tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-141151852010-01-15T19:22:17.025-08:00My unique intersection of cooperation, sustainable business and local living economies.Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-26600676863773192782009-04-03T17:55:00.000-07:002009-04-03T18:14:15.151-07:00

Nonprofit software info source Idealware has published what might be the best objective review of the top open source CMS solutions available today. Having read the report and having worked extensively with all four systems for many years I can definitely recommend it for anyone considering the content management software options.The report reinforces many of the messages I use to differenciate

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-49589585065608199102008-12-28T19:47:00.000-08:002008-12-29T10:39:54.816-08:00

At the end of the year I get to thinking about all the fine applications that helped me get where I am today... December 28th. Now, I don't spend a ton of time researching, testing and thinking about software for my MacBook, however I use it just about every damn day. It is an indispensable tool in my daily pursuit of success. Good thing I hang out with many people who spend more time than I

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-41663738535690398222008-01-28T21:14:00.000-08:002008-01-28T21:26:59.399-08:00

This is a fair question. For one, it's something my wife Sarah and I invented. It's also a new form of financial exploration and empowerment for a community of interested individuals in Seattle. Earlier this month we held the first gathering of KmK where over 20 people took three hours out of their Thursday night to participate in the experiment. The experiment is to build resiliency into my

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-6088343339233952032007-11-07T15:22:00.000-08:002007-11-07T15:41:23.169-08:00

Here I am pressing the flesh with greenie business people at Co-Op America's Green Business Conference in San Francisco. This is the first time Web Collective has sent a representative out into the world to network and market. This, of course, means the company has very little more than some good looking web sites and a friendly rep in a green shirt to make a pitch. Because we've been in stealth,

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-66399583116027944352007-09-17T11:09:00.000-07:002007-09-17T11:18:08.370-07:00

Many wise people advancing many great ideas are pooling their resources and giving us something called Green October. It's not just a month, it's also a collection of events having a connection to community building and sustainability. Seeing all the groups and events being offered in a single month is absolutely amazing. I love having a service like this to reflect back to us the magnitude of

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-30439043760796612672007-08-24T23:38:00.000-07:002007-09-05T10:11:19.620-07:00

I am pleasantly surprised to learn that Sustainable Industries Journal's September issue has a feature story on 5 entrepreneurs under 35 including me and Web Collective. This qualifies as our first major bit of press! Considering we don't really have a website yet and have only really been in business since May, I think this is fantastic. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the article yet, but I've

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-71824094567777442522007-07-04T00:03:00.000-07:002007-07-04T12:23:04.192-07:00

I love this! So much information in such a nice little animation.link

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-38889772863522202802007-05-11T15:19:00.000-07:002007-05-15T18:31:38.409-07:00

At long last we are now Web Collective, Inc. Getting the Inc. at the end of our name was no small feat given we are an employee cooperative. I choose to personally deliver our Articles of Incorporation to the state office. It's a good thing I did because the nice lady who did the paperwork told me they see an employee cooperative about once every FIVE years! She had to make a few phone calls to

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-15937639493241140692007-05-09T08:14:00.000-07:002007-05-09T08:22:03.581-07:00

Along with Wiser Earth, Freebase and of course Wikipedia, we are seeing an explosion in projects aiming to make available and publicly editable the knowledge of humanity. Wiser Earth does it for NGOs and Encyclopedia of Life does it for species. Wicked cool interface!Hope EOL and Freebase get together. It would be awesome to be able to remix those animals. Maybe we'll finally see the ultimate

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-568041570902313282007-04-13T15:48:00.000-07:002007-05-11T15:31:26.136-07:00

For the second year, Sarah and I are participating in throwing the biggest and best local food celebration in Seattle. This year's Eat Local Now! is nearly twice the size of last year and in many way a giant leap in a really cool direction.We are holding the event at Ballard High School and are involving their EarthCorps chapter in many aspects of the event. We set out to do this year's event a

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-7407494107148480332007-03-20T18:58:00.000-07:002007-03-27T11:40:37.296-07:00

This is a question that I haven't had an answer to for quite a while. What I am learning is that the process of creating bylaws is not in itself difficult or time consuming, however going through that process with seven people is. The progress we are making is rewarding and probably as fast as it can be given we are all working full-time delivering Web Collective services. Are you wondering how

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1169486842839967532007-01-22T09:10:00.000-08:002007-03-20T19:29:39.605-07:00

There is a project I am involved in that has been so all-consuming that I have not even thought to blog about it. In fact, I have been so consumed I haven't blogged about anything in my life! The project is called Web Collective and it is the largest undertaking of my professional life.The Web Collective is currently a group of seven people who are combining their talent and energy to serve

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1159926773482705332006-10-03T17:49:00.000-07:002007-03-20T19:31:41.546-07:00

I can't seem to get a proper blog post together so a summary will have to suffice for the time being. While I like to use this outlet as a way to stay transparent with my professional goings on, I've found it very easy to simply forget I have a blog. Here is a list of the things I am involved in right now:Last weekend I attended a Planetwork creativity session outside of San Francisco. A group

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1151971765583690732006-07-03T16:33:00.000-07:002007-03-20T19:30:52.292-07:00

Although I missed the session, a friend of mine was at the Think Small session (video, PDF)by Tara Hunt and Chris Messina at Gnomedex and he made sure I knew about it. Their message of smaller, faster, cheaper innovation online was well received by the gathered geeks who are getting whipped into a lather over the explosion of small and cheap applications showing up on the web. They are also

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1151799376992471442006-07-01T15:22:00.000-07:002007-03-20T19:30:27.394-07:00

I am here at Gnomedex 6.0 at the Bell Harbor Convention Center in Seattle where snark and chest thumping rule. It's a generalization of this audience, however there have been enough moments in the conference where ego trumped style to destroy an interesting dialog. As an outsider to this world of bloggers and deacons of web2.0, there appears to be ample battles being fought between the

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1150574435998699232006-06-17T12:55:00.000-07:002006-06-25T21:57:12.396-07:00

In what has been a marathon run to the line, the ID Mashup Community Hub site is launched. We built the site to support the community of folks attending the ID Mashup conference next week. The vision is that the site will continue to serve the identity community well beyond the conference by serving as a hub for sharing and experimenting with the latest in identity technologies.The project has

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1149536085556461532006-06-05T12:24:00.000-07:002006-06-05T12:34:45.593-07:00

I have been slack with keeping my blog up to date with project information. To just get it all out there, how about a snapshot of what I am up to? I'll try to get something more detailed posted soon.Recently completed a three month business development project for Grist MagazineWorking with Jon Ramer and the Interra Project on developing a Community Hub site in Plone for the upcoming Identity

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1147454081804928462006-05-12T10:00:00.000-07:002006-05-12T10:16:02.220-07:00

"Organic agriculture is just another method of agriculture — not better, not worse" - Bruce Peterson, head of perishable food at Wal-MartThe NYT article today on Wal-Mart's plan to add major brand organic products to their shelves may be good for overall consumer awareness and choice, however it is going to come at a cost. Wal-Mart's buying power is going to force large-scale industrial farming

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1145993497009018542006-04-25T11:05:00.000-07:002006-04-25T12:31:37.036-07:00

I just returned from a slightly jarring trip to San Francisco to attend the 14th Digital Be-In. With very few expectations and even less idea what I was getting into, Sarah and I flew down for a weekend "be-ing" with our Bay area friends. What we found at the Be-In was an eclectic collection of Bay area burners and what I'll call "evolution activists." These are the people promoting the idea

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1143565081753956712006-03-28T08:45:00.000-08:002006-03-28T10:55:18.280-08:00

Through a link from New Media Musings I found Terry Heaton's paper titled "TV News in a Postmodern World." I'm not sure what the title is about because the paper mostly looks at why VC dollars avoid localized web2.0 media ventures. Having recently gone down this road and found the same to be true, I am pleased to find someone who has done their homework on the issue.By continually supporting only

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1143426907668897862006-03-26T18:30:00.000-08:002007-03-27T11:37:57.711-07:00

Coming up this Thursday March 30th is Eat Local Now! A Ballard Food Fest, an event I am helping to organize. Its a join effort between BALLE Seattle and Sustainable Ballard and its a good thing we have two groups putting it on because its a lot of work. We are planning to feed 200 people with food donated from nearly 30 different local farms, CSAs and manufacturers. Seven chefs will take all that

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1143426608038810112006-03-26T18:27:00.000-08:002006-03-26T18:30:08.053-08:00

Yesterday I attended Penguin Day Seattle down at the lovely Hotel Ändra. Lots of the geeky nonprofit tech folks were there. It was a bit of a Web of Change reunion for me.

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1143049923530799672006-03-22T09:28:00.000-08:002007-01-25T21:10:09.390-08:00

Recently, I decided that the Bainbridge Graduate Institute community should be publishing a group blog. What better way for the community to get its ideas out into the world and for the BGI brand to get exposure in channels it wouldn't normally. While my initial goal for the blog is to be a marketing tool for the school I am beginning to realize how it can also be a powerful marketing tool for

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1140130050287214032006-02-16T14:00:00.000-08:002006-03-21T14:16:26.666-08:00

Yesterday I spent seven hours talking to about ten people at Nia Technique, Inc. about the current state of the Internet. I covered everything from "what is open source" to "how to track your brand online." What I think was the most powerful segment of the day was the discussion we had about how a lifestyle business like Nia can reach new communities online through blogging. I explained how links

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14115185.post-1139770064549594282006-02-11T15:50:00.000-08:002007-01-26T00:50:00.350-08:00

This weekend I made the drive north to Vancouver for Northern Voice 2006, my first blog conference. For me it was one day and five blog related sessions on journalism, education, the law and just plain old story telling. The fact that the conference's 250 spots sold out with demand for another 100 tells me there are more people out there craving blog knowledge than I ever thought. What is

Eric Magnusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08431900643448465951noreply@blogger.com1