This is cross-posted from my blog, Beckyblab:

The best part about the TechSoup Global Contributor’s Summit was seeing in real time the power of networks. A lot can be said for nonverbal communication and the effectiveness of meeting each other face to face!

This post is cross-posted from the TechSoup blog. You can read the original post and any comments here.

Who can help? Has this been done before? What is the best route? How can this project be sustainable? Crowdsourcing is being used to help find the answers to these and many other questions. According to Wikipedia, "crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call." Organizations are crowdfunding, crowd voting, crowdsourcing jobs, and even crowdsourcing films (see Life in a Day). Presentations illustrating its use have also been made available at this year's CrowdConf2010.

This is cross-posted from my blog at AmySampleWard.org.

Greetings all - The Texas Legislative Session is coming up in January and, as the old saying here goes, no man or his property is safe. The Texas Observer has an active social networking segment, IObserve, on our site, but it's only open to subscribers who donated a minimum of $35 to the Observer. Funding would allow us to improve our software and, most importantly, IT WOULD ALLOW US TO MAKE THE SITE AVAILABLE TO ALL, with no sign up fee. Our site traffic has double in the last year and the Observer is known as the go-to group for legislative coverage. We know we can make iObserve a buzzing hub of citizen/reporter interaction and information.

America's Sexuality Day www.sexdayusa.com will be announced on March 3, 2010-- only 15 days away. Over the past 2 months four web developers have said they'd volunteer. Unfortunately all four have had delays. We were hoping to have a press conference at The National Press Club in DC on 3/3. Without a web presence to establish our message, I am not sure the date and its symbolism will have a fair launch.

We are in SOS ASAP need for--

• a Home page
• an About page
• a blog format that allows Twitter, FB feeds, and is heavy in growing community integration, and a forum.
• help with getting our poster viral, would be nifty :)

Honestly, I'd be ecstatic right now just for the home page with an attached easy blog.

The internet is a great tool for communicating and connecting. We now have a variety of ways to do so, but which one is best suited for your needs? Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn? Each serves its purpose and audience, but what if your needs aren’t served with these tools? Create your own! Ning is a powerful tool that allows you to not only create a dynamic, easy to update website, but its functionality allows your community to create accounts, share information, connect with you and other people in your community and work collaboratively.

Our users can communicate with one another, which is great, but quite often as an administrator the need may arise for us to communicate with a user or users on our site. It may be to remind them about the web site or to inform active users about new changes to the site, which they may not have been made aware of.

This article is extracted from the "Drupal 6 Social Networking" book. In this article, you will learn:

 I am the co-founder of two related non-profit start-up organizations: Slurve and the Concerned Citizens Coalition.  We came to Net2 because we're looking for like-minded individuals to become part of our team and help us build the web infrastructure that will allow our ideas to reach their potential.  And we really believe our ideas have a lot of potential.

Here is a quick overview of the two organizations:

Check out these slides from the 2009 Department of Peace conference break out session on social networking: Social Networking Tools DOP View more presentations from Ted Nunn.

Crossposted from Rootwork.org.

Just a quick note to say I'll be speaking as part of Social Actions' free "Using Facebook for Social Change" webinar on Thursday, along with Susan Gordon, the nonprofit coordinator of Causes, and moderated by Beth Pickard and David Karp of Firstgiving.

You're invited to join in a live and open text chat to discuss how you can use Facebook for social change. This is your opportunity to share experiences and ask questions about how people and orgs can do outreach, inspire action, and fund raise on the Facebook network.

The webinar is part of Social Actions' Change the Web Conversation Series.

I'll be talking about some of the successes the Genocide Intervention Network has had in using Facebook and Causes to engage its member base, increase the impact of advocacy campaigns, and raise (a little) money.

RSVP for the event, happening Thursday, Feb. 26, at 11 AM PST/2 PM EST. (Note that if you're not already a member of Social Actions, you'll need to sign up before you can RSVP, but it's free.)

I invite you to ask questions in the comments below ahead of time and I'll do my best to answer them during the event!

--Ivan Boothe, Rootwork.org