This just in from Web of Change alumni Jim Craner:

"MapTogether (a project I work on) just released our first public version of our free "Illustrated Guide to Nonprofit GIS and Online Mapping" this week. It's 46 pages chock full of cartography for a cause!"

Had time to cozy up with the guide last night and am impressed with the content. Take a moment to check it out.

Long-time "Bricoleur" Chris Schults reports that every Seattleite's favourite co-op, PCC Natural Markets (the largest consumer-owned natural food retail co-operative in the United States), has just re-launched their Web property using BricolageCMS and Drupal:

Last week PCC launched its redesigned website, which is a blend of
Bricolage, Drupal and custom PHP.

So far, the response has been very positive, and I invite you to give
the new site a whirl:

http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com

I had the pleasure of meeting Chris, if ever so briefly, while we were both working on a re-launch of online daily environmental news site Grist.org in 2004, which was re-built using BricolageCMS (now running Expression Engine, I believe). Five years later and Chris is the Bricolage expert -- I love it.

Interestingly, online daily news site TheTyee.ca made a similar decision to use BricolageCMS and Drupal when they upgraded their Web operation recently, and they've contributed a model to help folks make similar integrations.

Is it just me, or is there a bit of a collective unconscious thing going on here? Perhaps it's just a "meme" that is spreading like a avian virus throughout the networks that I'm connected to via my work; networks that typically are pretty "techie" and kinda' into social media.

When did it start? I can't put my finger on it exactly, but there was a feeling like the world had hit the backside of a bubble or a bell curve when Lauren Bacon wrote "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Twitter." A self-described Web "early adopter and enthusiast of all things internetty" had given in to the irresistible final frontier of social media: Twitter.

From that point on, there was a quickening: it was the dawn of the late-adopter-early-adopter, and then came the rush of the rest of the world. In summary: social media was mainstream. It was talked about in mainstream media and had become the basis for many a party game (Who's going to mention Facebook first tonight?).

But, there was another energy in the room that day. It was the yin to the yang, the black to the white, and the rebel to the mainstream. There it was: a collective sigh and "We told you so," followed by the question "What the !@#$% do we do now that everyone is on Twitter." And, with that, the air started to slowly leek out of the ballon. Pffffffffffffsssssssssssssssssssss. No shit. Just like that.

I had heard the rumblings! You probably heard them too? People lamenting the state of the virtual non-state. First, Second Life seemed to fall off the edge of the world as people starting getting a first life. It was like a collective cheer: "Hey Second Life! Welcome to Dumpsville, population you." Then there was MySpace and so on. And, unless you lived in the kind of country that doesn't love Starbucks, it was like all that was left was a social media monoculture: Facebook, or Twitter (or maybe LinkedIn if you're a bit square).

Well, nature abhors a monoculture, and so it seems with the InterWebby-thing. Without the b-list, c-list, and -- heck -- d-list social networks out there (coughOrkutcoughhi5coughBebocough), everyone was trying to get in on the a-list options without reading their copy of Etiquette For Dummies first. It was a classic tragedy of the commons. All of a sudden, you're following 4000 people that you don't know and have 1000 friends from a part of your life you kinda' wanted to forget.

So it was only a matter of time...

Here we are, it's the future. We rounded the corner of the 21st century and ran smack into Year of the Avatar (which was 2009 by the way, but it was a late release). The "multitude" was online, at last. And with the multitude, all of the challenging personalities that inevitability intrude on any good party (including our parents).

Then we come to this year -- 2010 -- the year where social media flatlines. Only herein lies the humour about the tragedy of the social media commons: The early adopters are becoming the early opt-outers, the drop-outs, the back-to-the-landers. Those that once built their kingdoms on social media, are now unplugging in search of a more peaceful, less distracting, existence. (It can afflict any of us at a moment's notice, it would seem.)

The search for a simple, meaningful, life takes many paths, I guess.

So, if you are weary and over-loaded and would like to opt-out too, you're in luck: You can finally get in on something early enough to qualify as an "early adopter." Everything that was old is new again, and "See you lata'" is the new "beta." Ready to opt-out? No problem: there are social media solutions ready and waiting for your call.

Let us remember, however, as we reflect on 2009 and prepare to rush into 2010, that not much has really changed in life. Those things that fulfilled us before social media are still hanging around: friends, family, nature, and so on. So, as it happens, in this one aspect of life -- second life vs. first life -- you can have your cake and eat it too. Just take care not to eat so much that you get sick.

This just in from Steve Anderson via OpenMedia.ca:

The CRTC is currently reconsidering the role of community television in Canada, providing an historic opportunity to create a rejuvenated, FRESH and innovative independent media system.

Many people are unaware that two per cent of what cable companies collect from their customers monthly is supposed to be spent on community channels. BUT, rather than provide community access to these resources as they should, cable operators have used these channels and funds to give themselves a competitive edge, and at times even pocketing the money while shutting down studios. Tell the CRTC what you think of this: http://tinyurl.com/ycf3uo5

OpenMedia.ca supports a proposal by CACTUS (Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations) calling for the millions of dollars already being collected by cable companies for community TV, be liberated to independent media centres for use by all Canadians. The CRTC can make this a reality – please send them a letter now! HERE: http://tinyurl.com/ycf3uo5

The best part of CACTUS’ plan is that Canadians won't have to pay another dime! The money we are already paying to cable companies will be directed to independent media!

Continuing with the theme of stories... I was struck yesterday, when speaking to David Beers, about the sense of community that he's trying to weave into the fabric of The Tyee's newsroom.

I shared with David that the idea of bringing the community into the newsroom -- or the newsroom into the community -- had recently been discussed on the Rebooting the News podcast, and by "hacker journalist" Daniel Bachhuber on his blog, under the banner of "Newsroom as cafe."

David chuckled a bit, as he described his early careers experiences working in the San Francisco-based Pacific News Service newsroom in the 80s. He described it as a place that was open to the community; where "anyone could come in for their Monday [editorial] meeting" and thus take part in the news process.

He finished with the sentiment that these ideas are not necessarily new, but they are often are the ones that have been lost in the contemporary, profit-driven, newsroom. So, as news becomes more narrowcast, and fights to be more relevant to people's lives, it would seem to that these ideas of community-connected newsrooms are ripe to be rediscovered.

It's stories like these that keep me engaged.

Interviewing the venerable David Beers today, I was reminded about the power of stories.

David is the Founder / Editor of the award-winning daily news site The Tyee and we were speaking about the changing news environment. At times, David likes to make himself out to be a fish out of water (pun intended -- a "tyee" is a salmon): the "old fashioned" guy leading the news innovation pack. But it's clear to me that it is people like David -- these fish out of water -- that are learning to survive in this new environment.

If you want to hear David's stories about news innovation at The Tyee, you can find him (along with more than 200 other media innovators) at the "Journalism That Matters: Re-imagining News & Community in the Pacific Northwest" gathering in Seattle this week. You can be sure it won't be a firsherman's tale.

I've had my attention pretty narrowly focused on finishing up a couple of projects for the last two weeks, which has meant being a little out of the loop (which is refreshing, actually). But it was nice to come up for air today and find this little note from a client waiting in my Inbox:

Okay, so I'm weeks behind on this one, but didn't want to skip it because it's such an inspiring project.

Per the LittleSis Web site "LittleSis is an involuntary facebook of powerful Americans, collaboratively edited by people like you." The initiative was co-founded by an old friend from my Billionaires for Bush days, Matthew Skomarovsky, and he's been working on it in some capacity ever since.

Cross-posted from www.phillipadsmith.com

I'm about a month late on this, but I still think it's more than worthy of a quick post. Jim Gilliam worked with Jesse Haff from Brave New Films to create an impressive new tool for online activism called act.ly.

As you might note from the cute Web address, act.ly is kind of a mashup of a URL-shortening service with Twitter integration, but the beauty is in its reinvention of the traditional (aka boring) online petition.

Have a cause to promote online? Why not try act.ly and see if your targets have their heads around social media yet. Kudos to Jim, Jesse, and the act.ly team for innovating online activism.

About two months ago, I was contacted by my colleague Leif Utne. He and Jon Warnow – both Web of Change alumni – have started an experiment in crowd-sourced funding for an incredibly important technology project: WiserEarth. I signed on immediately.

Here’s an e-mail from Leif about the project:

WiserEarth is an amazing resource, a global index of over 110,000 NGOs (and growing). But it sorely needs an API so we can all develop apps to display and interact with that data through our own sites.

That’s why Jon Warnow (of 350.org), myself, and nearly 2 dozen other progressive technology and activist leaders have launched this effort to crowd-source the $10,000 WiserEarth needs to finish developing their API. Just 1 day into this campaign we have $875 from 18 donors.

Can you or your organization make a donation today at http://openwiser.org? Give whatever you can, even if it’s small. And spread the word.

A WiserEarth API would benefit the entire progressive movement. Let’s help make it happen!

cheers,
Leif

p.s. Neither Jon or I work for WiserEarth. We’re just big fans who want to see the site succeed. And we believe a robust API is key to that success.

I hope you might take a moment to join me in supporting the initiative.