NetSquared teaming up with Sun Microsystems to produce global Hack Days. Sao Paolo, Brazil was a success on October 1, stay tuned for an update. Next up, China!
NetSquared is an initiative ofTechSoup
NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
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- http://www.myBLOC.net // password: bloc 2007
http://www.myBLOC.net // password: bloc 2007
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
MyBloc.net Uses web 2.0 tools and the skills of emerging people of color organizer-technologists to increase the effectiveness and impacts of base-building organizations while laying the foundation for the progressive youth leadership pipeline.
Supporting organization:
Movement Strategy Center
URL:
http://www.movementstrategy.org
City:
Oakland
State/Region:
CA
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
myBLOC.net
Create a social networking site for youth organizers, youth workers and activists of color. Help activists across the country stay connected, even when they change locations, organizations and areas of work. Connect traditional youth development and service organizations to policy and organizing groups. Help local organizers to link to national resources and national movement work. To knit together an unprecedented national network of young activists` with the capacity to develop and distribute innovative ideas, drive voter mobilization and build new institutions in communities around the country
The BLOC site will enable individuals and organizations to have customized profiles and mini-organizational sites. The BLOC site is purposefully not proprietary; we are creating a platform, built for users under 35, with the capacity to broaden as our online community of users grows.
Sustainability (financial) model:
The BLOC network website and accompanying field organizing arm, the BLOC fellows, are currently funded by the Surdna Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and CTFC. We are now actively looking for additional donor partners to grow BLOC’s work now that the website is live. Our decision to establish a Movement Technology Collaborative has simplified these fundraising efforts, since we are able to combine the overhead costs of multiple tech projects and fundraise collectively. The Movement Technology Collaborative consolidates many of our costs, accelerates the timeline for many projects, and enriches the content of all participating sites.
In recent years, there have been a host of significant technology efforts to support social change. Unfortunately, these efforts have not reached many of the communities who most need access to these critical tools, and there remains little to no available technology that has been designed by and for the communities in need. This lack of relevant and strategic progressive technology has stunted innovation and limited the impact of progressive organizing. The M-Tech collaborative responds to this problem by offering an integrated set of community-based web tools hardwired with the values of the communities it will serve. Coordinated by the Movement Strategy Center, M-Tech enables a new future for alliance building and technology development with the capacity to match the pace of change. Members of M-Tech currently include the Youth Media Council, Future 5000, BLOC, and Tumi’s Design.
Potential obstacles:
Developing innovative sources of funding as well as Integration with Other M-Tech projects
❑ Establishing Standards for Data Sharing: allowing for crossover of information
❑ Sharing Databases: allowing users to have a single online identity instead of three, with access to three times the information, community and skills-building opportunities
❑ Integrating Functionality: allowing for shared action alerts, calendars and information on campaigns and news
❑ Placed Content: a way to coordinate and plan content development to avoid duplication in roles
❑ Automated Streaming Content: blogs developed on one site become streamed content onto other relevant sites
❑ Integrating Links: placing links to site on the platform that direct users to relevant content on other M-tech sites and partner sites
❑ Off-line Integration: hosting workshops, conferences and collaborative research for young organizers nationwide
Resource Needs:
mybloc.net is currently funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California and the Surdna Foundation, amounting to a seed budget of $110,000. This year, we are looking to raise at least 200k in addition to this amount to affectively grow the site in the next year including adding increased functionality, content management and creation and an intentional multi-tiered outreach and PR plan.
Key Milestones:
We started by asking our national network what they wanted through the work of early user summits in New York City, Chicago, and the Bay Area and on-going one on one input in 2005-2006, we have a set of “early adopters” to inhabit the site at its launch time. Beginning with a clear, committed base of users
For our Alpha launch, we developed our communications plan and primary functionality. The launch process included a team of testers, including MSC staff and BLOC Fellows, and relied on the development of a ticketing system to announce and repair bugs on the site. This phase also helped us agree on the roles and responsibilities for content development. For our Beta launch, we fixed all emergency and high priority bugs and populated the site with our final content. We included more functionality and provided access to more members, initially the core members of the BLOC network. Each month, the site will increase in users as we test and improve functionality and its integration with on the groundwork happening across the country
after a 2 months of our "silent" launch, we have around 200 users and are growing each day!
Project Summary:
The BLOC Network, originally founded by organizers from the Children’s Defense Fund’s Black Student Leadership Network, was run by MSC and Listen Inc, from 1998 to 2005. Since 2005, BLOC has been run solely by MSC. BLOC’s primary constituency are young activists of color in social justice organizations across the country: active BLOC members are based in organizations such as Inner City Struggle, Make the Road by Walking, Elementz, Sista to Sista, and YO! The Movement. For the last two years, BLOC’s central project has been the www.mybloc.net website, the online social networking site for organizers to share tools, strategies and curriculum nationally. Developed with Tumis Design in Oakland, CA, the BLOC site is currently in being tested by BLOC members and will publicly launch by summer 2007.
Comments
sounds great!
A lot of the functionality sounds similar to the thing I'm working on, here...
http://www.netsquared.org/general-socnet-for-politics-name-tbd
You've got my vote. Good luck!