Let the blogging begin!

The first of the Oakland Community Voice Project bloggers have launched their first and personal blogs.

http://eastmontoakland.blogspot.com/index.html

http://estellahavingfun.blogspot.com/index.html

http://singingthechoir.blogspot.com/

http://sweetcookie1.blogspot.com/

http://anorene.blogspot.com/index.html

 http://joannsfaith.blogspot.com/index.html

http://godislove-shorty.blogspot.com/index.html

http://inclaudiaclassroom.blogspot.com/

http://fryestr.blogspot.com/

http://bienvillecooking.blogspot.com/

Orientation Welcome

Welcome to the orientation for the Oakland Community Voice Blogging project. Today we will be talking about how you can join this project: come to a one-day training (meal provided), work with your fellow bloggers on identifying an important community issue, begin blogging and attend a public event around the issue. We are arranging this for you to become a blogger and express your voice around community issues you have identified as important.

 Blogging is a very powerful channel to reach out and be heard. Today is not the training, but an orientation, but to give you a sense of what is to come each of you will create a yahoo account, a blogger account and begin a personal blog. During the training you will use the yahoo account for creating your community voice blog and for rss aggregation (more on that during the training).

Please join this project team in building the first blogger community from ECC for the sake of East Oakland.

Training Partner – Social Media Club and Brain Jams

We are thrilled that BrainJams will be offering social networking training for the Community Voice project. BrainJams is also a project of the Social Media Club founder Chris Heuer.

One step closer…

After a hopeful meeting with CTFC we are one step closer to grant approval and getting started on our ECC Connected project.  the current objectives are:

1. By December 1, 2006, establish training partners – Brain Jams, SeniorNet, Eastmont Computer Center, and set up project management site.

2.  By February 1, 2007, complete development of the training curriculum, tools and lead trainers. Identify potential community issues to integrate into the training and announce the training roll-out. In conjunction with ECC, begin identifying individuals to recruit to participate in the training program.

3.  By April 1, 2007, coordinate the initial training of 30 seniors and 15 youth.  Identify and coordinate the training process for 3 D-scribes (citizen journalists).  D-Scribes will attend civic meeting and events to report on them.

4. By May 1, 2007, facilitate the trainee’s identification of a specific civic / legislative issue that they will focus their communication / outreach efforts on.  Begin outreach and advocacy effort to the relevant local officials linked to the chosen issue.

5.  By June 1, 2007, establish a plan and time frame for subsequent sessions to take place, including a participant debriefing session and a public event based around the chosen civic issue.  Have a structure in place for Eastmont Computer Center to maintain the program.

 

6.  By December 2007, 30 seniors and 15 youth are trained on and actively using web-based social networking and advocacy tools to participate in public debates and/or influence local public policy.

SF TechConnect covered at Wireless Internet Institute

San Francisco has generated considerable attention from broadband-wireless stakeholders around the world ever since EarthLink and partner Google bid to provide the city with an ubiquitous Wi-Fi infrastructure, in part through a two-tiered advertising-based model supporting free public access.

Chris Vein, Senior Technology Advisor to the Mayor of San Francisco and Executive Director of the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services, is heading up the City’s  negotiations with EarthLink. At the W2i Digital Cities Convention in London, Olympia Exhibition Centre, September 25–26, 2006, he joined participating IT professionals and field practitioners from municipal agencies from the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. presenting their plans and experiences deploying broadband-wireless applications and services in their communities. The following is adapted from his remarks.

CNN covers Upwardly Global

Congratulations to one of my fellow ZFellows – Camille. Her organization, Upwardly Global was covered on CNN.

Upwardly Global is a nonprofit organization that helps highly-skilled immigrants, refugees and asylees reclaim their careers here in the United States and helps American employers discover and understand this hidden talent pool.

Picking tools? Confused? Need help?

A trail has been blazed and it’s called SocialSourceCommons. Here, you can find out what technology tools other nonprofits and NGO organizations are using and their ratings of each tool.

1.Don’t spend a dime without checking here first.

2. Don’t invest your precious time in free tools without checking here first.

In their words…

The ultimate goal of the Social Source Commons (SSC) is to create a “knowledge commons” that maps the NPO/NGO software space and makes sense of the collective expertise related to that software. It aims to provide those who need information on NPO/NGO software access to lists of what’s available, with each list item linked to relevant documentation, localization tools, services and events, user reviews and a place to request the tools and features they can’t find. It is envisioned to catalyze a network of shared resources and contributors rather than simply building a single comprehensive web site or database, connecting the rich but relatively unlinked array of NPO/NGO-focused software information resources that already exist and builds upon it.

Connections for ECC Connected!

Last night was the One Economy (OE) Annual Gala (OE6), I bumped in to an ally for our project.

Gail McGuire of East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation’s Neighborhood and Economic Development Department.  Once she heard of our project she offered ideas for community issues and involvement. As we put together the program, we will call on her and her organization to participate.

As we move forward we ceratinly will want to reach out to partners.

 At the gala, Mayor Gavin Newsom was honored for his work to create free wireless access for the entire city of San Francisco.

“San Francisco will be the first city in the nation to provide FREE wireless access to every resident,” exclaimed Newsom. He told the story of how a meeting Rey Ramsey, the CEO of OE, inspired the mayor’s competitive spirit and provide free access as opposed to Philadelphia’s access at a price. He celebrated the relationship with Google and Earthlink. 

I bumped in to Emy Tseng, who is now working for the City’s TechConnect initiative. Emy was with the Community Technology Foundation of California when we first became aquainted. Now, she works on behalf of making free wireless a reality.

BTW, NTen is holding a day long conference on municipal wireless, November 10th.

San Francisco’s municipal wireless project will mean that you can create social change in new, bold ways. Soon, your organization, your clients, and your stakeholders will have access to free and low cost wireless Internet access through San Francisco’s TechConnect project.

Visioning meeting

Yesterday we held a visioning meeting for the ECC Connected! project and generated the curriculum schedule, overall plan, basic budget and objectives which are:

a. Train 10 trainers and 3 Digital Scribes (D-Scribes)

b. Trainers will train up to 30 seniors and 15 youth

c. Connect to at least one legislative issue

d. Structure the project to serve as a seed for larger ECC program goals

e. Connect project to newly elected mayoral administration

The proposal will be submitted in the next day or so and we hope for quick approval so that we may begin development.

I’m looking forward to using the project management tool Jot. I’ve used basecamp and want to compare them.

I could also check out what tools other organizations are using by going to

Getting started

A group of us has gathered to start a community technology project we’re calling ECC Connected!

With the help of BrainJams, the Social Media Club my colleague Scott of SeniorNet and I will offer a series of trainings to the participants of the Eastmont Computing Center.

 The hope is that the folks will find these tools fun and useful in getting their message across, especially to civic leaders.

The team has had three meetings and a proposal is being finalized for funding from the Community Technology Foundation of California (CTFC).

 This space will serve as a record of the development of the project.