Metacentricities

This is amazing. This guy did a project that links google maps with census data. Here’s what it looks like:

I can imagine this as a very useful tool for a variety of purposes - planning for all sorts of advocacy and voter education drives, helping to figure out areas of need, etc. It look spretty powerful.

Via BoingBoing

For some of you, this is relatively old news. And for many of you, this will be completely new. A while ago, in my not-so-long-ago life as a nonprofit technology consultant, I had reason to come across a few large companies (I like to call them the 800 pound gorillas) in the nonprofit software field. One of those companies is called Convio. They, along with Kintera and Get Active, are very expensive (most of my clients could never afford them) but fairly powerful web based applications that help nonprofits do what they do - keep in contact with constituents, build community, raise money, etc. Kintera is publicly held, from what I know, Get Active and Convio are privately held.

For a long time, Convio has been working with many leftish-leaning organizations (like Howard Dean’s campaign, Planned Parenthood, etc.). There was quite a brou-ha-ha in the blogosphere recently about their taking on an anti-gay organization as a client, the Alliance for Marriage. AmericaBlog and Daily Kos (with a follow-up,) among others had some interesting comments about it. Some have called for a boycott. Ed Batista has a couple of good comments on his blog about it, and raises some important questions, ones that I’ve had in a general sense for a while.

As activists, we often talk about using our power as consumers to affect change. We buy organic, boycott Exxon-Mobil, don’t darken Wal-Mart’s door, etc. As someone who has been in the position of giving advice to nonprofit organizations who have activist and advocacy missions, I am always aware of how sometimes our advice to them goes smack dab against some of the ideals they hold. (Example: advising a nonprofit that cares a lot about the environment to upgrade their computers regularly, so that they will spend less money on hardware issues, and more on their mission.)

I think it’s perhaps time for many nonprofit organizations, and the progressive nonprofit community to think carefully about this issue. Few of us think that the ends always justifies the means. Some of us (me included) think that the means by which we work to achieve our mission, affects the mission, sometimes deeply.

I’ve been an advocate for the use of open source software in the nonprofit sector for a while now, for a variety of good reasons. One of which is that are a whole host of really good open source (in fact or in spirit) advocacy tools out there, home grown, with expertise around to help implement it. It is not necessary (nor necessarily cheaper or easier) to go with a service like Convio. There are good choices out there, ones that will help continue to build expertise and good code in our own community (rather than build good code that investors make money off of.)

I imagine some of you reading this blog know me well, and know all about my previous lives. I also imagine some of you who read this blog have absolutely no idea (or not much) since I haven’t talked really at all about them.

I’ve realized that, for good or ill, once I’ve gone through the (usually long) process of making a life decision, I tend not to look back much. Sometimes, this is a good thing. It means that I have real focus on the new direction and real presence in it. Sometimes, it’s not such a good thing. It means that I’ve left behind skills (that will diminish), connections to others in the field, and knowledge (that will fade.)

I started out my adult life as a scientist. I went to grad school, and got my Ph.D. in Neuroscience, where I studied the ways that neurons in little critters (I hear the "go ahead, tell them" yelled in the background - I studied cockroaches and snails) connected with each other to create specific behaviors (escaping from predators) and could grow to connect with other neurons.

What I liked about this field was the idea that I was contributing to the understanding of how nervous systems developed and worked to create complex behavior. The hope was that it would eventually lead to better understanding our brain.

My life as a scientist had some mini-lives: life as a grad student, life as a post-doc, life as a professor of a small college and life as an AIDS epidemiologist (I switched fields about 2 years after starting to teach).

The next big life transition I made was to leave science and academia, to finally fully embrace my inner geek, and become a technology consultant/software developer. I decided that it would be a good thing to combine my interest in the work of nonprofit organizations with my inner geek.

This was, in many ways, more rewarding a life than science and teaching. Part of that reward was that I was working hard for people and organizations that had devoted their working lives (and often, whole lives) to the betterment of society. I got to create applications that worked (mostly) and help organizations use technology better and more efficiently. I got to work hard on promoting things like Open Source software and open standards for a sector that both can, in my opinion benefit more from them than others, and also is further behind in implementation than other sectors.

So, now, the third major life transition - to seminary. One thing I realized during my trip to visit seminaries, and give interviews was that I was sort of surprised that I think I have to leave behind a lot less of my previous lives than I might have thought. I had a great conversation with a faculty member at PSR when I was visiting about gay brains, I heard a lecture on theology and the environment when I was there, and I have been privy to the trials and tribulations of the use of my congregation’s new member management system. Wow. I like this.