Chris Messina, champion of the open Internet, talks to us about how he's trying to make online social networks "like air," and how that'll open opportunities for organizations and individuals working for social benefit.

At NetSquared 3, Thomas and Wendy of Green Map System got to know more about the OpenStreetMap project and parties from Mikel Maron & Andrew Turner. This is a kind of wikipedia for maps - a free editable map of the world, and anyone can add roads, bike paths and other geographic data to it. What a useful resource!   We thought, let's participate, parties like this could also become a good way to get people involved in our forthcoming Open Green Map, the social mapping website for sustainable communities (preview at http://OpenGreenMap.org).  So we are pleased to provide the venue for NYC's first open mapping party, hosted by OpenStreetMap's initiator, Steve Coast, at our global office this weekend! Steve says:

i and my friends will plant to hold an seminar, "OSS and the Society" in Japan, Kyoto.

temporary web is http://oss-shakai07.sasaeru.jp/
(Japanese Only)

Speaker;
Yoshida, Tomoko (OSS for newbie)
Kanemune, Susumu (Education and Computer Language)
Abe, Kazuhiro(Squeak and XO and Education)

Date: 21st, Jul. 2007
Place: kcg.edu campus near Kyoto Stn.(http://www.kcg.ac.jp/kcg1/html/si_e.html#ekimae)

* this seminar will hold within(a part of many seminars) OSC(OpenSource Conference) 2007 Kansai@Kyoto.

The N2Y2 sessions have begun; this is Evonne Heyning blogging live from San Jose for NetSquared Innovation spotlights. I will be liveblogging from the detail sessions later today but first, an intro on why this gathering is unique.

The future of organizing networks and activist media will be redefined by many of these 21 innovating social ventures presenting here at N2Y2. Here are a few of the culture-shifting approaches that these groups are pioneering:

One of the things that energised me about last year's Netsquared conference was buzz of community activity around Drupal. i had already experimented with Drupal as a basic CMS, but at Netsquared I met Drupal developers who shared a passion for web activism, and social activists who wanted to use Drupal in cool new ways. Looking back, I can see that my experiences of advocating for open source in NGOs seems to have been leading up to the Dot Org Boom that Netsquared represented (see also the blog post Drupal and the Dot Org Boom). However, a comment from David Geilhufe points out that

across the landscape of all these NGOs using open source software, there is no real open source strategy. No strategy for: (1) Ensuring your organization does not bear the maintainence/upgrade burden of your innovations exclusively. (2) Leveraging other groups with similar needs to jointly produce and maintain functionality needed by all.

This is a terrific volunteer opportunity for anyone who cares about knowledge in the public interest or online collaboration.  The following is my redaction of the publicity blurb:

Wikimania 2006, the 2nd annual international meetup and conference of the Wikimedia Foundation, will be held August 4-6th, 2006, on the Harvard Law School campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The conference will feature presentations from Jimmy Wales, Larry Lessig, Brewster Kahle, Eben Moglen, Yochai Benkler, and Clay Shirky; along with some of the most active contributors to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, and the MediaWiki platform.  Presenters and attendees will discuss the present and future of Wikimedia Projects; the dynamics of Wikipedia and related communities; publishing and verification of information; and technical updates and Mediawiki hacking.

Wikimania will be a chance to meet the people behind one of the extraordinary successes of the internet - a multilingual volunteer community of a hundred thousand people who are passionate about creating high-quality free knowledge for the world.  For community members, it will be a chance to meet fellow Wikimedians, learn about what's happening today, and discuss current issues and the future of the projects.

For others, Wikimania 2006 will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to participate in shaping the future of Wikipedia and collaborative knowledge production generally.

All sorts of volunteers are needed.  If you're interested in getting involved, please go to the Wikimania 2006 Volunteer Teams web page, or send at email to wikimania-info @ wikimedia . org.

Rob Miller of the Open Planning Project talks about how OpenPlans.org can be helpful to nonprofit organizations looking to organize globally distributed individuals around specifc projects.

 

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Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of the blog software WordPress, gives some quick incite into how blogs are helpful to nonprofit organizations. 

 

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I have a delightful client who dreams of an entirely open source web-based version of the Organizers Database.  (The current version, which has many avid fans, is open source, but runs on a Microsoft Access platform, which is proprietary software.)