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Fred Turner's Papers on Cyberculture

I recently watched a fantastic lecture by Fred Turner, concerning his book From Counterculture to Cyberculture (which I hope to review). If you're interested in the origins of digital utopianism and you share my concerns about it (while still seeing some democratic promise), I recommend you read a couple of Turner's publically available papers. In particular, take a look at “How Digital Media Found Utopian Ideology: Lessons from the First Hackers’ Conference" and “Where the Counterculture Met The New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community". Posted: 1/7/08; 7:32:04 PM #

Lunch over IP: Tips for Conference Bloggers

Conference blogging has definitely been catching on in the nonprofit sector. If you're inclined to do this sort of thing, I highly recommend the amazing Ethan Zuckerman's Lunch over IP: Tips for Conference Bloggers. It's a short, free ebook derived from conversations with some of the best conference bloggers out there and includes tips on a huge range of topics including: tools, preparation, style, level of detail, the use of quotes, providing context, linking, tagging, and the (all important) matter of timing. I'm not a good conference blogger (I like to take too much time for analysis and synthesis), but I am a big fan of those who are. Posted: 1/7/08; 7:26:39 PM #

P2P Foundation (The Foundation for P2P Alternatives)

The P2P Foundation (AKA: The Foundation for P2P Alternatives) has come a long way since the last time I pointed my readers in their direction. Although I have some serious concerns with the digital utopianism of a lot of the content at their site, I nevertheless think this is a very useful resource for community organizers and organizational planners. Although the most transparently "nonprofit" topic is the rather thin and moribund P2P Aid/Relief/Emergency Response Project, there is plenty of material to help inspire your thinking. I recommend: Robin Good's Introduction to the Politics of Peer to Peer and the entire sections on Peer Production and Collective Intelligence. Posted: 1/7/08; 7:19:47 PM #