I mentioned Beth's Blog. Her tagline is:

How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media. A place to capture and share ideas, experiment with and publish links about nonprofit technology, educational technology, adoption challenges, information design, visual thinking, creativity, ICT in the developing world, and much more.

I have no clue how she manages to put so much up. Recently she's been blogging heavily about America's Giving Challenge. But she blogs about such a range of topics. One problem I have is finding past posts on her blog, there's just so much there.

Recently she did a post My Organization's Fundraising Has Been Abducted by Aliens! (Notes from my Berkman Center Bloggers Session). I searched for it because David talking about nonprofits embracing the World Connectory project reminded me of Beth's idea of aliens taking over.

Clearly organizations are wary about aliens. She notes that The Sharing Foundation has allowed her the freedom to go out and fund raise on her own. She notes that one reason they might be willing to do that is the organization is only ten years old. But the obvious point she doesn't make is she's someone who's established her trustworthiness.

So one hurdle in collaborating with non profits is understanding the fear of aliens. Of course the obvious solution is not to be an alien.

I know that you've given considerable thought to the launching of the World Wide Connectory. And I'm just thinking aloud.

Something that I think is quite difficult is to explain the big picture of the World Wide Connectory. If your partner areas are randomly assigned, then it's one thing for the media in the Japanese cities of Ichinomiya & Konan to tell people they are partnered with Ngororero and Nyabihu in Rwanda, but another to expect the media there to write about the World Wide Connectory in the abstract. In other words to explain the Connectory in the context of their particular partnership seems easier. And it seems that's it's in the particular partnerships where enthusiasm is most needed.

A part of me would like to see articles about you, David Bale, as a sort of guru. The problem with that, and the problem of you putting out a public face on a blog for example, is the amount of time needed to attend to that public person.

One model that may have something to glean from is Global Voices. Ethan Zuckerman is very well-known on the Internet. So he does have a public personae. Global Voices was his idea primarily. Basically the idea is to aggregate and make available blogger's voices around the world. Now the cool thing is it works. Even though Zuckerman came up with the idea and writes about it, I don't think he has to deal with lots of inquiries about it on a day to day basis.

It's interesting to look at how Zuckerman got Global Voices off the ground. Something that seems essential is the institutional support that the Berkman Center at Harvard University offered. Some sort of institutional support seems as though it would be a good thing for this project.

In any case, just as you've solved the massive task of apportioning the world by making it into chunks, the kindling enthusiasm is something to chunk too. My thinking right now, this moment, changeable at any moment, is that I would begin thinking about some sort of institutional support. Perhaps the Royal Geographic Society, or some institution convenient to David. The American Friends Service Committee came to mind, but I don't know if there is a similar organization in the UK?

Few organizations would sign on with much of a promise of financial support. It's getting them to sign on in the first place that seems most important. The Berkman Center has a number of programs, lol, so even while it isn't local to you David, it's a place to consider. Also one of the off shoots of Global Voices is Rising Voices. Several participants here at Ned participate there. Basically the MO of Rising Voices is small grants, and I'm not sure that the initial phases of The World Wide Connectory really matches their objectives.

Anyway, my sense tonight is where I'd be looking to kindle some enthusiasm would be to get some institutional involvement. Figuring out a good match and then the pitch is a lot of work, but at least that's one way to chunk the effort to ignite some kindling.