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Nonprofits Celebrate New Home in Second Life: Nonprofit Commons Grand Opening

Event is tonight at 5:30pm, SLT/PDT! In case you can’t get into the Plush Nonprofit Commons, the overflow sim is at SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Lake%20West/127/1/26

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Contact: Susan Tenby, susan@techsoup.org
Phone: (415) 633-9333
SL avatar: Glitteractica Cookie
http://www.nonprofitcommons.org
http://npsl.wikispaces.com/

San Francisco Meets the Metaverse: 32 Nonprofits and their supporters will host a grand opening celebration Tuesday, August 14, 2007 at 5:30 p.m. PT/SLT, in their new locations at the Nonprofit Commons in Second Life.

Generously donated by the world’s first virtual millionaire, Anshe Chung, this nonprofits-only space, managed by TechSoup, creates and houses a community of nonprofits in the online virtual world of Second Life. This community of practice is entirely volunteer-run and hosts organizations from across the globe. To date, they have created a community blog and a resource-rich wiki, and have held mixed-reality events, workshops, and regular weekly town hall meetings.

The Gala event will be a mixed-reality launch party, complete with networking, a panel of speakers (featuring Susan Tenby of TechSoup and Jeska Dzwigalski of Linden Lab in the live-event, and Anshe Chung in Second Life). Audio and video content will be streamed live between the two worlds.

This “sim,” or virtual acre of land, was designed as a pilot project to lower the barriers of access to Second Life, and to create a community of practice for nonprofits to explore and learn about the virtual world. The Nonprofit Commons provides free office space to qualifying groups to meet and collaborate, create a cooperative learning environment, and foster outreach, education, and fundraising, all in a virtual space

“We believe that Second Life provides a unique platform to collaborate, educate, inspire, and build awareness. In the Nonprofit Commons, our goal is to assist our community members achieve their dreams in this exciting new technology that we see as the future of the Web. We welcome all who wish to join us as partners or supporters,” said Glitteractica Cookie, avatar for Susan Tenby, Senior Manager of Community Development, TechSoup Network.

“Building vibrant communities starts with great events that bring organizations together for dialogue and exchange,” notes In Kenzo (Evonne Heyning), Creative Director at Amoration.org. “For nonprofits joining the virtual world for the first time, the Nonprofit Commons offers a free place to connect with other leaders.”

Audience members in the Second Life portion of the event are expected to include nonprofit commons residents and their invited guests, media representatives and journalists, Linden Lab staff, and those interested in nonprofits and philanthropy.

The live-event in San Francisco will be a part of NetSquared’s Net Tuesday. The Gala event’s activities include:

5:30 p.m.: Meet and greet
6:00 p.m.: Speakers and event
7:00 p.m.: Tours of the Nonprofit Commons

The events in Second Life will be at the same time, working in conjunction with the events in the real world, live event. Nonprofit organizations in the Commons will also be hosting their own events in conjunction with this Grand Opening Gala. To find the Nonprofit Commons search the places tab in SL for nonprofit commons or, go to:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/130/125/22/?titl…

Information and Inquiries: This event is free of charge, but space is limited, so please RSVP via email to Susan Tenby (susan@techsoup.org) for in-world attendance to this event or IM Glitteractica Cookie in Second Life. Join the TechSoup group, in-world in Second Life to receive announcements about this event and future nonprofit events in Second Life.

Attire: Avatar fabulous, if possible dress as your avatar or your favorite avatar.

RSVP on the San Francisco NetSquared Meetup site (http://netsquared.meetup.com/1/) for attendance to the live, real-world event.

Nonprofit Commons Gala Event

Written by: Glitteractica_Cookie

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Transcript from Bluewave Ogee’s Talk from Jully 20th Meeting

Talking Point Notes for Bluewave Ogee’s Brief Talk on Friday July 20 at Weekly Meeting of the Nonprofit Commons:

“Thanks, Everyone, for letting me talk a little about what’s still an
emerging effort with our group, the Non-Profit Global Network (NPGN). Like many of you, it’s taking longer than anticipated! 🙂

In retrospect, the easy part (ha!) was setting up the space, although it has taken some time, and then summer happened. And we had a great booth with other non-profits at the Best Practices in Education in SL Conference (a terrific 24-hour conference that we were proud to be a part of!).

There are 2 most important projects in the pipeline. The first is
connecting our presence here with some of the organizations
participating in the global “Design for the Other 90%” effort.
Currently there is an amazing exhibit of award-winning
designs-for-the-people at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. http://other.cooperhewitt.org/

These are designers working in relationship with global/local
development efforts, so it’s a natural fit for many of them to begin working in SL where they can use this virtual world environment to design, build, test, and most importantly, join in co-present conversation with their partners from around the world….at a fraction of the cost. That connection with us is in the early stages.

More importantly and closer to fruition is connecting our presence
here with the global Development Gateway Foundation, office in
Washington D.C.. DevGateway is one of the largest and most active on-line portals for development practitioners around the world to share and exchange their latest news, information, and best practices on an almost daily basis from around the world! They have active participants from 336 countries! http://www.developmentgateway.org/

We have been in conversations with them now for over 2 months, and I am presenting our SL Non-Profit Global Network to them on July 31 in Washington.

They have 673 active blogs and online communities from around the world — so the vision here is no small thing! Critically, the fact that many of the local practitioner groups have Internet access and are online through the DevGateway portal means a significant number of them will be able to make a transition into SL with existing resources.

Interestingly, it’s building real world credibility that takes the
most time, largely because you find yourself not only describing the vision of the group, but you have to first describe what SL is!
“Sooo….Second Life is…well… joining a virtual conversation, a
virtual world environment…”. And you see their eyes start to glaze over…:-)

The incredible machinima movies now available filmed in SL are
helping a lot to communicate a sense of the breadth and potential of creating a presence and, more importantly, a “site for interactions” in SL/RL. If you’re not already, I encourage you to use them. The old “show-and-tell” method is very effective. 🙂

Written by: kanter

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Skitch

skitch.jpg

Skitch is a cool application that can work online with mySkitch–an online image sharing system. You need an invite to get a beta copy of Skitch.

With the application, you can take a snapshot on your desktop in a similar fashion to "Grab" or you can use your web cam (iSight on a Mac). You can then use simple image editing tools to draw on the file. For example, you could emphasize different parts of a web page that you have snapped a picture. Skitch will also read all the photos in iPhoto and allows you to select an image for editing.

You can then save the file and use the drag me tool at the bottom to pull the image somewhere else (Flickr Uploadr for example.)

In my experimentation I couldn’t get it to take a picture of a Second Life window, but it seemed to take screen shots from other applications just fine.

Skitch is fast, easy, and fun to use.

Written by: Creech

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BlogHers in Second Life

The BlogHer Conference is taking place in Chicago on July 27-29th. There will also be a conference in Second Life.

Here’s the schedule

On Friday, July 27th, there is a session that is of interest to those who work with nonprofits and second life:

4:30-5:45PM
Session #3: Getting It On(line) for a Cause
Audio to be streamed live from Chicago into Hyperstring.net island with Second Life discussion and panel to follow

Description for BlogHer in RL session: Using technology as a distribution channel for the greater good. Galvanize personal action or bring awareness. Rochelle Robinson moderates the presentation and discussion of two case studies, including Green L.A. Girl (aka Siel)’s amazing Starbucks Challenge project. Walk away with a fistful of practical ideas. Then, with Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann facilitating, we pick next year’s case study! Learn about how you can help choose the issue we rally around. Introducing a new BlogHer community activism initiative: BlogHers Act!

The conversation continues in Second Life to discuss Second Life’s role as a platform to do good. Second Life Panelists include Susan Tenby (avatar glitteractica cookie) of TechSoup – with the help of her volunteers, she recently launched a community of over 300 nonprofit staff members and volunteers in Second Life – and Ruby Sinreich (avatar Ruby Glitter) founder and editor of OrangePolitics.org, Web Maven for Netcentric Campaigns – which provides consulting on network-centric organizing strategies to leading progressive organizations and coalitions.

Written by: kanter

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Meebo-Another Multiple IM Tool

Meebo is a cool online application that allows you to log onto instant messaging without an instant messaging client on your computer. Meebo currently supports AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber.

Meebo

Creating an account is very fast–a three window wizard that asking you a little information–which then dumps you into a Meebo home page.

Meebo also allows you to enter Meebo rooms and create new rooms in Chat mode.

Because Meebo is browser based and not client based, you can access your instant messaging any place, any where that you have a computer, an Internet connection, and a browser. Think Internet Cafe…

Written by: Creech

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Adium X

I’m an instant messaging junkie. Mostly I use the IM in Skype but I can also be seen on the AOL IM platform through iChat. I know lots of folks that also use GoogleTalk, Yahoo’s IM offering, and so forth. This means, in general, these folks will have many different IM clients open.

Adium (sound like a new cholesterol drug) allows you to access many services in a single client rather than having multiple windows open.

Adium does not support video or audio–no calling home on the cheap using it. However the handiness of NOT having multiple applications seems like it might be good.

Adium is only for MacOS X.

Written by: Creech

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Change in the NPSL Host

Due to significant downtime on NPSL’s old host provider, the Management team made the decision to move NPSL to Brownrice Internet, a hoster that I am very familiar with. Brownrice has agreed to host NPSL for free. If you want to let them know that you appreciate the donation, let me know and I’ll pass your comments onto the President of the company.

Please let me know if you see any strangeness on the site. Migrations rarely go perfectly (check out this COMMENT for an example) so help me out and send me a note if you see something broken.

Best,

Creech Antwerp/Matthew Saunders

Written by: Creech

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Second Chance Trees a finalist in Amex $5 million challenge

Paul Young of Converseon sends news that the Second Chance Trees initiative has been selected as one of 50 finalists in a competition sponsored by American Express called "The Members Project." Second Chance Trees is an effort to raise awareness about and funds for rainforest re-forestation around the world.  Second Life residents can purchase virtual trees in a lush rainforest setting for L$300 (about one US dollar), which funds the planting of a real tree in a rainforest somewhere in the real world. 

Paul says that if Second Chance Trees wins the competition, they could get up to $5 million, which would fund millions of trees.  Amex card holders can vote for Second Chance (or any other member project) by going to http://www.membersproject.com.

There’s a YouTube video that explains the Second Chance initiative, but of course it’s best to teleport in and check it out yourself in-world (teleport SLURL.) Buy a few trees while you’re there. I’m partial to the "Golden Shower" and the "Mangium" myself. Second Chance Trees was conceived, developed and built by social media agency Converseon in partnership with the non-profit Plant It 2020.

Written by: rikomatic

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Drupal Basics-Feed Categories

I was asked by a good friend if I could merge the NPSL Offside Links and the Deli.cio.us NPSL links feeds into a single feed on nonprofitcommons.com in a block on the left side of the site.  I took care of it this evening, and it is actually a piece of cake to do.  These steps work in Drupal 5.x.

  1. Log into your Drupal site in an administrative capacity
  2. Click on "Administer"
  3. Click on "News Aggregator"
  4. Click on "Add Category"
  5. Create your Category
  6. Click on "Add Feed" and add the RSS feeds you wish to draw from

After you have a Category set up, the next step is to add exterior feeds. 

  1. Click on "Add Feed"
  2. Fill out this form, and make sure you check the box that has your category
  3. Repeat for as many feeds that you want to aggregate into a single list.

Next step…you need to go to your administrative menu and click on "Site Building"

  1. Click on "Blocks"
  2. You will find in your list of inactive blocks an item named "xxxx category latest items".  Click on "Configure".
  3. You can override the default name of the block (which is currently the category name) by entering something in the title.  Next you choose the number of items you want to have show up in the block.
  4. Choose the additional parameters you’d like to turn on or off such as the roles to see the block, what pages the block should show up on and so forth.
  5. Save the block.
  6. Assign the block a location and a weight.

Keep in mind that your feeds won’t update unless you have cron running.  If you want to manually run cron to see the fruits of your labour, type in your URL bar http://yoursite.com/cron.php.

Written by: rikomatic