Jed Miller, ACLU

Web communities are occasional stop-bys for most users, but a listserv community like Progressive Exchange lives in your inbox. It's a regular presence and a good resource, as long as you're not one of those crazies who's compelled to read every single message.

Progressive Exchange is worth the extra mail: a network of NPO tech staff, consultants, strategists and vendors more focused on problem-solving than self-promotion (though there's certainly some of the latter).

Topics range from one-off announcements of jobs, seminars, and semi-formal gatherings (mostly in D.C.), to calls for referrals, to roundtable discussions of news and innovations, some of these becoming pretty serious group analysis.

The savvy group generates very little "noise" from rote questions, like the umpteenth CMS inquiry, but it would be nice if the best exchanges were compiled regularly to avoid rebuilding the wheel for the new or forgetful. The hosts circulate roll calls of who's on the list but a little more "mirrorware" telling the group what it's accomplishing would be invaluable.

It's ironic, actually, that in our greater community, which often bemoans the lack of time to think ahead and turn serial lessons into serious leadership, the resource that we have in each other is so often diffused across listservs or sardined into conferences.

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