In the summer of 2006, I participated in the Community Technology Centers’ Network (CTCNet) 15th Annual Conference. It was held on July 27-29, 2006 in Washington, DC. With the 15th Anniversary as a milestone, the 2006 conference was an opportunity to reflect on the growth and progress made by the community technology movement in the past 15 years, and look ahead to the challenges and opportunities facing CTC workers in the road ahead. With this theme, nearly 400 attendees participated in two and a half days of workshops, breakout sessions, networking, and resource-sharing.
I was lucky enough to present on a panel. Here is an outline of the panel:
New Tools, New Power: Introducing CMS Technology for Your Website
Session Details
Date: Saturday, July 29, 2006
Time: 9:00:00 AM – 10:30:00 AM
Location: Valley Forge
Summary:
You can forget (almost) everything you know about how your website works–even if you don’t know anything at all. Content Management Systems (CMS) technology tools now make creating and maintaining websites faster, more powerful, and most importantly, easier and more accessible than ever before. Using new open source CMS software such as Drupal, CivicSpace, or Joomla, even people who can’t spell HTML can manage a large-scale and interactive website with ease. Best of all, these programs are free to use. This CTCNet conference session explains CMS and helps you evaluate how using CMS can allow you better control and easier access to your website, an increasingly important asset in serving your community. Model projects, feature demonstrations and concrete next steps to get you, your organization and the community you serve to website nirvana through CMS.
Objectives:
1. Participants will identify their own website and online technology needs
2. Participants will understand the function of a CMS
3. Participants will understand how a CMS can fulfill their needs
Morgan Sully
Youth Digital Media and Community Technology Coordinator
CTC VISTA Project/The San Diego Community Technology Coalition/The San Diego LGBT Center (CA)
Morgan Sully currently serves as the Community Technology Coordinator for the San Diego Community Technology Coalition. New to the world of content management systems, he has quickly become a strong advocate for their use in the field of community technology. After creating and developing his own Drupal site for local electronic artists (http://www.memeshift.com/sharesd), he became the Drupal consultant and developer for the SDCTC as well as other local developers and organizations. Morgan possesses a wide variety of experience including operating rural food banks, managing homeless youth drop-in centers, training volunteers and coordinating various cultural and community events. A strong passion for digital storytelling, coupled with his knowledge of various social technologies, computer literacy instruction, community organizing and content management systems lends Morgan a particular variety of interests and skills.
Ben Sheldon
CTC VISTA Project / Lowell Telecommunications Corp. (MA)
Ben Sheldon is relatively new to the world of online web development but brings firsthand and recent experience in building websites in the nonprofit world. Ben serves with the CTCNet VISTA Project as online community developer for the DigitalBicycle Project, an online media distribution hub for cable access television and video producers. In addition to planning marketing and outreach in advance of the launch of the DigitalBicycle, he is also developing tools and software to more easily allow large community websites to better manage and moderate their content and users. His experience in writing and communication has greatly helped him in bridging the divide between technical and non-technical communities. Ben has a passion for Community Mapping projects and is developing software for organizations to easily incorporate maps into their websites and curriculum. His latest project, MappingAccess.com, currently lists over 900 Public, Educational and Government television stations in the United States.
Gene Crick
(Session Designer)
Executive Director
Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network (TX)
Gene Crick is Executive Director of the TeleCommunity Resource Center (TCRC), working to develop community Internet tools and networks, especially in underserved areas. This 501c3 nonprofit brought free public Internet access to twenty-five Texas towns and cities. Now, TCRC’s 1999-2000 national program includes resources and outreach to support local CN builders, plus working with a multi-million dollar grant project designed to bring online network resources to communities throughout Texas. Mr. Crick is also Executive Director of the Texas Internet Service Providers Association, the country’s largest regional ISP association; of Electronic Frontiers – Texas, and of the Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network (MAIN), one of the country’s oldest and most successful online community networks. He works state, federal, and international boards and commissions and has won numerous awards for leadership in community networks, including the 1998 Susan B. Hadden award for public service in the field of telecommunications.
Dave Chakrabarti
Projects Coordinator
CTC VISTA Project / CTCNet Chicago Chapter (IL)
Dave Chakrabarti spent the first half of his childhood in Georgia. When he was 11, his family moved back to India. He didn’t own a computer till he was 20, but it’s been one long geek love affair with technology ever since. Dave is the projects coordinator for CTCNetChicago whose current responsibilities include website development, grantwriting, and event organization. He has over seven years of experience in website development and search engine optimization, working with corporations, nonprofits, and small businesses; at one point, he managed search engine optimization and internet marketing for over 200 health insurance and mortgage sites. His current technical interests include content management systems in general and Drupal, CivicSpace, and Moodle in particular. He is especially interested in using content management to develop a sophisticated online presence for nonprofits without highly skilled technical staff, and has been developing tutorials and resources on his site, DigitalRaindrop.com. Dave is also part of a team to develop Drupal coursework and how-to articles at nonprofitcms.org and drupalvistas.net. Dave is actively engaged in organizing the state-wide Illinois Community Technology Coalition, and a frequent contributor to the Digital Divide Network, focusing on the potential for technology as a catalyst for systemic social change.
Nick Lewis
CTC VISTA Project / Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network (TX)
Before his VISTA service, Nick Lewis worked as a fulltime Drupal consultant and developer. He was a founder of Smart Campaigns, a small firm that builds and hosts low-cost Civicspace websites for progressive political candidates. In March of 2005, Nick was nominated for SXSW Interactive’s prestigious Dewey Winburne Community service award for founding the Progressive Blog Alliance, a coalition of 400 progressive bloggers who share links to dramatically raise their Google rankings. Today, the PBA’s website has over 15,000 registered users, making it one of the most active Drupal sites on the net. Nick regularly writes about Drupal, CivicSpace and online communities at his weblog, nicklewis.smartcampaigns.com. His writings on Drupal’s usability, marketing, and aesthetics have turned his blog into a leading source of information, and learning for the Drupal community. In addition, Nick’s investigations of “blackhat” search engine optimization techniques and guerrilla marketing have been featured in Wired and American Journalism Review. Since August of 2005, Nick has been working as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the CTC VISTA Project in Austin, Texas. He currently serves as senior developer for Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network.
