We journeyed to the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC to design and drive the agenda for the 2010 Crisis Congress. Aspiration’s travel and participation supported by the generosity of Mozilla as a part of their Drumbeat initiative.

The first-ever face-to-face meeting of all the city leads in the Crisis Commons community was a high-energy opportunity for an international network of crisis response practitioners to convene in person for the first time. Topics ranged from assessing the responses to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, to discussing collaborative technology development, open standards, volunteer engagement and project sustainability. Participant travel to The Congress was supported by the generosity of the The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Aspiration also designed and facilitated three focus groups on the day before the Congress at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, engaging peer NGOs, representatives from the private sector, and academia to discuss both how better to employ these stakeholders in crisis response, as well as how Crisis Commons could better support the efforts of those networks.

Event proceedings were streamed live, and notes were captured on the Crisis Commons wiki. Thanks to Mozilla and Crisis Commons for a great time in DC!

Aspiration was delighted to kick off our Drumbeat Local Event partnership with Mozilla at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. Drumbeat is Mozilla’s initiative to keep the web open for the next 100 years and beyond, and local events around the world are a core component of the strategy.

Check out pictures from the event.

Aspiration will travel to Austin to run a 3-day Design Camp that culminates Mozilla’s Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge. Ten projects from the Challenge have been invited to the Camp, taking place prior to South By Southwest Interactive 2010. Aspiration is designing and leading the event in partnership with Mozilla, along with Philipp Schmidt, Jetpack for Learning (JFL) Coordinator, and Brian King and Andy Edmonds, JFL Course Leads.

The camp will bring together developers, designers, and educators who are connecting the best ideas from open education with the coolest new open internet technologies. Design Challenge prototypes will be finalized with support from the course leaders, and additional agenda time will be spent discussing and working toward a shared vision for social learning in the open web. Selection and announcement of ultimate Design Challenge winner will take place during Mozilla’s SXSW Interactive event.

Thanks to all the folks whose positive attitudes contributed to a very fun and productive MNTP DC 2010 in spite of the winter madness. And apologies for craziness beyond our control to all of you who were unable to get in for the event. Also, big thanks to Community IT Innovators (CITI) for hosting the event when our original venue was forced to close.

Event Overview

After a very successful DC debut this past July, Aspiration and Community IT Innovators (CITI) hosted the fourth Nonprofit Technology Project Management event in Washington DC on the 8th and 9th of February, 2010.

Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects (MNTP) examined the tools and best practices that help nonprofits deliver successful technology solutions - whether it be websites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications.

Feel free to join the event on Facebook and continue the conversation.

Check out the agenda and the list of excellent facilitators.

Interactive sessions and demos allowed participants to compare processes, tools, successes, and lessons learned. Discussion topics included team collaboration, project planning, software selection, migration, and project rollout, and mapping out software tools – from project management packages to collaborative communication to issue tracking and more – that support successful technology projects.

Feel free to join the MNTP discussion list, which we use to continue the collaboration.

Aspiration’s skill in facilitating practitioner knowledge combined with CITI’s experience in managing nonprofit technology projects contributed to an informal, collaborative, and information-rich event.

If you are interested in being more effective with your use of social media in 2010, attending one of these two events will be a great way to build some momentum.

Each seminar is entitled “Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard”, and will be held at two times:

• Wednesday, February 3rd from 2pm to 4pm
• Thursday, February 4th from 2pm to 4pm

The goal of the workshops is to help nonprofit staff learn both about social media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their messaging.

These hands-on, learner-driven events will allow participants to set up their own “listening dashboard” where they can track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter, and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization, all with a single free online tool. Participants will use the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.

The workshops are designed for those starting out in social media as well as those who have established a social media presence but don’t know how to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity around their programmatic issue areas.

Because the workshops will be participant-driven, we’ll encourage discussion amongst the group, so bring your stories, questions and frustrations and we’ll see if we can sift out some answers and solutions.

The seminars will take place at the

San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center
1370 Mission St, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
See Map

This is a free and open event, but space is limited, so please RSVP to seminars@aspirationtech.org, and make sure to specify which day you’ll be attending.

If you are interested in being more effective with your use of social media in 2010, this event is a great way to start off the year with momentum.

The seminar is entitled “Building Your Own Social Media Dashboard”, and will be held on

Friday, January 8th from 2pm to 3:30pm

The goal of the workshop is to help nonprofit staff learn both about social media as well as how they can track the impact and reach of their messaging.

This hands-on, learner-driven event will allow participants to set up their own “listening dashboard” where they can track the impact of their online communication efforts (web, Facebook, Twitter, and more), while also tracking issues pertinent to their organization, all with a single free online tool. Participants will use the NetVibes platform to create their dashboards.

The workshop is designed for those starting out in social media as well as those who have established a social media presence but don’t know how to start assessing the reach of their messages and the online activity around their programmatic issue areas.

Because the workshop will be participant-driven, we’ll encourage discussion amongst the group, so bring your stories, questions and frustrations and we’ll see if we can sift out some answers and solutions.

The seminar will take place at the

San Francisco Nonprofit Technology Center
1370 Mission St, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
See Map

This is a free and open event, but space is limited, so please RSVP to seminars@aspirationtech.org.