article.php/summerspecial09friends"$20 for a full years' subscription to the Journa/al, plus an invitation to a free conference call with Kim Klein, grassroots fundraiser extraordinaire, on Thriving On Uncertainty.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/16659240-8531598530305681469?l=www.idealware.org%2Fblog%2Findex.html'//divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/idealware/~4/7w09Y__Uqdc" height="1" width="1"/

In the past week I've posted information about a a href="http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/06/business-community-report-blasts.html"report from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago/a, and a rebuttal from the Editorial Board of the a href="http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/07/suntimes-charters-not-only-way-to-fix.html"Chicago SunTimes/a.br /br /I reviewed the Civic Committee report last night. In the concluding remarks the business committee report says "span style="font-weight:bold;"We cannot change the fact that some CPS students start school at a disadvantage. But we can change the fact that Chicago's schools do too little to overcome that disadvantage./span"br /br /If a business leader went to his boss and said, "we can't expand our market share because a competitor is doing something better than we are" that boss would soon find a new leader to find a way to compete more effectively.br /br /If the founders of this country had said "we can't challenge the rule of King George", where would be we today?br /br /The business community is right. "Chicago should offer school families more and better choices." This includes more and better non-school learning opportunities in the neighborhoods, and more vocational learning and mentoring in the workplaces. Not just more charter schools.br /br /The span style="font-style:italic;"SunTimes/span is also right, "we need to think outside of the box". We need to make the learning, mentoring and achievement of all kids a responsibility of the business community, the faith community, and people who live in the suburbs surrounding Chicago who draw wealth from the city, and who have their own growing pockets of poverty and poorly performing schools.br /br /Until our business and community leaders realize that they must do more to influence what happens in the non - school hours to prepare kids for school, and for work, we'll not only fail to make much of an impact on how well teachers are able to teach, but we'll also continue to loose competitive advantage with countries over seas who are doing a better job preparing kids for 21st century careers.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12044401-2725700124910451615?l=tutormentor.blogspot.com'//div

Last month we mentioned GivingUSA's annual assessment of individual giving which showed that donations from individuals had dropped 5.7% overall in 2008. Things were even worse on the corporate side.

The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy's 2008 assessment of corporate gving (PDF) reports that corporate giving was down nearly 8% overall ($30.78 million compared to $33.19 million in 2007). Although 53% of corporations surveyed said they had increased their giving, and 27% had increased giving by at least 10%, it wasn't enough to make up for the overall decline.

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Here’s a nice three song set from Blossom Dearie to take us into the Fourth of July weekend.

Blossom Dearie - ‘I’m Hip’.

Submitted by Susan Tenby, publisher of Online Communities for Social Change

Today I had several discovery moments of serendipitous learning via Twitter. I am noticing lately, that I am hearing all my news before it even hits the web, let alone TV, via Twitter. There is something so gratifying about reading a news-ticker on the bottom of MSNBC TV and saying , “Yeah, old news, read a tweet about that 5 minutes ago.” Twitter is becoming more important to us every day, and it will soon change the way we live. It definitely changes the way we are perceiving what is current and the way that we are receiving information.

When I was 12, I remember my father used to mock me for obsessively checking my voicemail. “You’re not a doctor”, he’d say, because he was one. I used to obsessively check my email, and then I moved on to obsessively checking my Facebook feed, but now I try desperately to limit my distraction and ADD time and I just manically check my tweet-stream.

Today, one of the hundreds of time i was obsessing on TweetDeck, my lens of choice, to see who was saying what and who was talking or re-tweeting me, I noticed that someone whom I respect in my field, Online Community Manager, Angela Connor, was talking about stuff I found to be interesting and using a hashtag I didn’t recognize, #Cmtychat. I followed the hashtag, and I was all of a sudden immersed in a lively discussion of community managers from all over the world, talking about what we do and sharing best practices.The discussion hour was half over by the time I arrrived there, but I tried to join in without seeing too lame and ignorant. One of the things I learned in this event was the new members to a community often felt embarrassed to post for the first time, and it is imperative to welcome the newbies and encourage them. This is something that is common sense, but it was among hundreds of rules of thumb that were nice to be reminded of.

I joined in and started tweeting about my work with Nonprofits and Online Community and mimicked the behavior of the others. Soon, I was being addressed by them and responded to, and I was really happy to have stumbled upon this spontaneous and free conference about online community. I started observing my own behavior as a community newbie (to their conference) and reflected upon my behavior, using it as a lesson of how to better manage the communities that I run.

I used the #Cmtychat hashtag at the end of my few posts, and then discovered that the technology was even deeper then just tagging your tweet.

I clicked into the discussion and found myself in a new site that was just an aggregator of all of our tweets who were using that hastag. There is a tool called TweetChat and as you can see from this week’s community chat conference, it grabs all the posts with the same hash tag, deposits them into a separate silo, giving you the experience of being in a separate chat room, rather than distributed all over Twitter, which is actually what is happening. Best of all (albeit a little unnecessary, unless you are seriously lazy), if you tweet from the Tweetchat engine, it will add the hashtag for you. I discovered this when I added my post there, with the hashtag at the end, and then saw it posted in Twitter with a double hashtag. (Oh, the many ways we can go on about being embarrassed by tweeting. I guess that will be another post entirely.)

So, it was quite a hyper-real and helpful experience learning about online community best practices and doing it on an entirely new tool, having not been invited to participate and just jumping in and chatting, which put me in the shoes of a newbie, somewhere I haven’t been for 9 years.

Twitter is a networking tool, in addition to all the other reasons we tweet, and I now have dozens more followers and people I follow, whom I may only had met if I was actually attending the same forum or conference with them. However, in this instance, the simple curiosity about a tag, brought me into the event, and I will definitely be going back every Friday at 11am-noon PT.

You can read the transcript of this week’s Community Managers’ Chat here: http://bit.ly/tDUMg

This article was originally posted on Online Communities for Social Change at http://susantenby.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/learned-a-lot-about-community-using-new-use-of-twitter-tweetchat-new-to-me/ by Susan Tenby:

Online Community Director,TechSoup.org and Nonprofit Commons in Second Life. @suzboop on Twitter

• The little tugboat that could (tags: peopleforpugetsound-blz2f)

Wordpress released an opinion from the Software Freedom Law Center today confirming that Wordpress themes must be GPL, although the images and CSS in a theme don’t have to be.

This is substantially similar to how Plone and Drupal have always thought that GPL applies to themes and add-on products, and it’s nice to see a project as large as Wordpress putting its heft behind this common-sense interpretation of the GPL.

Any consulting shop that does significant amounts of implementation and development (as we do) needs a project management and ticketing tool. Basecamp seems to be a standard that many people have reached for. We were using Intervals for a while, which is really a fabulous tool if you do a lot of hourly consulting. We also have been using Google spreadsheets for some elements of project management.

All tools have their strengths and weaknesses. And, in addition, the best tool does nothing without good human project management skills using it. As a shop that practices Agile development (we use an adaptation of scrum methodology that seems to work for a shop that does multiple projects with small teams,) finding a good tool that facilitates instead of hobbles Agile was critical for us.

We found, and have chosen to use Redmine for our project management/ticketing system. You can think of it as a multi-project version of Trac, which is a fabulous ticketing/wiki system that we were initially going to go with. Redmine has the elements of Trac that we liked, with the added ability to track multiple projects. Like Basecamp, Redmine has document storage and messaging systems. It doesn’t have milestones per se, but it does allow you to see tasks in calendar and Gantt views, which is very helpful. Unlike Basecamp, you can add custom fields to tickets, users and other features. Having spent many hours in Basecamp, I actually like Redmine much better. It does even do time tracking, which we won’t use, but is nice to know is there. And the wiki is nice. Basecamp’s Writeboards seem so much more like an add on than integrated.

It’s a Ruby on Rails application, and that was actually kind of fun to finally get to install and play with RoR a tiny bit. And it’s great that it’s free and open source. Although that wasn’t an absolute requirement for us, it is most definitely a plus, given so much of our work is implementing open source web tools. And it’s nice to save a few bucks per month.

pDo you ever notice your workstation task manager shows The Financial Edge is not responding? Just because it shows not responding on your workstation doesn#39;t mean that FE has stopped working.nbsp; Many times the process is still running on thenbsp;server. nbsp;If you cancel the process at the wrong point it couldnbsp;result in data corruption and who wants that? a href="http://forums.blackbaud.com/blogs/financialedge/archive/2009/05/18/is-it-okay-to-cancel-out-of-posting-copying-or-reversing-a-batch.aspx" target="_blank"Read more./a/p pYou can find other SB stuff on a href="http://forums.blackbaud.com/blogs/financialedge/default.aspx" target="_blank"The Ledger/a blog by clicking the Student Billing tag.nbsp; Talk to you soon!/pimg src="http://forums.blackbaud.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=42633" width="1" height="1"

The a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1648972,CST-EDT-edit02.article"editorial/a in the July 2, 2009 Chicago SunTimes rebuts a a href="http://www.civiccommittee.org/Still%20Left%20Behind%20v2.pdf"study released by the Civic Committee /aof the Commercial Club of Chicago as an "over simplistic analysis of test data, assembled largely6 to bash traditional public schools and promote the business group's preferred solution of Charter schools."br /br /The editorial concludes "There are lots of ways to improve failing schools. Charters are one way, but so is investing in traditional schools."br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AFv8j8HY5eE/SkzhL0Js77I/AAAAAAAAA7Y/f1IWj4ft6JA/s1600-h/adoptneighborhood.jpg"img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 142px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AFv8j8HY5eE/SkzhL0Js77I/AAAAAAAAA7Y/f1IWj4ft6JA/s200/adoptneighborhood.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353901650130825138" //abr /br /We invite the media, and the business community, to take this advise and look beyond the traditional school "box" as a distribution point where learning reaches kids, and think of non-school locations where kids might connect with business volunteers, technology and arts, in a variety of mentoring and tutoring programs funded by the private sector, faith groups, and others interested in helping all kids come to school better prepared to learn.br /br /There are numerous articles on this site and on the a href="http://www.tutormentorconnection.org"Tutor/Mentor Connection/a and a href="http://www.tutormentorexchange.net"Tutor/Mentor Institute/a web site that provide ideas that business people might use. Thus, our reason for encouraging companies to recruit employees to become volunteers is that as they build bonds with kids these volunteers will begin to learn first hand what the challenges are that inner city kids and schools face, and some will begin to build a personal commitment to want to do more, because the kids now become "their own" kids.br /br /If companies encourage this involvement, in programs throughout Chicago, and in other cities, they can also host communities of practice, where volunteers who tutor, mentor, serve on boards, provide technology support, and make donations, can talk to each other, share ideas, and begin to innovate new solutions that don't focus just on investing in "smaller class size, better teachers, financial incentives for teachers and a longer school year".br /br /The longer working people stay connected to inner city kids, the more likely they will begin to innovate new ways to build learning aspirations and use business resources to help kids prepare for 21st century careers, regardless of what the traditional school establishment does to support this.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12044401-7860580391783856908?l=tutormentor.blogspot.com'//div

President Obama's Barbershop premieres their touring art exhibition, which focuses on the art nature of barbering from 1927 to present.br / br /span style="font-weight:bold;""The Seated Stories of Hyde Park Hair Salon", Sunday July 12, 2009 /spanbr /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AFv8j8HY5eE/SkzVhZyEb8I/AAAAAAAAA7Q/4FosQSbddDU/s1600-h/Hydepark1.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AFv8j8HY5eE/SkzVhZyEb8I/AAAAAAAAA7Q/4FosQSbddDU/s320/Hydepark1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353888826869968834" //abr /br /President Barack Obama's Barbershop will host a charity event introducing their touring art exhibition titled Seated Stories which focuses on the art and nature of barbering from 1927 to present.br / br /span style="font-weight:bold;"Seated Stories presented by the Hyde Park Hair Salonbr /Sunday July 12, 2009/spanbr / br /Chicago, IL June 17, 2009br / br /Hyde Park Hair Salon opened it doors in Hyde Park in 1927 and has serviced many great figures, visitors, and long time clients along with their most prestigious client President Barack Obama. On July 12, 2009 they will present a preview of their highly anticipated exhibition Seated Stories that explores and celebrates the art and tradition of barbering from 1927 to the present. The preview exhibition will be a mixed media exhibit featuring works form commissioned artists. The exhibition will preview at the Aloft Hotel, 9700 Balmoral Ave. in Rosemont, IL on July 12, 2009 from 3:00-6:00p.m.and is free and open to the public.br / br /span style="font-weight:bold;"Partial proceeds of this event will go to/span a href="http://www.cabriniconnections.net"Cabrini Connections/a, The P.A.U.S.E Initiative, Reading In Motion, The Oak Park Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, The Bronzeville Visitor Information Center, The Betty R. Clawson Scholarship Foundation and The American Cancer Society- Relay for Life Arlington Heights Chapterbr / br /Seated Stories will debut the complete exhibition late fall 2009 at Hyde Park Hair Salon, "The Official Barbershop of President Barack Obama". The exhibition will then tour Chicago for one month before traveling to Atlanta, GA and then on to several nationwide galleries and museums to be announced at a later date.br / br /Seated Stories is a precursor to a highly anticipated much larger art exhibit that invites viewers into the world and culture of the barbershop and the nature and art of barbering. Because the barbershop has been and continues to be an institution in American culture, Seated Stories highlights the changes and transformations it has undergone throughout the years. It also takes a closer look at the meaning and significance of the barbering culture while gaining a greater appreciation of its aesthetic impact. Viewers will also discover its rich traditions that continue to influence present-day grooming experiences. The barbershop has been a place for all men regardless of stature, profession, or character. It is a place where status and stratification lines disappear. The barbershop is a rare place in which everyone is equal and everyone's opinion counts. It has long been a podium for venting, bragging, laughing, learning, sharing, and a place for solitude for many men.br / br /Seated Stories features original paintings, sculptures, and limited edition Glicee' prints that embody the history, culture, and art of barbering in the Hyde Park Hair Salon.br / br /span style="font-weight:bold;"Hyde Park Hair Salon/spanbr / br /Hyde Park Hair Salon is a historical landmark, located in the Hyde Park community for over 80 years. It is the third oldest business in the Hyde Park community which is considered one of Chicago's most culturally rich and diverse Southside neighborhoods. Hyde Park Hair Salon was established in 1927 just a few blocks north of the historic Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House and is a short stroll from the steps of President Barack Obama's Chicago home.br / br /span style="font-weight:bold;"Exhibition Organization and Support/spanbr / br /The charity event and exhibition titled Seated Stories is organized by the Hyde Park Hair Salon owners Monique and Ishmael Coye.br / br /For Media Inquiries Please Contact: br / br /Kenya Renee Robertsonbr /Marketing Media Personalitybr /Kenya@hydeparkhairsalon.netbr /(773) 698-0912div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/12044401-7789077704756946795?l=tutormentor.blogspot.com'//div

pThe firstnbsp;half of 2009 is now over and we have some updated information about online giving trends from Blackbaud clients to share. This is a follow-up to the a class="" href="http://forums.blackbaud.com/blogs/connections/archive/2009/04/02/2009-online-giving-trends-q1.aspx"Q1 2009 Online Giving Trends/a information that was released in April. This information comes from approximately 2,000 nonprofit organizations using Blackbaud#39;s Internet solutions and represents the largest sample size studied in the nonprofit sector.nbsp;/p pstrongAverage Gift Amount Changesbr //strongAn analysis of 1,973 nonprofits found an average online gift amount of $124.17 for Q2 of 2009. This was an increase of $2.07 from Q1 2009. A review of all the 2009 data shows that average gift amounts dropped through the first part of the year before bottoming in April and then growing again in May and June. This is consistent with giving trends we#39;ve seen for several years now./p pstrongYear Over Year Performance Trendsbr //strongThe analysis looked at a sub-group of 1,274 nonprofits to compare their online fundraising results for the firstnbsp;six monthsnbsp;of 2008 tonbsp;the same period of 2009. These nonprofits had a 22.13% year-over-year growth in online revenue. This growth trend continues to be very positive despite mixed economic conditions for many organizations. These organizations all used a combination of Blackbaud online fundraising, email marketing, and integrated CRM tools./p pstrongOnline Major Giving Trends/strongbr /An analysis of data for January 1stnbsp;through June 30th of 2009 found that 1,245 nonprofits had at least one online gift of $1,000 or more. 38 nonprofits in the analysis had at least one online gift of $20,000 of more so far in 2009. Online pledges and recurring gifts were excluded from the analysis. Major donors continue to move to the web as part of their giving behaviors. The 2008 a class="" href="http://www.blackbaud.com/targetanalytics/benchmarking/dcinternet.aspx"donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis/a indicated that median of 34% of online donors earned over $100,000 annually, compared to a median of only 24% of offline donors in the same income range. We#39;ll continue to monitor this trend in the future./p pemNotes: All data is calculated directly from onlinenbsp;transactions processed by Blackbaud. Online recurring gifts and pledges are not included in the entire data analysis. The single largest online gift ($50,000) and single smallest online gift ($1) during the analysis period were removed./em/pimg src="http://forums.blackbaud.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=42594" width="1" height="1"

a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/"img src="http://www.buzz2009.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/buzz2009_125x125.gif" width="125" height="125" alt="Buzz2009, July 9 in Washington, DC" //abr /pa href="http://www.buzz2009.org/flair"Get this badge./a/ppa href="http://www.buzz2009.org/register/"Register now/a!!!/ppOnly a few spots left! And tell you what, there are a few $100 off discount codes floating around the socialsphere... search on Twitter for a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Buzz2009"#Buzz2009/a to find one. (It's so easy already, we need to make you do a little something, don't we!)br /br /Here's a few items we think are particularly cool, in case you haven't seen them already. You know you can a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/feed/"subscribe to the Buzz 2009 blog/a anytime to get the scoop delivered to you. If this event rocks as much as we think it will, we'll do it every year so there should be good content in the blog long after the event is over.br /br /-b Live webcas/bt - noon-1:30 pm EST - we've already got close to 3000 people registered for this already, so if you REALLY TRULY can't come in person, a href="http://online.krm.com/iebms/coe/coe_p2_details.aspx?eventid=15837amp;oc=10amp;cc=00394232"sign up here/a. a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/07/live-webcast-from-buzz2009/"Here's the scoop on it/a.br /br /- don't forget there are bscholarships /bavailable!! a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/scholarship/"Just go here/a and tell us why you should get one.br /br /- We want to know (whether you'll be in attendance or not!) whether you have identified particular bsocial media goals/b for your association or organization. a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/step-away-from-the-database/"Tell us here/a.br /br /- Rob's really excited about his a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/schedule/#casestudies"Association Social Media Spotlight/a bpanel session/b... Find out why. a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/why-im-excited-for-association-spotlight-at-buzz2009-%E2%80%93-shutting-down-twitter/"Reason 1/a, a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/anothe-reason-im-excited-for-association-spotlight/"Reason 2/a, a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/reason-3-i%E2%80%99m-excited-for-association-spotlight-letting-the-top-down/"Reason 3/a... a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/feed/"Subscribe/a to the blog to find out Reason 4.br /br /- I know you want to come and btalk to Guy Kawasaki in person/b about the a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/alltop-association-management/"Alltop for Association Management/a he set up just for you, don't you!br /br /- In our session we'll be talking through how we've used bword-of-mouth tactics specifically for Buzz 2009/b. We call it our a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/living-case-study/"living case study/a... and yes, we're so meta... Hehe.br /br /- Don't just take our word for how important this event is for you, though. a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/advisors/"Check out who we got/a to help us make sure the content and format of our conference was really bwhat the association community needs/b... and a href="http://www.buzz2009.org/2009/06/thanks-for-the-link-love/"see who's talking about it/a. Thanks SO so much to everyone who has helped us promote the event. We really wanted to reach as many people as we could who might need this bmore advanced social media educational content/b - and using our relationships and social media to do it is a no-brainer, really! :)br /br /- as a matter of fact, a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=buzz2009"click here/a to see who's talking about it RIGHT NOW./ppa href="http://www.buzz2009.org/register/"REGISTER/a. See you there!/ppbr /br /object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-4445535100" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="400" height="300" id="twitterfountain" align="middle"param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="movie" value="http://www.twitterfountain.nl/twitterfountain.swf?fv_event=buzz2009amp;fv_flickr=buzz2009amp;fv_kleur=FF6600"param name="menu" value="false"param name="quality" value="high"param name="scale" value="noscale"param name="salign" value="lt"param name="bgcolor" value="#FF6600"embed src="http://www.twitterfountain.nl/twitterfountain.swf?fv_event=buzz2009amp;fv_flickr=buzz2009amp;fv_kleur=FF6600" menu="false" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="lt" bgcolor="#DC1689" width="400" height="300" name="twitterfountain" align="middle" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/embed/objectbr /br /--------------------------------------------------------br //pdivscript type="text/javascript"var addthis_pub="maddiegrant";/scriptbr /a onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')" onmouseout="addthis_close()" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=20" onclick="return addthis_sendto()"img width="125" alt="Bookmark and Share" style="border:0" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/lg-share-en.gif" height="16" //ascript src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/200/addthis_widget.js" type="text/javascript"/script/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1424994438448770528-2479009561398194013?l=www.diaryofareluctantblogger.com'//div

Originally posted on the 4Change blog, here.

The June #4Change chat topic focused on Challenges/Competitions for Social Change. Early on in that online chat, the request emerged for a compendium or other list of “all” the Challenges and Competitions focused on social benefit. Such an overview would let those interested in participating or facilitating a competition review the full landscape of options, characteristics of each, and so on.

So, to answer that call, the #4Change crew has started building the compendium and now it’s your turn to chip in! Here’s the link to see what we have so far.

Please contribute to the Competitions for Change Compendium!  Simply click here to add to the resource!

pI just read an great article from the Nonprofit Times called, a href="http://www.nptimes.com/09Jun/npt-090601-2.html"Youth Movement Critical for Boards/a.nbsp; It is almost incomprehensible to read that we need an average of 26 million new board members each year just to keep the nonprofit world we love running.nbsp; Of which only 2% is staffed with individuals under 30 and 30% are staffed with individuals between 30 - 49.nbsp; That means nearly 70% are staffed with Baby Boomers.nbsp; In fact, the retirement of so many Baby Boomers could affect the future growth of the nonprofit sector./p pOK, so what does that all mean for me.nbsp; As a young, grass roots or small nonprofit you may not even have a board yet or perhaps you just recruited your first board member or two.nbsp; If you are not a nonprofit, but a personal fundraiser raising money on behalf of a cause, nbsp;be that a charity or one more personal to you or your family, you too will certainly not have a board --- so why I am writing this post./p pI am writing this post as we all must engage each generation not just the ones we are familiar.nbsp; I am quot;classifiedquot; as Generation X (born between 1965 - 1979) and must admit that most of my life is spent with people similar in age, with similar social, economic and family patterns.nbsp; Birds of a feather --- well they flock together.nbsp; So when recruiting your next board member or planning your next campaign (or fundraiser) make sure your outreach includes all generations to volunteer, donate, and serve.nbsp; Each generation will have different ideas, different networks, different ways of communicating, etc.nbsp; Tapping into those ideas, networks and communication streams will prove invaluable as they will bring your cause to places you could not do alone if you stayed within your comfort zone./p pThink about it for just a minute. nbsp;nbsp;When someone hears Facebook, they think of Generation Y (born between 1980 - 2000).nbsp; However, did you know the a href="http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastest-growing-demographic-on-facebook-women-over-55/"fastest growing segment of Facebook is Women over 55/a?nbsp; That said, are you asking your baby boomer supporters to inform Generation Y about you --- since they are both on Facebook?nbsp; Also, did you know that Generation Y is the first generation to be a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-gen-next-cover_x.htm"more aware of world challenges/a nbsp;--- thanks to the Internet?nbsp; In fact, 81% of 1800 youth (ages 13 - 25) individuals surveyed said they volunteered last year.nbsp; Again, how are you tapping into this desire to make the world a better place?/p pAs always, if you have any product suggestions or simply want to share a great story about online fundraising please do not hesitate to email me at a href="mailto:kirk.sadler@blackbaud.com"kirk.sadler@blackbaud.com/a./p pHappy Fundraising!/pimg src="http://forums.blackbaud.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=42618" width="1" height="1"

span style="font-style: italic;"Your friendly neighborhood a href="http://www.socialfish.org/who-we-are/"Socialfish/a will be "IN" the a href="http://nten.org/officehours-calendar"NTEN Office Hours Communications Chat Room/a every Thursday (that's today!!) at 3 pm EST. Got burning questions about social media strategy? Or just want to hang out and shoot the breeze and get a break from work? Now's your chance!/spanbr /br /Thank you SO MUCH to Lynn Morton for hosting our chat for us last week. Sounds like we missed a really fab conversation on the following topics:br /br /- What shiny new toys become overwhelming for your non-tech audience?br /- The Friend v. Follower dynamic - You can be a friend of someone on one site a follower on another, is this suggestive of the type of relationship you have with them? Symmetrical v. Asymmetrical relationships, reciprocal relationships seem more purely "social". br /- How do "collectors" affect the dynamic of social media relationships? In what way can experienced Twitter users help the newbies to acclimate them to the culture?br /- How Twitter has replaced RSS for some people.br /- The merits of Tweetdeck what's cool about the new Seesmic desktop application.br /br /span style="font-style: italic;"Whether the conversation is deep or just a nice break from the dullness of your daily routine, though, we're all about sharing. Pick our brains, we'll tell you our take on things.br /br /Click a href="https://www.ntenonline.org/EWEB/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=NTENamp;Webcode=OfficeHrsCommunications"HERE/a for the chat room if it's not working well embedded below./spanbr /br /div style="width:500px" style.mcrmeebo { display: block; background:url("http://widget.meebo.com/images/r.gif") no-repeat top right; } .mcrmeebo:hover { background:url("http://widget.meebo.com/images/ro.gif") no-repeat top right; } /styleobject width="500" height="500"param name="movie" value="http://widget.meebo.com/mcr.swf?id=kegACWPkxV"embed src="http://widget.meebo.com/mcr.swf?id=kegACWPkxV" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="500"/embed/objecta href="http://www.meebo.com/rooms" class="mcrmeebo" target="_BLANK"img alt="http://www.meebo.com/rooms" src="http://widget.meebo.com/images/b.gif" width="500" height="45" style="border:0px" //a/divbr /br /--------------------------------------------------------br /divscript type="text/javascript"var addthis_pub="maddiegrant";/scriptbr /a onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')" onmouseout="addthis_close()" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=20" onclick="return addthis_sendto()"img width="125" alt="Bookmark and Share" style="border:0" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/lg-share-en.gif" height="16" //ascript src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/200/addthis_widget.js" type="text/javascript"/script/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1424994438448770528-7630222514058974294?l=www.diaryofareluctantblogger.com'//div

pquot;Ugh, manual journal entries take forever!quot; Sound familiar?nbsp; Well I have a few tricks to speed up the process!/p pJournal Entry batches can have a default row that will store information you type over and over again, such as post dates, journal and account numbers./p pFirst, let#39;s make sure you have a default row.nbsp; Select Tools and Options from the menu bar.nbsp; Select the Records tab, highlight Journal Entry, and make sure Yes is selected for Display first row of batch as default row.nbsp; Now, we can set user preferences.nbsp; Are you more of a keyboard person or a mouse person?nbsp; Well, there is an option for both!nbsp; In the Enter batch default row, select either by field with the F2 key or by row when placing cursor in row.nbsp; Now you#39;re all set to give your fingers a break. /p pNext time you enter journal entries, you#39;ll see a D row at the top of the batch.nbsp; Enter your default information in this row.nbsp; As you enter transaction information, the defaults will auto populate based on the Enter batch default row option selected./p pCheck out the a href="http://www.blackbaud.com/support/guides/fe.aspx#gl" target="_blank"Journal Entry Quick Reference Guide/a and the a href="http://forums.blackbaud.com/blogs/financialedge/archive/2008/10/21/tired-of-mouse-clicks.aspx" target="_blank"Tired of Mouse Clicks/anbsp;blog for more shortcuts.nbsp;/p pI hope this makes your life a little easier! /pimg src="http://forums.blackbaud.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=42480" width="1" height="1"