Tablets, Smartphones, iPads, iPhones: Gadgets for Good?

RSVP on Meetup.com

Coffee appNet Tuesday is thrilled to have Mel Findlater from NetSquared Cambridge present on mobile technology for good this month.

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About the event:

Ever wondered what the big deal is about these new tablets, such as the iPad?

Curious as to how smartphones like the iPhone or Android phone can change the way we live?

How are they really different? Come hear one persons account of how tablets and smartphones such as the iPad and iphone really can create social change in education, for people with disabilities, older people, and in your everyday productivity.

Hear stories, see apps, be inspired… and if you have a smart phone or a tablet do bring it along and feel free to tweet, hunt for apps and so on.

The twitter hashtag for Net Tuesday is #ntvan.

RSVP on Meetup.com

When: Tuesday, January 8, 2012, 5:30 PM To 7:30 PM
Where: W2 Woodwards, 111 W Hastings, Vancouver, BC

RSVP on Meetup.com

Agenda

  • 5:30 – 6:00 pm: schmoozing
  • 6:00 – 7:00 pm: Mel Findlater shares her wisdom
  • 7:00 – 7:30 pm: Q&A

Mel Findlater

Mel Findlater is a Cambridge-based geek for social good (but she grew up near Vancouver!) She gets ridiculously excited about the possibilities of how technology can create social change. She has a background in working with young people, people with disabilities, older people and in the voluntary sector.

Most of her days are spent volunteering and working for The You Can Hub, enthusiastically raising awareness and developing projects to do with ipads, tablets, and technology to promote independence and learning. She’s keen to share her knowledge, skills and passion with others, especially those who are on their own mission for social good.

Follow Mel and the You Can Hub on Twitter

  • @melfindlater
  • @youcanhub

Mel is really looking forward to the event.

“This evening really focuses on the work that I have been doing and will be doing, exploring and talking to people about how to make it a reality and spread the word. It’s all about the social good…which I think fits perfectly with Net Tuesday Vancouver”

Our sponsor

Net Tuesday is thrilled to have the W2 Woodwards as our venue sponsor for the 2012-2013 season. They do cool things. Check them out!

NetSquared December update

Here’s what I’ve been up to over the last month in my gig as NetSquared Local Community Curator.

NetSquared snowglobe
It’s December, which means we’re on the last page of our calendar. Team NetSquared is working hard to wrap-up some this year’s projects. We’ve now completed all seven of our NetSquared Camps and have just one more Global Leadership Council meeting left. But just because some things are coming to an end there’s no reason for tears – rather let’s reflect back on what we’ve learned over the year and share the gift of knowledge on the Washington DC group’s quora page.

The future of NetSquared

The recent reorganization of NetSquared sees the emergence of a unified content and community team for both the NetSquared and TechSoup brands. Sheetal Singh is our new TechSoup champion, taking over from Billy Bicket who is going to take on platform work.

What does that all mean to NetSquared organizers? I’ll be able to share more by mid-December when Sheetal sends her community update, but in the short-term you’ll start to see a regular stream of new content on the NetSquared community blog.

NetSquared Camps

This fall’s major initiative was the NetSquared Camps, which were seven regional unconferences and workshops produced by our local organizer network. The camps were an amazing opportunity to expand the NetSquared local experience from a brief daytime or evening event into an all-day extravaganza. It was also a great excuse for us to get local organizers together for face-to-face meetings, since the big lesson from the Global Leadership Council experiment this year was that we can kickstart inter-organizer relationships by getting people together in the same room. Which, honestly, shouldn’t have been too much of a shock since that’s the key insight that keeps all of us local organizers doing our meetups from month to month.

Each of the camp organizers has written a blog post sharing their insights, photos and video. There are lots of great ideas to steal for your own events!

Platform

The tenth release of the NetSquared platform is now live. Many of the changes were beneath the hood, but you’ll definitely notice the improvements to the community blog. We’re now randomly featuring bloggers from the local network. You may see your face next time you go to http://www.NetSquared.org/blog!

NetSquared organizers as bloggers

Windows 8 Apps for Social Good Contest

The Windows 8 Apps for Social Good Contest invites both new and seasoned developers to create an app for “social good” – and you could win cash prizes to help fuel your dream and keep it going!

There are already five entries in the contest. Check out their project pages and use the social share buttons on the one you think is coolest.

Note: the contest is only open to residents of the USA. But anyone can vote and share!

December events

A quick scan shows ten events happening across the NetSquared local network. That’s a big drop from the 21 in November… Curse those holidays! 🙂

Community Building tweet chat: Why your community needs to go offline

I’m gonna host a #commbuild chat on December 11. You should join us!

Belt AND suspenders

TOPIC: Why your community needs to go offline

DATE: Tuesday, December 11.
TIME: 1-2 PM EST/ 10-11 AM PST

Are you really trying to create a community? Then you’d better seriously consider starting up regular face-to-face meetings for your members. Join the #commbuild community for a discussion about the value of recurring offline group meetings, and share your stories of how offline community has inspired change. When and how should you create a meetup group? How are offline and online communities connected? And what’s in it for the organizer?

You should come. You wouldn’t want me to quote Margaret Mead at you, would you?

Follow the magic hashtag #commbuild

YOUR FACILITATOR
Elijah van der Giessen must be 100 years old, because he started doing Community Building back when “online social networks” consisted of email. Currently he’s the NetSquared Local Community Curator supporting a global volunteer network of 50 groups that each year hold over 450 events for the nonprofit technology sector. He’s also been the volunteer coordinator for outdoor festivals, environmental NGOs and Canadian Idol.

And yes, he wears a belt AND suspenders. That’s what old men do.

ABOUT #COMMBUILD
These conversations are focused on issues and topics relevant to those working on community building or in community management roles. They are open to anyone interested in learning and sharing about building community, on and offline, with the use of social media or other technology tools.

Anyone interested in community building, whether you are formally in a Community Management job or not, is welcome to join the group and participate in the weekly chats. You do not need to be a member of NTEN to participate, but you can join us online at http://my.nten.org/group/commbuild

HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Go to http://tweetchat.com/room/commbuild (or use your preferred twitter chat client), login to your twitter account, and join the conversation! Just be sure to tag your tweets with #commbuild so your tweets are threaded into the conversation.

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

  • What offline communities are you a part of? Which ones do you value the most?
  • WHY did you join your offline community? Why do you think others join?
  • Do you lead an offline community right now?
    If you have peer offline organizers elsewhere do you interact with them? How is the * network managed and sustained?
  • Are your offline and online communities connected? How?
  • What online tools do you use to manage your offline community?
  • What’s your #1 tip for a community organizer that wants to organize an offline meeting?
  • How do you recruit offline community members? Online? Offline?
  • If you have both online and offline communities how are they different? Demographics. Engagement. Activation. What’s the crossover?
  • What’s in it for the community organizer?
  • What’s your favorite online community right now?
  • People can be shy face-to-face. What’s a good icebreaker?
  • What’s your most transformative community experience? Was it online or offline?

Are you competitive?

A blog post from NetSquared.org encouraging local organizers to host events on a monthly basis. It’s the key to growth!

Black Lab Mother & pupLocal organizers:

Are you curious about how big your local group is compared to everyone else? Well, wonder no more because you can see the leaderboard on meetup.
The top five
  1. San Francisco: 1962
  2. Wasington, DC: 1335
  3. Vancouver, BC: 1329
  4. Toronto, ON: 1194
  5. New Orleans, LA: 1019
You may have heard the saying “it’s not big it is, but how you use it”. I think they were talking about meetup groups. But most of us are in this to make a big impact in our communities, and having a bigger meetup helps. 🙂
Factors of group growth
I’m sure there’s lots of patterns we could find in this data, but to me there are two key factors. One we control and the other we don’t.
  1. Big groups are usually in big cities (naturally!)
  2. Big groups hold events consistently every month.
Consistency is the biggest factor in group growth. It’s as important as event quality!
Need help coming up with event ideas? Check out this list of event formats and topics. I can also help you find a co-organizer, which makes it much easier to hold events every month.
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Photo by blogdnd. Creative Commons-licensed on flickr.

Random Hacks of Kindness Vancouver

Net Tuesday pals PeaceGeeks are organizing a Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon this fall. If you’re a developer or a nonprofit with a project idea you should go. RSVP with PeaceGeeks.

RANDOM HACKS OF KINDNESS VANCOUVER, PRESENTED BY EMC

November 30, 2012 – 5:00pm to December 2, 2012 – 5:00pm
116 West Hastings, 2nd floor
Vancouver  British Columbia  V6B 1G8

Canada

   

What is Random Hacks of Kindness?

Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a global movement that connects developers from around the world with local non-profit organizations to help solve technological challenges. This year, PeaceGeeks is excited to host the first RHoK event in Vancouver, presented by EMC.

The Vancouver event will open the evning of November 30th with a reception and project presentation. This will be followed by a two-day hackathon on Saturday December 1 and Sunday December 2. We expect to have between 80 and 100 developers, designers and project participants helping on up to 10 different projects that help to solve technology and communciations challenges for non-profit organization both in Vancouver and around the world.

What is a Global Event?

The Vancouver event will occur in tandem with events in over 20 cities around the world with more than 1000 participants working on different projects.

Who should participate in RHoK?

You should participate in RHoK Vancouver if you are passionate about using technology to help solve real world problems and if you have the following skills:

  • developer/ programmer (games, websites, software, mobile apps, etc.)
  • designer (web, games, apps, user interface, user experience expert, etc.)
  • project analysts (project managers, quality assurance testers, process mappers, etc.)
  • communications experts (copy writers, social media gurus, etc.)
  • other skills that might help to create awesome projects

 

How it will work

  • Project submissions: Starting in November, the RHoK Vancouver team will be recruiting potential projects for the event on December. A projects team will work with partners to clearly defining and refining both the problem and potential solution.
  • Project presentations: On Friday November 30, participants will be invited to the opening event reception. During the reception, representatives from up to 10 non-profit organizations will present their organization, problem and proposed project to participants. Following the presentations, participants will decide which project they will work on over the course of the weekend.
  • Project execution: On Saturday and Sunday (December 1st and 2nd), participants will work on the project they have chosen until 5pm on Sunday evening. We will then give each team 5 minutes to present their project to the group. A panel of judges will award prizes to the top 3 teams.

 

Who are our event sponsors (so far)?

We are very grateful to the following sponsors for helping us to make this event possible:

Global RHoKstar — Title Sponsor: EMC

RHoKstar Extraordinaire: Informatica

RHoK & Roller: GrowLab (Venue Sponsor)

Little RHoKers:

     

NetSquared September update

fall leafHere’s what I did as the NetSquared Local Community Curator in September 2012.

 

September is here, and even ‘tho the new year doesn’t come for another four months I still think of September as a time of rebirth and renewal (I’ll always think like a student, I guess.)

Check out all this rebirth and renewal:
Camps

We’re already had two NetSquared Camp events (Honolulu and Cameroon/Nigeria) and there’s another six  coming between now and November.

Platform
We released the latest release of the NetSquared platform this week and the old blog posts are back!
September events
The NetSquared local organizers are going to keep you busy this summer. Here’s a taste of some of the events planned so far.

NetSquared update October 2012

My Geek-o-Lantern.

What I did at NetSquared in October 2012

October is here! This is going to be a big month for NetSquared. Not only are we going to be holding three regional camps, but there’s also 18 local meetups scheduled and a major local organizer-focused update to the NetSquared platform.

Camps

There are three NetSquared camps scheduled for October:

And in November there will be two more:

Platform
Notification feed

The seventh release of the NetSquared platform is now live. It includes several new features including notification feeds (Facebook-style!) and NetSquared camp pages which appear as green dots on the local map.

What comes next? A major revision of the local organizer pages, to be rolled out October 23, 2012. Hopefully that will solve some of the ongoing bugs y’all have been struggling with, including an unpredictable meetup integration and hunt ‘n peck map icons. 🙂

October events

A quick scan shows 18 events happening across the NetSquared local network. Did I miss any? I think our local organizers have put together an impressive lineup. 🙂

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Photo: My Geek-o-Lantern. Creative Commons licensed by Neal Gillis

NetSquared November update

Here’s what I’ve been up to in my gig at NetSquared Local Community Curator.

Winter is finally arriving in the northern hemisphere (and we’re getting jealous of our southern friends). This November the NetSquared community is holding the last of this year’s NetSquared Camps and is holding even more monthly meetups than last month (at least twenty-one!). This month also saw the launch of the Microsoft Windows 8 Contest, which is open to US-based developers.

The future of NetSquared local

What does the future of NetSquared’s local meetups look like? Please join Billy Bicket, TechSoup’s VP of Community & Platform and Sheeta Singh, Development Director for a community meeting to discuss the future of the program. Please indicate your availability on this doodle poll if you’d like to join this conference call.

NetSquared Camps

Late October saw NetSquared Camp Europe and NetSquared Camp Vermont. In early November it was Guatemala’s turn and in late November the Australian and New Zealand organizers are holding NetSquared Camp Downunder. This four-city meetup will be streamed live over the internet and you’re invited to join them! You can RSVP on the Virtual NetSquared meetup group.

Platform

Events shown based on location

The ninth release of the NetSquared platform is now live. Most of the changes are improvements to the challenge functionality of the site, but it also includes the display of events to logged-in users of the platform. When a user is on the site they are now shown their closest local meetup event (because we know their location). This will help bring more people to your meetup.

I’ve also created a screencast overview of the local organizer pages on the platform as well as a guide to creating and editing your local organizer page. Let me know if something isn’t clear.

Windows 8 Apps for Social Good Contest

I’ve been pretty quiet for the last few weeks because I’ve been supporting the launch of a joint project between Microsoft and NetSquared. Want to help people find the closest organic produce? Interested in making it easier for people to conserve more energy? Can you make online donations easier? How about making math easier for kids? The Windows 8 Apps for Social Good Contest invites both new and seasoned developers to create an app for “social good” – and you could win one of three cash prizes to help fuel your dream and keep it going! There are three cash prizes starting at $15,000. Good luck! Please note, the contest is only open to residents of the USA.

November events

A quick scan shows 21 events happening across the NetSquared local network. Did I miss any?

Photo by Tim on Flickr

Storify: Ben Johnson’s digital tool suggestions from Net Tuesday

A look into the tool kit of Ben Johnson, the Managing Director of Frontier Consulting.

A look into the tool kit of Ben Johnson, the Managing Director of Frontier Consulting.

http://storify.com/elijah/organizing-your-digital-attack-from-a-one-person-s