Millions of voices will unite to speak out about positive change in New Orleans during the week of August 25th - the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The “New Orleans 100” initiative will highlight and encourage discussion among millions about 100 of the most innovative and world-changing ideas to take root in the city since Katrina.

Carie Lewis, Internet Marketing Manager at the Humane Society, talks about how the humane society is able to raise funds, awareness, and activity through social networks.

Thank you kbaird for the photo!

Social media practitioners must understand what not to do in the space, as the grassroots are extraordinarily unforgiving and interconnected. Don't be a weed. To wit, I received a message from a friend on Facebook, and immediately it struck me that he was shooting himself in the social media foot with an uzi. The message which I received was sent to 18 persons whose first name begins with the letter R. One can only assume that this instance of his message recurred many times, hence the uzi. It comes across as spam, however well-targeted it might be. It is a formula for failure.

Hi all, awhile ago you may remember me griping about the ineffectiveness of Facebook Groups and Pages. They are easy to set up, but they are also quite limited in functionality. These features are not conducive to community-building, engagement or organizing.

Today, I'm releasing the first beta of a new open source Facebook Newsroom CMS application framework.

See the demonstration application site at Facebook:
http://apps.facebook.com/newsdemo

Check out Part 1 of this article for tips 1-5!

6 – Enlist Top Technology Bloggers

There are likely a few technology bloggers in your community that many local developers subscribe to and read on a regular basis. Because you have a social change mission, these bloggers may be willing to help you get the word out about your web idea. A featured post about your project could be a huge boost to your campaign to find developers!

(click here for Part 2 of this article)

Do you have an idea for a website or web app that will help raise social awareness, inspire social change, or otherwise make the world a better place? Maybe you have an idea for a facebook application that issues environmental action alerts, a social network that helps connect those who suffer from Parkinson's, or possibly even a Firefox add-on that helps nonprofits fundraise? Whatever your idea, if you're not a coder, you're going to need help!

As many of us know, or have heard, Jeremiah Owyang brought down the house with his keynote presentation at the Seattle! Yep Web Community Forum on December 5th. Special thanks go to Beth Kanter for casting a spotlight on Jeremiah’s contributions toward our better understanding & appreciation of social media.

In response to Britt's post about NetSquared's "2007 Best of the Nonprofit Social Web" awards, I humbly submit my own organization, The Nature Conservancy, as an entrant in the Best Use of the Social Web for Raising Awareness by a Nonprofit category.

2007 has been a breakthrough year for The Nature Conservancy's web marketing efforts on the social web, particularly on social news and bookmarking web sites. After about nine months of building up trust and credibility in some of the major social news and bookmarking networks, we finally saw results in a big way this year, including:

Tonight at Google in Mt. View, the Silicon Valley Web Guild is conducting a discussion panel entitled the Next Generation of Social Networking. For those among us non-profit organizations who are investing in social networks and media, a chance to quiz the panel on our particular brand of concerns could be a wise use of one's time. Here's two ways that questions can be brought to the panel: