Organizers' Collaborative

Is it really possible? In this discussion session, talk with your peers about the real opportunities and challenges associated with online organizing for small shops where the rubber meets the road -- from organizational inertia to data silos to social change philosophies.

(Looking for straight tips on cheap tools? Alan Rosenblatt's "Digital Advocacy on a Small Budget" session in the first breakout covers everything you'd want to know.)

As the scope of online life and work expands it is ever more important to consider the quality of electronically mediated collaborations. The workshop leader will present some grounding context and ideas for the first half, followed by small and large group dialog to collectively brainstorm principles and examples about what works (and doesn't work) in establishing high quality online collaboration. Topics:

- How can proven methods used to organize and facilitate face-to-face dialogs, meetings, brainstorming, conflict resolution, decision making, etc., be modified for use online?

- How can online collaboration help groups embed their core values and ethics into their communication infrastructure?

Data standards, that is, how data is stored and communicated, is often considered too esoteric, or sometimes just too boring, for most activists and nonprofits to care much about. Even many techies that work for nonprofits don't often think much about them. But they are important - because your data, and what you can do with it is important. Open standards are data standards and formats that are not owned by anybody - they are collectively designed, and disseminated freely. This talk is designed to explain why it's important to know about Open Standards, why it's important to use software that incorporates open standards, and why, in the process of any software development or implementation project, use of open standards should be part of the picture.

This session will give attendees practical guidelines and best practice tips to get the most comprehensive view of constituent interactions through effective and efficient data collection and maintenance. Today's technology-driven society gives people multiple channels to interact and engage with organizations. As the number of communication mediums increases, data integrity becomes more important and more difficult. This session will discuss the role technology plays in finding constituents and maintaining relationships. Special attention will be given to the importance of application integration and how it affects an organization's overall mission.

February 15th, 2006
9:30 am - 11:00 am
Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts
88 Warren Street, Roxbury (Dudley Square)
Celebrating the unveiling of ODB 1.0 for Consultants and Intermediaries
Demonstration, Presentation, Program CD and Information. Refreshments provided.
So far, there are 24 people preregistered for this event.
Here is a map.
Afterwards, we are providing a comprehensive tech training (with lunch included) for consultants and "accidental techies" who are considering implementation of ODB. The tech training consists of one class before lunch and one class after lunch and will end by 3:15 pm. For a full outline and details, click this link: Tech Training for Consultants and Accidental Techies

Get the specifications of ODB 1.0, the newest version of the Organizers Database. You can read about what the new program can do by clicking on the attachment below.

Description:
a volunteer project to help GNU/Linux become an operating system that the average user can install and operate easily

URL:
http://www.seul.org/

Description:
an international organization dedicated to the development of free software, and the home of GNU Project that developed a complete Unix-like operating system.

URL:
http://www.fsf.org/