http://www.apebble.com/

It's a newly launched full suite of online organizing tools inspired by Gov. Patrick's campaign.

Closed captioning for people with hearing loss.
Stenographic machine data of public meetings of our Boston City Council should be made available routinely. Already budgeted, the city stenographer records the words at Council public meetings including councilors' remarks, debate, the testimony of experts and the testimony of the people before the Council.

The City Council one hundred.
A hundred people are budgeted for our City Council. The roles of everyone there should be made more clear.

For example,
what is the role of the City Messenger?...

What are the roles of the other 90 some odd people budgeted for our City Council?...

see also page 402 at
http://www.cityofboston.gov/TridionImages/13_NonMay_Dep_tcm1-873.pdf

or click on NonMayoral Departments at
http://www.cityofboston.gov/budget/

Google Offers Free Internet Applications to Nonprofits

Google is offering a number of tools at no cost to nonprofit organizations, including email programs, mapping software, blogs, Internet traffic analysis programs, and free search engine advertising. Google recently established a new nonprofit portal so that groups can more easily access the tools. In addition to the software, the site offers setup instructions and advice on how to use the programs to support the group's mission. For additional information visit http://www.google.com/nonprofits/

Yes, the WordPress software offers a couple of different ways to create blogs.

- Normal WordPress installs on your server can be setup to allow other people to login; you grant them authority to add/edit comments or add/edit blog entries directly themselves. That's equivalent to a single blog that a group authors.

- See the WordPress Mu project, which allows sysadmins or even people with decent ISP website accounts to run multiple, separate blogs on one system, each with multiple users. That's how the free blogs on WordPress.com (i.e. the hosted site) are run.

- Google really is coming out with some great tools, both document sharing and the new Apps. They do have a good history of providing free and broad licenses to nonprofits, so in that respect they're an excellent resource to consider. On the other hand, nearly all Google tools require a Google ID to login with. Depending on your organization, that may be a showstopper. No matter how much their motto is "don't be evil", I know many people - not just the political activists or unusually-privacy-sensitive people - who refuse to use Google tools since it's just too easy to track those logins.

Like any project, the key is knowing what you want to do, and who's going to help you. After you figure that out, you can look for specific tools that 1) do something useful (lots of those!) and 2) your community is able and willing to use. The second step varies widely, and probably has three main factors:

- Privacy. Anything related to politics or controversial subjects needs to understand what their community will accept.

- Ease of use. This is still hard to find in many tools - while regular universalhub readers probably use several wikis (for just one common tool example) on a regular basis, any broader community groups will have lots of people who, er, don't. I regularly meet people who work in technology companies who still aren't really sure what a wiki is.

- Popularity / publicity. It's easier to gain more active community members with tools that already have some popularity, such that someone who might volunteer who first comes to your website - if they see a tool they're familiar with, they're much more likely to actively join.

Tip: improving community building tools could start at home, with the Boston Civic Summit people having a more useful website. Maybe even an interactive one, eh?

For just two examples of sites that allow community events and conferences to add a ton of interactive features, typically for free, see CrowdVine and Ning.

Adam and everyone.

I am madly in love with www.ning.com.

The following are some of my most popular networks powered by http://www.ning.com.

http://jp.neighborsforneighbors.org
http://e13.bostoncrimewatch.com
http://www.mugproject.com

I am just curious. If I offered consulting services to help develop NING networks would anyone be interested? If so drop me an email.

Joseph Porcelli

857-222-4420
www.josephporcelli.com
www.neighborsforneighbors.org
www.bostoncrimewatch.com
www.nametagproject.com
www.mugproject.com