The NetSquared team has received a couple of questions about the Mashup Challenge application process that we'd like to share with the community in real-time.

Question: Can last year's applicants or participants apply to this year's Challenge?

Answer: Absolutely, yes.

Question: Are we accepting applications from people outside the United States?

Answer: Yes. We encourage applicants from around the globe. Having said this, we recognize the limits of our application form, which is currently only available in English.

We need someone with wordpress theming expertise to help us bring the "Donate Your Brain Campaign" to life. If you're interested in contributing ~5 hours of time to this project, or know of the right someone who might be, please drop us a line at billy AT compumentor.org.

The Donate Your Brain Campaign is all about making it easy for techies and engineers to contribute their expertise to nonprofit and ngo projects around the globe.

I had the good fortune to sit with Shannon Raybold at a recent conference to learn more about her approach to web campaigns with the United Nations Foundation.

Here's the transcript.

Billy Bicket: Can you share a quick summary about who you are and what you do?

Sharon Raybold: Sure, my name is Shannon Raybold. I’m the Internet Director at the United Nations Foundation. I develop and manage the online strategy that includes fundraising for multiple campaigns from climate change, to malaria, to sustainable development and advocacy on UN related activities. Part of my work is focused on moving the UN Foundation from a completely offline organization into an organization that taps into the potential of both on and offline outreach and tools.

BB: How are you organizing your efforts relative to that giant challenge?

SR: I’ve started small and I’m showing progress points -- via sign-ups to the site, traffic and donations. Since the beginning of the year we’ve seen our online supporters grow by 90%. With one campaign--nothingbutnets.net-- we’ve raised $3M online alone over one and a half years.

I'm on a call with Heather Cronk from http://www.pledgebank.com and was so inspired by how easy this tool is to use that I decided to start my own campaign during the call. Though my pledge is super-local, and kind of heavy -- in that it asks a lot of others interested in joining me -- I'm excited to see what emerges here.

In solidarity,
-bb

Hello world. Back from a brief period of decompressing. (I spent the last few days watering my plants and organizing my life. Feel free to inquire within for more info.)
Before I get too far along into my action folder, I wanted to

1. Thank a few people that deserve a proper 'thank you'
2. Share what I'll be working on this week

1. Thank you's:
http://www.bethkanter.org, thanks for all of your time, wisdom and support with moving the Project Champion and Business Mentor ideas forward. Your work helped to ensure every project had a Project Champion and Business Mentor to help them prepare for the event. Your stamina, flexibility and commitment to the cause made it happen. Thanks again, Beth.

Gregg reminded me to point out that the "Project Carnival" session is happening on Day 2 of the event.

Jennifer just shared some useful information that many featured projects have been inquiring about.

Here's the deal about the "Project Carnival", the time when conference participants have an opportunity to speak with Featured Projects 1:1 to learn more about their work.
From the Featured Project point of view, this will be an opportunity to share take-home information (brochures, resources, pictures, etc.) with conference participants as well as answer any questions you didn't have time to address during the feedback sessions.

Everything you need to know about the Project Carnival:

* Carnival takes place in the main open conference room (the same set up as the first morning of the event)

Just a quick update from the front....

This morning, seven Business Mentors from the Venture Capital Community stepped up to support the good work of Netsquared's Featured Projects.

Netsquared Business Mentors are committing ca. 5 hours of time between now and May 29 to assist one Featured Project shape its business strategy and tune its pitch in preparation for the Netsquared Conference.

But, we're not done yet.

We're still connecting Project Champions with each project, and still have a number of opportunities for Venture Capitalists and Business Executives interested in putting their Financial Jiu-Jitsu to work on behalf of Netsquared's Featured Projects on 5/29 and 5/30.

Drop me a line if you're interested in becoming a Business Mentor: billy@compumentor.

Now that I'm r-e-a-l-l-y having a hard time keeping up with email, I'm going to begin asking people to subscribe to my blog. Here, I'll' share real-time updates for featured projects, friends, partners and the rest of the world interested in our doings. Please feel free to leave comments here.
Please don't bother leaving me a voice mail.

Thanks,
-bb

Netsquared's hosting this month's Bay Area Tech Meetup Wednesday night 2/7/06.  Hope to see you there!