Allen, one of my favorite bloggers (who I only recently started to read, which is my loss), has a great curmudgeonly post on Web 2.0. (I consider Allen a fellow neo-luddite, whether or not he agrees with that characterization.) He then follows it up with a pointer to an interesting post on the power consumption of avatars for Second Life, which should absolutely give everyone pause. I didn’t even think about that aspect of it when I wrote my curmudgeonly post about SL quite a while ago now.
Holly seems to agree with him, although she’s more of a cheerleader for Web 2.0 than Allen is, for sure.
What I’d like to do is unpack Web 2.0, and give nonprofits pointers and resources around the specific Web 2.0 tools that will actually matter to them (which, to my mind, is Open APIs and RSS, basically, and maybe some collaboration tools like wikis, or blogging for some organizations for whom standing on a soapbox is an important mission-connected activity), and stop holding it up as a package that is not, as Holly says, going to be the sector’s savior.
Let’s give nonprofits the tools they are really going to use to make their lives easier, and serve more people. We geeks get to play in the sandboxes of Web 2.0, or whatever is coming down the pike. And that is certainly fun.
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Totally agreed that we need to be thinking through what works and what doesn’t work for nonprofits.
I’ve begun a wiki to explain to nonprofits the different tools of Web 2.0, available resources and concrete examples of organizations that are using the tools. That’s available here:
http://nptechbestpractices.pbwiki.com/
Any examples, resources, etc. that your readers have to offer are greatly appreciated.
I also starting thinking yesterday that potentially the bigger lesson in Web 2.0 isn’t necessarily the tools as much as the underlying principles. The ideas of transparency, dialogue, fast/cheap resources, etc. are values that I think are increasingly becoming part of how nonprofits need to be doing business in a world that is adapting to these kinds of themes.
Thanks, Michele, that’s a great idea – that the lesson is in the underlying principles. That’s important to not lose track of in our discussions of the tools.
Examples would be most helpful.
I explain to nonprofit leaders that an RSS reader is like having your own newspaper. Sure, it’s a pain to set it up. But it’s great to have the news you need to stay *up-to-date* in one place. Because who has time to check a bunch of websites?
Modestly persuasive, clearly I need to improve this story.