Karitas Posts.for.us

 

Samsung Starts Advertising Galaxy Tab
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Getting really excited about the slew of tablets coming out with the android platform, this one seems to have it all together, especially with video chat! I think the large question is still how Android and Chrome OS will pan out..

Gotta get my hands on this device soon!

 

You've packed my (heart)bags, and i'm ready to go to #10NTC!

Friends, we did it! Through all your support i've gathered tickets, hotel, registration, and enough donations to get me to this years Nonprofit Technology Conference in Atlanta! 

In exactly one week, i've had a rollercoaster ride of emotions as i went
from sadness that my proposal for TechSoup's Membership Lounge Challenge wasn't chosen, 
to fearful as i calculated the real cost to making it to NTC, 
to humbled as i recieved my first donations, and RTs from fellow NPTechies and friends that wanted me to make my goal
to empowered that i can take a seemingly unreachable goal i have and, with the support of the amazing community i have surrounding me, make it happen.

And what a special time for all of this to happen, right on the cusp of Ada Lovelace Day, within the week of my 3 year Twitterversary, and all set on the day of Twestival!

Before i bawl digital tears of joy all over the interwebs, i want to give an extra special thanks to the following people, who shocked and amazed me with their generosity and confidence that my being at 10NTC is important: 

To every single person who Tweeted, ReTweeted, Facebook Shared, and sent your good vibes into the 'cloud' to give life to my campaign.

To all 23 donation contributors ( @rachelannyes @farra @ChicagoPolkaDot @rosevines @scottfmurphy @ramon_deLeon @enuno @ch1x0r @wiserearth @christuttle @johnmerritt @SocMediaRckStr @elviaro @hanabel @dmaguigad @engagejoe @judisoldyess @joeGermuska @kdc @1god @peterscampbell @dkrumaluf @kanter ) who ChippedIn towards my campaign, thank you so much for taking that extra step to put money toward my goal, and helping me reach it.

Peter Campbell: For being my first contributor and an all around cheerleader for me and other young NPtechies.

David Krumlauf: For almost making me cry in my car after donating, connecting me to Denis Pierce, being a cheerleader, AND getting me a free registration to NTC. David has always been the quintessential NPtechie role model; a man who loves technology, and loves his job,  but more importantly, loves enabling nonprofits to do what they love best: meet their mission, and has the most inspiring smile on his face as he does it. 

Denis Pierce: For his very generous donation of his flight points, and employing the Quintessential NPTechie Role Model, David Krumlauf, through the Pierce Family Charitable Foundation.

Beth Kanter: For answering my call to action, and through her blog and rockstar-ability, spread the word far and wide about my campaign, and her commitment to young NPTechies like me. 

Holly Ross and Analiesse Hoehling: For renewing my NTEN membership and offering a serious 10NTC discount to help me get closer to my goal.

Leah Kopperman: For being my future 10NTC roomie in the ATL!

Demetrio Maguigad and Justin Massa: For Poppin' My Virtual Collar, and my real collar as chicago NPTech colleagues. 

Last, to all the NPTechies that couldn't make it to 10NTC, but took time to help me get there, i know many of us are in the same economic struggles, and i thank you for holding me up in these hard times. ill be setting my jets to ATL with all of you in my heart and in my mind, and will do my best to bring the best of NTC back to you!
Karitas_foursquare_birthday
To all ye #10 NTC Attendees: See you there!
Filed under: 10ntc fundraising gratitude nptech
 

The Mechanics of Trippin' it to 10NTC

As Beth Kanter mentioned in her blog post yesterday (thanks so much beth!) Registering for 10NTC is half the battle. i've taken the time to calculate what it would take for me to get there, and have had some amazing people donate flight points and memberships to get me closer than ever to my goal!


Right now, i'm focusing on raising the amount for the registration itself ($359.00). please ChipIn whatever you can! 5, 10, 15, it all helps!

 

 

How I came to know about Nonprofit Technology

Using technology has been a large part of my life. From my middle school encounters with Bulletin Board Systems, Windows 3.1 and Oregon Trail to my passion for helping navigate others through the social media landscape today.

Nonprofit work has also been a large part of my life, from my volunteer work in high school, to my position on the board for ProjectVIDA/ProjectLIFE.

What i didn't realize, was that these two things could intersect, and there was a group of people that were tied to both, and making real change in the world.

Read the rest of this post »

Filed under: nptech nten
 

3 Events Mobile Peeps shouldn't miss THIS WEEK!

What a wonderful place chicago is. Having so much going on in the tech space! if you're particular to the mobile  space (whether it be marketing, development, gadgeteer, innovator, etc) here are 3 events you need to know about this week.

 

THURSDAY, March 4

TechThursdays at OfficePortChi: Featuring SocialDevCamp Chicago


For those of you who made it to Social Dev Camp this year, you know it was filled with amazing speakers, lots of smart cookies working on a breath of platforms and arenas. this is your chance to meet up with them again, and get excited for their next event! This is also a time to support a GREAT initiative by YWCA called TechGYRLS, bringing school-aged girls through an intensive technology learning program, and breaking down the stigma that girls cant tech. (each ticket purchased for this TechThursday event at OfficePort will support this program)

When:      Thursday March 4, 2010, 6:00pm-9:00pm

Where:     OfficePort CHI

                9 W. Washington St.

                Chicago, IL

Cost:        $5.00 (Donated to YWCA TechGYRLS)

RSVP:       Register Here 


 

FRIDAY, March 5

MobileX Conference

MobileX is a one day conference for entrepreneurs, investors, developers, industry professionals, and mobile enthusiasts that identifies opportunities, explores solutions, and provides technical education in the mobile & related industries. This event includes an interesting Elevator pitch contest, so all ye mobile entrepreneurs should check it out! ALSO, if you use INCUBA8 when you register, you get a discount! For updates if you cant go, you can follow @mobilexchi on twitter

When:      9:00 AM - 6:00 PM (CT)
Where:     Doubletree
                300 E. Ohio Street

Cost:        Student: $60
                 Early Bird Special (February 24): $60
                 Standard Price (March 3): $100
                 Late Registration: $120
RSVP:       Register Here     

 

 

 

SATURDAY, March 6

Day of Mobile is an all day event for mobile developers and enthusiasts. The overall goal of the event is to better prepare both Chicago's application development community and companies with mobile initiatives for the upcoming mobile revolution.
Google Android is one of the sponsors, and we all know what happened last time they came out to a local mobile event. The event includes a Hackathon, and an interesting keynote, so i suggest you check it out! The team organizing this event, TechInTheMiddle are looking to plan more events like this, so keep an eye on their site. 

When:      Saturday, March 6 8AM to 6PM

Where:     Illinois Institute of Technology

                McCormick Tribune Center

                3201 South State Street

                Chicago, IL

Cost:        39.95 (students, and Hackathon attendees at 19.95)

RSVP:       Register Here

 

 

Hope I see you there!!

Filed under: chicago events mobile
 

Fun way to introduce Google Apps: A Race To Google Mountain!

 For the past few weeks, I've been working tirelessly on moving ProjectVIDA/ProjectLIFE (for which I am a board member) to Google Apps. We have a committed staff and board, but not a lot of tech savvy. so after deploying the system for everyone to start using, I realized im going to have to make this fun for everyone to start getting used to working with Calendar, Contacts, Documents, even Gmail.

So, today I created a Race To Google Mountain! I've asked all the staff and board members to take time to get 10 steps done, after each step showing me proof that they've done it, and whomever makes it to the peak of Google Mountain wins a prize! There's extra prizes along the way for "hikers" who are extra creative or detailed in their journey, and part of my plan is to have a secondary Team Prize for the group who gets all their colleagues to the top with them (ProjectVIDA does Prevention programs, and Direct Services for the Southwest Chicago community, so they'll be two teams, and the third will be the board).

Here are the steps i'm having them take:

  1. Set an "available" status message, and a "busy" status message in Google Chat
  2. Add 5 coworkers to Google chat
  3. Create 10 Labels for yourself in Gmail
  4. Set up 3 filters in Gmail
  5. add 10 things to your Calendar
  6. Share your calendar with 5 coworkers
  7. Add 10 contacts to your Address Book
  8. Create 5 tasks (and complete at least 2) in Google Calendar or Gmail
  9. Go Through All the settings windows in Gmail and Google Calendar and make at least 5 customizations
  10. Create a Document listing all the ways you can use Google Apps in your work (with your program, forms you do daily, people you interact with, get CREATIVE!)

Here are a few of the rules i set:

  • you don't have to complete the steps in order, but you have to show me proof in order (meaning, if you already shared your calendar with 5 coworkers (step 6), you have to complete and show me steps 1-5 before you can show me step 6)
  • If you need help with any of these steps, let me know, and I will send you hints on how to complete your goals. (these will most likely be training videos to help them understand what they need to do to complete the step they're struggling with)
  • Everything you do has to be REAL/USEFUL! no creating fake labels, or phony meetings, or imaginary people just to make it to the top of Google Mountain. the goal is to USE Google apps for good!

so here's what the race will look like! If only this chart could look like a real mountain with little mountain climbers on it! :)

Race_to_google_mountain

If you have any suggestions I could use to make this better, leave them in the comments!
I can also make this chart a template for any of you nonprofits that want to use this in your Google Apps Deployment. this could be used in any new platform deployment, really.

Filed under: Google nptech projectVIDA
 

a childhood walk
a few days ago, ZeFrank tweeted try this :: A Childhood Walk ::

And I did:

The Quest To Find The King - A Childhood Walk
View The Quest To Find The King - A Childhood Walk in a larger map

Feel free to take a walk in my childhood shoes (use Google Street View)

This process was quite surreal.. it brought so many memories back, without even leaving my chicago living room. what would be even more fascinating is seeing what comes up for my family members going on the same path. I Highly recommend you try this for yourself, share your walk with me!

 

Resources for the Illinois Primary Elections

If you havent realized already, in just a few weeks, (february 2nd) Illinois will be going through its 2010 Primary elections. This is always a subject where i find myself rushing around, looking for some way to get caught up on all the issues and people that i have to decide on, and this year, i've been able to find a few good places where much of my research will take place.

Here are 5 resources for you on the Illinois Primary Elections:

 

Chicago Tribune Election Center (and the Ballot Builder Tool)

This site is a pretty well populated site, with candidate profiles, and lots of articles that will help bring you up to speed on whats being talked about in these elections. It shows a countdown to election day, and the best part is a ballot builder, where you enter your address, our party, then it gives you an interactive list of candidates, with Q&A and interviews, and once you've decided on your list, you can print, or share on facebook, etc.

Rep Sheet

Rep sheet uses your address and tells you who your representatives are. Not just their names, but their phone numbers, and their addresses, so you can harass them to get their jobs done. What i like most about this site, are the area maps that show you where you live within each district you're a part of, which showed me that my neighbors across the street have to harass an entirely different alderman to get things done than i do.

The site also gives you a feed of any news that mentions any of your representatives, a good way to see what they've done (or not) for you lately.

Project Vote Smart

Here's another, put your address in, and i'll tell you what in know sites. i really respect this project, and their Political Courage Test is promising, but a big hole in this site is the lack of content for many of the candidates running. im not sure if that is a candidate or a projectVoteSmart problem, but if this site had a little more content, it would be highly useful! still, for the candidates it does have info on, i find it to be a good resource.

Wikipedia's US Elections 2010 Pages

No one needs to tell you the awesomeness of Wikipedia, but these particular election pages come chock full of information, graphs etc on the whole country! a good way to see how your good ol' state of Illinois will affect the national political environment. if you click through to the gubernatorial or US Senate elections pages, youll see a summary of what will be going on in the 2010 elections at large, including a chart of predictions, showing which seats are considered "tossups" and should be kept an eye on.

ChicagoElections.com

For those of you who need some help just getting around the logistics of the elections, check out Chicago Elections (or for the suburbanites, check the list of the Area Election Sites on the homepage) for an easy way to confirm you're registered, where you can do early voting, etc. If this is your first Chicago election, i reccomend going to this site, just to get acquainted with the rules and regulations around voting in these parts :)

 

Any more suggestions? please leave them in the comments!

Happy Voting!

Filed under: chicago elections gov2.0 resources voting
 

Are the FTC Blogger Gift Disclosure rules like the Chicken and the Egg situation?
This article was interesting to me, after reading three live-blogs about the announcement of the Nexus One today, and realizing that no one did say they were getting one as a gift. (although, the guy from Ars Technica mentioned he would hope to get some Hands On time with the phone...) perhaps it was a surprise to them that they would be taking one home, like something off the set of Oprah, but i do find that it is important to know that someone was receiving compensation in any way from a company that they might be reviewing. surely, its one thing to be a visitor to a company, and be offered hospitality, like food or drink for being there, but its another thing to receive an item you are about to review for free, and keep that a secret. Now that there is so much more value put on person to person recommendation, those waters shouldn't be muddied with the wink of a companies' eye, i want to know the true and objective opinion these bloggers have, like i would any journalist, and leave the totally biased recommendations to my Aunt Gayle!

The larger question becomes, is this persons opinion of this product already set, regardless of what items they may recieve from the company, or are they swayed by the gift itself.

(FROM RWW)

1 Month Into New FTC Rules: Who's Disclosing Their Free Google Phones?

Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / January 5, 2010 1:41 PM / 6 Comments

New rules from the Federal Trade Commission, requiring bloggers to disclose free gifts from companies whose products they review, came into effect on December 1st and the first major announcement of 2010 just occurred today.

The Google Nexus One mobile phone was unveiled this afternoon and all the members of the press who were on-site for the announcements received free phones from Google. This is the most-anticipated phone to hit the market in years. It's like a unicorn sparkling with magic, perhaps. Almost no one at all has disclosed getting a free unit in writing their reviews.

The idea is that receiving free goods from a vendor makes a writer more likely to write positively about a product than they would otherwise. Readers deserve to know if a writer has a financial interest in the company or has received free stuff, so that the readers can take product reviews with gifts associated with a grain of salt. Some people believe that this is essential to safeguard the trustworthiness of media in a "new media" era, others believe it is unfair to small-time bloggers who deserve a chance to profit from their writing just like the pros do.

In this case, though, it's the pros we're talking about. Blogger Robert Scoble tells us that all the attendees were given a choice: receive the phone as a gift or sign an agreement to borrow a Nexus One on loan for 30 days. Scoble signed up for the loaner.

VC blogger Fred Wilson wrote in his post "I received a gift from Google. It was a Nexus One." Michael Arrington has said that TechCrunch will give away the phone he received at the press event. Scanning over Techmeme's survey of coverage, we're unable to find anyone else who makes mention of the freebie.

It may be the case that big-name tech review bloggers like Walt Mossberg or Engadget are just expected to always send back the review copies of things they get and so there's no reason to disclose on every post. (Here's Mossberg's ethics page, where he says he never accepts free gifts. He also makes more money than all but a few journalists ever have in history, for what it's worth.)

It may be that all the press who got a Google Phone today is planning on giving the phones back in 30 days. How should disclosures be handled though if you're writing an article and you haven't decided whether you are going to send something back as a loaner or keep it?

Here at ReadWriteWeb, we try hard to always make casual but clear mention when we have a financial interest in a company we are writing about. We try hard to mention the same if we are writing about a competitor to a company we have a financial interest in. And we always do our best to disclose it if we ever get free stuff from vendors we write about. That doesn't happen very much.

Sometimes the lines aren't clear, either. The community manager at Postrank.com sent me a sock monkey she made last year and I write about that company often. (I use it daily for essential work.) I've never mentioned that sock monkey before, though.

This is a phone made of pure sunlight and hype, though. Is it a poor reflection on the FTC's new disclosure requirements that so few have disclosed their free Google Phones, or is it a poor reflection on our group of tech bloggers?

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Filed under: Google Tech bloggers
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