Find Net Tuesday in your city via its parent organization, Net Squared.

Seattle Net Tuesday recently organized an Online Makeover — Nonprofit Edition. Tech savvy members volunteered to solve technical challenges and improve organizations’ web sites and social media strategies.

While at Seattle Net Tuesday and following up after the event, I advised Vote Clean Seattle on

(1) other recent, small, social media based fundraising efforts as a model, including for technology to track and show progress
(2) local organizations who may be interested in partnering with VCS, and
(3) running a WordPress based web site to simplify inclusion of other online presence in their site.

More than a dozen volunteers offered them lots of practical, mostly technical advice. It was a fulfilling and informative experience for everyone.

Seattle Net Tuesday has featured many organizations, speakers, and formats, always staying fresh, productive, and fun, too. I have updated this post a dozen or so times to highlight upcoming or recent Tuesdays, and in a few cases I have written additional posts or articles, here or elsewhere online to do the same. On Tuesday, August 25 for example, we enjoyed “two dynamite speakers” discussing their organizations’ volunteer outreach online.

On Twitter, you may find dozens of organizers, attendees, and me! tweeting about Seattle Net Tuesday. I’ve recently helped get them going with a Twitter account for the event itself @SeaNet2. That’s not getting a lot of use as of yet though, so connect with

• * Sarah Schacht @sarahschacht
• * Jessica Dally @JessicaDally
• * Sameer Siruguri @siruguri
• * or with me @brianglanz

My Seattle Net Tuesday archives include these articles:

• * The Haas Foundation
• * Knowledge As Power — Everyday Democracy
• * Online Video Service, Inc. :: Seattle Net Tuesday Notes
• * Noonhat — Toss Your Social Salad
• * Itchmo :: Seattle Net Tuesday Notes

This Net Squared presentation discusses Community Voice Mail’s use of Second Life for networking:




These are my notes from one of five sessions at a Seattle Net Tuesday event. Sessions were limited to five minutes, so I followed up with presenters as needed. The Knowledge As Power presentation was delivered by Executive Director Sarah Schacht.

Sarah Schacht has published the current version of the Knowledge As Power web site herself, for a low cost, with little technical experience, and using her personal computer. She updates the site herself, and has even depended on it for live video presentations, critical and successful first impressions, and fund raising.

Much of Seattle Net Tuesday is an ongoing discussion of better ways to connect nonprofits and technology. So how did Sarah pull it off? She used iWeb from Apple Computer. With iWeb and about $75 spent on the iWork Suite, plus Emma for email marketing at about $24 per month, Sarah’s young organization has a simple, sustainable, and professional online presence.

In this context, other Seattle Net Tuesday attendees mentioned that Windows Live Spaces from Microsoft was catching up, including that they offer a free domain as Apple does with iWeb. However, it was also mentioned that Live Spaces also still has issues with the increasingly popular Firefox and other Mozilla browsers.

For online donations, Knowledge As Power has made good use of a PayPal button, the code for which is provided by PayPal.

Sarah recommends the iWeb and Apple technologies to anyone wanting to get something started online, without too much technical fuss — provided you own or can easily access a Mac computer.

Of Knowledge As Power, I say: may it live long, and prosper.

Give Knowledge As Power’s legislation-tracking web site a try!

I found the film’s soundtrack clever, affecting me enough that I had to wonder why. It opens with accordion music, crowd noise, and market speak. The accordion sets a romantic, communal, timeless mood with old folk melodies. It is the music of the people, fitting Seattle’s great market.

Accordions are used in folk music throughout Europe and North and South America. They are often used by buskers — street performers. Buskers are common at Pike Place Market itself, if not always with accordions.

At first we see an empty market, with some focus on leaking pipes and damaged infrastructure. In 1969, they needed to not only save The Market from development, but rebuild it from decades of structural neglect.

A vendor steps into view. We hear, then see The Market’s business being done, its teeming, happy crowds, some shopping for dinner and others with no apparent agenda. There is a lot of focus on prices, reminding us that without a profiteering middle man, The Market makes basic economic sense for both producers and consumers.

The accordion easily ebbs out of one melody and flows into another, many times over. It is as if you saw someone interesting in the crowd and tried to follow. You would get glimpses, then lose them at times, and get an occasional glance in return that would keep you following.

In the middle of the film we are shown the doors to the Athenian Inn Restaurant, next door to Lowell’s Restaurant & Bar. A 1960s, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass interlude overtakes the audio track. Their album “Whipped Cream & Other Delights” was all about food, and although it was four years old when this film was produced it was still all the rage. This is a nod to youths who not only made this film but generally contributed much to saving The Market. The instrumental music of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass did also appeal to many older adults, so it was a diplomatic choice.

We see a ferry and hear its horn while enjoying a view from inside Lowell’s. The interlude ends with a bit of “A Taste of Honey,” instrumentation including a Fender bass, an electric and an acoustic guitar.

It was over coffee at Lowell’s that Steinbrueck and friends hatched plans to save The Market in the 1960s. For nearly 100 years at both Lowell’s and the Athenian, there have been restaurants in this place where you could meet friends or make friends. They have been fertile ground for greatness for nearly all of Pike Place Market and Seattle history.

The accordion reemerges with a few ending scenes and the film credits. Daily business is done, a couple meanders, smiling arm in arm, and a grandfather leads his granddaughter by the hand.

The credits read “A University of Washington Film,” by B. Biggs, G. Coldevin, R. Dong, J. Dunn, D. Macdonald, D. Pratt, and C. Vollan, with Advisors J. Driscoll and T. Kirkman. To these Seattleites of 1969: for my many market adventures since 1992 when my family moved here and met The Market, and from 2008 when now I write: thank you.

Below: Peter and Victor Steinbrueck promoting the rehabilitation of Pike Place Market, also in 1969:

Photo courtesy Peter Steinbrueck and HistoryLink.org.

Article cover art by Brian Glanz, in part using images from the Seattle Municipal Archives.

They write: Comments from a cross-section of our signatories provide a glimpse at the the depth of concern to Defend Science, the broad support for this initiative, and the diversity of viewpoints that gives strength to this effort.

My comment was:

All people must employ critical thinking, must understand the scientific method, and discern clearly between fact and opinion, between truth and theory, and between understanding and belief. It is essential for the progress and truly for the life of humanity that we educate and inspire with science. It is our responsibility to do so, as scientific and educated and motivated people. This fire is not a mystical gift we were given, rather it is of our making and in it humanity should take its greatest pride. The fire of science as a gift will also not be given to others supernaturally, rather we must share the warmth, force, and light of it. When threatened by mass fear of the unknown, we must stand up with courage and defend the bravery of discovery, the human will to demystify, to know, and to understand.

My gainful employment is currently in software, and I was cited as “Brian Glanz, Software Developer.”

Other signatories’ comments are at times alarming, touching, and all of them challenging. I will paste another half dozen below from other signatories which I want to emphasize. If you’d prefer, read the full collection here.

Then, review and sign the Defend Science Statement.

More Comments from Signatories of the Defend Science Statement:

The defense of the scientific method should be viewed as part of a larger fight to protect basic civil liberties from the onslaught of corporate-funded, right-wing extremism.

– Matthew LaHaye, Caltech, Department of Physics

Six years ago I took the ‘defence of science’ seriously and formed a nonprofit California Corporation with the mission to promote science education be encouraging existing institutions to sponsor and produce EVENTS to celebrate Darwin, Science and Humanity. The events are held each year on, or near Feb.12, Darwin’s Birthday and are open to the public. In addition, are promoting a GLOBAL celebration in 2009 for Darwins bicentennial birthday. I invite all scientists who support the ‘Defence of Science’ to visit our website and participate in by developing their own EVENT each year. We must cooperate in this important effort to Defend Science!

– Robert Stephens, President, Darwin Day Celebration

It is a sad commentary on the current political and social climate, that, despite recent and breathtaking advancements in science and medical technology, we find ourselves having to defend science, the only mechanism we have for gaining new information about the natural world. In the face of increasingly complex social, environmental, and medical problems, seeking solutions while ignoring the insights that science can provide is pure folly.

– Ola Fincke, Professor, Dept. of Zoology, U. of Oklahoma

The effect of years of non-scientific government policies on HIV and AIDS are plain to see in South Africa. Medical Scientists should not hesitate to speak out at every opportunity against this type of influence on their work.

– Antoine Van Gelder, Internal Medicine, University of Pretoria, South Africa

The definition of science is not open to debate. Science is not “a marketplace of ideas” in which consumer behavior dictates truth. Scientific findings may, at times, challenge the status quo, be unpopular, or even counter-intuitive. But, scientific findings are ALWAYS demonstrable, testable, and measurable.

– Brian Bolea, Grand Valley State University, Michigan

As a professor of psychiatry and psychoanalysis I confront daily the damage to hope that lack of understanding causes. There are all too many medical and environmental agonies the cause and cure of which we don’t yet know, and we must bear the often overwheming emotional burden such ignorance imposes. Such are cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, global warming.

But there are many other medical and environmental agonies whose cause and cure — or at least prevention — we now DO know. To be deprived by anti-science zealots of this understanding — and the possibiity of averting these blights by appropriate action — is the grimmest tragedy. Such are AIDS, tuberculosis, rickets, unplanned pregnancies.

We must not succumb to efforts by ignorant zealots to return us to the pre-scientific dark ages, in which much human hopelessness was perpetuated for centuries longer than necessary, by the arrogant imposition of faith-based doctrines of anti-science.

Aside from the injury and death that they guarantee, they produce another and equally unnecessary blight: prolongation into our adult life of the sense of helplessness with which we are all born. Every baby is a scientist desperately struggling to become a strong and safe grownup by figuring out the truth. Whether he or she becomes a professional scientist or remains an amateur, we must preserve the freedom of everyone to observe, think, discuss, apply, and celebrate that scientific quest. For, next to love, the scientific quest is the most powerful protector of hope.

– Roderic Gorney, Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA

My first reaction was: we should be counting dead and injured people, not only dead and injured Americans.

The point of increasing our perception of war in this simple, everyday way is to make it more real. A spike in media attention for this sign and for the war will remind many of the war in Iraq, making it a little bit more real. For those who pass by Ron Richardson’s sign often, the small but repeated reminder makes the war still more real. The sign does not let them forget the war, and for that Richardson is to be commended. Richardson is a retired history teacher who himself served in the military; we are grateful for his shared wisdom.

Yet we also must not forget: Americans are not the only people being killed and injured in Iraq. Many thousands of innocent people have died, whether innocent Iraqis who are nobody’s enemy, innocent Americans who were not there to fight, or anyone from anywhere caught in the crossfire. Many innocent people have been killed by our enemies, but many innocent people have died due to mistakes made and crimes committed by Americans, too.

Even if we counted both American and innocent casualties, though, we would still not make real the whole human tragedy of war. Those who we call our enemies are not less human than we are. Our enemies, too, should be counted. Consider:

1) Who are America’s enemies in Iraq?

2) Who among our enemies is so threatening that we need to kill them, and who could we instead arrest and prosecute, or negotiate with politically, financially, or otherwise?

In much of the fighting, the answers to these simple questions have been unclear.

Tens of thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands are injured — those are the human numbers, not the American numbers. Exact numbers are controversial and even the Pentagon will avoid releasing their opinion on what the exact numbers are, but we cannot let details obscure the scale of this tragedy. Popular American media and Ron Richardson’s sign have recently featured the number 4,000 — but the real number is much larger, and more terrible.

The reasons for so much killing and injuring, like the scale of it all, are also easy to forget and important to repeat: Americans are being killed and injured because we are fighting a war that we started. Most Americans now think we should never have started this war. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Saddam Hussein posed no threat to us. It was out of our own fear, and our inability to collect or properly interpret what they call “intelligence,” that we began this war.

It should be soul-shaking to reflect on this and any war. Counting American casualties does make war a little more real, but counting only American casualties is a lie of omission. We must not pretend that only Americans suffer when America fights a war.

If humankind was mindful of the reality of war, there would be no more war. Counting only American casualties is less than the whole truth of the horror and the history we are making. To keep it real, we must know the whole human tragedy of war.

While modernizing the efforts of volunteers and staff, the Foundation has created online tools of possible interest to other non-profits, including:

(1) Online forms used by grant recipients to submit annual reports. The forms include requests for human interest stories from the recipients, which have come in handy later.

(2) A means of raising funds online. At last glance, there was a big button to click for donations from the foundation’s Web site.

(3) A volunteering log. Volunteers perform many tasks for Haas Foundation, especially media related. Volunteers are not only working locally, and often they are working online. The foundation receives credit for every hour volunteered, so a log helps with tracking and also managing volunteered work, especially when it is performed asynchronously.

Haas does not always create their internal tools from scratch. One recent publication was a great example of coordinating their original online tools, other readily available online tools, and volunteer efforts. Volunteers used Lulu to publish a collection of success stories, which grant recipients had entered into the online annual report form. The finished publication was volunteer-edited and sent as a thank-you to donors of a certain amount.

The Haas Foundation is modernizing these efforts quickly but does not yet have all the answers. Michele expressed their general need for coordinating a variety of online tools for volunteers. They also want a better way volunteers can connect to form a community online. The Foundation has have used Microsoft SharePoint, but SharePoint has been difficult to maintain over time, “from a usability standpoint” as they reported.

The presentation session at Seattle Net Tuesday which originated this report was brief. Our immediate group did not have an opportunity to discuss potential solutions. My instincts tend toward a private wiki like PBwiki to make collaborative working and intranet connectivity front and center. Community building can be on the side of a PBwiki, either linking to and from it and social networking sites or integrating their widgets into it. It is also possible that a custom social network like Ning would be a better glue for Haas Foundation volunteers.

The Haas Foundation would be happy to hear more suggestions. Tell them Michele Fugiel and Seattle Net Tuesday sent you!

Visit them at HaasFoundation.org.

This article was written based on a presentation by and follow-up with Volunteer Michele Fugiel at Seattle Net Tuesday in 2007.

Saul & Dayee G. Haas Foundation photo credit Mel Hazen, 2007

My comments on defending science were recently included in a collection of comments by signatories of the Defend Science Statement. Today, I thought right away to invite Vice President Gore to broaden his defense of climate related science to a full-throated endorsement of the scientific method. My emailed reply to Vice President Gore included the following.

Open Congratulations to Al Gore:

Congratulations, Mr. Vice President!

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you and everyone to broadly embrace and defend science, in this and in every endeavor.

See comments from me and others on defending science at:

http://www.defendscience.org/fund_signatory_comments.pdf

Please sign and share the Defend Science Statement at:

http://defendscience.org/

Your compatriot,

Brian Glanz

Al Gore’s announcement email, Subject: I am deeply honored, in full text:

Dear Brian,

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis–a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.

My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

Thank you,

Al Gore

Stop the Clash of Civilizations! Avaaz.org pleads in this video about peace between Islam and the West, with questions such as “who speaks for you?” and “are we so different?” There have been over 2.2 million YouTube views since it debuted in March, 2007, and the video is shown in classrooms around the globe.

Avaaz asserts “Another world is possible, and we pledge to make it real,” and that “Global public opinion is the new superpower.”

Avaaz reminds that “If the people lead the leaders will follow.” Of the clash of civilizations, they observe “We’re afraid,” and of our leaders in this clash, Avaaz continues “and they’re playing off our fears.”

In their words, “Avaaz means “voice” or “song” in Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, and other langauges) is a community of global citizens who take action on major issues around the world. We have members in every country on earth, and operate in twelve languages. Our aim is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people–and not just political elites and unaccountable corporations–shape global decisions. This video, made with agit-pop.com with music by DJ Spooky, helped launch our campaign against the so-called Clash of Civilizations–starting with a call for real Middle East peace talks now.”

The video ends with urging to sign a petition to Israeli, Palestinian, and international leaders, to heal the rift between Islam and the West. Sign the petition now at Avaaz.org.

In 1990, Carl Sagan presented to the world the most distant image yet taken of ourselves, from 4 billion miles. The image was of a pale blue dot, suspended in a sun beam.

The book Pale Blue Dot was published by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan in 1994. That was also when I first met Sagan, while I was a student in the College of Engineering at Cornell University.

This film was a finalist at the Portobello Film Festival in London 2007, and at the Concorto Film Festival in Italy 2007. Compare it to the original, the classic, Sagan himself reading from Pale Blue Dot:

Here is their site from the National Geographic Society.