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News for November 2002

26 November 2002

OMBWatch's NPAction Pilot
	OMBWatch has launched the pilot of NPAction, an online resource for nonprofit advocacy. Of course, in a year or two, don't be surprised if the U.S. government knows you've visited this site and regards the action as suspicious. Posted: 11/26/02; 10:41:27 AM #

Nonprofit Quarterly Advocacy Edition
	The December 2000 issue of the Nonprofit Quarterly was devoted to advocacy by nonprofit organizations. Considering the frightening directions being taken by the world's "leaders" these days, I confess I place my hope in organizing. Posted: 11/26/02; 10:41:16 AM #

25 November 2002

Building the Information Commonwealth
	The international conference, Building the Information Commonwealth will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia in April 2003. They have issued a call for papers and abstracts are due by the end of the year. Posted: 11/25/02; 10:37:26 AM #

The New Face of Philanthropy
	In The New Face of Philanthropy, Business Week profiles those large donors who are getting much more involved in the work of the organizations they support. Posted: 11/25/02; 10:37:14 AM #

22 November 2002

Learning Objects 101
	Glenn Millar offers a glimpse into the concept of learning objects, a methodology for breaking down curricula design and reconstructing it in various formats. Posted: 11/22/02; 9:32:29 AM #

Free Web Research Link Closed Under Pressure from Pay Sites
	Nonprofits working on energy and environmental policy must be pretty upset. Following the recent trend toward privatizing public information, the U.S. Energy Department has shut down a free research site under pressure from pay sites offering similar services. Posted: 11/22/02; 9:32:12 AM #

21 November 2002

Designing Complex, Adaptive Systems
	Peter Morville has written a fantastic piece in New Architect on Designing complex, adaptive systems. He questions the emphasis on taxonomies and other reductionistic tools for handling large web projects and challenges us to think more holistically. Posted: 11/21/02; 10:36:27 AM #

Tech Survey of Pacific Northwest Social Justice Groups

Project Alchemy has completed a technology survey of Pacific Northwest social justice organizations (PDF file) and reached sadly predictable conclusions, including "no comprehensive use of communications tools and technologies, such as electronic newsletters, broadcast emails, up-to-date Web sites, and list servers even though these could greatly enhance the effectiveness of organizing efforts". Posted: 11/21/02; 10:36:13 AM #

20 November 2002

Finding a Way to Keep It All Going
	In Finding a Way to Keep It All Going Stephanie Strom looks at the growing impact of the bad economy on nonprofit organizations. Posted: 11/20/02; 10:18:57 AM #

18 November 2002

CharityVillage Newsweek Funnies
	Since none of us have enough fun in our work, it's always good to discover something like the CharityVillage Newsweek Funnies. Posted: 11/18/02; 3:41:45 PM #

16 November 2002

W3C Rejects Patents on Internet Standards
	The World Wide Web Consortium did the right thing and voted overwhelmingly against patents in Internet standards. I'm hoping nonprofit funders, leaders, and vendors will do the same thing as they face an emerging challenge with companies that want to control the online practices of nonprofit organizations. Posted: 11/16/02; 2:41:19 PM #

14 November 2002

Safire: You are a Suspect

I'm not normally a fan of William Safire, but I have to admit he writes a great polemic. And today, I confess I agree with his alarm. In You Are a Suspect he describes how the Homeland "Security" Act, if not amended, will give John Poindexter (of Iran Contra fame) the power to assemble comprehensive dossiers on every American citizen. That's every donor, every board member, every activist, every volunteer, and every staff person of a nonprofit in the United States. If you, your organization, or your stakeholders think you might ever find yourself in disagreement with someone in government, I would be very scared. Posted: 11/14/02; 3:43:43 PM #

13 November 2002

Compendium of Standards, Codes, and Principles
	Independent Sector has compiled a truly extraordinary Compendium of Standards, Codes, and Principles of Nonprofit and Philanthropic Organizations. Posted: 11/13/02; 11:24:26 AM #

Kofi Annan's IT challenge
	Kofi Annan's IT challenge is an overview of the United Nations' vision and mission concerning information technology. Posted: 11/13/02; 11:21:12 AM #

Nielsen on Intranet Usability
	Jakob Neilsen weighs in on intranet usability and includes some wonderful and simple observations on why Intranets fail. It includes some of his usual exaggerated arithmetic on outcomes, but the advice on search, navigation, and content formats is great. Posted: 11/13/02; 11:20:55 AM #

7 November 2002

How to Accurately Plan Your Agency's IT Budget
	There is some decent advice in How to Accurately Plan Your Agency's IT Budget. It's missing some fairly large operational analysis though. Posted: 11/7/02; 1:16:42 PM #

Don't Spread It Thin
	In Don't Spread It Thin, Ken Wing argues that foundations undermine their goals when they spend too little on indirect costs. The one countervailing argument I would offer is the benefit of pilot projects with the assumption of learning and shutdown. But I largely agree with him. Posted: 11/7/02; 1:16:31 PM #

6 November 2002

Namibia spurns 'costly' Microsoft donation
	Are you angling for cheap or free copies of Microsoft software? Think such 'donations' are a great thing? The nation of Namibia doesn't think so. Posted: 11/6/02; 6:28:24 PM #

Using Instant Messaging to Work With Volunteers
	I communicate more by instant messaging than I do by telephone. Jayne Cravens has written a piece on Using Instant Messaging to Work With Volunteers. Posted: 11/6/02; 6:28:09 PM #

Stockholm Challenge 2002 winners announced
	Benetech and other public interest projects won the Stockholm Challenge last month. Posted: 11/6/02; 6:27:51 PM #

Interview with Jakob Neilsen
	Karen Solomon at Techsoup interviews Jakob Neilsen on the importance of web accessibility to nonprofit organizations. Posted: 11/6/02; 6:27:26 PM #

1 November 2002

Amy Wohl on Getting Falsely Blacklisted

I understand people's concerns about spam. But paternalistic and irresponsible blacklisting of newsletters as spam is a serious problem, leading to many newsletter subscribers not getting the email they themselves opted into receiving. Amy Wohl complains about what is happening to some of her subscribers. I'm pretty sure that it is already happening to hundreds of Nonprofit Online News (would be) readers. Posted: 11/1/02; 10:17:15 AM #

NTEN Boston Regional Conference 2002
	The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network is on a national roll right now. Their next regional conference is in Boston on November 19 and 20, 2002. Posted: 11/1/02; 10:15:40 AM #

ICANN eliminates directly elected representatives
	The nonprofit that runs the domain name system and that recently reassigned responsibility for the .org domains has eliminated directly elected representatives from its board of directors. Posted: 11/1/02; 10:15:18 AM #

Open Knowledge Network

The Open Knowledge Network is a knowledge sharing initiative for developing nations. It's principles include: standards for tagging information using XML (very encouraging); working offline for free, but synchronizing with the Net; peer-to-peer networking of existing knowledge workers (something we experimented with a couple of years ago); agreed public domain and open content copyright licenses; and sustainable business models adapted to different contexts (probably the most interesting part). I look forward to following this project. Posted: 11/1/02; 10:14:56 AM #

The Journalist's Toolbox
	The Journalist's Toolbox is quite a remarkable collection of resources for anyone doing online research. It's recently expanded to over 16,000 annotated links. Posted: 11/1/02; 10:14:37 AM #