Thanks to everyone who participated in this morning's webinar about using Miscrosoft's Office Live Workspace (OLW). You can now find the archived recording and slides from the presentation here: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/schedule/display.do?udc=esrhq125z5ve

Learn how to use it, get some questions answered about different functions work, and see what sorts of templates can be used to create your own OLW.

This free, online collaboration tool allows users to share files and documents anywhere they have access to the Internet.

Have you used Office Live before to collaborate online with staff, colleagues, peers, volunteers, board members, or others? Share your experience and ask any questions in TechSoup's Emerging Technologies Forum!

Adobe has recently announced the call for submissions for their annual Adobe MAX Awards. This awards program is truly global, with submissions coming from Adobe users around the world and across all spectrums of business, political, education, and social sectors.

This year, they've made one significant change that may be relevent to nonprofits and other social benefit organizations: a category for Social Responsibility that will highlight organizations working toward social or environmental causes.

So, all you nonprofits who sent in submissions for the Adobe-TechSoup Show Your Impact Design Contest earlier this year — here's another opportunity to show the world about the incredible work you're doing, aided by some cool software from Adobe. The deadline for submissions is July 31! Here are more details:

The Online Community Report MeetUp is back this month, fresh from the Online Community Unconference and ready to discuss online community tools and techniques. This month our guest speaker is Brad Selby from Flixster, an online community for movie lovers.

Brad's talk will kick off an informal discussion on online community strategies, so bring your ideas, questions, and topics of interest. We'll have time for informal networking before and after so you have a chance to chat more with fellow online community enthusiasts.

The fourth Wednesday of the month is the free monthly gathering of online community managers, enthusiasts, and innovators to meet and discuss tools and strategies for building and managing effective communities.

Event Details:

When: Wednesday, June 24 at 7:00 p.m. Pacific

Who doesn't, right?! This week, TechSoup has a new article called Tips for Designing (or Redesigning) a Nonprofit Web Site, that covers all the basic considerations needed in order to get a new or redesigned site up and running.

This article covers all the steps to include in your exploration process, discusses the stakeholders who need to be involved, the general timeline that most web development firms follow, and shares a variety of great resources for starting your redesign process.

I've gone through this process as the "accidental techie" at three small nonprofits before and have had site redesigns go both ways — well planned up front and not-so-well-planned. The difference in the process can make or break the success and outcome. The frustrations and the lack of deliverables when the project was wrapped up were not only greater in the not-so-well-planned process, but they also cost our organization a LOT more money longer term.

Following guidelines and thinking through the questions presented in this article can help get your project off to a good start and keep it on track through to a new site launch.

Photo: Simon Collison

Heather Carpenter's Nonprofit Leadership 601 blog posted a list of resources for people who are new to the field of nonprofit technolology.

This post lists books, reports, Web sites, blogs, and conferences that nonprofit techies — and not just those newbies — should know about.

We're happy that TechSoup is listed right at the top of the list. Feel free to add your favorite nonprofit tech resources to the list by way of commenting on the post.

Photo: Neil T

This post was originally published on The Huffington Post on June 8, 2009. Copyright © 2009 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

The setting was an amphitheater filled with attendees from around the globe. The scene sounds fairly usual, although the attendees were sitting amongst a Panda — wearing a shoulder-ferret (looks exactly like it sounds), a bald English woman levitating in lotus position; a small penguin; a punk-rocker girl, replete with a bull's style nose ring; and yours truly, Glitteractica Cookie (Susan Tenby by human/legal standards), a pink-skinned cat-lady, emblazoned with paw-print tattoos, wearing a tuxedo T-shirt and a tutu, though I was both virtual and present in real-life, which is not as tricky as it sounds.

The small conference room in San Jose, California, was dimly lit and buzzing with intensity, while being relatively silent, except for the tapping of keyboards and the occasional chuckle or sigh. The reason was because many participants in the room were participating from both Second Life and the room in San Jose, and they are doing so, in avatar form. Avatars are virtual alter egos, that are our embodiment (not always human, as I noted) in a virtual world.

I'm certainly no expert on the ins and outs of tech at our organization. I'm fortunate that we have an incredible team of IT/tech experts here who not only know and specialize in different parts of our overall systems, but additionally, can communicate in everyday terms about them.

There's a real benefit in having some tech expertise in-house at a nonprofit or library. A recent study released by NTEN indicates that those nonprofits which spend
money on training their IT staff are more satisfied with the results of their staff. Whether you're the IT Director, a network administrator, the operations person, or the staff member who just happened to be the one appointed to fix small problems with computers on-site, it's helpful to have resources to find answers.

Obviously, we think of a lot of the articles, forum threads, and blog posts here at TechSoup as a good resource for nonprofit tech info. But we know there are many other sources for learning both basic and advanced skills whether you prefer to do it online or off.

Next week, I'll be attending
The Online Community Unconference (OCU), along with my TechSoup community colleague, Susan Tenby. The OCU is a gathering of online community practitioners — managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors — to discuss experiences and strategies in the development and growth of online communities.

Those involved in online community development for-profits and nonprofits alike share many common challenges: community management, tools, marketing, business models, legal issues, and more. And often the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners, which is what makes the OCU a rewarding event.

"What's an unconference?" you say? Well there's a good description of it here and a detailed FAQ here. Suffice to say, you won't be seeing the usual PowerPoint or formal presentations, but instead the sessions and topics are proposed and chosen by the users.

Alright. I'm laying it all out there as bait. If you'd like to win a fantastic hour of one-on-one tech consulting AND a $25 Amazon.com gift card, then you need to take 10 minutes out of your day today (or tomorrow) to tell us what you think of the TechSoup Blog. You could be the winner.

We want to know what you think so we can make it even better — keep the things that are just right, dump the stuff you dislike, and add new features to enhance the experience and make the TechSoup Blog a true one-stop-shop for nonprofit tech news and events.

What are you waiting for? Get over to the survey and dish all you want!

Photo: Zlatko Unger

The Chronicle of Philanthropy is holding another in its series of free online discussions on Tuesday, June 2 (tomorrow). Here are the details:

What: Promoting Causes on Online Social Networks

When: Tuesday, June 2, at 12:00 p.m. Eastern

Cost: Free

Where: Online. Questions are submitted via keyboard, and answers come the same way. The discussion will be archived, so even if you can't attend, you can at least read the transcript.

Register at: http://philanthropy.com/live/2009/06/promoting/chat.php3

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