To Ning or Not to Ning - that’s the question around here. Who has the time to join (or start, for that matter) another social network? I have enough trouble finding time to twitter.

The subject did come up in a marketing meeting the other day and while some of us thought Ning was dead there were others who thought it just might be gearing up to take over as one of the best advertising opportunities out there.

I may just be one of them.

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Everyone here at LevelTen is VERY excited that NationalBreastCancer.org is one of five nominees for Best Charitable/Non-profit sites that “empower and educate people, facilitate civic participation and enable learned pursuits.” Working on a project that educates and gives hope to those affected by breast cancer was incredibly rewarding…and quite challenging at times. Here are a few of the lessons we learned while working on this project: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m back in the office today after a whirlwind trip down to Austin for the SXSW Interactive Festival, and I’m getting LOTS done since most of the office is still down there. This quote from Jason Fried of 37Signals really struck a cord…

Interruption is the enemy of productivity; a fragmented day is not a productive day.

After sitting on sessions on everything from The Contextual Web to Wireframing 2.0 to Outsourcing Facebook to Bangalore, it was Fried’s presentation 10 Things We’ve Learned at 37Signals that resonated with me the most. True to form, he succinctly and enthusiastically shared his advice on collaboration, decisions, progress, morale, and not sweating the small stuff.

Here’s what he had to say: Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know you could support your favorite charity just by searching the Internet? You can if you use GoodSearch.com, a search engine powered by Yahoo. When founders Ken & JJ Ramberg realized that search engines generated nearly $4 billion in advertising revenue, they started their own, aiming to donate 50 percent of the profits to charity.

It’s easy to use: Just go to GoodSearch.com, enter the charity you want to support in the provided field, and search. Don’t see your favorite cause represented? You can add it. Want to spread the love? Change your charity as often as you like. The search results are as good as those on Yahoo, so you can find something good and do something good at the same time.

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The last thing I want to do when I’m sick is go to the doctor. Scheduling an appointment when you need one is almost impossible. Then sitting in a waiting room of coughing patients watching a parade of drug reps go in ahead of you only adds insult to injury. It’s no wonder so many people completely avoid the doctor and forego preventative health care.

I recently read about a Dr. Jay Parkinson, a Williamsburg, Brooklyn doctor who is changing the way people think about a doctor’s visit. Dr. Parkinson has no office and does consultations by e-mail, video chat or IM. For face-to-face visits, Parkinson visits the patient at work or home, preferably in Williamsburg. Having a virtual office saves him money on rent, staff, and office supplies. Read the rest of this entry »

Lucky me! According to the Global Rich List, I am in the TOP 0.66% of the richest people in the world! That fact alone was enough to make me rethink my gift giving this year. Instead of sending your friends a bottle of wine or a scented candle, why not make a donation in their name to their favorite cause. The following organizations have all received four star ratings from Charity Navigator, America’s premier independent charity evaluator:

Mentor and Inspire Children
Have a friend that loves kids? Make a real difference in children’s lives by supporting these programs that empower children with art, music, literature, and mentoring.

First Book
First Book is a national nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books. First Book works with existing community-based tutoring, mentoring, and family literacy programs nationwide, offering them the opportunity to select their own free books. Read the Charity Navigator Review

Big Brothers Big Sisters
Big Brothers Big Sisters mentors children, ages 6-18, in communities across the country. Their mission is to help children reach their potential through professionally supported, one-to-one relationships with mentors that have a measurable impact on youth. Read the Charity Navigator Review
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Websites like Monster and Craigslist handle a large share of recruitment for skilled workers. But most jobs that need to be filled require very little training at all. And finding good store clerks, housecleaners, dishwashers and other menial workers can be as hard as a finding a good lab technician or XML programmer, even in developing nations. That’s because those seeking work frequently have no means of connecting with those wanting to hire. It’s a problem Babajob, based in Bangalore, hopes to solve. The site helps the city’s legions of unskilled workers find work using an online social network.

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TIME Magazine recently dedicated 12 pages to exploring how service and volunteering can transform America. The Special Report, Time To Serve - The Case for National Service examines why service is important to America, highlights activists already making waves on the ground, and proposes a 10-point plan to create a “universal national service” in the U.S.

TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel asks readers to imagine volunteerism as a public service. What, for example, would happen if devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian, became “a countrywide rite of passage.” That is, what if there was a universal national-service in the U.S.?

In his article, Stengel proposes specific ideas on how Washington can help make this happen, including:

• Making National Service a cabinet-level department.
• Expanding existing national-service programs like AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.
• Creating separate corps focusing on education, health, the environment, and emergency response.
• Instituting a “Summer of Service.”
• Starting a national-service academy.
• And creating a national-service Baby Bond and a Baby Boomer Education Bond to encourage young adults and retirees to get involved.

Thought-provoking stuff, to be sure — and especially important in an election year, says Stengel: “The next President can harness the spirit of volunteerism that already exists and make it a permanent part of American culture.”

Content syndication, social bookmarking, and now the elimination of global poverty? Web 2.0 meets philanthropy on GlobalGiving.com where the Web “unleashes the potential of people around the world and make positive change happen.” GlobalGiving connects donors with social and economic development projects around the world and makes it easy to share the love with everyone in your online social network.

GlobalGiving is a unique collaboration between two entities, a US 501(c)3 registered non-profit and a social enterprise, ManyFutures, Inc. It was started in 1997 when World Bank executives Mari Kuraishi and Dennis Whittle created the Bank’s Development Marketplace, a first-of-its-kind event where people from around the world competed for World Bank funds. The event’s success unveiled the enormous potential of a global marketplace for philanthropy, and participants asked for a real marketplace that was open year round and operated virtually. Mari and Dennis saw the brilliance of this idea, left the World Bank and launched GlobalGiving.
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GrandCentral, the “one phone number for life” initiative that provides permanent phone numbers and unlimited voicemail service to San Francisco’s homeless was acquired by Google last month. A phone number might not be the first thing that comes to mind when helping the homeless, but GrandCentral founders Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet see it this way:

“For homeless people and others in need, not having a stable phone number can be crippling: you need one to follow up on medical appointments, keep in touch with friends and loved ones, and hear back from prospective employers.”

GrandCentral has been operating Project CARE (”Communications and Respect for Everybody”) since April 2006, and with the help of more than 20 community outreach partners has provided more than 5,000
phone numbers and served close to 100,000 voicemail messages to homeless and needy people in the Bay Area. Someone calling a number from Project CARE will have the same experience as someone calling a standard phone number, and voicemail messages can be stored as long as they’re needed.

Food, clothing, and shelter may be the fundamental human needs, but this increasingly wired world may require that a “technology” level be added to Maslow’s hierarchy. I hope that Google continues this kind of outreach to bridge the digital devide. It’s good for the community, great publicity for GrandCentral, and one more way Google can continue their effort to “not be evil.”