Our first "real" Phoenix meeting had a decent turnout of 8 persons. As internal communication was one of the key areas which was highlighted discussion, Jaime Casap from Google's Phoenix office will be joining us in September to talk about Google Apps for nonprofits.

RSVP on the Netsquared Meetup site!

In a recent interview conducted by nonprofit blogging guru Marshall Kirkpatrick, marketing guru Seth Godin calls nonprofits "so so clueless" for not jumping on his Squidoo bandwagon. Squidoo.com is Seth's new Web service. For no charge, it allows anyone to create a Web page -- with links, reviews, photos, products for sale -- about any particular topic. But as Seth told Marshall, "Most non profits are so so clueless. My favorite example: more than a quarter of a million people have used Squidoo since December. Any idea how many non-profits have emailed me and asked to be listed as a charity or to get promotion? ZERO....It's not like I'm hard to find."

Seth Godin is the author of 7 best-selling books on marketing, web design, communications and more.  Called "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by Business Week, Godin also writes a blog that's one of the most widely read online.

One of Godin's projects is Squidoo, a highly usable and dyanmic service for sharing knowledge on any topic.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and The Aspen Institute have published a printed and downloadable book called U.S. in the World: Talking Global Issues with Americans: A Practical Guide.

The guide is divided by issue (i.e. terrorism, poverty, global warming) and offers "messaging recommendations", "arguments and facts", and "common critiques and effective responses" for talking about each issue. For example, in the chapter about poverty, one of the "common critiques" listed is, The poor will always be with us . . .there's only so much we can do. Four possible "effective responses" are listed. Here is one of them:

Investments in education and health care pay off many times over. For each year of schooling a girl receives, her own children are 5 to 10 percent less likely to die as infants. Programs that provide small loans to help women start their own small businesses also have an impressive track record of moving people and families out of poverty. If we join other countries in a concerted effort to pursue these cost-effective strategies, we don't just help change lives--we change trends. And in an interconnected world, that works to everyone's benefit, because everyone's future depends on a healthy, stable, and prosperous global community.

Putting these kinds of messages in the hands of people who aren't experts in foreign aid or communications empowers them to become advocates for the causes that mean the most to them.