ext337

May 9, 02:40 pm: Needed: A designer with good textpattern knowledge

I’m looking for more than just another template for the blog here. If you are a designer that can do some lightweight logo work and give this blog a thorough face lift, integrating some of the Textpattern goodness that will allow me to tweak forms and settings in the future, I want to hear from you. Send me an email.

Tags: textpattern, txp, designer, blog

Apr 3, 02:18 am: I care and want to share and contribute

I’ve shared this photo before. It touches an issue I care about and one that can often make the country feel cut-off to me.

I think that we should be able to make our own families and have those families recognized and protected by law. There are a whole lots of bits and pieces of that. And I’d like to contribute to the broader information and efforts, which includes sharing them, in smart ways.

And I have to say, ACLU, a badge is not a toolkit.

You’re maps showing legal issues are great. How about some code so that I can publish those maps? How about a way to add my stories to it ala Active Trails.

Tags: aclu, lgbt, tools, share, contribute, social, issues, activism

Nov 27, 06:12 pm: Buy your way to a better world

I’m too late to chime in on the Net2 Think Tank about using the social web during the giving season but, heck, tardiness has never stopped me from sharing my thoughts before.

I think it is great that we can buy Red and get yellow bracelets and that we can give to causes on Facebook. Wonderful. But, let’s face facts, buying isn’t going to change the world. It might bring awareness to problems. It might allow us to show our allegiance to a variety of causes. But it is working on the wrong end of problem.

I’d like to see something that takes the consumer interest in various issues, the burgeoning CSR trend, regulatory and other data and mashes it all up so that we can make better decisions about companies and support those corporations that are making sustainable choices that have positive social impacts further upstream in the product and production process — not just people who put marketing window dressing on a product and then donate a percent of proceeds to a cause.

Look at what the Sunlight Foundation is doing. Or Maplight. They are using mashing up data to tell us something about politicians. Where the money is coming from. Who the influencers are.

Why can’t we apply that same kind of visibility to corporations?

I’d love to see something that allowed me to look at a mix of regulatory missteps (as a company been fined for polluting, have the used poor contracting process for outsourced labor, what kind of consumer or employee complaints to they have against them), where they spend their dollars (do they donate to politicians or causes, do they have charity or volunteer program that engages their employees), their environmental impact (how green is there product, their plants, their practices) and employee practices (do they offer health insurance, do they recognize domestic partnerships, are they diverse) and see that all mashed up in some way that helps me to concretely reward companies that have the values I care about built into their business.

Maybe this looks like an index or exchange, maybe ends up being a numerical rating, I’m not sure.

I think that I’d like to interact with it by plugging in the issues I care most about and then getting a company rating that is associated with a product. So, I’m looking to buy a car — let me put in the issues that I care about and then rank the car companies. The same think can apply to a stereo, shoes, food brands, etc.

Does this already exist and I just don’t know about it? If not, where do we start? How do we mash up this data so that we have visibility into the philanthropy and impact of the corporation and not just the visibility of cause marketing?

tagged: causemarketing, csr, bsr, socialchange, mashups, net2

Nov 9, 05:13 pm: Dear Ma.gnolia: Please give me space

I love Ma.gnolia. I love the feature that allows me to turn any page into a .pdf. I love the groups. I love being able to thank people for their links.

But give me space.

I used del.icio.us for too long. And I still am deeply, deeply in love with flickr. And they’ve trained my fingers to hit the space bar between tags. I get why commas are friendly. I get why people want ‘em. But how about a choice? A setting where I can say if I want commas (that can even be the default) or a space delineate tags.

Please?

tagged: ma.gnolia, feature, request, tools

Sep 14, 05:09 am: What's in Pandora's Box?

Fifty music majors as it turns out. The most interesting thing about the Pandora/Logitech event that BB and I attended on Tuesday was that.

Founder Tim Westergren talked about the Music Genome Project and the way they developed 400 attributes to classify music. Music majors listen to that music to apply the attributes. Pandora uses that, and one group or song that you know you like, and finds other things like it. By attribute.

They’ve got your wisdom of crowds.

Tim joked about the fact that it’s not scalable. It’s not. But do you listen to Pandora. It’s good.

Too good. That’s the dark underbelly of things that match you up with those similar. How does it expand your taste and your perspective? What does it mean that we are losing the crazy midnight DJ? The guy that plays something because he likes it. I mean, he’s practically gone without Pandora, I know. But I remember him. A version of him is how I found the Firesign Theater. How would Pandora have gotten from Cake to Firesign Theater?

And what’s all this mean to diversity?

And what’s all this mean to nonprofits?

There can be a role in this, I think, for nonprofits to bring diversity into these channels. Maybe there’s a way to open these ad support sites up to the PSAs. What else? Not to interrupt the experience. Maybe YouthNoise can be there and the links to lead to their site.

But more than a place for action. I think the answer is sometimes you need experts. That’s what you all are right. Sometimes, there’s just no substitute for someone who spent four years deep in theory listening to a song over and over. Headphones held tight. Not a volunteer. Not a Facebook app. Not a blog. Not an algorithm.

Figure out what that is and throw yourself at it.

Everything else? Find the algorithm.

tagged: pandora, logitech, wisdomcrowds, experts

May 25, 04:10 pm: We DO like what you are doing

Join Peter Dietz’ campaign to give some more money to the 21 Featured NetSquared Projects.

tagged: n2y2, fundraising, ask

(And, once you give, help spread the word)

Feb 15, 10:10 pm: It's all about role models

But, of course, Mary Hodder at napsterization says it so much better in Re: Women and Conferences. She writes:

Last night I went to a tempura party, and there was a Phd in neuroscience from UCB there, and I asked what she was doing when she’s done at the end of the semester. She replied that she would teach because having a lab is out of the question. She didn’t want to play the games the boys play to raise all the money and compete in those ways to lead her own lab. %$#@^$%&

This is what I hear from women who would like to start a software company, about VCs. It’s too much to play those kinds of games without some mentorship and help, and we need to make it easier. I don’t think it’s that women don’t want to compete, they just want the competition to be about something, not just an arbitrary game to weed out the people with no patience for that game.

I know there are many issues, but speaking is one piece of this puzzle.

When I watched the State of Union speech this year, I found myself crying and not, surprisingly, in frustration. I found myself tearing up because the image is different now. Still two men but behind them, in a seat of power, is woman. And my daughter’s life is going to be different because she’s got that picture in her head now.

It can’t just be about that public life though. It’s got to be about the day-to-day effort that people make to get their voices hear — in their blogs, on their podcasts, on the political stage. I’m not saying anything new here, I know. I think what I am trying to say is: This is still important.

Which is my answer to why web 2.0 is important — it’s about speaking and listening to a diversity of voices.

tagged: women, technology, public, leaders, rolemodels

Dec 4, 05:41 pm: Make it easy and then make it easier

I’m about to pick on an organization I love. I spent my youth in 4-H and that pledge has shaped who I am today.

And that’s why I want them to make it easier for me to share their good work and efforts.

First off, let’s not call it the 4-H Brand Network okay? And let’s make the stories that you are telling available to more people — I get that some of this is private but if it’s all private, why have an open Internet site at all? Why not put a big password on the front page?

And don’t ask me to promote your brand. That’s not what I want to do. I want to promote your stories. I know where the withers are on a dog, courtesy of 4-H. One of the hardest things I ever did in my life — admit that there was a math error and that someone else earned the blue ribbon for the dog obedience trial — was in a 4-H show ring. Give me those stories to promote.

Make it easy for me to be as enthusiastic as I am about a club that I give credit for shaping me into the adult I am. Some of the best parts of the adult that I am.

And if you want me to share a graphic, I’m happy like a fox to do it. But for god’s sake, give me the code (you do in other places). Make sure I’m linking to the right place. Don’t make me download and upload and work out where exactly I should be pointing folks.

Please.

(Update: 4HUSA.org seems to do a better job of all of that. So why is the “brand network” even there?)

tagged: socialmedia, marketing, npmarketing, ease, 4-h, outreach, promotions

Nov 15, 03:10 pm: How much have you spent on your best projects and your best team members?

I’ve been trying to figure out where my time is going. The things I think are most important are sitting on my desk undone and I’m spending a huge amount of time triaging issues. The issues range from stuck projects, to budget questions, to employee issues — both past and present. And I’m spending no time, no time at all, looking at the things and people that are working and investing in them working better.

Sure, I have a great conversations with the good staff members. I track the good projects so that details about them can slide into press releases or collateral or staff meetings. But I’m not really investing in either one of them.

It’s a dynamic that has to change. Even if I can’t quite figure out how.

tagged: management, investment, organizationaldevelopment, positive, reward

Aug 24, 05:43 pm: Change requires people you probably don't like

That’s what keeps it from being preaching to the choir, right? Bringing the folks you don’t agree with—whether it’s a government or business or a community group—to the table so that you can come up with a solution. Because change is in the solutions.

And, in this country, those groups almost always have to include businesses. Check out: Levi’s was ahead of its time on domestic partner benefits. That’s where change happens.

In the nonprofit sector, we have to set up as many opportunities for groups to come together and create change as possible.

tagged: change, businss, levi, sector, nptech, socialchange