This entry originally appeared in the Portland Oregonian on June 20, 2008 under the title "Climate Change's Other Inconvenience." 

By WeBuyItGreen:  promoting green living, fair trade and tap water

Eric Odom talks to us about how the Sam Adams Alliance is using open source software to bring transparency to the corners of American democracy that often go overlooked.

 

Jed Sundwall: What is the stated mission of the Sam Adams Alliance?

 

Eric Odom: The Sam Adams Alliance has existed for a year and a half. It's a 501(c)3 that focuses and education and information and it also has 501(c)4 because of our work across the country with activists and leadership training.

During the first NetSquared Conference (N2Y1), technology futurist, Paul Saffo, spoke with Lucy Bernholz and Howard Rheingold about "disruptive technologies" that cause significant changes in the way that individuals live, businesses operate, or society behaves during a session entitled, "Making the Most of Disruption." (Watch it on FORA.tv. Listen to it on the NetSquared Podcast).

Last week, Saffo's article, Obama's 'Cybergenic' Edge appeared on abcnews.com. It talks about how successful candidates need to not only be "mediagenic," but also "cybergenic."

Brian Dear, founder of Eventful, talks to us about how structuring event data is helping people find the events that matter to them and their communities.

What does Eventful do?

Eventful's mission is to help people discover, track, create, and share events. Basically, we want to provide worldwide comprehensive service to help people find events everywhere. We're trying to address a major need that the Internet hasn't met until now, which is basically a search engine dedicated to event discovery.

We're trying to exploit technology to the fullest to help people with one particular niche, albeit a very large niche. On any given day, probably 50 million events go on throughout the world.

"If you are a political hack who is dealing with life in a networked age, or a hacker who is into politics and wants to drive change forward, this is the place to be."--Micah Sifry

This year's 5th Annual Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) has been expanded to two days, June 23-24, and will be held in New York City at Rose Hall, the new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Keynoters include: Elizabeth Edwards, Michael Arrington, Vint Cerf, and Craig Newmark. Presenters Include: Arianna Huffington, Lawrence Lessig, Mayhill Fowler, Ana Marie Cox, Robert Scoble, Josh Marshall, Douglas Rushkoff, Joe Trippi, Gilberto Gil and many more...

Sounds awesome, doesn't it? Well, guess what? PdF is offering a special discount to the NetSquared Community.

You vote, right? But do you use Congresspedia, Wiki The Vote, the SuperDelegate Transparency Project, OpenSecrets.org, FedSpending.org, or PublicMarkup.org to be an informed voter? They are all projects whose creation was facilitated by the Sunlight Foundation to educate citizens and increase transparency in politics.

On March 28th, I talked on the phone with Ellen Miller, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation, about their work. Ellen is also a NetSquared Advocate. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. You can also listen to it on the little player below, or on the NetSquared Podcast.

Ellen Miller: The Sunlight Foundation is a two-year-old organization that is a combination of a grant-making, and operational institution that focuses on creating greater transparency for the work of Congress.

A little about Capitol News Connection:

" There are about 50 social networks, and they each have thousands of groups of individuals in these little private circles. It is not like you can send out a blast to everyone on the list and expect them to respond enthusiastically. You really have to do what Jacob Colker did, and go door-to-door--the equivalent of door-to-door online and get to know people, spend some time."

Flickr Photo by Kaneda99

MoveOn's starting a fellowship program—four short-term paid positions. Whether you're a recent college grad or a movement veteran, this might be the perfect job for you or someone you know. Click here to apply by September 21st, or pass this link along to friends who might be interested!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was like a quarter-life crisis, but without the John Mayer theme song. I'd done everything I was supposed to do, and now, there were whole new questions. I realized I couldn't answer all these questions on my own; I needed a mentor (or two).

I was wrestling with new questions regarding direction, business planning, and management of Knowledge As Power. KAP is a small non-profit I founded nearly two years ago with a mission of including citizens in the legislative process by providing legislative information online. In the last two years, with a small board, a lot of boot-strapping, volunteers, and a lot of determination, we now have an alpha, were a 2006 Echoing Green Finalist, got 501 (c) 3 status (it only took the IRS 11 months to approve us!), interns, contractors, a few donations, and some press