Category Archives: Tech Tools

Microsoft shutting down Academic Search and Related Services

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Lots of folks online are upset at the news that Microsoft is planning plan to shut down its Microsoft Academic Search at the end of 2021. As one blogger put it, “it provides/provided better results than Google Scholar along with a number of features GS doesn’t provide at all” and has been “wonderful and powerful.”

It’s not that there aren’t other services – there are a number of other academic research search tools, many of them free. Some include bibliographic information/direct links to open access articles as well as bibliographic info about paywalled materials. Others, provide material only about open access content. These include:

There’s also alerting services from Semantic Scholar offers (free).

I rely heavily on these services, both to find resources to add to my list of virtual volunteering-related research on the Virtual Volunteering Wiki and to find out who might be quoting my book, The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, or any of my other research or academic work, in their own research. And without a university account, I don’t have access to most academic research journals – I can read only the summary of articles on the aforementioned services.

Which of these services – or some other – is your favorite? Will the Microsoft change affect you and, if so, how?

Apps4Good should be based in reality, not be tech fluff

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I sent out this tweet thread December 3 from my Twitter account:

Listened to a podcast by someone wanting to develop an app to address a particular community need. He has no stats regarding the need, no research showing his approach is what partner agencies or potential clients want. Just talked about #app4good he’ll develop. (1/5) #CSR

This project leader has no experience regarding this particular community need. None. It’s another case of someone from the corporate world deciding that he knows what nonprofits or at-risk community members need, with no data or research to back that up. (2/5)

Looked at the web site. It’s very slick, uses all the buzzwords. You have to really read (which most folks won’t) to realize every project is in development, that no people with actual expertise in this issue are involved in this supposed nonprofit effort. (3/5)

It’s great that folks from the corporate / business / tech world want to help with community issues. Your involvement is vital. But just as you have to do your homework before developing an app for consumers, you have to do research before you develop an #app4good. #CSR (4/5)

Years of experience in the tech sector doesn’t prepare app creators for addressing homelessness, hunger or street harassment, or navigating mass transit, or working in emergencies. You must talk in-depth with the experts: nonprofits & their clients. (5/5)

I’ve written a LOT about how folks from the corporate world, from executive directors to app developers, don’t talk to nonprofits before they develop tech tools for their clients. Here’s more:

And then there is this brilliant tweet from World Bank Water, an initiative of the World Bank:

To paraphrase a comment I wrote in a previous blog, it’s wonderful to see so many tech4good / apps4good / hacks4good initiatives anywhere in the world, but I see way too much attention being spent on their launch, on their promise, and not nearly enough researching if this is really what clients or the community wants, let alone evaluating their impact and sustainability after launch. And if we don’t focus on those things, then they are just tech fluff.

A senior neighbor with intellectual disabilities gets an iPad

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I live two doors down from a home for adults with intellectual disabilities, most of them over 40 years old. Some residents are on the autism spectrum, some have Down’s Syndrome, and some have brain damage from birth. They are terrific neighbors: kind, observant and friendly. And a couple of them are my friends: we sit together on the low wall around my front yard and interact with my dog and the various neighborhood dogs and cats that pass by – and the people, but always from a safe distance, as this is a group of people who are particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.

Because of the danger of COVID-19, most of the residents can’t do the daily things that have brought them joy: one that had a job has now lost it because there isn’t enough work. They can’t go to church. They can’t go to the bottle drop center to recycle bottles and cans, something they enjoyed as much for the social aspect as the money. They can’t walk through Goodwill or Walmart. They can’t take mass transit. There are no public festivals. There are few garage sales. And their favorite shows, Live PD and Cops, have been canceled.

A month ago, a sister of one of the residents I’m particularly close to decided to buy him an iPad, so he could watch the church services he’s dearly missing because of the global pandemic, as well as watch videos like the dog videos I regularly record and share on YouTube. I volunteered to try to set it up in such a way that her brother could more easily navigate it. My goal was that, once someone logged into the iPad for him, he could watch the videos he wanted to without someone having to load a video each time. What I imagined was that there’s a particular time of day – let’s say 10 a.m. – when a staff person would log on to the device for him and, from there, he would have just a few clicks to watch and re-watch the videos pre-selected for him, and he could do that for, say, an hour on his own. It was tough to set up: he cannot read, so everything has to be done by easy-to-recognize icons. I don’t think he can remember more than two steps on a device. There can’t be too many things to click on – it will just be a sea of confusing symbols. He’s over 70 and has no experience using any device other than turning a device on or off or changing TV channels manually (he can’t use a remote and a phone is much too complicated for him to operate, even to call someone).

I spent hours looking at the Internet trying to find apps he would enjoy as well, but all seemed too advanced for him. Everything I read about online about apps that people with intellectual disabilities can use required a level of remembering and understanding and reading he just doesn’t have. There are lots of resources for parents to find apps to help their children with intellectual disabilities use an iPad or Android, and there are lots of resources to help people help elderly people use these devices, but resources to help seniors with intellectual disabilities use these devices? THAT has been a fruitless quest.

Here’s how I set it up:

  • I made three web pages, which are on my own web site, so that I can change them from my own home, without having to take his device back. I have a shortcut to the home page for these pages on the iPad, in the top left corner of the main screen. I wish I could have made the icon a cat or a dog, two images he easily recognizes, but I never could figure out how. The icon also has his name on it, which he does recognize.
  • I made the icons on the iPad as large as I could (and even then I wish I could have made them larger).
  • I moved all the icons off the first screen that I don’t want him to use. I left the icon to the web page that I created as his main interface, as well as the shortcuts to YouTube, kids’ YouTube, FaceTime, Zoom, his contacts and the camera button.
  • I created accounts for him on Google (for YouTube and gmail) and Facebook, and automatic logins for such. He will not use email, but he needed an email account in order to have accounts on things like video-conferencing software his sister might want to use to communicate with him.
  • After someone signs him in, he clicks on the icon with his name on it and he will come to a web page with three photos on it. One is of his church, one is of his pastor and one is of me. If he clicks on the church photo, he goes to a long list of links that go to church videos on Facebook. If he clicks on the photo of his pastor, he goes to a long list of links to videos his pastor has made, some on Facebook and some on YouTube (singing, puppet ministry, etc.). And if he clicks on the photo of me, he goes to a long list of my animal videos and silly videos on YouTube. He clicks on a link and pushes the play icon, and can watch the video.

Here’s the problem: after the video is done, he doesn’t have the capacity to navigate Facebook or YouTube and go to the next video. Instead, he has to remember to push the home button at the bottom of the device. Then he starts all over: clicking on “his” icon, coming to the web page with the three photos, choosing which “channel” of videos he wants to view, and then choosing a video to watch.

So, how is it going? I can’t observe him using it, and I wasn’t able to train him myself on using it. But in the evenings, I have been sitting out on my wall, talking with the pastor’s wife sitting eight feet away, and my neighbor has come walking over to say, “I saw you on that box thing!” He then recounts seeing her or her daughters singing or her husband preaching. I don’t know how often he watches videos on it, but it seems to be enough to delight him a few times a week. And as we all stay home day after day, being delighted a few times a week is the best we can hope for.

I hope it continues to work out for him. But either no one is thinking about people like him in the development of apps and interfaces, or they are but they’ve made those tools extremely hard to find.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

United Nations scales back online volunteering program

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The United Nations Volunteers program, an initiative under the UN Development Program (UNDP), has stopped accepting new nonprofits, NGOs and others who apply to use the Online Volunteering Service, onlinevolunteering.org.

Organizations that have already been accepted into the Online Volunteering service can continue to use it to recruit online volunteers, but no new volunteering hosts are being accepted, and there is no word on whether this is a temporary or permanent change – and what this changes means for the future of the UN’s pioneering virtual volunteering initiative.

I found this out when I tried to register the nonprofit where I am working now – the nonprofit where I work is an international program and one of our nonprofits clients, in Congo, is familiar with both the OV service and my own work in virtual volunteering (it’s a small world, truly!). It reminded me that the organization where I am working now needs to make sure people in other countries know about our many online volunteering opportunities – we strive to be an inclusive organization, and involving international online volunteers is a part of that. As our program works to address at least three of the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s Online Volunteering service seemed like an obvious choice for the organization.

But after I filled out the application, I received an email from UNV that pointed me to this announcement on the home page:

April 5: The UNV Online Volunteering service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from non-governmental (NGO) and other civil society organizations (CSOs).

The Find out more link after this announcement makes no mention of the suspension. The other pages on the UN site make no mention of this suspension. The how does it work page makes no mention of this suspension. The page with the heading “Organizations that find volunteers through us are”, says that organizations need to be officially registered with appropriate government authorities and provide proof of such, be a nonprofit, an NGO or other civil society organization, a government or other public institution, a United Nations agency or other intergovernmental institution, and active in the field of sustainable human development. There’s no mention at all of on this and other pages that the OV service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from organizations that want to host online volunteers.

Because the application on the OV service for new hosts of online volunteers still works, and all of the links to it still function, I’m not sure if the suspension is for all new users of the online volunteering service that want to host online volunteers, or if United Nations agencies are still allowed to apply to use the service. Is this ban just for NGOs and other non-UN agencies? Is it temporary or permanent? Is this the first step in getting rid of the OV service altogether? And why have these changes been made? I have asked UNV but have not had a response in more three weeks.

If UNV is getting rid of the Online Volunteering service, it will be devastating news. The OV service is one of the most successful programs the UN has launched outside of is emergency humanitarian response programs and its post-conflict-rebuilding programs. Yes, I feel that strongly about the OV service. I think the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering can still be helpful to any tech4good, micro-volunteering initiative starting now. Note when you read these lessons that the early adopters of the service were NOT UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES, nor were the organizations that most online volunteers supported through the service: they were nonprofits and NGOs, some of them quite small – the kinds of organizations that aren’t allowed to use the UN Online Volunteering service anymore.

This is particularly bitter news on this the 20th anniversary of NetAid, which launched the UN’s online volunteering efforts that became the Online Volunteering service.

What could cause this radical change? Lack of funding and, therefore, a lack of staffing for the OV service? Lack of support from senior management? I would love to know. Let’s hope for a quick and clear response.

And let’s hope someone takes the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering and creates a viable alternative for those organizations that want to involve online volunteers from outside their country’s borders in their initiatives, and for online volunteers that want to help programs serving the developing world specifically.

Update: UNV has sent a cryptic reply on Twitter that reads: “Thank you for your comment. Online Volunteering continues to be a integral part of the @UNVolunteers offer. The platform will be enhanced in the coming months as the organization expands digital-savvy solutions for all involved.” Answers nothing brought up in the blog. Frustrating!

January 2, 2020 update: UNV now has a new message on its OV web site that says: “Effective 1 January 2020, the Online Volunteering service is free of charge to all eligible partners. Eligible partners are: UN entities, Governmental or other public institutions, and Civil Society Organizations.” But if you click on the link for more information, you discover that UNV has a VERY narrow version of civil society organizations (CSOs): it has to be a CSO already registered with the OV service, or the organization has to provide evidence of accreditation with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), or the organization has to be working with a UN Country Team as an implementing partner or through an agreement and submit a form signed by the UN Entity they are partnering with.

So, in short, the OV service no longer can be used by most nonprofits, NGOs and CSOs. There’s no explanation as to why this decision has been made. So, if your nonprofit, NGO or CSO doesn’t meet the criteria, you can’t use the UNV Online Volunteering service to recruit online volunteers. If you want to recruit online volunteers, I recommend these resources:

Your own country’s volunteering center. Your own country may have a web site that recruits volunteers, online or onsite, for nonprofits, NGOs or CSOs in your country. I have list of many of these here. And use this advice when posting your opportunities to such a site.

Finding a Computer/Network Consultant (you can adapt these for online volunteers, not just tech folks)

Required Volunteer Information on Your Web Site – how to use your own web site to recruit volunteers (not just online volunteers)

Subreddits For Good

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As of July 2019, Reddit ranks as the No. 5 most visited website in the USA and No. 13 in the world. Statistics suggest that 74% of Reddit users are male. Users tend to be significantly younger than other online communities like Facebook with less than 1% of users being 65 or over. Reddit is known in part for its passionate user base, which has been described as “offbeat, quirky, and anti-establishment”. I participate in Reddit because I have struggled at times to connect with young, male audiences, and to have a handle on what young people say regarding nonprofits, volunteering, civic engagement and other subjects of interest to me professionally. If you want to reach out to young people, especially men, in the USA, or even know what they might be thinking, Reddit is a terrific resource.

If you are interested in volunteerism or philanthropy, here are subreddits – online discussion groups on Reddit – you might be interested in visiting regularly, which I’ve dubbed, collectively, as “Reddit4Good”, though some are questionable in terms of ethics and quality of info (updated March 17, 2021):

If you are in Utah and are looking for volunteering opportunities, you should follow UServeUtah.

If you want to get ideas for voluntourism – where you pay to “volunteer” abroad, where you get to have a “feel good” experience for just a few weeks or months (as opposed to having to have an area of expertise and local people designing the volunteer role, not a company that brings in foreign volunteers), where you don’t need to have any skills and no one checks your background – that’s not really doing anything “for good.” But I’ll share the places on Reddit where people post voluntourism opportunities (updated March 17, 2021):

Full disclosure: I’m the volunteer moderator of the Volunteer subreddit. Is it tough being a 50+ female moderator on an online community that skews oh-so-young and male? Yes. Yes, it is.

September 21, 2020 update: check out The Nonprofit & NGO Guide to Using Reddit, to see how your nonprofit, NGO, charity or other community program can leverage these and other subreddits to build awareness, promote events, recruit volunteers and more.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

YahooGroups is Going Away – SAVE YOUR FILES

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Yahoo will no longer allow users to upload content to the Yahoo Groups site. Yahoo is saying that YahooGroups will continue to exist, but only has a message site – messages aren’t going away, but all attachments and everything in the collaboration areas are. Here is the Official Yahoo Announcement.

Beginning October 21, 2019 YahooGroups users won’t be able to upload any content to a YahooGroup except for messages, and as of December 14 all previously posted content on the site will be permanently removed. You’ll have until that date to save anything you’ve uploaded.

EVERYTHING but messages on YahooGroups is going away: 

  • Files
  • Polls
  • Links
  • Photos
  • Folders
  • Calendar
  • Database
  • Attachments
  • Conversations
  • Message Digest
  • Message History

All Yahoo Groups site will be made private or restricted. Any new group members will need to request an invite or be invited by an admin.

You will still be able to communicate with YahooGroup members via email and search for private groups on the site and ask to join groups.

My advice, other than backing up the files on a YahooGroup you don’t want to lose: ABANDON SHIP. Find a new platform to communicate with your group! I do NOT recommend Facebook, since Facebook’s privacy is non-existent and not everyone is on Facebook (nor wishes to be forced on it just to be a member of your group).

I’m testing out groups.io. I’ve set up a group myself, to discuss nonprofit management. The free version is quite robust.

Just know that there is no magic third party messaging platform, file sharing platform, collaboration platform or blog platform that won’t, at some point, go away. Just as car brands come and go, just as technology comes and goes (remember cassette tapes?), online platforms come and go. All that talk you heard of the permanence of digital data, that nothing disappears from the Internet? Yeah, about that…

UN Digital Cooperation report released

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The age of digital interdependence: Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation has just been released. 

In July 2018 the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) appointed a panel to consider the question of “digital cooperation” – the ways we work together to address the social, ethical, legal and economic impact of digital technologies in order to maximize their benefits and minimize their harm. The Secretary-General asked the panel to consider how digital cooperation can contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the ambitious agenda to protect people and the planet endorsed by 193 UN member states in 2015. He also asked the panel to consider models of digital cooperation to advance the debate surrounding governance in the digital sphere.

The Co-Chairs of the panel are Melinda Gates (USA), representing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Jack Ma (China), Executive Chairman of the Alibaba Group. Ex officio members are Amandeep Singh Gill (India) and Jovan Kurbalija (Serbia) of the Secretariat of the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Members of the panel that contributed to the report include:

  • Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi (UAE), Minister of Cabinet Affairs and the Future, UAE
  • Yuichiro Anzai (Japan), Senior Advisor and Director of Center for Science Information Analysis, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
  • Nikolai Astrup (Norway), Former Minister of International Development, now Minister of Digitalisation, Norway
  • Vinton Cerf (USA), Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
  • Fadi Chehadé (USA), Chairman, Chehadé & Company
  • Sophie Soowon Eom (Republic of Korea), Founder of Adriel AI and Solidware
  • Isabel Guerrero Pulgar (Chile), Executive Director, IMAGO Global Grassroots and Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School
  • Marina Kaljurand (Estonia), Chair of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace
  • Bogolo Kenewendo (Botswana), Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Botswana
  • Marina Kolesnik (Russian Federation), senior executive, entrepreneur and WEF Young Global Leader
  • Doris Leuthard (Switzerland), former President and Federal Councillor of the Swiss Confederation, Switzerland
  • Cathy Mulligan (United Kingdom), Visiting Researcher, Imperial College London and Chief Technology Officer of GovTech Labs at University College London
  • Akaliza Keza Ntwari (Rwanda), ICT advocate and entrepreneur
  • Edson Prestes (Brazil), Professor, Institute of Informatics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
  • Kira Radinsky (Israel), Director of Data Science, eBay
  • Nanjira Sambuli (Kenya), Senior Policy Manager, World Wide Web Foundation
  • Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah (Australia), Chief Executive, Oxfam GB
  • Jean Tirole (France), Chairman of the Toulouse School of Economics and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse

From the report:

Our dynamic digital world urgently needs improved digital cooperation and that we live in an age of digital interdependence. Such cooperation must be grounded in common human values – such as inclusiveness, respect, human-centredness, human rights, international law, transparency and sustainability. In periods of rapid change and uncertainty such as today, these shared values must be a common light which helps guide us… 

We need to bring far more diverse voices to the table, particularly from developing countries and traditionally marginalised groups, such as women, youth, indigenous people, rural populations and older people…  

The resulting report focuses on three broad sets of interlocking issues, each of which is discussed in one subsequent chapter: 

  • Leaving No One Behind argues that digital technologies will help progress towards the full sweep of the SDGs only if we think more broadly than the important issue of access to the internet and digital technologies
     
  • Individuals, Societies and Digital Technologies underscores the fact that universal human rights apply equally online as offline, but that there is an urgent need to examine how time-honored human rights frameworks and conventions should guide digital cooperation and digital technology.
     
  • Mechanisms for Global Digital Cooperation analyses gaps in the current mechanisms of global digital cooperation, identifies the functions of global digital cooperation needed to address them, and outlines three sets of modalities on how to improve our global digital cooperation architecture – which build on existing structures and arrangements in ways consistent with our shared values and principles.

Some of my observations about the report:

  • I like the three broad sets of interlocking issues.
     
  • I was very pleased to see so much emphasis on countering misinformation and on the need to use online tools to build trust and social cohesion.
     
  • The date of the publication is nowhere to be found on the report. I think it was published in June 2019. 
     
  • The term non-governmental organization (NGO) is never mentioned in the report. Not once.
     
  • Activists nor activism is never mentioned in the report. None once.
     
  • The phrase civil society is used. Does that include the work of NGOs, or activists, including those opposed to government or promoting alternative strategies to those being promoted by more mainstream international NGOs, all of whom mobilize people to engage online as consumers, clients, campaigners, supporters, proponents, opponents of activities by corporations/businesses and the government?
     
  • People with disabilities and their unique needs regarding access digital technologies are lumped in with other marginalized groups, which ignores the unique needs of people different kinds of sight impairments, people with hearing impairments, people with different mobility issues, and a range of other physical and intellectual challenges that people creating online tools do not design for. And there’s no mention that improving accessibility for people with disabilities improves access for EVERYONE. The scant references, lumped in with other marginalized groups, are easy to find: just look for the word “disabilities.” This would have been remedied if the panel had included Sharron Rush (USA), of Knowbility or anyone from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

For the next year or two, this report will be used to justify what any UN initiative does regarding ICT4D – and used to dissuade other proposals, like supporting the needs of human rights activists online, or initiatives that make a centerpiece of promoting accessible web design. And given those ommissions, it’s a mixed bag – a followup is most definitely needed to address this. 

See a list of all United Nations Tech4Good / ICT4D Initiatives to date (yes, I track them, since I was involved with two of them, United Nations Technology Service (UNITeS). and the UN’s Online Volunteering service (formerly NetAid).

Here is the panel’s official web site. You can also follow the initiative on Twitter @UNSGdigicoop.

Also see:

Harms caused by persuasive technologies – what your nonprofit needs to know

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Nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, government agencies, schools and other mission-based organizations, no matter what that mission is, needs to be aware of persuasive technologies and how that tech is being used to gather data and use it to target people to get them to buy or do something. You should even consider how you can educate your board, your other volunteers and your clients about persuasive tech and they can better recognize such.

This is from a recent email newsletter of the Center for Humane Technology:

We are as concerned as you are about the harms caused by persuasive technologies. A key lever in our theory of change at the Center for Humane Technology is applying pressure on technology companies by educating policy-makers. When government officials understand the harms more deeply, they can create guardrails to protect society.

On June 25, Tristan Harris, a co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, testified on Capitol Hill in the U.S. Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing, “Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Persuasive Technology on Internet Platforms” with Rashida Richardson (AI Now Institute), Maggie Stanphill (Google, Inc.) and Dr. Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram Research). Tristan’s opening statement argued that persuasive technology platforms have pretended to be in an equal relationship with users, while actually holding the upper hand in an asymmetric relationship. Paired with an extractive business model that is based on predicting and controlling people’s choices in the name of maximizing engagement, this inevitably causes serious harm. Algorithms like YouTube recommendations suggest increasingly extreme, outrageous videos to keep us glued to tech sites. In the hearing Tristan said, “Because YouTube wants to maximize watch time, it tilts the entire ant colony of humanity towards crazytown.” 

While many people feel they are opting in as an equal, in reality, algorithms hold asymmetric power over us — they know more about us than we know about ourselves — even predicting when we are going to quit our jobs or are pregnant. As platforms gain the upper hand over the limits of human brains and society, they cannot be allowed to have an extractive relationship but a “Duty of Care” or a “Fiduciary” relationship.

To learn more, check out CHT’s testimony, watch Tristan’s comments (17 min video) and read this Gizmodo article, “This is How You’re Being Manipulated.”

The Gizmodo article does a great job of showing that, the longer you spend in these social media ecosystems, “just scrolling”, the more machine learning systems learn about you. They build a profile of you, based on what you are looking at, what you have “liked,” what your friends have liked, etc. Think of that profile as an avatar – as, Tristan Harris, the executive director of the Center for Humane Technology, puts it, “a voodoo doll-like version of you inside of a Google server. And that avatar, based on all the clicks and likes and everything you ever made—those are like your hair clippings and toenail clippings and nail filings that make the avatar look and act more and more like you—so that inside of a Google server they can simulate more and more possibilities about ‘if I prick you with this video, if I prick you with this video, how long would you stay?’ And the business model is simply what maximized watch time…”

“Without any of your data I can predict increasing features about you using AI… All I have to do is look at your mouse movements and click patterns […] based on tweet text alone we can know your political affiliation with about 80-percent accuracy. [A] computer can calculate that you’re homosexual before you might know you’re homosexual. They can predict with 95-percent accuracy that you’re going to quit your job, according to an IBM study. They can predict that you’re pregnant.

Lawmakers weighed in on the issues as well:  

  • Sen. Schatz (D-Hawaii) “Companies are letting algorithms run wild and only using humans to clean up the mess. Algorithms are amoral. Companies designed them to optimize for engagement as their highest priority, and in doing so eliminated human judgment as part of their business model.”
  • Sen. Thune (R-South Dakota) “The powerful mechanisms behind these platforms meant to enhance engagement also have the ability, or at least the potential, to influence the thoughts and behaviors of literally billions of people.”
  • Sen. Tester (D-Montana) “I’m probably going to be dead and gone—and I’m probably thankful for it—when all this s— comes to fruition, because I think that, this scares me to death.”

So… what can you do?

  • Consider creating a workshop jointly with other agencies to educate volunteers and clients about how social media is used to gather information about them and their children, and how that technology is designed to encourage them into action and beliefs in ways they may never have realized.
  • Write your elected national representatives and tell them you believe these companies should be required, by legislation, to do a better job of talking about how they target users to keep them engaged.
  • Create a written social media policy that makes a commitment to never “like” or share any information on social media that does not fit absolutely into the mission of your organization and that cannot be verified. Know what your social media manager is doing (watch, don’t just ask). If a board member or prominent volunteer asks you to share something via the organization’s social media account that you feel does not meet that criteria, be prepared to explain to that board member why you will NOT be sharing such.
  • Create a page on a private GoogleDoc or a public web page that has a list of links to the Facebook pages you want to check in regularly regarding news and updates instead of liking those pages on Facebook (I have a private page where I have listed the Facebook pages of all of the city and county governments of my area, political groups I support, nonprofits I want to keep an eye on, sports teams I like, etc.). Any time you want to get an update, you just go to that page you’ve created and click on the link of any group or office you are interested in. Unlike every Facebook page except those you want to publicly, officially endorse by doing so. The result: you are more likely to get the updates you want from the groups you most want, because you aren’t relying on Facebook to show such in your timeline.
  • Get rid of your Facebook group for volunteers, clients, etc. Facebook data mines every post made to these groups, even if you set the account to private. Also, not everyone wants to use Facebook, because of its data-mining/profile-building and selling practices. Free alternatives include YahooGroups, Groups.io, and MeWe. Or consider making the investment for a completely private platform to create an online space for working with your volunteers or clients – my favorite is Basecamp.
  • Be flexible about how you communicate directly with volunteers and clients online and be ready to use whatever tool they seem most engaged in – and be ready to change as they change. That may mean using WhatsApp for a year or two to send direct messages to volunteers or clients and then switching to Telegram because that’s what your volunteers or clients are switching to.
  • Keep using Facebook if its proven to be a good way to get your message out and engage with others, but never use it as your only avenue for online outreach: your web site should be always up-to-date, you should post to Twitter and create content for YouTube, and you should post information, as appropriate, to online communities on other platforms, like Reddit and even Craigslist. I find places to potential new places online to post information by asking clients or volunteers where they are getting ANY information.

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Funding for Technology

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I just updated a web page I have on my own web site that’s meant to help nonprofits, charities, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations and programs to fundraise for technology needs – for hardware (like tablets, smart phones, laptops, etc.), software, a system to subscribe to, etc. The advice is focused on what information you need to have read to share with donors, how to frame your story about the need for this technology in human terms, and how to identify potential supporters.

I originally developed the page, and continue to update it, because I get emails from people who want to know where to find “the” list of foundations or corporate giving programs that fund software or hardware at nonprofits. And there really isn’t such a list – foundations and corporate giving programs are looking to fund program activities/causes, not equipment, specifically. Grants go to particular kinds of programs – those to help children, the environment, the arts, women experiencing domestic violence, a community in need of better cohesion, etc. But if you can show how technology is a program cost, how it helps you better serve people or your cause, it has a much better potential to attract funding. In other words: show how this is #tech4good. 

I say on the page:

Technology can help an animal shelter better track their animal in-take process and get animals ready for adoption more quickly. Technology can help make a professional theater better track ticket buyers who might be good prospects for donations. Technology can help a program supporting homeless teens to better identify trends and needs. Make your pitch for funding based on what technology will allow you to do regarding your organization’s clients – not so much about what the technology is. Again, a corporation doesn’t want to fund the purchase of 10 tablets for your organization – but a corporation would love to fund a resource that helps, say, homeless families, and if you can show exactly how the purchase of those 10 tablets will allow that, then funders will be much more attracted to such.

Have a look and share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Pioneering Internet Initiatives Deserve To Be Remembered

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So much of what the press and bloggers herald now as pioneering or disruptive on the Internet isn’t at all. In 1995, I was talking online with friends, old and new, in all the ways I do now, with the exception of live video: we were writing messages in real-time and messages posted somewhere to read later. We were making and sharing audios and videos. We were creating communities. We were using online tools to train, to learn, to change minds, to promote ideas and to research. The names of the tools have changed, and they have all definitely gotten more sophisticated, but rarely do I read an article about something new online and find that, in fact, it really is something new, innovative, or disruptive. Many tech pioneers and early tech history have been forgotten, and web sites that detailed these efforts are gone, sometimes not even available on the Wayback Machine (archive.org). In addition, attempts to preserve some of this important, rich early Internet history on Wikipedia often get wiped out by veteran Wikipedeans who don’t think the entries are worth remembering – especially if the entries involve women primarily. There are certain tech-related initiatives from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s that I think are worth not only remembering but worth reviewing and mining for lessons we can use right now – and worth celebrating. I also think the people involved in these early initiatives are worth looking up by researchers and the press alike, to find out what they think about where our networked world has been and where it might be going. Below is a list of pages on my web site that are a part of my attempts to preserve some of this important history and to make it more findable on various search engines. Note how most are focused on nonprofit and government initiatives, rather than for-profit companies – just like those that created the Internet:
  • Early History of Nonprofits & the Internet The Internet has always been about people and organizations networking with each other, sharing ideas and comments, and collaborating online. It has always been interactive and dynamic. And there were many nonprofit organizations who “got” it early — earlier than many for-profit companies. So I’ve attempted to set the record straight: I’ve prepared a web page that talks about the early history of nonprofits and the Internet. It focuses on 1995 and previous years. It talks a little about what nonprofits were using the cyberspace for as well at that time and lists the names of key people and organizations who helped get nonprofit organizations using the Internet in substantial numbers in 1995 and before. Edits and additions are welcomed.
  • What Was NetAid? First there was Band Aid, then Live Aid, and Farm Aid, and then came NetAid, an initiative that was also launched with celebrity-laden concerts and a great deal of media coverage. The NetAid initiative was meant to harness the Internet to raise money and awareness for the Jubilee 2000 campaign, to raise awareness for the challenges in developing countries, and to allow people to volunteer online, donating their skills to help people in the developing world. NetAid’s goal was to make global philanthropy more efficient. This page reviews who was involved, how the initiative evolved, and its legacy regarding virtual volunteering.
  • Impact Online: A History Impact Online was a nonprofit organization founded in the mid 1990s. It was one of the first web sites, and maybe the first web site, where nonprofits could post their volunteering opportunities and people that wanted to help could sign up to help. It later became VolunteerMatch. Unfortunately, someone requested that old versions of the Impact Online web site be removed from the Internet Wayback Machine, and so all archives of the original web site are gone. Luckily, I downloaded some of text and graphics from that original, pioneering web site. I’m sharing them here because the original Impact Online initiative deserves to be remembered and honored.
  • Al Gore Campaign Pioneered Virtual Volunteering Back in 2000, when Al Gore ran for president, his campaign championed virtual volunteering by recruiting online volunteers to help online with his election efforts. I’ve tried to present some of what his campaign did – this pioneering effort deserves to be remembered, as do some of the lessons from such.
  • A history of the Smart Valley initiative In 1994, perhaps earlier, an initiative called Smart Valley was launched in California. Smart Valley was a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization focused on creating an “information infrastructure” in Silicon Valley, California – Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San José, Santa Clara and the surrounding area, creating projects to enhance the quality of life in Silicon Valley. Smart Valley’s projected included SmartSchools NetDay and PC Day, Smart Voter, to help people learn about upcoming elections, Connect 96: The Global Summit on Building Electronic Communities, the Public Access Network (PAN), a Telecommuting Initiative, and the Smart Valley Webmasters Group. Smart Valley was also affiliated with the nonprofit organization Plugged In, one of the first digital divide efforts, working to bring “the tremendous technological resources available in the Silicon Valley to youth in low-income communities” in East Palo Alto and SV-PAL, the Silicon Valley Public Access Link.
  • San Francisco Women of the Web (SFWOW): A History In the 1990s, various associations sprung up all over the USA to support women using the Internet as a primary part of their work – or who wanted to. These associations created safe, supportive, content-rich, fun spaces, both online and in real spaces, for women to talk about their tech and online-related work, to ask questions, and to learn from each other. One of the best well-known at the time, San Francisco Women of the Web, chose 25 women in 1998, in 1999, in 2000 and in 2001, recognizing them with their Women of the Web award. To help highlight some of the many women who played important roles in the 1990s Internet – which I consider the “early days” – as well as some truly pioneering tech projects that laid the groundwork for the success of so many initiatives today, I have reproduced this list of Top25 Women on the Web on my own site.
  • United Nations Technology Service (UNITeS), a global volunteer initiative, created by Kofi Annan in 2000, that both supported volunteers applying information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) and promoted volunteerism as a fundamental element of successful ICT4D initiatives. It was administered by the UN Volunteers program, and during the tenure of UNITeS, the UNV program helped place and/or support more than 300 volunteers applying ICT4D in more than 50 developing countries, including 28 Least Developed Countries (LDC), making it one of the largest volunteering in ICT4D initiatives. The activities of UN Volunteers, as well as those by tech volunteers working through NetCorps, CompuMentor, the Association for Progressive Communications, Australian Volunteers International, NetCorps, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), were tracked and promoted by UNITeS as part of its overall mission. Part of the UNITeS mandate was to try to track all of the various tech volunteering initiatives and encourage them to share their best practices and challenges with each other. UNITeS was discontinued as an active program in 2005.
  • United Nations Tech4Good / ICT4D Initiatives, a list of the various United Nations initiatives that have been launched since 2000 to promote the use of computers, feature phones, smart phones and various networked devices in development and humanitarian activities, to promote digital literacy and equitable access to the “information society,” and to bridge the digital divide. My goal in creating this page is to help researchers, as well as to remind current UN initiatives that much work regarding ICT4D has been done by various UN employees, consultants and volunteers for more than 15 years (and perhaps longer?).
If you are a Wikipedia volunteer, I encourage you to try to create and maintain entries for the initiatives named on these pages, especially if you are male or perceived as male online – male contributors, or those perceived as such, have a MUCH easier time of it on Wikipedia than females. Also see: Wikipedia needs improvement re: volunteerism-related topics Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia? Insights into virtual volunteering Crowdsourcing / Hive Mind – it’s been happening since at least 1849! History & Evaluation of UNV’s Early Years volunteers scramble to preserve online data before government deletes it
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.