Earth Day spurred some conversation on NTEN Discuss about how to figure out carbon emissions for every watt a computer uses per hour. Dean Matsueda wrote that he had seen and used carbon-footprint calculators online to gauge household, car, and air travel C02 emissions but would like to drill down to more specifics, like computer use.

Walt Daniels gave this response:

Carbon footprint is a simple multiply if you have the watts/hr and number of hours. watts/hr is what is hard to come by for most computer setups unless you have a meter on it because the usage depends on too many things,like duty cycle and how you have the power savings features on your computer set.

Gavin Clabaugh lets us know that to do it right, you need to meter the machine. He uses a Kill-A-Watt (a simple one costs about $20).

And Dave Shaw, H4 Consulting, added:

2008 Bridge ConferenceThose of you in Fundraising know it's all about communicating your mission and building relationships.

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Wouldn't you love to get together and share tips, strategies, resources, and contacts?

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Get in touch with me to get your golden-ticket registration details.

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Flickr Photo: ourlady ofdisgraceDoes your organization blog? Do you encourage folks to post pictures online? Perhaps you have a video podcast?

If your organization uses social media tools, you want to bookmark the Berkman Center's new Citizen Media Legal Guide. It's not completely built out yet -- I couldn't find any information about Libel and Blogs for example. But the resources that ARE live are great. Here are just a few resources that address some of the questions I hear all the time:

• Deciding Whether and How to be Anonymous
• Deciding Whether and How to License Your Content
• Journalism Skills and Principles

I am especially looking forward to the forthcoming "Special Content" section which will cover enticing topics like "Employee Blogs." Did that sound sarcastic? I really mean it. I'm excited to see some really practical guidelines to which we can point the sector.

Flickr Photo: not waltonSince I became Executive Director of NTEN last November, the number of things I've needed to stay on top of has exploded. On any given day, I need to be an expert in:

• Social Media tools and strategies
• DNS settings
• Nonprofit and Board Governance
• How innovative nonprofits are using technology
• The state of municipal wireless
• Email open rates
• Human resources laws
• Anything and everything NTEN members are up to
• And everything anyone is saying about NTEN

My old way of managing information was not cutting it. Although I use a lot of social media tools, I was very email-inbox centric. My inbox was the place I kept articles I wanted to read later, ideas I wanted to follow up on, and all of my to-do items.

The result? If you emailed me in the last three months, I probably didn't respond very quickly, if at all. That's no way to lead a membership organization.