4 conferences doing it right

Hey, there’s a lot coming up in terms of conferences this year. A lot of social change events, innovation get togethers, and ways for groups to get together and really make a difference.

Here are some conferences that are coming up this year, with an excerpt of their description. You should check them out, if you’re able:

Nonprofit 2.0 – June 26 in Washington, DC.

Nonprofit 2.0’s more than just a conference on the next generation web. It’s a next generation conference in format. NonProfit 2.0 features sessions led by the most innovative nonprofit campaigners, thought leaders, and strategists in the space.

It’ll be done in an unconference way with no PowerPoint, 15 minute leads for keynotes (folks, I’ll be keynoting this with Majora Carter and Michael Smith), and open questions and dialogue for fantastic conversations. Then from mid-morning forward, NonProfit 2.0 shifts into a full-on Unconference with DC’s brightest minds strategizing for social good.

Summit on Social Media and Online Giving – July 1-2 in New Delhi, India.

This Summit is GlobalGiving’s first two-day, in-person event designed to equip organizations with knowledge, skills and resources to engage supporters and raise funds online. This Summit’s produced in partnership with Social Media for Nonprofits, the premiere global event series on social media for social good.

The 2014 Summit on Social Media & Online Giving will bring together fundraising practitioners from India and South Asia to learn how other organizations are using online tools and social media like email, Facebook, and GlobalGiving to tackle their funding needs and collaborate to find ways to further their causes online.

Through panel discussions and hands-on workshops, organizations will explore:

The latest trends in online giving;

The future of corporate social responsibility in India;

Best practices in storytelling, donor engagement, campaign planning;

Valuable techniques for online measurement and analysis;

and more…

Silicon Valley Innovation Summit – July 29-30 in Mountain View, CA.

The Silicon Valley Innovation Summit is an annual gathering of the brightest minds and top entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate players in the Global Silicon Valley.

The Innovation Summit has featured dozens of break-out companies before they became household names, including Pixar, Google, Salesforce.com, Skype, MySQL, YouTube, Tesla, Facebook, and Twitter.

This two-day exclusive event treats attendees to a high-level debate and discourse on top trends and opportunities in the booming digital media, entertainment, on-demand and cloud computing sectors. The Innovation Summit is produced in an intimate and social setting, where participants can easily meet up, socially network, and make deals happen.

Leading Change Summit – September 3-6 in San Francisco, CA.

Join NTEN for the inaugural Leading Change Summit in San Francisco. Exclusively for nonprofit leaders, this event offers three tracks to accelerate your career development: Impact Leadership, Digital Strategy, and the Future of Technology.

Engage with diverse voices to ignite new ideas, activate your strategies with expert advice and planning tools, and change the way you create impact.

What conferences will you be attending this year, folks?

June 18, 2014

5 of my favorite things

Folks, I’m often asked about my interests and priorities. I decided to share 5 of my favorite things in my personal life. Many of you may not be surprised to hear some of these…

Birds – the Mrs. and I created a Birdography Spectacular dedicated to all of the birds and their friends who visit my home office.
Babies – both bird babies and human babies.
me with #20…
Dogs – I carry dog treats whenever I’m out, just in case I run into a furry friend (or four) who needs a pick-me-up.
TV – the Game of Thrones guy, George R. R. Martin’s a really good writer who can get to the point really well, and an opponent of attacks on voting rights, on top of it. That’s the real deal. Other TV shows I enjoy include, Mr Selfridge, the Simpson, Justified, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Silicon Valley, Girls, and the Americans…
Books – I read a lot of books, maybe 8 per month. I currently use the Kindle app, but it’s growing problematic. (I’ve read around 700 books, mostly science fiction. Note: 1. I’m a nerd, and 2. it’s how we roll.) Books I’m reading, among right now or recently include:

An Autumn War, Daniel Abraham

The Iron Kings, Maurice Druon

It’s Complicated, danah boyd

A Lily of the Field, John Lawton

Shattered Pillars, Elizabeth Bear

Parasite, Mira Grant

Why Kings Confess, CS Harris

A Man without Breath, Philip Kerr

…..

Oh, and of course the wife. Make that six things.

April 15, 2014

The Third Metric and Nerd Values

The Third Metric is better explained in Arianna Huffington’s Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder. This is my take on it.

Nerdiness involves a lack of normal social affect, where conventional ambitions, like money and power aren’t such a big deal. The call to power doesn’t make much sense to me.

Here’re a few words from a nerdy perspective, which I live by to the best of my ability.

One needs the finances to live comfortably, and to help friends and family do that, but seriously, know when enough is enough.

In early 1999, I made a decision along those lines, and decided to avoid the usual Silicon Valley thing. That is, the bankers and VCs I knew told me to take their investments and cash out. However, I figured that my business model is “doing well by doing good” and that’s worked out.

My guess was that I got on track to fulfill my very limited financial goals, and anyway, I figure, who needs huge money?

As a nerd, it’s way more satisfying to make a difference.

I dunno if that reflects any kind of wisdom or path seeking, I ain’t that smart, seriously.

Personally, all I understand is working from the bottom up, where I quietly nudge people to do the best they can, and then affirm their efforts publicly. There’s no way to measure the results, it’s all anecdotal.

It’s just that a nerd’s gotta do what a nerd’s gotta do.

March 31, 2014

Startups, marriage, and other things I did after 35

Hey, I’m on Quora and I noticed that someone asked:

What do people in Silicon Valley plan to do once they hit 35 and are officially over the hill?

Since life in Silicon Valley ends at 35 unless you hit it big or move up in management (and simple logic tells you that most won’t), I’m curious what people younger than this think they’ll be doing at that age.

Well, I started craigslist when I was 42… Folks seemed to really like my answer, or were just surprised by it. To my surprise, the response has received 82K views, 3,200 upvotes, and counting.

On that note, I decided to write something regarding the onset of my sunset years…

I started craigslist in the last blush of my youth. Experience counts folks. I learned a lot in my other roles in other jobs and I brought that with me to craigslist.
My involvement in craigslist management ended well over ten years ago. I gave up any management role, but I’m committed to customer service. I do enough real customer service to maintain my emotional investment in the CL and grassroots community.
Every day customer service reminds me that we help millions of people put food on the table.
I did some work with nonprofits before 35, but didn’t formalize it until I began craigconnects in 2011.
Things are starting to not work, as in, my body just isn’t as young as I want it to be; am I right, guys?*

*Note: when I say “guys” I almost always mean “people”, but in this case I mean “male humans of a certain age.”

I’ve really accepted what I am, a nerd, modified by customer service.
Somehow I’m still surprised, people are asking questions about what they could easily look up.
…well, some of us waited til after 35 to get married.

September 27, 2013