Hi I'm Bennett Grassano, CompuMentor's Director of Insitutional Development.  I've been on the inside of Netsquared from time to time, but I've somehow managed to avoid it's blogospheric vortex until now. Since my title often confuses people much smarter than me, I should tell you that, although I've punched the clock as a Web Developer in the past, most of the "Development" I do these days is program and fundraising development for CompuMentor and TechSoup. The "Institutions" I work with are primarily foundations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. At a certain point I realized that I'm much more fluent in the English language than I'll ever be in PHP or Ruby--hence the slight change in title over the years.

In addition to thinking up great projects with the amazing folks at CompuMentor and working with some really dedicated program officers at Foundations to make them a reality, I'm a founding partner of an open source e-commerce and Web Hosting company that helps independent bookstores take control of their online inventory and internet presence. I'm also a musician (guitar, bass, synth, laptop), songwriter, avid traveller, student of Yoga and Tae Kwon Do, political junkie, and optimist. 

Some things that excite me about Netsquared are the whole darn thing. That is to say . . . social web for social change, learning what's new, what's next, and what's possible, cross-sector dialogue, leveling the technological playing field for true global digital inclusion, exchanging ideas, finding opportunities for unique collaborations, meeting like-minded co-conspirators, sharing what I know, and figuring out just what the heck else this Internet can do.

I look fwd to learning a lot from you over next two days at Netsquared!