Full Circle Associates

From Jock Gill word of an interesting conference for those of you on the East Coast mid-April: Grassroots Use of Technology - Conference April 15-16, 2005. The conference lists these themes: a) Making technology relevant to communities b) Online politics post-2004 c) Uniting movements for social justice - Building coalitions, progressive infrastructure.

Here are the 12 workshops confirmed at this time:

• Adopting Open Source Software in a Nonprofit Environment (Al Essa, Sloan School of Management, Carolyn Meeks, Aristoi)
  
• CMSes are like Chocolate Bars (Alison Stanton, student, Miami University, formerly of Democracy for America)
  
• Web Applications for Human Services Organizations (Scott Smith, Community TechKnowledge and Kevin Harris, Social Solutions)
  
• Moving your website to the next level with Plone - an open source CMS (Nate Aune, Jazkarta Consulting - jazkarta.com)
  
• Affordable Tools for Activist Outreach & Civic Engagement (Gregory Heller, Emily Thorsen/EchoDitto, Raj Singh, and Bob Lelievre)
  
• Using a blog to get your group's message out (Aldon Hynes, blogger involved in the Dean for President effort)
  
• Online Tools to Engage your Members and Donors: an Introduction (Deborah Elizabeth Finn, CyberYenta)
  
• Technology for Labor Unions and Labor Organizers (Tanya Renne, Orchid Suites, Claire McDonough, SEIU Headquarters, and Wayne Langley, SEIU Local 615)
  
• From zero to sixty: how your group can adopt online advocacy techniques (Josh Friedes, Freedom to Marry Coalition of MA)
  
• Grassroots Technology and the Emerging Progressive Infrastructure (panel with Jo Lee, Zack Rosen, others TBA)
  
• Adapting 'Alinsky-style' theories for online organizing (panel convened by Brian Reich, Mindshare Internet Consulting)
  
• Ask The Experts: small group assistance for your organization (with Marty Kearns, Green Media Toolshed, Robert DeBenedictis, Sue Dorfman, and three others)

I have to say, I loved the title, "CMSes are like Chocolate Bars!"