united diversity

Links for July 5th to July 5th

2009-07-05T22:00:22Z

These are my links for %date%:

Social bookmarking service. Fast tagging and posting to all major social websites – SocialMarker.com – Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time-consuming and downloading all toolbars is madness. That's where SocialMarker.com comes in, the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark a website.
Openaire – Laptop Case/Workstation on the Behance Network – Openaire is a hybrid of a laptop carrying case, work surface, and chair. The system consists of a semi-rigid protective sleeve designed as an ergonomic laptop work surface and a protective shell that also functions as a comfortable seat. Together, they offer the portability and comfort to support work anywhere.
Flickr adds direct-to-Twitter publishing | VentureBeat – Flickr now has a built-in feature that lets members tweet their photos. “You can upload directly to Flickr and Twitter simultaneously, or tweet a photo already on Flickr, using a special short Flic.kr URL
Google Brings Texting Services to Africa | Sustainability | Fast Company – But perhaps the most important service for the developing continent is Google Trader, a text-message based marketplace that allows users to buy or sell a range of products and services, including crops, livestock, and jobs.
Eventr – Event Registration Plugin for WordPress < Plugins < WordPress < Tools < Bin-Co – Eventr, a Event Registration Plugin for WordPress lets you use your blog as an event management tool. You can create an event – the plugin will let people register for the event – it can also show a list of all the attendees. Once the event is done, you can deactivate the event and no more sign ups will be allowed.
WordPress › Register Plus « WordPress Plugins – Plugin to enhance your wordpress Registration Page (i.e. add fields etc)

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Links for June 16th to July 4th

2009-07-04T19:00:35Z

These are my links for June 16th to July 4th:

iCommons.org – Free Culture House – The idea is simple and its sustainability is at its core. Buy a property (or rent something initially) that will serve as a space for members to meet and eat (a kickass wifi-enabled coffee shop), learn (a training room that doubles up as movie house), broadcast (a podcast studio) and work (shared office space and board room). Sleep rooms would also potentially be available for short-term stays by commuters who work between Johannesburg and Cape Town, for example.
Permablitz.net – Permablitz Defined – Permablitz: An informal gathering involving a day on which a group of at least two people come together to achieve the following:
* create or add to edible gardens where someone lives
* share skills related to permaculture and sustainable living
* build community networks
* have fun

For more background on Permablitz see Asha Bee's article originally published on Energy Bulletin and Katherine Kizilos' article for Melbourne's The Age newspaper . To learn more about permaculture see permaculture as defined in wikipedia.
Mycroft Project: Search Engine Plugins – Firefox & IE7 – what is says on the tin
VideoPress — Quick and easy HD video sharing from WordPress – Wow. Cool. A plugin for wordpress that lets you upload and server video from their servers, as well as does all the encoding and create nice feeds.
Catalyst Campaigns – Catalyst Campaigns is a consultancy supporting social and environmental justice organisations to maximise their effectiveness in achieving positive change.

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Links for May 14th to June 8th

2009-06-08T13:01:49Z

These are my links for May 14th to June 8th:

warehouse – The beinghuman warehouse in Frome, Somerset is a hub for creative, ethical & enterprising innovators. A 500 sq m space situated in the conservation area of town where beinghuman members can get away from home work, meet, connect and collaborate. The space is cool, contemporary, relaxed & inspirational. The strong, ethical warehouse design is in line with beinghuman’s sustainable ethos, with sheep wool insulation, recycled newspaper soundproofing, carbon neutral heating, power from renewable sources, wood burning stove & a garden incorporating an outdoor gallery space exhibiting the best in digital art.
desksurfer – rent desks by the hour in london – DeskSurfer is for freelancers or busy people in need of a temporary office for an hour or two. Imagine having a meeting in London’s Soho area, it ends at 2pm, you want to stick around for a couple of hours as you have a meeting in Kings Cross but don’t have anywhere quiet to work. Then log onto DeskSurfer, find offices near you and rent a desk for an hour or two. Turn up. Work. Leave. It’s as simple as that. You might even make new friends/colleagues.
crowdfunding / FrontPage – Crowdfunding can replace the need for specialized grant applications or other more formal and traditional fundraising techniques with that of a more casual, yet powerful, approach based on crowd participation. Examples of the basis of Crowdfunding can be seen in Cooperatives (co-ops) around the world. However, the Internet can provide new streamlined approaches to quickly imitating the co-op model for low-level and/or sudden needs (ie. disaster relief, travel expenses, legal fees and so on.). It is this reason that a term be used to encompass the act of informally generating and distributing funds, usually online, by groups of people for specific social, personal, entertainment or other purposes.
IndieGoGo: Where Independent Happens – Welcome to IndieGoGo – the social marketplace where filmmakers and fans connect to make independent film happen. Filmmakers can raise money and awareness, find cast and crew, and gain credibility through the help of their number one resource, the fans. Fans get the opportunity to discover and impact the films of tomorrow, while getting insider access and VIP perks for their contributions. Check out How it Works for more.
welcome to The Co-operative.tv | The Co-operative.tv – The Co-operative is a unique family of businesses owned by our members and led by our principles. From community projects to a share of the profits, renewable energy to Fairtrade products we believe that when the benefits are passed around, it's good for everyone. Our online TV channel gives you the chance to see our community projects come to life and learn more about our values and principles. Visit www.co-operative.coop for more about The Co-operative.

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Links for May 4th to May 12th

2009-05-12T21:05:34Z

These are my links for May 4th to May 12th:

Hugh Jackman pledges $100k to charity on Twitter – Communications … –
About Time Banking UK – Time Banking UK is the national umbrella charity linking and supporting time banks across the country by providing inspiration, guidance and mutual help. Time banks link people locally to share their time and skills. Everyone's time is equal: one hour of your time earns you one time credit to spend when you need.
Just Add Spice – Our business is developing credit systems that engage and empower the many rather than the few. Spice is a social enterprise that develops credit systems for engaging people in communities and public services. Spice’s community credit systems have been tried and tested and are uniquely successful in dramatically increasing participation of community members in public services and in achieving community transformation.
Valleys to Coast – Welsh Housing Association that accepts part-payment of rent in time credits! – V2C seeks to provide affordable good quality homes in vibrant and sustainable communities in an open and transparent manner and fully recognises the importance of this site in achieving that aim. Apparently they also accept part payment of rent in time credits!
The Man Who Made Gmail Says Real-Time Conversation is What’s Next – NYTimes.com – The father of the best web email program on the planet believes that a real-time streaming interface for simplified aggregation of conversation and content from all around the web is going to join the handful of tools we use regularly, like email, IM and blogging.

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Links for April 29th to May 3rd

2009-05-03T15:00:06Z

These are my links for April 29th to May 3rd:

» Twitter, the Most Important Website Since Google? – "When I first started using it I saw it as a networking and communication tool. The more I come to use it and the more I watch people from all walks of life using it I am starting to see why Twitter may possibly be the most important website since Google. To help you understand my logic I want to start with some thoughts on Google."
Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Twitter for Nonprofits: Waste of Time or Potentially Useful? – That's a screencast (with time speed increased) of what is I think — is a twitter group coming from SXSW Festival, a major new media/emerging technology event happening in Austin, TX. Twitter is a "Multi-Person SMS System" that lets you follow your friends via the web, IM, or cell phone and you broadcast what are you doing now an? While there are some good reasons why you wouldn't want to use this tool, seems there's a lot of twitter experimentation going on.
Explaining Twitter in one page… : Tim’s Blog – What it says on the tin.
1%CLUB – GIVE 1% POVERTY AND HELP TO SOLVE – GIVE 1% POVERTY AND HELP TO SOLVE. If all 1% of his / her time, expertise or money commitment, we can solve structural poverty. WHO SAYS THAT? The 1% Club: an initiative that poverty in an innovative way to address. HOW DOES THE 1% CLUB? The 1% Club is an online marketplace for small-scale development projects, where individuals and companies 1% of their income, time and knowledge can contribute directly to a project of your choice.
One Percent Club – Since 1997, the One Percent Club has grown from a handful of people with a passion for giving, to a large and very diverse organization of 1,000 members – and growing – who have pledged to give back to the communities and organizations they are passionate about. Our one percent benchmark for giving is a personal promise – based on the honor system – you make to yourself and the organization. We've found that by making this pledge, almost half of our members have actually increased their charitible giving after joining the One Percent Club – contributing over $100 million per year to the charities of their choice.
Power of Us | Salesforce.com Foundation – Power of Us Partner Initiative. The Salesforce.com Foundation has greatly increased its platform by inviting salesforce.com's corporate partners to participate in its nonprofit efforts. By joining the 1% model and contributing a portion of their strength, salesforce.com partners can effectively contribute to the communities in which we live. The Salesforce partners program is designed so that a participant must be a registered partner in the salesforce.com Partner Program and must provide 2 of the following:
* 1 % Equity (It is far easier to move stock into a foundation at an earlier stage.)
* 1 % Product (in donated or discounted products and services for nonprofit organizations receiving license donations from salesforce.com foundation OR through the development of functionality that is uniquely relevant to the nonprofit sector.)
* 1 % Time (in volunteer hours)

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Links for April 17th to April 29th

2009-04-30T01:01:51Z

These are my links for April 17th to April 29th:

1% For the Planet | About Us – It’s about businesses recognizing that industry and ecology are inherently connected. It’s about realizing the positive effects of connecting businesses, consumers and nonprofits through philanthropy. And it’s about understanding that the true cost of doing business can be mitigated by a simple pledge to the planet. Since 2002, 1% For The Planet has inspired members of the business community to contribute 1% of sales to environmental groups around the world. In return, this growing alliance of companies is given the opportunity not only to see their self-worth rise, but their net worth climb as well.
One Percent Fund | Small grants for grassroots initiatives – On 30th September 1985 VSO and CUSO volunteers and staff working in Thailand pledged to donate 1% of their monthly stipend towards a fund that would support small-scale grassroots projects. The fund still exists over 20 years later.
About 1% for Development – What is the 1% for Development Fund? An association of staff of the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations who have chosen to allocate 1% or more of their salary to projects in developing countries and those with economies in transition. The first 1% Fund was set up in Geneva in 1976; others were established in Rome, New York, Vienna and Paris. Though their objectives are the same, each 1% Fund operates independently. It is now possible, thanks to a revision in the statutes of the Fund, for non-UN persons to become members. Why 1%? In Resolution 2626 (XXV) of 24 October 1970, the UN General Assembly set a target for official development aid of 0.7% of the GNP of developed countries. Frustrated at the inertia of most countries concerned (they allocate on average 0.3% of their GNP) and of the UN system, a small group of international civil servants decided to start practicing what governments preached, by contributing 1% of their salary to development projects.
The 1% for Development Fund – The 1% for Development Fund is an association comprised of staff and former staff members of the United Nations system. The Fund is independent of the United Nations organizations. The 1% for Development Fund was inspired by the long-standing target of the United Nations for the rich countries to transfer 1% of their income as aid to poor countries. The New York branch of the Fund was founded in 1984 and presently has over 100 members. Many of the staff working for organizations in the United Nations system like to make direct and personal contributions to development. If you do too, then the 1% Fund is for you!
1% for Development Fund – Vienna – Home Page – The 1% for Development Fund, Vienna, is an independent association of staff members and ex-staff members of the organizations of the UN system that are based here. It is entirely independent of the UN organizations themselves. The 1% Fund in Vienna was founded in 1985 and now has about 80 members. Members of the 1% Fund pledge to donate 1% of their salaries each month to support small scale development projects. There are similar 1% Funds in Geneva (founded in 1976), New York and Rome.
Virgance: Activism 2.0 – The idea behind Greenfund is to create the first crowdsourced venture capital fund whereby we empower each and every person on all of the social networks to invest up to $100 dollars in Greenfund and become a voting partner of the fund. Greenfund then works with its members who vote to invest in the companies or projects that cause the most positive impact. If the hundreds of millions of people using Facebook and MySpace all signed up, Greenfund would be a multibillion dollar, community-powered fund that would rival the financial power of the World Bank.
Openworld – Welcome – Welcome to Openworld! We offer new resources for the success of grassroots initiatives through cell phones and the Internet. Our "Seeds of Change" catalysts — including microscholarships, telework opportunities, and sustainability toolkits — help schools and healthcare providers lever new assets and transform business climates in economically challenged areas. Access to the Seeds of Change resources grows as communities give land grant endowments to entrepreneurial schools and clinics, and commit to business climate reforms that raise the value of these lands. Development of the new sites as free economic zones can generate rapid asset growth for the local education and health care ventures — and spread skills, jobs, investments, and innovations of value for the whole community.
the hub Halifax » Home – Located on Barrington between Prince and Sackville, the hub is YOUR space downtown. Use it anytime as your office, a place to host important meetings, take out your laptop, get online and get stuff done, drink coffee and just hang out. Meet interesting people doing innovative things, come on down and print, fax, copy…
The Fastest Growing Social Sites – Each month (and often more frequently than that) we take a look at trends in social networking, by the numbers. Recently, we’ve focused on Twitter’s astronomical growth – now up better than 2,500 percent in one year – and Facebook’s climb to become top social network over MySpace
Environmental Showdown on the Irish Coast – The sprawling seaside villages around Ballinaboy in County Mayo are as close as you will find these days to the sheep-grazing greenery of postcard Ireland. In a country transformed by more than a decade of rapid and sometimes manic "Celtic Tiger" development, this community of farmers and fishermen in the country's remote northwest still resembles the Emerald Isle of popular and increasingly wistful imagination. It is a place where herds of sheep overtake cars on narrow roads, and where the "Land of 100,000 Welcomes" is more than a stale tourism slogan. It is one of the last corners of the country where Irish Gaelic is commonly spoken between neighbors.

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Dee Hock’s MiniMaxims

2009-04-20T22:45:12Z

I like Mamading’s quotes website Quotessence.

I’ve already pointed him at Dancing with Systems and Permaculture Principles, encouraging him to include the wisdom they contain.

Now I want to share Dee Hock’s MiniMaxims from his great book, Birth of the Chaordic Age.

Birth of the Chaordic Age

Dee Hock. Berrett-Koehler 1999, Hardcover, 345 pages, £16.99

“Particularity and serparability are infirmities of the mind, not characteristics of the universe”
“Desire to command and control is a death wish. Absolute control is in the coffin”
“Only fools worship their tools”
“Life is a gift, bearing a gift, which is the art of giving”
“The doing of the doing is why nothing gets done”
“Management expertise has become the creation and control of constants, uniformity, and efficiency, while the need has become the understanding and coordination of variability, complexity, and effectiveness”
“Compelled behaviour is the essence of tyranny. Induced behaviour is the essence of leadership. Both may have the same objective, but one tends to evil, the other to good”
“Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers, employ good people, and free them to do the same. All else is trivia”
“Success, while it may build confidence, teaches an insidious lesson: to have too high an opinion of self”
“The most abundant, least expensive, most underutilized, and constantly abused resource in the world is human ingenuity”
“There isn’t any poor work; there’s only work poorly done, poorly recognized, or poorly paid”
“You can learn much from what people say, but more is revealed by what they do not say. Listen as carefully to the silence as the sound”
“Haste never made time, and waste never made abundance”
“The past is ever less predictive, the future ever less predictable, and the present scarcely exists at all”
“Life will never surrender its secretes to yardsticks”
“Healthy organizations induce behavior. Unhealthy organizations compel it”
“People deprived of self-organization and self-governance are inherently ungovernable”
“Perspective is the Achilles heel of the mind, distorting everything we think, know, believe, or imagine”
“True power is never used. If you use power, you never really have it”
“If you think you can’t, why think”
“Heaven is purpose, principle, and people. Purgatory is paper and procedure. Hell is rules and regulations”
“Until someone has repeatedly said no and adamantly refuses another word on the subject, they are in the process of saying yes and don’t know it”
“I am as great to me as you are to you, and you are as great to you as I am to me, therefore, we are equal”
“Corporations are a great place to make love to capitalization of gain in one bedroom and socialization of cost in the other”
“You can’t count the steps to heaven, or calculate the slide to hell”
“Never confuse activity with productivity. It’s what come out the other end of the pipe that’s important, not what you push into it”
“Given the right circumstances, from no more than dreams, determination, and the liberty to try, quite ordinary people consistently do extraordinary things”
“Beware the Four Beasts that inevitably devour their keeper: Ego, Envy, Avarice, and Ambition”
“Substance is enduring, form ephemeral. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference”
“A clear sense of direction and compelling principles about conduct in pursuit of it are far more effective than long-term plans and detailed objectives”
“The greater the capacity to receive, store, utilize, transform, and transmit information, the more diverse and complex the entity”
“Fear is an internal narcotic that paralyzes mind, body, and spirit. The power of things we fear lies solely in our opinion of them”
“When we fish for absolutes in the seas of uncertainty, all we catch are doubts”
“If life on earth depends on wolf or man, take the wolf every time”
“Language, invented to reveal meaning, is more often used to confound or conceal it”
“Making good judgments when one has complete data, facts, and knowledge is not leadership – it’s bookkeeping”
“Change is the thief of identity. We can never be sure of our place or value in a new order of things”
“A bit of carbon in iron makes powerful metal; a bit of truth in a lie makes powerful deceit”
“It is enough that error be corrected. It is excessive to insist it be admitted”
“With the will to succeed and the grace to compromise, all things become possible”
“Money motivates neither the best people nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit”
“People must come to things in their own time, in their own way, for their own reasons, or they never truly come at all”
“Judgment is a muscle of the mind, developed by exercise. There is nothing to lose by trusting it”
“Wool should be grown on the hide, not in the head”
“Leadership is to go before and show the way”
“Failure is not to be feared. It is from failure that most growth comes; provided that one can recognize it, admit it, learn from it, rise about it, and try again”
“Mistakes are toothless little things if you recognize them. If you ignore or defend them, they grow fangs and bite”
“You can’t tickle yourself. It’s a social act”
“Fame is fool’s gold of the ego; as soon threadbare and out of fashion as a suit of clothes”
“All distinctions are useful, but none are truth or reality”
“The surest way to satisfy the greed of the few is to arouse it in the many”
“Money is not the measure of man”
“A life can’t be made of denial. A life is made of affirmation”
“The eternal, internal light casts no shadow”

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Links for April 12th to April 16th

2009-04-16T15:00:05Z

These are my links for April 12th to April 16th:

Design Council | Directory listings | Events and competitions | Design in Alternative Futures – 2009 will be remembered as a year of global economic downturn, but what could this mean for the future of the economy, society and government? Will the downturn compel us to turn inwards, to become a nation of close knit families driven by individual needs? Or will it force unprecedented collaboration, creating a Britain that is focused upon the common good?
The E. F. Schumacher Society • Community Land Trusts – A Community Land Trust (CLT) is a form of common land ownership with a charter based on the principles of sustainable and ecologically-sound stewardship and use. The land in a CLT is held in trust by a democratically-governed non-profit corporation. Through an inheritable and renewable long-term lease, the trust removes land from the speculative market and facilitates multiple uses such as affordable housing, village improvement, commercial space, agriculture, recreation, and open space preservation. Individual leaseholders own the buildings and other improvements on the land created by their labor and investment, but do not own the land itself. Resale agreements on the buildings ensure that the land value of a site is not included in future sales, but rather held in perpetuity on behalf of the regional community.
Westminster Briefing » Blog Archive » Developing the Role of the Third Sector in Public Services: Building Capacity and Promoting Capability – The economic downturn has presented a challenging new environment in which the third sector must operate, with the importance of diversifying funding, innovative services and collaborating with partners key to surviving and flourishing over the coming year. Yet these circumstances also provide new opportunities for third sector organisations to expand their roles in public service delivery and put themselves at the forefront of commissioners minds as uniquely placed to provide responsive, community based and client focused initiatives. These issues have been recognised by the Government with the recent publication of ‘Real Help for Communities: Volunteers, Charities and Social Enterprises’, an action paln for the Third Sector.
JonathanMelhuish.com – user experience designer fighting climate change with ethical consumption – This category features a series of interviews with many projects around the world that deliver ethical information to consumers. These podcasts are designed to give some background information on each project to help identify potential for collaboration between projects. We are also organising regular teleconferences aimed at sharing knowledge and facilitation collaboration.
Funky Spaces | alternative, community and affordable business space in the Bristol area – Funky Spaces offers a variety of alternative, community and affordable business space for start up and small businesses in the Bristol area

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Links for April 11th to April 12th

2009-04-12T05:01:00Z

These are my links for April 11th to April 12th:

Third World Tech – Use what you have. Make what you need – Here at ThirdWorldTech.com we are collecting simple solutions to common problems faced by humanitarian aid workers, missionaries and disaster victims. Our links and articles cover many topics; from self sustaining agricultural methods, microenterprises, and many more. Please feel free to suggest an article or link!
Ripplepay.com – Ripplepay.com is a payment system where you can be your own banker. Connect to your friends, family, and associates and your credit with them becomes a fully-functional currency
ePoint Home – The ePoint system is a payment infrastructure for anonymous electronic transactions that is an amendment of the already popular methods used primarily in telephony (pre-paid phone cards), public transit (re-chargeable multiple passes) and various pay-per-view services. ePoints can be transfered just like any other information, in such a way that the recipient can be certain that the sender will not be able to use the same ePoint once more, because of the safety of the underlying protocol. The applications of the ePoint system can be as diverse as tracking assets in on-line games and on-line gift certificates for electronic commerce. So what is this ePoint thing? Our system aims to be a tool for simplifiing digital commerce, establishing a new tradition. ePoints are the units of payment.
Scred – Banking 2.0. Scred is a Finnish company building tools and services to help friends, groups and communities manage their money, wherever they are. Pools are for simple tracking and balancing amongst friends, while MiniCorps allow you to track income and expenses, as well as actually sell items and receive money.
Bitcoin.org – Open Source P2P Electronic Cash – Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new open source peer-to-peer electronic cash system that's completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the network to check for double-spending.

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Links for March 28th to April 10th

2009-04-10T19:00:27Z

These are my links for March 28th to April 10th:

Community Shares | – Community owned enterprises will benefit from an exciting new government-backed initiative which aims to stimulate investment through community share and bond issues. Community investment is different. Instead of turning to the private sector and wealthy individuals for support, community investment is about engaging communities to invest in themselves. By harnessing the collective investment powers of whole communities, large amounts of capital can be raised in small sums from members of the community. Be it a small village shop or large scale housing development, a community recycling project or major renewable energy scheme, they all have one thing in common – actively committed and motivated members who recognise the wider benefits of communities investing and engaging in their own solutions.
Welcome To TINYTECH Plants – The company working for promoting tiny enterprises in various industrial fields, through human technology for rural development, local self reliance, poverty eradication, exploitation removal, employment and income generation.
Transition Sweden – Svenska byar och städer ställer om – The Transition networing in Sweden.
Ecology Begins at Home— Using the Power of Choice – A concise and powerful beginner’s guide to low impact living for all ages. Engages readers, gives hope, inspires to action. 128 pages of positive, practical guidance for making the world a better place, one step at a time. Available for free download and in paperback. Archie Duncanson, Green Books UK 2008.
Open Direct Democracy – Welcome to Open Direct Democracy. This early development project that automatically fetches legal document from Althingi, the Icelandic Parliament and gives citizens features to interact with the legal process, like voting, commenting and changing. All content is in Icelandic. Feel free to fork the source code and build one for your own direct democracy.

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