I like this new trend during the holidays of sending e-greetings. Personally, I like to know that trees weren't cut down to make cards that wish me happy new year, which end up in my recycling bin. The e-holiday greeting makes perfect sense and I get equal (if not more) enjoyment out of receiving them. It seems there's an artform to designing cool e-holiday

I've been reading a lot of prediction lists in the last week ('tis the season!), but nothing made me laugh as much as this bit from John Battelle's blog:

9. The massive telephony industry will begin to crush mammals left and right as its core business model continues a long and painful death dance. "Mammals" are defined as anyone who happens to be in its way as it attempts - scarily but unsuccessfully - to force a two-tiered Internet onto all of us.

This is the best description of what's happening at the telecoms that I've run across yet. I think the question of ubiquitious Internet access is essential not only to nonprofits, but to civil

I just came across this post from Kevin Gunn on tech.memorandum. Another brilliant use for Gmail. Say what you will about the Google Empire, Gmail still rules the email world, and they've inspired this haiku:

flexibility
search sort

Firstaidpod has just launched a series of first aid podcasts for the iPod. The idea seems to be that if you find yourself in a situation where you need to give first aid, you can whip out your iPod and give yourself a little instruction. I'm not sure their first choices of podcasts (how to give CPR) are the best for just-in-time instruction (hang on there buddy while I watch this podcast, we'll get you

The GSM Association has just issued a new report, The Role of Mobiles in Disasters and Emergencies. Since it is published by the global trade association of GSM operators, some of the conclusions need to be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, there are interesting case studies of the use of mobiles in the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and terrorist attacks in Istanbul and London. The report concludes that text messages get through much better than voice during peak loads in the midst of a disaster. Analysis of network data showed that the peak loads, while high, were comparable to those at other peak times, such as New Years. The study shows that mobiles may be the first operational

Goodstorm, a new on-demand t-shirt vendor, has recently launched. Its services are similar to Cafepress but it is targeting nonprofits and turns over a much higher percentage of the proceeds. According to an

Not get all Bah-humbug right before the holidays, but I just don't like to say Web 2.0. I couldn't agree more with this post from Russell Shaw. Ask 10 people what Web 2.0 is, and you'll get 10 different answers.

I will, however, soften my stance a bit. As my good friend Ed Batista pointed out to me at lunch the other day, it's useful as a handle. There are a lot of big concepts about the Internet and how society is using it right now. Web 2.0 is a comfortable place for people to begin to express their ideas about what this means for themselves and their work. It's a kind of metaphor, and metaphors can be useful.

I do think,

I can be regularly heard ranting about how lame I think case studies are that are published by tech vendors that are showcasing their clients. You know, perfect projects with perfect outcomes, and cool screenshots to prove it. White papers are a different story, and Convio's recently updated and free to download Online

I'm very fond of Nancy Schwartz's (fairly) new blog called Getting Attention. It's about helping nonprofits succeed through effective marketing, and draws from the excellent work that Nancy has done as a consultant for clients during the past decade. The intersection of marketing and technology is well covered on Nancy's blog, as she writes about a range of topics such as

Lynn Labieniec, one of our board members, sent us this link to an excellent story about the power of sharing data across organizations on CIO.com. I like this article because it doesn't focus on the technology, but on the human issues that are the real barriers to successful collaboration. It sounds like a great case study! I'll have to see if we can incorporate it into the session on this topic at the NTC.