There’s been a lot of Twitter activity on this side of town. I have found that I can use Twitter as a news feed. To tell you the truth, I think the future of news gathering will come from localized informants (that may or may "Tweet") such as the #LongBeachWater. In Twitter I follow organizations that may provide me with instant news articles or information on issues ranging from telecommunications policy to educational technology. I hope that more organizations from the L.A. metropolitan area can set up a Twitter and post news of their neighborhoods and communities. But assuming that organizations are at least connected to the web, they must understand if Twitter is right for them.

I think Twitter is right for the CCTPG. My current plan is to have as many of our organization partners on Twitter that we may be able to report in real time on the events that are occurring in their neighborhoods.

A plan for the month of May is to develop workshops for staff on Web 2.0 tools (i.e. Yammer) that may be useful for them. So what would be the difference between simply setting up a free Web 2.0 webinar and my proposed workshops? I understand some of the specific needs of my current organization.

Also, I don’t know if you remember, but a couple of entries ago I mentioned how our organization was working on a Wired for Wireless Report that surveyed municipal led wireless networks. Personally, I haven’t done much of the work on this report, only edited some things here and there, but overall it looks grrrreeeaat! I hope to bring some copies to the Non-profit Technology Conference (aka the NTEN Conference) to distribute. So look and ask me for a copy.

Currently housing for post first year of CTC VISTA is a question mark. Part of the decision depends on my future work site. I will keep you posted.

Hope all had an enjoyable Easter!

I'm using the month of April to run a test-drive of Twitter--to see if we like being on it, if it's bringing people to our site, etc.

So follow Thousand Kites on Twitter!!! http://twitter.com/thousandkites

And, another exciting happening: I was followed around by a photographer for a week a few weeks ago. He's a student at Western Kentucky U and was in Whitesburg on a class spring break photo project. He did his story on me and my work here. Check it out!

Comment from Denise Cheng on April 8, 2009 - 8:33pm

awesome! :)

Comment from Nathan Badera on April 23, 2009 - 2:32pm

That photo sequence was amazing :)

“Why doesn’t anyone think about reducing the amount of driving they do? Wouldn’t that be a good contribution to the solution?” I asked Walter as I shoveled red coconut curry into my mouth. As usual, I had gone completely overboard with the hot sauce and peppers- my eyes were starting to water. I like food that makes me cry a little, I guess.

It was lunchtime at the Cambodian restaurant next to the gallery and we were conspicuously eavesdropping on the table behind us. Eight crisply dressed businessmen were discussing the pros and cons of nuclear versus solar energy as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Any amount of a solution would take a huge amount of collaboration, they said. It would need to be the convergence of several industries that set aside, for at least a small amount of time, a profit driven mindset, they said.

‘This would also be a perfect excuse for a moratorium on those stupid Cadillac Escalades,’ I thought.

“Well,” said Walter, “That’s not really the capitalist way.”

Is it just me, or is the American brand of capitalism mostly inept at breeding anything viable? Aside from the fact that there is literally not enough alternative anything that can replace fossil fuels at the moment, there is the issue of lack of collaboration.

It’s the oil companies versus the wind companies versus the patent holders for the new biodiesel tech… Are they really working together? Only when it’s profitable.

Then I look at the 119 Gallery. Aside from Tom and I (who are technically paid by a grant from the federal government), we are an entirely volunteer run organization. Even our executive director is a volunteer. This adds a great deal of advantages. We’ve been relatively unscathed by the current economic situation.

Through a great amount of collaboration and deepening ties with other organizations and people in our community, the gallery has been growing in size and scope while other for-profit companies are shuttering their doors. This is because we have realized (as most nonprofits must do to survive) that people and likeminded organizations are our greatest resource. Money is obviously important too, but in a different way.

Everyone here works not for a check (okay I get a check but it’s really not very much) but for a commonly held vision. This was illustrated perfectly at our annual board retreat meeting last weekend. In a quaint conference center in Newton (peeling wallpaper aside) we discussed our vision for the organization and what we contribute to the community. After hunching over index cards and scribbling our best version of an elevator pitch about the organization, we shared them with each other. The result? We all held the same ideas in regards to our mission, and were all inspired by them. Hence the reason we had such a strong group of volunteer staff.

It has simply reinforced a belief that most of us already knew: there are way more important things in life than a profit margin.

I’ll admit, I have a very rudimentary understanding of economics and my business sense is laughable at best. It just seems to me that the concept of never-ending consumption no matter what the cost is finally being revealed in all of its ridiculousness (A.I.G. says it all). Are we ready as a society to accept that this might not be the best path to happiness?

I just wonder if our current economic situation might be the beginning of a shift in ideas about what is profitable to businesses. Can profits be quantified as quality of life for workers and constituents? As effective community partnerships? As fully engaging the public in thoughtful discourse?

Obviously, I’m not holding up the gallery as some sort of road map to utopia. I know that would be overly simplistic. I’m just hoping that someday our collective idea of business profitability can change.

The main project I've been working on is to locate more resources for social services, especially for help with foreclosures. Once located, I then put them on the website according to the county served.

One of the smaller projects has been to report on a couple of churches services provided to the community as reported in the case management system.

I've also been attending Faith Network meetings. The Faith Network is a new group of faith-based organizations that are meeting to get to know one another, the mission of each group, and co-ordinate services. In our community, the Tri-Cities area of Washington state, it is amazing how many churches provide help for those in need. This help is tangible in the way of food, clothing, money for rent and utilitites. Last year over $185,000 in services was provided by two of the churches in our community.

Comment from Mary Chant on March 31, 2009 - 8:18pm

Hi Marilyn,
I'm a CTC Vista for Mercy Corps, but in my spare time I run a site for finding food banks in the Vancouver, WA area. I just wanted to second your admiration for the work churches do and the contribution they make. Many of our area food providers are supported by local churches and their volunteers. I have recently added a wiki to the food provider site. It would be great if you wanted to contribute or have suggestions/feedback.
Mary
admin@firstthebasics.com
http://www.firstthebasics.com

I'm crossposting my reaction to a SXSW Interactive panel from my personal blog. Enjoy!

Written March 14, 2009

I'm slightly frustrated right now. I just came from a session entitled Emerging Trends of Mobile Technology, where the launching pad started with smartphones. Throughout the session, the emphasis was on how we use old technology in combination with new ones to form an innovative tool. For example, image recognition to create augmented realities and find cut-throat product prices, &c.
Most people in the room seemed to be developers or designers of some sort, and many of the questions were based on cutting edge technology, the next wave, "web 3.0." But while everyone was drooling over their next money-generating app, a question was left out: What are the moral implications of this technology?
I'm not saying none of these things should be created, but with the rat-race to create the next best app, who's thinking about what we're potentially institutionalizing? Image recognition of the Coke brand that takes you directly to the site. Bar codes that show you product prices for the 10 closest competitors. Existing technology that might be creatively wielded via phones to discern race, sex, &c. through image recognition.
I mention these because they were the suggestions I took greatest issue with. I should give full disclosure at this point that I do not own a smart phone. The most cutting edge technology on my phone is T9. My impressions of how these phones (esp the iPhone) behave were primarily informed by the videos playing on screen.
Using specific examples, I'm going to illustrate what I mean, piece by piece.

1. Brand recognition that leads you to a specific site: I don't expect this feature to stay the same (or at least hope not), but the video illustrated a smart phone snapping shots of a coke can. After processing the image, the phone landed the user on Coke's home page. The problem with this is probably apparent. It's a marketer's dream. But if phones are programmed to take users to specific product pages, what about commentary on those products? Those become secondary, and the user must take extra steps to find that content. An implication is made by this type of user landing. It makes it hard to find relevant commentary (i.e.: KillerCoke.org. At one point, Coke bought KillerCoke.com to intercept users).
2. Barcodes and competition: I've seen the Google phone do this, where it will recognize a barcode and immediately pull up prices from nearby and online competitors. One person asked the panel about how this affects local businesses. The response was something along the lines of capitalism's goal is the end user's satisfaction. If businesses can't keep up with that, then they must come up with a more competitive strategy. Honestly, I disagree with this. Here are two thoughts.
   • There is such a thing as a loss leader. One store's prices are sometimes cheaper than its competitor because other prices within the store make up for the loss.
   • Some things have a cost that is not immediately clear. I posted a video of Ira Glass a couple of weeks ago in which he explained one of his convoluted stories. His point was that in order for us to eat better, Mexicans eat worse so we can get year-round tomatoes grown on their land. This parallels other issues as well: environmental effects, health hazards, &c.
3. Profiling by leveraging existing technology: This was by far the most disturbing. The panelists mentioned there was existing technology already used by law enforcement to capture criminals by recognizing race, gender and many other features. What if this could be leveraged online to direct users to relevant suggestions and material? We are far from being beyond the constructions of race and gender. Why is it so important for demographic questionnaires to further subdivide"'white" into "white/non-Hispanic" or "Hispanic?" The classification has more to do with U.S. immigration than universal truth; every country defines race differently.
   • In a recent example of institutionalizing race, SXSW offered a t-shirt with a white woman listening to her iPod. This was the only t-shirt they sold with any human figure on it, and instead of leaving the skin tone blank, they colored it in with a soft peach. "White" has become the new racelessness.

As far as gender and sex is concerned, which would image recognition be trying to identify? So many problems with gender and sex come from their dichotomies. Many contemporary human rights movements are trying to move beyond that. How might this technology reinforce what we're trying to leave behind?

I acknowledge that these were merely suggestions of a possible web 3.0 future and none of them might come true. However, what concerns me is the gravity of this brainstorm. At the very least, it is indicative of what's to come and should caution us about what could happen if profit and recognition spearhead innovation rather than improved service.

Comment from Jules Goins on March 23, 2009 - 1:14pm

This is a great article, Denise.

I come at the issue from the starting point of: where does the tech/programming stop and information distribution begins. From there, I can see where social/progressive info can flow (instead of/at the same time as) commercial info.

For instance, in the brand recognition example, I think one avenue to take would be to copy the front of the experience (scan a brand logo/image), but change the info given, from going to the company’s website to going to an adBuster or media literacy webpage detailing all the media, branding and corporate shenanigans for the company. This app would have to compete against the corporate app, but them’s the breaks.

For the barcode example, again, take the front end (scan barcode, find other retailers with the product) but attach it to explanations or socially/progressive associations. An example could be a Main Street backed page that shows where the same products are in locally owned stores, with each store having an explanation page on why their price might be higher and how they impact their community. Or, scan the barcode and find different products that are organic or locally grown or free trade in the same store or local stores.

For the profiling one, I am at a lost as to who would need an app that would figure out your race. To me, race is becoming a self-selection; why would you want a program to identify you instead of just picking that identification from the beginning?

This makes me think of the company that is building a Firefox-based browser for African Americans that will have pre-loaded sites of interest. Would you really want an app that would just load that up, or would you self-select that anyway? The most I could see is that the app would “recognize” that you are Black and suggest these types of items. I suppose this could be useful for first time users, but that would be it.

But what if instead of having the app round up this info and display choices, have the choices sent to you intelligently by “broadcasting” your interest? Why not have an avatar that tells others what you are interested in, and organizations or businesses that align with those interests “ping” you?

For example, you arrive in a city for business, but would like to eat during the travel at minority-owned business? You would set your avatar to “Looking for…Minority Owned Businesses”. A minority business organization would have a node or site that would broadcast out a map with their locations already pin’ed.

In all these instances, there must be a backbone organization and/or association that powers the app. One question that might arise is when does the tech innovation rest within the company that is producing the app? For example, should a nonprofit devoted to free trade products be able to piggyback development from a commercial or corporate-sponsored app that does similar things? Should the nonprofit have to build it from the ground up? Should there be an “open”, broken version offered to nonprofits? Could corporations give “in-kind” donations of the code to nonprofits?

Crap, this could be a blog post. I should totally get my own blog.

PS: Those t-shirt fools should know that the color of the multi-racial future is more a peanut-butter color than peach. Get your food/skin color combo right, people.

Comment from Denise Cheng on April 2, 2009 - 2:18pm

YAY!!!!!! Racialicious linked to my web 3.0 entry on my Wordpress blog!

Comment from Denise Cheng on April 2, 2009 - 2:38pm

You know what that totally made me think of when you brought up self-selection? I thought back to college when I took this ethnic politics class, and our professor related how a Ph.D candidate who was assigned to her was excited to encounter the Caucasian demographic option. Being from Europe, he was impressed by America's inclusiveness to the point where we would even have a box for those from the Caucas Mountains.

Hello everyone,
I hope everything is going well. The nine week classes, Introduction to Computers, Microsoft Word, and Excel are in the sixth week. We have had a run of good weather lately so attendance has gone down, hopefully it will pick up today because the weather is bad . The Green project is still going well, we had an individual, Ty Voyles from Dc Greenworks, come in and he offered to survey the roof in preparation for a Green project. I just receive a ladder so we can get on the roof, I sent him an email notification and awaiting his reply.
Something new, Lou August, my supervisor, had Amy Alexander from Comptia Educational Foundation to stop by and check out our facility. She was rather impressed; she emailed me release forms for the first group of perspective trainees. My goal is to get the individuals that are active in Wildtech certified first, and then we can find other suitable candidates who will be dedicated to completing the training. This is an online training course where each individual will have their own login and password. I talked with Amy a bit more and found that if necessary they will provide professional tutors to those in need. I thought that this would be great addition for the resident here at the shelter.

on recruiting both volunteers and students especially considering we had such a small turnout for our last student training (we hold them monthly). I’m actually just about to get a big help with recruitment in an unusual form: the weather. As the weather warms up, events pop up as well. I can attend barbeques, community events, movies, fireworks, festivals, farmers’ markets, etc. in hopes of recruiting a few students and/or volunteers. This makes my job much easier since I’ve been struggling trying to find new ways to recruit in the dead of winter when there are rarely any events happening.

On a more personal note, I’ve looked back and realized how much I’ve learned. I’ve become pretty familiar with Dreamweaver and Fireworks along with dabbling in Flash, Adobe Premiere, and Photoshop. These are areas that could never hurt to know. More importantly, looking towards the future I’ve realized I’m going to be quite sad to leave Computers4Kids. I’d like to continue to contribute even after AmeriCorps but since I don’t expect to stay in the same town, I’m not sure I’ll be able to.

In just about a month and a half I’ll be heading out to catch some sun in San Fran. I’m so excited to be headed to NTEN for the conference itself, the weather, the city, and the chance to see other VISTAs. It will be a much appreciated opportunity.

Hello VISTAs,
It’s been a while. Apologies to the automated emailer that emails me every so often. I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. Very busy week last week and I’d like to tell you all about it. On Wednesday we had our largest computer distribution to date. We distributed 18 (!!!) computers to 18 families in Lynnwood. Just like the other distribution it was a definitely a learning experience. I was impressed with how the club leader had coordinated with the Department of Social and Health Services to find the families that needed computers. It seems to me like that is the best way to get computers to those who need them. I lead the mini-trainings for the families and helped them get acquainted with their new machines. Compared to the first distribution, it seemed like many of them were excited to use their new computers and hopefully get them connected to the internet.
The next day I attended a dinner at Ruth’s Chris in downtown Seattle with Bernard Harris Jr., the first African-American in space. He’s currently on his Dream Tour and I was there to participate in an “exchange of ideas about the future of math and science education”. While at dinner I met some other people involved in science education: a few teachers from the area, the director of outreach at the Pacific Science Center, and the founder of Moontown Foundation. It was neat to hear how important science education is to everyone there and what sort of things other organizations and people are doing to keep this issue on people’s minds. I felt pretty honored to contribute my two cents about the importance of technology education. All-in-all a good discussion and cool to hear from all sorts of people involved in science education.
Last Saturday we held a computer training in Manson, WA. It was our first training with the Bridges Project of Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Although we didn’t have the turnout of trainees we were hoping for, there’s still a great potential for future trainings. I also learned that even though my Spanish is decent, there is no substitute for a native speaker. Hopefully we’ll get a better turnout next time.
March is looking to be pretty busy as well. The Puget Sound Center has scheduled a staff retreat next week, which should be fun. We’re in the process of changing our name and I think the focus of the retreat may be just that: the name change. Any brilliant ideas? Send them my way. We really need a better acronym...PSCTLT is pretty terrible. I’ll also be scheduling computer distributions, looking for training opportunities, and GSD. Thanks for reading.

Whew! This has been a busy month! Here's the rundown:
-applying to a couple of pretty big grants that will help secure the continuation and development of literacy projects with incarcerated communities in eastern kentucky
-I have an intern, Emily, who is awesome and has been working really hard. I've been supervising her and helping her get acquainted with our work
-we've switched our database from a desktop-based File Maker Pro to the online Salesforce, from which we can do more advocacy directly from the database. i've been doing a lot of research about the database, trying to learn how to best use it, and transferring our contacts (huge job!)
-we're using a new project management tool, basecamp to help us get organized. i've been keeping our projects updated on that.
-i'm working with Appalshop's IT guy to help us develop a community web forum that's connect to our site. it's not launched quite yet, but it will be a space for individuals to share their stories and engage in dialogue with us. it's been fun to sort of be managing the design end and figuring out what we need it to be able to do
-we've put our film, Up the Ridge, up on Amazon. I had to take care of all of that paperwork.
-I'm on a strategic planning team for the development of capacity at Appalshop. I'll be headed to DC in april to do a planning session with our group and some consultants, so there's been a lot of planning on this end to get ready for that.

AND we don't have water again. Another oil spill in our city water supply. Accountability at its finest.