Category Archives: About Jayne

The legacy of early tech4good initiatives

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UNLogoThe Internet changes so quickly. As does our offline world. It’s amazing not only how quickly web sites go away, but how often entire initiatives are scrubbed online as well – even major United Nations initiatives that were covered extensively once-upon-a-time in major media. That’s a big problem if much of your professional work has been for and with online initiatives.

I’ve been working with organizations online since the 1990s, and many of those organizations are long gone. The initiatives I worked with may have gotten coverage from major media outlets and had huge names behind them back in the day – David Bowie, Bill Clinton, Bono, Nelson Mandela and more – and done a lot of great work, but when those initiatives go away, so do their web sites, all their research and all the records of their work – sometimes from the Internet Wayback Machine as well.

You may think outdated information is no longer useful and should go away. The reality is that “old” information is often vitally important. If anything, it often offers baseline data you can use to compare with data now, and together, it shows you, for instance, if the situation has improved for women online, or if the challenges for women getting online are the same now as they were in the 1990s, or if the promises made now regarding technology are the same unrealized promises from 20 or 30 years ago, and on and on. Having access to old information can also help you avoid previous missteps – or rediscover something that never should have gone away that you can use now.

If you can remember a defunct initiative’s web site address, you can often find archived versions of the site at archive.org, a site I use at least a few times a month. But if you can’t remember a defunct initiative’s URL, you may never be able to find deleted information again. And, as has already been noted, archive.org may not have the web site; sometimes, new owners of an organization ask for old web sites to be taken down, and the site complies.

Early in 2016, I started spending a lot of time updating various pages on Wikipedia related to subjects of greatest interest to me, including several defunct tech4good initiatives. Many times, when I’m trying to find information about a now-defunct volunteering or tech initiative, a Google or Bing search leads me to a page on Wikipedia, but the information isn’t always up-to-date or complete. When I can improve an entry, I do. But a big problem with Wikipedia is that someone can come along at any time and rewrite and delete all of your hard work – or even delete an entire page you have relied on for reference for modern research projects and proposals. I’ll keep updating Wikipedia, but I’ve realized there’s a need to create a more permanent archive of some of the volunteering and tech initiatives with which I’ve been associated, as well as those that I know did great work in the past.

So I have created the following pages on my own web site, to more permanently capture this information. Some pages are just summaries, while other sections are comprehensive. Whenever possible, I’ve included the original URLs, so that you can use archive.org to see complete web sites of these initiatives yourself, if they are there at all. I hope this info is helpful to those who worked on such initiatives in the past and would like to reference this work, as well as helpful to those doing research on the impact of nonprofit/NGO tech use, tech4good, ICT4D, volunteering and other initiatives.

I also hope these pages will be a caution to those who launching so-called disruptive technologies, or a tech tool or management approach the designers believe is entirely new and innovative, or a tool or approach with some pie-in-the-sky promises: always look at what’s been done before. You might be surprised to find that what you were promising now, or think you invented, was talked about many years ago:

United Nations Tech4Good / ICT4D Initiatives, a list of the various UN 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?).

United Nations Technology Service (UNITeS), a global volunteer initiative created by Kofi Annan in 2000. UNITeS 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, part of UNDP, 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. 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.

What Was NetAid?
A history of the NetAid initiative, part of which became the UN’s Online Volunteering service. This is what I was referring to specifically with all that name-dropping at the start of this blog.

Lessons from onlinevolunteering.org
Some key learnings from directing the UN’s Online Volunteering service from February 2001 to February 2005, when I directed the initiative, including support materials for those using the service to host online volunteers. This material, most of which I authored, was recently removed from the latest version of the OV service.

Tech Volunteer Groups / ICT4D Volunteers
A list of tech volunteering initiatives, some defunct, some still going strong, that recruit tech experts to volunteer their time support either local nonprofit organizations or NGOs in developing countries regarding computer hardware, software and Internet tech-related tasks.

The Virtual Volunteering Project
In 1995, a then-new nonprofit organization called Impact Online, based in Palo Alto, California, began promoting the idea of virtual volunteering, a phrase that was probably first used by one of Impact Online’s co-founders, Steve Glikbarg. In 1996, Impact Online received a grant from the James Irvine Foundation to launch an initiative to research the practice of virtual volunteering and to promote the practice to nonprofit organizations in the United States. This new initiative was dubbed the Virtual Volunteering Project, and the Web site was launched in early 1997. After one year, the Virtual Volunteering Project moved to the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and Impact Online became VolunteerMatch. I directed the project from December 1996 through January 2001, when I left for the UN; the project was then discontinued. This is an archive of the Virtual Volunteering Project web site just before I left.

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.

Also see:

Incredibly Sad News re Gary Chapman Internet Pioneer

This article from the Nonprofit Quarterly about nonprofits losing critical archives as tech changes rapidly. In the article, the Atlantic is quoted:

Digital space is finite and expensive. Digitally stored data can become corrupted and decay as electrical charges used to encode information into binary bits leak out over time, altering the contents. And any enduring information could be lost if the software to access it becomes obsolete. Or a potent, well-timed coronal mass ejection could cause irreparable damage to electronic systems.

My top blogs of 2016

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logoThis blog entry that you are reading now is more for me than anyone else: here are my top blogs of 2016 – the ones I wrote this year and that got the most views:

Snapchat’s Potential Power for Social Good – with REAL examples

Volunteer management is community engagement

Vanity Volunteering: all about the volunteer

fake news, folklore & friendships

Universal accessibility in tourism! World Tourism Day theme 2016

Research needs re: virtual volunteering

Selling community service leads to arrest, conviction

Measuring the Impact of Volunteers: book announcement

Volunteering & social cohesion in a post Brexit world

Make volunteering transformative, not about # of hours

humanitarian stories & photos – use with caution

Citizens academy – intensive community engagement

Internet access / digital literacy in Havana, Cuba

Deriding the monetary value of volunteer hours: my mission in life?

Request to all those training re: volunteer management

Trusting teen volunteers with leadership – would you?

How Will Trump Presidency Affect Humanitarian Aid & Development?

Keeping volunteers safe – & keeping everyone safe with volunteers

The 2016 blog entry that got the most views was, in fact, On behalf of a Forest Grove family, but since I didn’t write most of that blog’s content, and it was targeted at an entirely different audience than my blog is normally for, I didn’t include it in the aforementioned list.

And it’s worth noting that the blog entry that got the most views in 2016, other than the aforementioned, wasn’t written this year – it was written in 2011. It’s Courts being fooled by online community service scams, about unscrupulous companies that will take money from people sentenced to community service and give them a letter saying they completed volunteering hours, when in fact, the people did nothing at all.

May your 2017 be full of strength, compassion and prosperity. And I hope you will consider me for help with your communications and community engagement needs.

My web site: online for 20 years!

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logoLast week, I celebrated the second anniversary of the publication of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, (available for purchase in paperback or as an ebook (PDF) by Energize, Inc.). But there’s another anniversary as well that snuck up on me:

It’s the 20th anniversary of the launch of my own web site. The first version of my web site was uploaded on January 4, 1996.

Wow. 20 years. That’s centuries in terms of the Internet.

I began creating and posting tips on database management for nonprofits and other tech-related suggestions to the soc.org.nonprofit USENET newsgroup back in 1994 (see A Brief Review of the Early History of Nonprofits and the Internet for more about the early days of nonprofits and the Internet). Back then, questions about how to build and manage databases of volunteers, donors, clients and others was probably THE hot topic on any online discussion about nonprofits – not marketing (the other hot topic was, of course, how to raise funds). Two years later, I created my own web site to post my growing materials and favorite links, focusing on how nonprofits were, or could, use computer and Internet technologies. The earliest version of my web site that I can still access is at archive.org, from 1998. Super, duper simple design – like most of the web back then.

The original spirit of the Internet was to freely give information, as well as to take it, to make accessing information oh-so-easy, and to collaborate with anyone, anywhere. I got really caught up in that spirit. I was quite the Info Superhighway cheerleader back then. I still look at the 90s as a golden age, when sending just a few emails could double the amount of people that attended an event, when emailing a reporter or government official meant he or she would call you back, and when web sites downloaded oh-so-quickly. I wanted my web site to be a reflection of that, as well to promote my expertise and services as a new consultant, but back in the 1990s, it was online discussion groups, like USENET newsgroups, that got me jobs and built my professional reputation, not the web.

Why “Coyote” Communications as a name for my web site? Because I am quite partial to canines, and I think the coyote is unique among them, with qualities I greatly admire. Coyotes are amazingly adaptable to ever-changing surroundings – efforts to control or exterminate the coyote and the massive garbage-production of modern humans have produced an animal that is even more alert, opportunistic, and able to survive, even flourish. They are uniquely American creatures, incredibly misunderstood animals, much smaller than most people think, and often blamed for destruction not of their making. Coyotes are surprisingly, sometimes shockingly, intelligent, have the reputation of being “tricksters,” work well in groups, love to play, and have boundless love for their families. At night, to hear the high quavering cry or the short, high-pitched yips of coyotes is the most beautiful song you can hear outdoors. My only regret in choosing the name for my web site is that it is very hard for non-native English speakers to say, let alone spell, and most people abroad don’t know the word.

So, here I am, online for more than 20 years, and celebrating my two-decade-old web site. And this occurs within days of my 50th birthday. Wow. I’ had real champagne, not virtual bubbly, in case you were wondering.

Keynote speaking in South Carolina & Washington state!

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logoCome here me speak this month or next!

Me in South Carolina Jan. 27 – 29, 2016
I’ll be the keynote speaker and presenting workshops at the South Carolina Association for Volunteer Administration (SCAVA) annual conference, January 27-29, 2016 in North Myrtle Beach! You do not have to be a member of SCAVA to attend. Join me!

Me in Vancouver, Washington (state – USA) Feb. 11, 2016
I’ll be the keynote speaker at the Nonprofit Network Southwest Washington / Directors of Volunteer Programs Association (DVPA) conference on Thurs., February 11 in Vancouver, Washington (state), USA.

You can book me for your conference or workshop! After February 2016, my consulting schedule is wide open. I am available for presentations, short-term consultations, long-term projects, part-time positions, and, for the right role, a full-time permanent position. Here’s what I can do for your organization/initiative.

There are free online workshops by me which you can view anytime, if you want to know more about my presentation style. Most are more than 45 minutes long:

I’m available for interviews on Skype or your preferred video conferencing tool, and, of course, by phone – I’m on West Coast time (the same as Los Angeles). I’m available for in-person, onsite interviews in and around Portland, Oregon (the area where I live), and am willing to travel most anywhere for an interview or as part of a short-term consultation.

I need some quickie help re: a mobile-ready web page

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I would like to make a few pages on my web site mobile-ready (maybe all of them, if I have time). I have to do this myself – I’m a one-gal operation. And I’m no web designer.

Here’s my first attempt: it’s my page regarding microvolunteering. I used a template to create this page, making various adjustments, as I could figure them out – I’m no web designer (obviously).

But here’s what I need help with:

  • The specific lines of HTML or whatever, so that there is a space around the page (I hate how it’s pushed right up against the edges of my computer screen)
  • How to make the web links appear in a different color than the rest of the text (I’ve tried the way I did it on my other pages, but it doesn’t work – so, again, I’d need the *exact*  and how to place it)
  • How to make bullets appear (sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, using UL and LI) and, if possible, how to make bulleted items indent (the way I did it on a non-mobile ready page doesn’t work). Again, I need the *exact* HTML and where to drop it in.

Or maybe I have to alter some other file? I’ve no idea. But the more simple you can make this for me, the better. 

And before you say something – yes, I know that, on this page, it’s a lot of text, and perhaps the design is unimaginative, etc. I get that. But for my audience, it’s what’s appropriate. And all I can manage for a web site of many thousands of pages. 

So give me a shout via email if you can help!

Have I offended?

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A few years ago, whilst doing a training in Louisville, Kentucky, I explained that online volunteers shouldn’t be segregated in program management from traditional onsite volunteers, that they are just volunteers, like all other volunteers, and should be treated as such. An attendee was outraged that I had used the phrase just volunteers, even though it was obvious that I had meant solely or specifically, not merely.

A university student in one of my classes told me she didn’t like my use of the words target and setting my sights on something, because these were “references based in violence” (her words). I admit that, later,  I smugly chastised her over her own use of the phrase rule of thumb.

A workshop attendee in Egypt told me it was outrageous that I said volunteers should get written descriptions of the tasks they were getting or that there should be any talk of their commitment or performance. “We should accept their help and be grateful for whatever they can give! We have no right to ask for anything more!” She was almost in tears as she said this.

And then there’s the infamous Florida workshop at the Corporation for National Service conference from the 1990s, where a team of trainers, including me, tried to encourage a group of SeniorCorps program leaders to adjust their recruitment tactics in order to better attract seniors from the Baby Boomer generation. I don’t think I will ever recover from that.

These incidents – and lots of others I could talk about – prompted me to put a slide at the beginning of all of my presentations, called modus operandi. I tell the group there are no stupid questions, that I might not have all the answers, etc. And I also ask for no GOTCHA moments, where an attendee immediately becomes outraged at something I’ve said. I ask that, if anyone hears me say something that they think is offensive to please raise their hand and ask me to clarify. Some people have done so, and it’s helped head off a lot of bad feelings, because most of the time, I did not at all mean what they thought I meant.

I realize that there is no way in the world to avoid saying something that someone won’t like, but I really do want to connect with my audience, on a human level, and for us to be able to treat each other with respect and openness. I love training, and if there is an obstacle to my overall message getting out because of something I’ve said, or a perception of what I’ve said, I want that obstacle addressed post haste.

My work is out there in the public sphere for anyone to read and criticize. That’s the nature of my work, and it can be scary. Most of my work isn’t tucked away on an intranet at a humanitarian organization or in a classroom or high-priced academic journal – it’s on my web site, on my blog, on YouTube, on social media, even on other people’s web sites. It’s not easy to live with that much public scrutiny, and the criticism of me and my work can often be downright hateful, as we Kentuckians say (or, at least, as the Kentuckians I grew up with would say).

I was born and raised in Kentucky, and am fiercely proud of the fact. Fiercely. Ask my non-Kentucky friends and colleagues: they will tell you that they are sick of hearing about my beloved home state. Kentucky is like so many other states I’ve lived in or visited – Texas, Tennessee, Vermont, Iowa – or even other regions of the world – Ukraine, Catalunya, the Westerwald of Germany – where residents are intensely proud of being from that region, where there are unique aspects of their way of talking, even the way they dress, and they have faced jokes – sometimes good-natured, sometimes cruel – about their culture, including their accents. People from such regions get called out almost immediately anywhere else because of their accents, and they can be very sensitive about comments made about their culture, especially when most images about their culture in the media are negative.

Upon hearing that I am from Kentucky, I have heard comments all over the world which have stung me. There is a very particular joke that Germans have about Kentucky that I won’t repeat here, but when Germans would hear I was from Kentucky, and smirk, I would say the joke, in German, and they would be flabberghasted that I knew their “secret.” Instead of being offended, I turned the tables, and it actually often lead to some really great conversations about Kentucky – they got to learn just what an interesting, beautiful place it is, in contrast to what they thought. I hear a lot of hurtful comments from people from other countries when they learn I’m from the USA, because of how they perceive this country, based on our foreign policy, our movies and our TV shows. I have to find a way not to become overwhelmed with outrage at their comments, however cruel, because I’m there to work with them. I guess that’s why it takes a lot to offend me, as someone from Kentucky or from the USA as a whole.

Because of this worldwide perception of Kentucky, I sometimes comment about it at the start of a workshop I’m doing. It’s my way of disarming (oops, gun reference!) the audience: yes, I know you hear the accent, however slight. It’s also my way to represent: hey, you are going to get communications and tech advice from a gal from KENTUCKY – get your stereotypes about my state around THAT! I hope that, by the end of the workshop, they have not only learned about communications strategies, social media, volunteer management, etc. – I hope they have a new, better opinion of people from Kentucky.

I do just that at the start of this video. And it was recently brought to my attention that a Kentucky university professor was offended because of it. She didn’t tell me, however. Instead, she told her colleagues about her offense. Someone else had to tell me about her judgment.

So let me make it clear that my modus operandi isn’t just for my workshops; it’s also regarding my web site, this blog, and anything else I do online. If you read something of mine that you think is offensive, write me, via email (jc@coyotecommunications.com) or, as so many have done, in the comments section of my blog, and immediately ask me to clarify. Maybe I don’t mean what you think I mean. Maybe it’s exactly what I meant – and I will not hesitate to say so, so be careful what you ask for in a blog comment that will become public (an email, away from the public view, might be your better option). But you won’t ever know unless you ask me. And please do NOT call me out of anger out of the blue – that’s intimidating and provocative and I will very likely hang up.

And, no, I’m not wearing shoes right now. And I did use an outhouse last week, but it was in Canada.

Also see:

Could your organization be deceived by GOTCHA media?

Feuds in the nonprofit/NGO/charity world

Me: Fall 2015 Duvall Leader in Residence at University of Kentucky’s CFLD

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I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be in my Old Kentucky Home in October 2015, for two reasons:

logos for u of kentucky programsI’ll be the Fall 2015 Duvall Leader in Residence at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Leadership Development (CFLD), part of UK’s College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Oct. 26 – 30, in and around Lexington.

The week before, I’ll be in Henderson, on the other side of the state, to be the keynote speaker for a capacity-building event for nonprofits organized by the Kentucky Network for Development, Leadership and Engagement (Kyndle), serving Henderson, McLean, Union and Webster counties in northwestern Kentucky, and the Henderson Community Foundation.

CFLD supports leadership related activities within the UK College of Agriculture, the University of Kentucky campus, the local Lexington community and counties statewide. My visit is sponsored by the W. Norris Duvall Leadership Endowment Fund and the CFLD, and will focus on leadership development and community development and engagement as both relate to the use of online media. I’ll be talking a lot about virtual volunteering, of course, as well as using online tools for communication outreach and engagement,.

As Kentucky is my birthplace, was my home for the first 22 years of my life, is where most of my family resides and is where I will, someday, retire (when I’m not still out traveling the world, as I intend to do), this is a particular thrill and honor. Growing up in Kentucky was, in fact, fundamental to my success at working in international aid and development abroad.

I relish any and all university-based experiences: I have guest lectured many times at the university level. You can see my academic / research work at my profile on academia.edu. Most of the academic articles that have cited my work regarding virtual volunteering are listed at my Google Scholar account. And it is my dream to create &/or teach an entire university course – even better: to be based at a university.

Interested in having me a part of YOUR university? Or to consult for your nonprofit? I have a profile at LinkedIn, as well as details on my own web site about my professional activities. I’m also happy to share my CV with you; email me with your request. If you have any specific questions about my profile, feel free to contact me as well.

My dream to create &/or teach an entire university course

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Me at Discover e-volunteering even in Warsaw, Poland 2014This year, or next year, I would love to create or co-create, and/or to deliver, an entire, semester-long course as a part-time or full-time instructor at a university or college, within any program that trains current or aspiring nonprofit managers, social workers, public sector workers, aid and humanitarian workers, etc. I would most like to do this onsite here in the greater Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, but I would welcome the opportunity to create and/or deliver an online course as well.

I have guest lectured many times at the university level, you can see my academic / research work at my profile on academia.edu, most of the academic articles that have cited my work regarding virtual volunteering are listed at my Google Scholar account., and I have done intensive trainings for thousands of people over the years. I think all of that qualifies me to create and/or deliver an intensive, practical, semester-long course at a university.

The courses I dream of creating and teaching:

  • communications for mission-based initiatives (nonprofit organizations, public sector initiatives, etc.): basic public relations functions, press relations, outreach to particular audiences, strategic communications (systematic planning and utilization of a variety of information flows, internal and external to an organization or program, to deliver a message and build credibility or a brand), using traditional print, synchronous and asynchronous online / digital communications and emerging digital technologies effectively, integrating the use of all information flows, addressing socially or religiously-conservative audiences, crisis communications, how to address misinformation / misunderstandings, how to deal with public criticism, measuring success in communications, etc.
  • community engagement / volunteer management for mission-based initiatives (nonprofit organizations, public sector initiatives, etc.): involving people from various local demographics as volunteers, from program supporters to advisers, and creating ways for the community to see the work of an organization firsthand. This would be beyond just a basic volunteer management 101 course that covers recruitment, data management, risk management, and other aspects of operational management.; it would also explore ethics, emerging innovations in volunteer engagement, building the capacity of the entire organization to involve volunteers, internal advocacy for volunteer engagement, volunteer engagement to directly support the organization’s mission, creating non-traditional opportunities for volunteers, etc.

How much do I want to do this? I’ve already written early drafts of those courses, with lesson plans and required reading outlined. Yes, that’s what I do in my spare time.

I enjoy teaching, and my goal in any training is to give participants tools that they can use immediately in their work, and to give students a base on which to further build and improve long after the class is over. Capacity-building is always central to any training or consulting work I do. Capacity-building means giving people the skills, information and other resources to most effectively and efficiently address an organization’s mission, and to help the organization be attractive to new and continuing support from donors, volunteers, community leaders and the general public.

I enjoy teaching, and I try to give my classes, online or onsite, a lively, participatory feel.

I have a profile at LinkedIn, as well as details on my own web site about my professional activities. I’m also happy to share my CV with you; email me with your request. If you have any specific questions about my profile, feel free to contact me as well. References available upon request as well.

And, of course, I’m still open to consulting. My consulting services are detailed here. I can deliver both onsite and online services. Also, I love to travel (especially internationally!).

Looking forward to hearing from any universities who might be interested! Questions welcomed!

Most popular blog entries of 2014

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It’s the end of 2014 – time to review my most popular blogs of the year. Some of my most viewed blogs this year weren’t from 2014…

Three of my most popular blogs, in the top five, are regarding virtual volunteering scams:

Courts being fooled by online community service scams
Online community service company tries to seem legit
What online community service is – and is not

That’s satisfying, as I really do want to get the word out about these unethical companies that are selling fake online volunteering.

Here are the other blogs people viewed most in 2014:

Making certain volunteers feel unwelcomed because of your language

The volunteer as bully = the toxic volunteer

Your flow chart for volunteers

What to do with old/vintage software

Why You SHOULD Separate Your Personal Life & Professional Life Online

It’s real: the unpaid internships & volunteers controversy

Internet-mediated Volunteering in the EU (virtual volunteering)

Jayne in Kiev, Ukraine for all August & Sept.

I’m a Frustrated Volunteer

Virtual Volunteering discussion group on LinkedIn

International Association of Fire Fighters is anti-volunteer

UN innovation events show how far they’ve come re: ICT4D

Advice for hackathons / one-day tech events looking for projects to hack

Too many volunteer matching web sites?

CSOs: submit proposals by 17 Aug. for USAID & SIDA

Now available: The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook!

Research on USA volunteerism excludes virtual volunteering

Me at Work: Photos!

Terrific resources you’re missing from Twitter

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I share a LOT of information on Twitter: info on effective nonprofit communications, management or engagement of volunteers, job leads with leading nonprofit and humanitarian organizations, funding leads, updates on UN initiatives in Afghanistan, Ukraine, or anywhere else I care about (and I care about a LOT of places), and more. Often, it’s information I don’t share anywhere else.

I hear a lot of people say they don’t use Twitter because they “don’t want all the text messages.” They don’t realize that you do NOT have to receive tweets via text messaging – that hasn’t been true for many years. I read Twitter via my lap top or my smart phone, primarily – most people do. Also, you don’t have to follow everyone you find interesting – you can add people to different lists and view content when YOU want to (here are my Twitter lists, to give you an idea of how it can work).

Here are my tweets and retweets of the last three days:

 

Using SMS to improve communication between UNHCR, partner NGOs, & urban refugees:

Job: Fellows Coordinator (p2). 12 months in Budapest! Apply here:

We’re looking for someone to join our team as our Fellows Coordinator. Interested? Apply today:

 · 1h1 hour ago

German translation of the W3C document “CSS Style Attributes”

Jayne Cravens retweeted
 

Nice video by about how to speak up safely against in :

 

Watch the most offensive international charity video of the year – Humanosphere

 

Short film asks “What did you pay for when you bought illegal ivory?” Answer: terrorism on African Continent

 

A university center that says it cultivates “innovative thinking” & “entrepreneurship”, etc., has no social media accounts? Harumph

 

Job: in Forest Grove, seeks a Director of Finance and Operations

opened an office in to work with civilians in the conflict zone, the USG Jeffrey Feltman said:

 

Almost 10% of Sierra Leone’s 120 doctors have died of . “Why Sierra Leone Literally Had to Cancel Christmas”

Groups may receive up to 5 stays a hostel for each day members 2+ hours in surrounding community

Just did a little virtual volunteering over on the online forum. How about you?

International Conference on Social Media for Good May 14-16, 2015, Istanbul. Abstracts due Dec 29, 2014

I have said this for YEARS: “Successful Tech Requires An Old-Fashioned Skill: Organizing People”

We’re Hiring! Quality Assurance Analyst -contract position with the possibility of extension and/or conversion.

We’re also hiring a Sr. Project Manager. full time – exempt  To apply:   (plz RT!)

 

Fantastic option: 6-12 months in Ghana with . Expenses paid, excellent projects

Which languages influence wikipedia – & each other (visualization)

 

How languages influence Twitter – & each other (visualization)

 

. mobilizes corporate volunteers to support post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals:

Online mentors helping entrepreneurs in developing countries: and ?

 

Core humanitarian standard launched last week. Check it out

How I keep up re: virtual volunteering: this ework/evolunteer list (also re: telework, telecommuting, virtual teams)

What I hope future USA volunteering reports by will focus on, to be more helpful:

 

Yet again Volunteering & Civic Life in America report focuses on $ value of

 

I consider “Anonymous” a virtual volunteering example, & def. worthy of study:

 

Virtual volunteering in the EU: history, prevalence, approaches, how it relates to employability, social inclusion