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Summary of 5/27/2011 NPSL meeting

Nonny Writer / Nonny de la Peña

* Nonny is a maker of SL virtual awareness projects. Virtual Gitmo is one of her works.

* Discussion about Gitmo

* First built in spring of 2007 to highlight Guantanamo facility.

* Real facility is inaccessible to journalists.

* Second SL sim was about Cap and trade – carbon emissions controls and trading. Sim outlined methods of carbon footprint reduction, carbon emissions trading, and carbon credits.

* Ways to recycle and re-use carbon waste such as hog manure.

* Now working on a sim about hunger in California.

Thomas Jäger

* Spoke about several school violence issues, mostly bullying.

* Ways to combat school bullying.

* Virtual anti-violence campus designed to show people ways to get around bullying.

* Physical bullying and cyber-bullying.

* Discussion of cyber-bullying.

* Guided tours available, just ask Jaeger

Written by: HydraShaftoe

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PTSD Support and Second Life Globe Theater in Jeopardy

Sad news from both Fearless Nation PTDS Support and the Shakespearean Globe Theater in Second Life. Both of these institutions are facing imminent closure if funds for their sim rental costs do not materialize soon.

Fearless Nation is an online community for trauma sufferers, offering education, information, support and advocacy to bust stigma and misinformation about post traumatic stress.  According to their recent email, if they do not receive substantial donations soon, they will be closing their doors at the end of June.

To support Fearless Nation, head to this web page.

SL Shakespeare 350 Meanwhile, Ina Centaur, creator of the Shakespearean Globe Theater in Second Life, reports that her avatar account has been frozen because she owes several thousands of dollars to Linden Lab for tier (rental) costs for her four sims.  Apparently it is “due for deletion” on June 3 unless she can pay the fees. Which effectively means that she will no longer have access to all of her builds in Second Life.

See her blog post for more info.

Written by: rikomatic

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Idea submission system for getting ideas

People have a lot of ideas, but many fall through the cracks. Also, some ideas are not really feasible or not thought out well enough. IdeaScale has a free package where people can create a community where people can submit ideas that others can vote/comment on. You can upgrade for more features if desired. There are other sites and software. However, I picked IdeaScale as it has a good implementation and is used by some organizations that can be demanding of needs. http://ideascale.com/ is the website. http://ideascale.com/a/createUser.do?application=IdeaScale
is where you signup.

The White House uses IdeaScale. Wired Magazine, Reuters, the Boy Scouts, and Mozilla (makers of Firefox) also use IdeaScale. There is widget code allows you to get ideas via a blog or website by including the widget code in your blog or website. There is a free “Civic Engagement License” for government agencies. http://ideascale.com/opengov There are no free licenses to non-profit entities (other than the standard free package). Hopefully, we might be able to convince them to change their mind. 🙂

IdeaScale has 508 government compliance, restricted access, curse filtering, and SSL security (if
you upgrade). There are iPhone and Facebook Apps available and you can link to Twitter and Facebook, so new ideas get posted on Twitter and your Facebook page. There is a Terms of Use section. Having an idea submission system makes it easier to find those with great ideas. Might find a great volunteer or new staff member. Users can flag improper posts (if enabled). When a predefined threshold is reached, the comment is hidden and the moderator is notified. If approved, the comment will
reappear and not be flaggable.

Creating an account requires an email address and passing the CAPTCHA. You can login with Google
Account, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, AOL, and OpenID. Can customize Call-to-action and pick one of two voting systems. Up/Down ala Digg, or Poker style where an user gets a predefined number of votes that they can use (some or all) on ideas that they think are most important. I recommend Up/Down. Changing voting system removes current votes. The different status’ that an idea can have are: Inbound (if not signed in), Active (if signed in), Under Review, In Progress, Complete, Closed (hides it), Off-Topic.

You can edit the webpage code for headers, footers, Home Page, Terms of Use, and Contact info. You can customize name and email address that notifications are sent from, as well as the invitation emails. You can specify a daily or weekly digest, or none. You get 5 free categories (you can do more if you specify more than 5 at the beginning). You can also specify an end date for a category. You can also export ideas (except for custom fields in CSV) and member data. You can get a report on: total users; unsubscribed, bounced, new, and verified users; email domains.

Take a look at (and submit ideas at) http://nonprofitcommons.ideascale.com/

Written by: morriscox

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Summary of 5/20/2011 NPSL meeting.

Speaker – David Burden, developer with Daden Ltd, an innovative cross-platform virtual world development company.

http://www.daden.co.uk/pages/virtual_world_finder.html

*There is a lot of variety and choice between virtual worlds and their capabilities. There was a need for a centralized virtual world finder that makes it possible to see what you can do with each of them. Every world has its pros and cons (I.E. – Eve Online allows things that Gaia does not, and vice versa).

*A simple web app has been developed that allows people to weigh pros and cons, capabilities.

*Buffy can’t wear enough hats!

*Depending on whether you come from a marketing, scientific, or entertainment stance, the rankings from the web app would be very different.

*Most important function is that it flags what a world does NOT do. Far more important than what it can do as far as choosing the right platform.

*Discussion of capabilities of various worlds – holding a meeting in WoW is next to impossible, sl and opensim meeting abilities.

*Nonprofits congregate in opensim/SL because of interactivity and open feel.

*Best overall for nonprofits are sl, opensim, hypergrid for business

*Vastpark is a world for real business work and people want AVs to look lime themselves.

*SL is best for public visibility.

*Many account creation websites for VWs are confusing – people dont show up for events.

*Browser vs client based VW discussion.

*Possibility of ranking VWs according to assisted living or handicapped-accessibility.

*Work towards creating a completely neutral interface for finding proper VWs for projects.

Written by: HydraShaftoe

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Daden, Ltd Talks about their “Virtual World Finder” Tomorrow, May 20 at NPC

Come to the Nonprofit Commons tomorrow, Friday May 20, to chat with David Burden, head of the virtual world development company Daden, Ltdabout their new “Virtual World Finder” they have just released.  The Virtual World Finder is a web tool designed to help any company or organization decide on which virtual world platform is the right one for their particular needs. The finder is the product of Daden’s many years of experience creating various products in different virtual worlds.

Come to the Plush Nonprofit Commons on Friday May 20, starting at 8:30am PST, to find out more and talk with Burden about the Virtual World Finder.  Should be a really interesting discussion.  The meeting will take place at this teleport link in Second Life.

Written by: rikomatic

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Online Community MeetUp with Randy Paynter, Care2.com on May 25

You are cordially invited to the latest in our series of “online community meetups” sponsored by TechSoup that take place both at our offices in San Francisco and at the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life.  The next one is on Wednesday May 25 at 7pm PDT.  Our guest speaker this month will be Randy Paynter, Founder and CEO of Care2.com, one of the largest online activist networks. Come learn how Care2 is engaging its millions of members to lead healthy, sustainable lifestyles and mobilize for causes that matter. Care2 uses a combination of site design, word of mouth marketing, gamification, social media, and email marketing to encourage members back to the site and make a positive change.

 
The event will be live-streamed into the ECO Commons sim at this teleport location.  See you on Wednesday at 7pm!More info (including how to partipate online via SecondLife) and to RSVP go to http://meetu.ps/TkFt .

Written by: rikomatic

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Organizing Events on the Nonprofit Commons Islands

jeremy talk in NPC w screen

I want to raise a subject that I brought up at the Nonprofit Commons meeting last Friday: how do we increase attendance in the Nonprofit Commons archipelago?

While I think it is great if NPC tenants hold office hours on their spaces, they often are just hanging out in an empty sim for an hour. What we need is a variety of regular attractive events that draw different people to our islands.

Some ideas:

  • Art Shows: Groups like Art for Healing can help us to figure out how to do regular art showcases on our islands. We all know great artists, photographers, scupltors and others who would love to showcase their work.
  • Dance Parties/ Concerts: Wharf Ratz is a fantastic regular get together on Tuesday evenings. There’s no reason we can’t have more regular music and dance events. If you are a closet DJ or musician, this is your chance to shine!
  • Contests: Building contests, photo, poetry and writing contests are great ways to bring in new folks, even with very little or no prize money. The Virtual Museum of Architecture had an entire eco-themed building contest with 20-some entries with no prize other than the glory of winning.
  • Debates and Discussions: People love a good debate. Pick a provocative topic, find a couple of people to represent each side, and then invite folks to watch and participate. Just be ready to keep it civil and on topic!
  • Movie Night: We all probably have in our Netflix cue or on our hard drives movies and videos on various social causes that we’ve been meaning to watch. What if we had a regular movie night and rotated who hosted the video that month?

If any of these ideas strike a chord in you, what we need is for you to host and make these happen. None of them require a tremendous amount of technical expertise, just the ability to organize and bring aboard others to help. Or maybe you have your own idea for an event you would like to organize that I haven’t mentioned. We are open to creative ways to increase attendance and bring new energy to our islands.

I and my team will help you find a date, a space and promote your event over our various channels. Contact me if you want to be head up or be involved in any of these events.

Written by: rikomatic

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List of Environment and Ecology-themed Places in Second Life

As you should know, the Nonprofit Commons has a number of environment-oriented organizations in our community, most of them housed in the Eco Commons sim (teleport link.) That said, there are many other amazing sims in Second Life that focus on environment, sustainable development and ecology that are worth visiting. Here’s my own curated list of eco-themed sims:

  • Abyss Observatory : Beautiful underwater science museum (Teleport Link) 
  • CNDG Green Campus:  Experimental, educational site dedicated to exploring sustainable building, teaching and education in sustainability. (Teleport Link)

     

  • Deep Down Virtual Mine : A 3D game to educate about coal mining and its impact on people and the land (My review, official website, Teleport Link)

  • Etopia : An imagined eco-friendly world (Teleport Link)

     

  • NOAA’s Meteroa Island: US government sponsored weather and environment focused sim. (Teleport Link)

  • OneClimate Island : Virtual space of the group OneClimate.net (Teleport Link)

Also this month be sure and check out the “Green Building contest” sponsored by Virtual Museums Inc that will feature lots of neat eco-friendly buildings created by both pros and amateur virtual architects. (Teleport Link).

I’m sure I’ve missed several others. Feel free to post to comments your favorites!

Written by: rikomatic

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CommonGround Nonprofit Networking Party on Cinco de Mayo (May 5)!

Common Ground May 5 CommonGround invites everyone to a CommonGround Networking Party on May 5th.  Appropriately, this will be a “Cinco de Mayo” themed celebration. Join them on May 5 from 5 – 7 PM PST. for at the Plush Party Plaza (teleport link.) Come enjoy networking and dancing among other nonprofits and supporters. Learn more about what nonprofits, educators, humanitarians, scientists, and artists accomplish in Second Life at this fun and informative event.

Please IM or drop a notecard to the CommonGround NPC Coordinators, Ethelred Weatherwax or Zinnia Zauber, with your ideas, inquiry, and interest in sponsorship.

Written by: rikomatic