NPSL: Nonprofits in Second Life

Plaxo is a social networking tool that allows you to dynamically update your address book. I've written a couple of posts on my personal blog about how the tool can be used.

In my intersection with other nonprofits through the NPSL group and on the TechSoup site I am expanding my focus to deal with emerging technologies in general and how they can be utilized by the nonprofit community as a whole.  My background is in the arts, so expect to continue to see some bias for that industry but my personal experiences over the last two years have shifted my sense of self toward social justice (although being Canadian probably has something to do with that too.)

Xin Revolution
Michael Langford
CARE
www.care.org/

Why is your organization in Second Life?

We're exporing the use of Second Life as part of our larger strategy for social networking and community building

What would you recommend that npos in sl check out?
Other non-profits should check out, obvioulsy, the non profit commons space, but also The Bay and Better World Island and Ubuntu. Also Angela Eclipse's Take Action! shop

What advice to get started?

The iCommons Summit in Dubrovnik, Croatia brings together pioneers of the free Internet "to make sure that, at its crossroads, we guide the world along a path that will enable the kind of free culture and decentralized innovation that has characterized the early years of the Internet." The summit will occur in parallel in-world at the USC Annenberg Public Diplomacy Island (teleport SLURL).

MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton

On June 22nd at 9:00 AM PST,  Jonathan's avatar along with Second Life CEO Philip Rosedale  will lead a discussion with residents on the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds.

Who's Who in Virtual Worlds! Find expertise, share expertise, meet others who are interested and working in virtual worlds, share ideas, make friends! This is a social network for colleagues working in a variety of virtual worlds to meet others and share experiences. Invite your friends and colleagues. Check it out.

On June 11, 2007, about 30 avatars gathered in the Plush Non-commons Sim to participate in a mixed-reality event – a panel discussion on virtual activism with Glitteractica Cookie ofTechSoup, In Kenzo of Amoration, Jeska Linden of Linden Labs, and Beth Kanter as moderator. Rik Riel was the in-world moderator of the event, and Nexeus Fatale provided tech support.

Just a reminder that the 4th annual Games for Change conference will feature a mixed-reality panel today on "virtual activism" at 10:15AM EST. Games for Change brings together game developers, industry experts, academics and non-profits to discuss how to use digital games to promote social change.

I was working on trying to furnish the WESTAF office last night. I looked into the "object" containing all manner of lamps and lights and quite by accident clothed myself with a myriad of lighting objects in one fell swoop. This was the outcome...

Aggregators are tools that allow you to access the RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds from different sites.  You can tell that a site has a feed if you see this icon on the page.  Aggregators allow you to mix the feeds from many sites into a single place.  In other words, no need to surf when an aggregator can deliver the content to your desktop.

Some of my favourite aggregators include: