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Aspiration is the global leader in the design and delivery of innovative technology gatherings for nonprofit and nongovernmental audiences. Our event philosophy and facilitation focus on maximizing collaboration and peer sharing, while making sparing use of one-to-many and several-to-many session formats such as presentations and panels. We believe the ultimate potential and power of any convening lie in the collective untapped knowledge and experience of the participants, and we strive to tap that vast store by maximizing dialog, creativity and idea exchange.
Over the past ten years, we have convened and co-organized almost 300 highly interactive events in over 40 countries across the globe, which are described below. We build agendas around user-oriented dialog that connects all the stakeholders in software design and development, and model our events to reflect the diverse and network-oriented nature of the communities we convene.
For more information on the Aspiration approach to events, see our Events Overview, as well as our paper on Creating Participatory Events as well as our Facilitation Wiki.
Aspiration Event Highlights, 2004-2012
- 2012 Nonprofit Software Development Summit, Oakland, California USA, November 2012
- Transparency and Accountability Bridging Session II, New York, New York USA, November 2012
- Mozilla Festival 2012, London, England, November 2012
- Mozilla O2 Think Big Skills Day, London, England, November 2012
- Shuttleworth Fellows Meeting, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, November 2012
- Psst Digital Security Training Sprint, Dublin, Ireland, October 2012
- Mozilla OpenNews AOP Hack Day, London, England, October 2012
- NAFMNP Annual Conference, San Francisco, California USA, October 2012
- Rose Foundation Grantee Summit Workshop, Berkeley, California USA, October 2012
- Coalition On Regional Equity Fall Convening, Sacramento, California USA, October 2012
- Code for America 2013 Cities Kick-Off, San Francisco, California USA, October 2012
- California Nonprofit Technology Festival, Fresno, California USA, September 2012
- Foundation Center CRM Roundtable, San Francisco, California USA, September 2012
- ArtSpark Online Communications Teach-In, Albuquerque, New Mexico USA, September 2012
- Grameen Foundation Management Offsite, Petaluma, CA USA, September 2012
- Mozilla Ignite Hackanooga, Chattanooga, TN USA, September 2012
- Mozilla All-Hands, Toronto, Canada, September 2012
- Radio Free Asia Projects Summit, Washington, DC USA, September 2012
- UCSF Nonprofits Event Management Teach-In, San Francisco, California USA, August 2012
- TCE BHC Zerodivide Learning Community Series, Oakland, California USA, August 2012
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Fitness Youth Summit, Boston, Massachusetts USA, August 2012
- Shareable User Roundtable, San Francisco, California USA, July 2012
- Mozilla Ignite Gigabit Hackfest, San Francisco, California USA, July 2012
- Code for America 2012 Staff Offsite, San Francisco, California USA, July 2012
- Aspiration eAdvocacy Cohort Teach-In, San Francisco, California USA, July 2012
- TorDev Summer 2012, Florence, Italy, July 2012
- Mozilla/Noisebridge Code Party, San Francisco, California USA, June 2012
- Knight Mozilla MIT OpenNews Story Hack, Boston, Massachusetts USA, June 2012
- Benetech DIAGRAM Offsite, Pacific Grove, California USA, June 2012
- Calaveras Child Care Council Workshop, Calaveras County, California USA, June 2012
- UC Berkeley Labor Center eAdvocacy Teach-In, Berkeley, California USA, June 2012
- TCE BHC Fresno Listening Tour, Fresno, California USA, June 2012
- San Francisco Department of Environment Staff Offsite, San Francisco, California USA, June 2012
- Knight Foundation Technology for Engagement Summit, Boston, Massachusetts USA, May 2012
- Guardian Project Freebird, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 2012
- Shuttleworth Fellows Meeting, Berlin, Germany, May 2012
- Mozilla NESTA Learning HackJam, London, England, May 2012
- TCE BHC Long Beach Listening Tour, Long Beach, California USA, May 2012
- TCE BHC South Sacramento Listening Tour, Sacramento, California USA, May 2012
- Joyce Foundation Staff Technology Summit, Chicago, Illinois USA, May 2012
- Code for America 2012 Fellows Offsite, Marin Headlands, California USA, May 2012
- Mozilla WebMaker Educators Teach-In, Boston, Massachusetts USA, May 2012
- CVNL of Marin Online Communications Training , San Rafael, California USA, May 2012
- ConnectingUp 2012, Sydney, Australia, May 2012
- CWA Annual Conference and Trade Show, Palm Desert, California USA, April 2012
- Internet Society Collaborative Leadership Exchange, Geneva, Switzerland, April 2012
- PICnet Soapbox Summit, Washington, DC USA, April 2012
- Neighborworks Online Communications Training, San Francisco, California USA, April 2012
- Wall Street Journal Data Transparency Weekend, New York, New York USA, April 2012
- Penguin Day San Francisco 2012, San Francisco, California USA, April 2012
- CiviCon 2012, Berkeley, California USA, April 2012
- Microsoft Innovation 4 Good, Seattle, Washington USA, March 2012
- Mozilla Ignite Hackjam, Los Angeles, California USA, March 2012
- Code for America 2012 Fellows Offsite, San Francisco, California USA, March 2012
- CANFIT Youth eAdvocacy Workshops, Richmond, California USA, March 2012
- Greenpeace Digital Mobilisation Skillshare, Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 2012
- Mozilla HTML5 Games Work Week, Toronto, Canada, February 2012
- TCE BHC Media Coordinators Convening, Los Angeles, California USA, February 2012
- Ushahidi 2012 Staff Summit, Lamu, Kenya, January 2012
- Code for America 2012 Fellows Kick-Off, Marin Headlands, California USA, January 2012
- ArtSpark Social Media Teach-In, San Francisco, California USA, January 2012
- Nonprofit Tech Teach-In, Mountain View, California USA, January 2012
Ushahidi Pirates and Ninjas Summit 2012
Lamu, Kenya, January 2012
Ushahidi, the wonderful open source mobile platform, held their 2012 Pirates and Ninjas Summit in Lamu, Kenya in a castle by the sea. We sure were grateful to be there to facilitate. The team met earlier than usual this year to get a head start on planning out timelines for 2012 and beyond, including the core platform, Crowdmap, and SwiftRiver. We spent the last night perfecting our dance moves for the event theme song, and the whole team laptop-squatted before and after the event at the amazing iHub.
- Gates Foundation ILS RFP Sprint, New York, New York USA, December 2011
- TechSoup Global CDI Staff Retreat, San Francisco, California USA, December 2011
- Inveneo Staff Summit, San Francisco, California USA, December 2011
- Allied Media Network Roundtable, Detroit, Michigan USA, December 2011
2011 Nonprofit Software Development Summit
Oakland, California, USA, November 2011
The 2011 Nonprofit Software Development Summit in Oakland, California was the best one yet. Check out the Full Event Agenda and Schedule, the final Session Slate by Thematic Area. We heartily thank all our Agenda Partners! A big love bomb of thanks to all who joined us for this high-spirited, fully-interactive festival of folks who are passionate about developing software tools to support the work of social change organizations and community activists.
2010 Nonprofit Software Development Summit
Oakland, California, USA, November 2010
The 2010 Nonprofit Software Development Summit in Oakland, California was a smashing, sold-out success! Check out the Full Event Agenda and Schedule, the final Session Slate by Thematic Area. We heartily thank all our Agenda Partners! A big love bomb of thanks to all who joined us for this high-spirited, fully-interactive festival of folks who are passionate about developing software tools to support the work of social change organizations and community activists.
TechCamp Santiago
Santiago, Chile, November 2010
We happily answered a call from the amazing folks at Personal Democracy Forum to partner on some work for The Man in Chile. In collaboration with PDF and the Tech@State team, we led design of the Spanish-language agenda for TechCamp Santiago, trained the facilitation team, and oversaw the proceedings. En Espanol, no less! The goals of the event were two-fold. First, to bring together techies and NGO stakeholders from across South America for discussion on how technology could better support NGO and community needs in the region. And second, to generate some problem statements for hacking on at the December 4th Random Hacks of Kindness events taking place around the world. Check out press coverage in Fast Company. We heartily thank PDF for getting us involved in this first-of-its-kind event, and to all our Aspiration allies across Latin America, including EducaLibre, Nunklaki Comunicações and Chile Ayuda for their amazing help lighting up participants and keeping the event facilitation real.
Drumbeat Festival - Freedom, Learning and the Web
Barcelona, Spain, November 2010
We were excited to continue our collaboration with Mozilla and the Drumbeat initiative at the first-ever Drumbeat Festival - Freedom, Learning and the Web in Barcelona. Aspiration helped with interactive facilitation and agenda design in the tents and spaces that made up the event venue. We also bottom-lining social media efforts at the event, and worked to keep things as unpredictably collaborative as we could. Among other things, we partnered with Peer 2 Peer University on the Badge Lab and co-conspired to create cool code with WebMadeMovies.
P2PU Community Workshop
Barcelona, Spain, November 2010
Fresh off the fun of the Peer 2 Peer University Open Assessment Workshop, we were delighted to partner with P2PU again to design and run their annual global community workshop. Taking place before the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival and Open Ed 2010 conference, the workshop provided a venue for the P2PU community leadership to take stock of growth and successes of the past year, while also addressing issues of governance, community, sustainability and of course learning.
Joomla! Day West 2010
San Jose, California, USA, October 2010
We continued our collaborative love affair with the Joomla! Project at Joomla! Day West 2010, held at eBay Town Hall. The event focused on building knowledge about Joomla!, a GPL-licensed content management system which is proving increasingly popular for publishing nonprofit web sites.
Open Subtitles Design Summit
New York, NY, USA, September 2010
Open Plans was the host with the most as we partnered with the Participatory Culture Foundation to convene the first-ever Open Subtitles Design Summit at the Open Plans penthouse meeting space in New York City. Held as part of the Universal Subtitles project, the event brought together a broad array of people passionate about making video subtitling technologies more open and accessible. Outcomes included a Quality Manifesto and an inventory of subtitle formats. The event wiki chronicled the proceedings, and those interested in following the project can join the Event and Best Practices discussion lists as participants follow up on the 30-day and 12-month plans generated at the Summit.
OSPCon I
USIP Headquarters, Washington, DC, USA, September 2010
In the latest chapter of our ongoing collaboration with the United States Institute of Peace, we traveled to DC to run the first-ever Open Simulation Platform Conference. The Open Simulation Platform is a new and state-of-the-art open source learning platform for teaching conflict resolution. Based on an interactive role-playing paradigm, the platform lets instructors author multi-user role-playing simulations and then run them in synchronous or asynchronous learning environments. This disruptive technology will provide an open alternative to expensive and proprietary simulation tools which have historically been the norm in the field. The event was structured as a simulation authoring sprint, with a dozen sims created over the course of 3 fun and collaborative days of work.
P2PU Open Assessment Workshop
Carnegie Foundation, Palo Alto, CA, USA, September 2010
In the fertile foothills of Palo Alto, California, we enjoyed the opportunity to partner with Peer 2 Peer University and host their first-ever Open Assessment Workshop, an intimate meeting of educators on the leading edge of open assessment. The workshop focused on how P2PU and other innovators in online education could best apply learnings from various models for assessment and reputation modeling in order to certify learners in P2PU online courses and other virtual learning domains. Event proceedings were captured on the wiki, and a mailing list was established for ongoing collaboration.
LearnPhilanthropy Symposium
Chicago, Illinois, USA, July 2010
The LearnPhilanthropy Symposium brought together invited leaders from across the country who represent the stakeholder organizations in grantmaker education and learning, ranging from the learners themselves to those who develop, provide, present, or invest in grantmaker education. We were excited to be part of the amazing team that planned and facilitated the event. The LearnPhilanthropy Initiative is bringing people together to create a stronger, more rational, and less fragmented system for grantmaker learning than exists today -- one that builds a new culture of professional development in the field, works better for the individual learners involved in philanthropy, and better for the many groups and organizations that provide learning programs and resources. Aspiration is providing technology leadership as the project continues into its second phase.
Crisis Congress at the World Bank
World Bank, Washington, DC, USA, July 2010
We journeyed to the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC to design and drive the agenda for the 2010 Crisis Congress. Aspiration's travel and participation supported by the generosity of Mozilla as a part of their Drumbeat initiative. The first-ever face-to-face meeting of all the city leads in the Crisis Commons community was a high-energy opportunity for an international network of crisis response practitioners to convene in person for the first time. Topics ranged from assessing the responses to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, to discussing collaborative technology development, open standards, volunteer engagement and project sustainability. Participant travel to The Congress was supported by the generosity of the The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Drumbeat Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 2010
Building on the event model developed at Drumbeat Berlin and Drumbeat Toronto, we headed south to Sao Paulo, epicenter to a rising and internationalist digital culture full of optimism and energy, to partake of the building Mozilla Drumbeat momentum in Brazil. Partnering with Casa da Cultura Digital, we co-designed and delivered a full-day training for 30 Drumbeat Local organizers in Brazil, followed the next day by Drumbeat Sao Paulo. Both events were facilitated in Portuguese, with translation handled masterfully by our local partners.
Drumbeat Berlin
Betahaus, Berlin, Germany, May 2010
Drumbeat is Mozilla's initiative to keep the web open for the next 100 years and beyond. Aspiration is partnering with Mozilla to lead the Drumbeat Local Event strategy. Drumbeat Berlin was an invitation to get involved for teachers, artists, lawyers, filmmakers and other everyday internet users who can do things that will make the web better, and keep it open for the long haul.
Drumbeat Toronto
The Gladstone, Toronto, Canada, April 2010
Aspiration was delighted to kick off our Drumbeat Local Event partnership with Mozilla at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. Drumbeat is Mozilla's initiative to keep the web open for the next 100 years and beyond, and local events around the world are a core component of the strategy. Check out pictures from the event.
Mozilla Jetpack for Learning Design Camp
Austin, Texas, USA, March 2010
Aspiration traveled to Austin to run a 3-day Design Camp that culminated Mozilla's Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge. Ten projects from the Challenge were invited to the Camp, which took place prior to South By Southwest Interactive 2010. Aspiration designed and led the event in partnership with Mozilla, along with Philipp Schmidt, Jetpack for Learning (JFL) Coordinator, and Brian King and Andy Edmonds, JFL Course Leads. The camp brought together developers, designers, and educators who are connecting the best ideas from open education with the coolest new open internet technologies. Design Challenge prototypes were finalized with support from the course leaders, and additional agenda time was spent discussing and working toward a shared vision for social learning in the open web. Selection and announcement of ultimate Design Challenge winner took place during Mozilla's SXSW Interactive event.
Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects - Washington DC 2010
CITI DC Headquarters, Washington, DC, February 2010
Thanks to all the folks whose positive attitudes contributed to a very fun and productive MNTP DC 2010 in spite of the winter madness. After a very successful DC debut in July 2009, Aspiration and Community IT Innovators (CITI) hosted the fourth Nonprofit Technology Project Management event in Washington DC on the 8th and 9th of February, 2010. Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects (MNTP) examined the tools and best practices that help nonprofits deliver successful technology solutions - whether it be websites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications.
2009 Nonprofit Software Development Summit
Oakland, California, November 2009
The 2009 Dev Summit was the third annual convening of people and organizations developing software tools, web applications and other technology to support social justice causes. Bringing together a diverse range of users, developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of "developing nonprofit software", the 2009 DevSummit provided an opportunity both to gather as a community and to take stock of the field, while building connections and capacity. You can check out the Agenda and session notes on the event wiki. Also, check out event pictures and tweets from the event.
Asia Source 3
Manila, Philippines, November 2009
Aspiration traveled to the Philippines to co-organize and lead the facilitation team at Asia Source 3 (AS3). The event was a six-day hands-on workshop aimed at building the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) technical skills of those working with NGOs in South and South East Asia. It took place at Silang, Cavite, Philippines from November 7th to 12th, 2009. AS3 was the third event of the Asia Source camp series. Asia Source I was held in Bangalore, India in 2005 and Asia Source II in Sukabumi, Indonesia in 2007.
Plone Video Sprint
Budapest, Hungary, November 2009
Aspiration was delighted to partner with EngageMedia and Plone4Artists to run the Plone Video Sprint at this year's Plone Conference in Budapest, Hungary. The 4-day sprint convened about 20 developers to collaborate on open video technologies on the Plone Content Management System (CMS). Aspiration led the facilitation to help the group focus on priorities. Those included building a shared road map for video on Plone, working on key technical needs such as large file handling, transcoding and BitTorrent support, improving support for FOSS video codecs, publishing and viewing content with mobile devices, bug fixing existing video related Plone collective products and improving documentation. The Sprint was supported by the generosity of the Open Society Institute.
p>Innovation on the Lake
Milan, Italy, October 2009
Aspiration was honored to co-organize Innovation on the Lake, in partnership with Common Ground. The event brought together a group of 15 Ashoka Fellows along with experienced practitioners in social media and technological innovation for an interactive weekend on Lake Como. The three-day gathering was generously supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and took place at their Bellagio Center in Northern Italy. The goal of the event was to help Ashoka grantees explore how they might apply social media strategies and tactics to support their respective projects and to consider innovative ways in which to design and introduce network production models (aka "
California eAdvocacy Training Road Show IV, September 2009: Aspiration took its open eAdvocacy capacity building program back on the road to nonprofits in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The trainings were designed to enable grassroots nonprofits to learn effective process and tactics in using social media and mobile devices in their campaigns and strategic work. The training materials have been prepared by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs, and the capacity building program is funded by the ZeroDivide, with additional support from Consumer Protection Foundation. All materials are distributed under Creative Commons license.
Regenstrief Institute Annual Conference on Open Health Methodologies
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, September 2009
Aspiration was grateful to be invited to facilitate the Eleventh Biennial Regenstrief Conference in French Lick, Indiana. The event focused on Open Health Methodologies, and invited participants to challenge the old paradigms in health methodologies, and to create the tools and and processes to engage in open collaboration. Regenstrief Institute is also home to one of Aspiration's favorite open source software projects OpenMRS. The project is a fountain of open source best practices, and the platform itself is making a profound difference in healthcare in Africa and around the globe. The agenda was collaboratively designed by Aspiration and the Regenstrief organizers, and proceedings were captured on the event wiki.
Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects - Washington DC
Washington, DC, July 2009
Aspiration and Community IT Innovators (CITI) hosted the third Nonprofit Technology Project Management event in Washington DC on the 22nd and 23rd of July. Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects DC examined the tools and best practices that help nonprofits deliver successful technology solutions - whether it be websites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications. You can check out the event agenda and the list of excellent facilitators. As with all Aspiration events, participants were encouraged to add sessions to the agenda. Also see press coverage from Projects at Work.
Open Translation Tools 2009
Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 2009
Aspiration was delighted to organize Open Translation Tools 2009 (OTT09), in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from 22-24 June, 2009. The event was followed by an Open Translation "Book Sprint" which produced a first-of-its-kind volume on tools and best practices in the field of Open Translation, "Open Translation Tools". Also see blog coverage from participants, including Ethan Zuckerman (OTT09 and Book Sprint), David Sasaki, TAUS, Engage Media, and Philippe Lacour. Both events were co-organized in partnership with FLOSSManuals.net and Translate.org.za, and generously supported by the Open Society Institute and the Ford Foundation.
Penguin Day San Francisco
San Francisco, California, April 2009
Penguin Day San Francisco brought together participants to share knowledge and discuss the state of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in nonprofit organizations, in a festive and collaborative environment designed to answer questions and curiosities. PD SF took place Saturday, April 25th, at Odd Fellows Hall. Penguin Day San Francisco was generously sponsored by Google. You can check out the agenda, and feel free to organize a Penguin Day in your town!
eAdvocacy Book Sprint
San Francisco, California, April 2009
Aspiration brought together some of our brightest and most passionate eAdvocacy allies to lay down the content for the Online Organizer's Almanac, a comprehensive volume about online advocacy, eActivism, and internet-based organizing. The almanac was written at a 5-day Book Sprint in San Francisco. The authors collaborated both in person and remotely, nonstop from a Monday morning to a Friday evening to create these materials. The content was assembled on the FLOSSManuals.net platform, a collaborative online enviroment for authoring open documentation and manuals. The authoring team included David Taylor, founder of Radical Designs and Online Director for Rainforest Action Network; Matt Holland, Director of TrueMajority; Chris Michael, coordinator with WITNESS; Arnold Chandler, policy advocate, researcher and technology strategist; Beka Economopoulos, grassroots field and online organizer; Kip Williams, Online Campaign Strategist; and Allen Gunn, Executive Director of Aspiration.
Joomla! Day Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada, April 2009
Aspiration was entirely delighted to direct the festivities at Joomla! Day Las Vegas, held at the oh-so-Elvis-compatible Montelago Village Resort off the strip. The event focused on building knowledge about Joomla!, a GPL-licensed content management system which is proving increasingly popular for publishing nonprofit web sites. J! Day Vegas brought together the Joomla! core development team, the Open Source Matters team, and almost 100 members of the Joomla! community to talk about all things Joomla!, including the upcoming 1.6 release, template and extension design, and plenty of participant-driven sessions. Aspiration employed our open licensed, collaborative event methodology to drive a fast-paced agenda focused on knowledge sharing, interactivity and community building.
Information Activism Camp
Bangalore, India, February 2009
Aspiration led development of the curricula and directed the facilitation at an intensive seven day, hands-on workshop that brought together 130 advocates at a retreat-style venue in Bangalore, India, in partnership with Tactical Technology Collective. The aim of the event was to enable advocates to creatively implement digital advocacy tactics by connecting them with others facing similar challenges, showcasing examples of successful tactics, helping them find the right solutions to meet their needs and giving them the hard-skills to implement ideas.
2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit, Oakland, California, November 2008: The 2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit was the second annual convening of people and organizations developing software tools, web applications and other technology to support social justice causes. Bringing together a diverse range of developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators, users and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of roles around "developing nonprofit software", the 2008 DevSummit provided an opportunity both to gather as a community and to take stock of the field, while building connections and capacity. The event was supported by the generosity of 2008 Dev Summit sponsors Sun, NetSquared, Google, Open Source Matters, and CiviCRM, as well as anonymous donors. To learn more about what went down, check out the Event Schedule and Sessions List.
Joomla! Day West 2008, Google Headquarters, Mountain View, California, September 2008: Aspiration was honored and delighted to direct the festivities at Joomla! Day West 2008, held at Google Headquarters. The event focused on building knowledge about Joomla!, a GPL-licensed content management system which is proving increasingly popular for publishing nonprofit web sites. The event brought together members of the Joomla! core development team, the Open Source Matters team, and almost 100 members of the Joomla! community to talk about all things Joomla!, including the upcoming 1.6 release, template and extension design, and plenty of participant-driven sessions. Aspiration employed our open licensed, collaborative event methodology to drive a fast-paced agenda focused on knowledge sharing, interactivity and community building.
California eAdvocacy Training Road Show III, June 2008: Aspiration took its open eAdvocacy capacity building program back on the road to nonprofits in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. The trainings were designed to enable grassroots nonprofits to learn effective process and tactics in using email and web in their campaigns and strategic work. The training materials have been prepared by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs, and the capacity building program is funded by the ZeroDivide. All materials are distributed under Creative Commons license.
Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects II - West Coast, Oakland, California, May 2008: The second MNTP event continued the exploration of tools and best practices that help nonprofits deliver successful technology solutions, building on the momentum of January's New York MNTP event. Agenda and session notes were captured on the MNTP wiki. Interactive sessions and demos allowed a diverse group of participants to compare processes, tools, successes, and lessons learned. Topics discussed included team collaboration, project planning, software selection, migration, and project rollout, and map out the software tools – from project management packages to collaborative communication to issue tracking and more – that support successful technology projects.
Penguin Day New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 2008: Penguin Day New Orleans was a grand success! Participants explored the potential and the role of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in nonprofit organizations, in sessions designed to answer questions and curiosities! PD New Orleans took place Saturday, March 22nd, at Basin Street Station, right next to the Easy Rider Cemetery. The event was co-organized by Aspiration, NOSI, PICnet, Joomla! and Chicago Technology Cooperative.
Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects, New York, New York, January 2008: The first-ever MNTP examined the tools and best practices that help nonprofits deliver successful technology solutions - whether websites, packaged software implementations, or custom applications. Interactive sessions and demos allowed a diverse group of participants to compare processes, tools, successes, and lessons learned. Topics discussed included team collaboration, project planning, software selection, migration, and project rollout, and map out the software tools – from project management packages to collaborative communication to issue tracking and more – that support successful technology projects.
Telecentre Leaders' Forum at GK3, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, December 2007: Aspiration was delighted to lead event design and facilitation of the TLF that took place before Global Knowledge 3 in Kuala Lumpur. The Forum provided a unique opportunity for people leading grassroots telecentre networks around the world to deepen relationships, share skills and shape the future of the telecentre.org community. The agenda was designed to help network leaders share their knowledge while seeking insights and finding answers to challenges they are facing in their work. Sessions featured projects and innovative practices, while also addressing issues of strategy and sustainability. Network leaders were able to get involved in shaping, leading and growing the telecentre.org community. All participants were encouraged to take an active role in shaping the dialog and creating concrete event outcomes. Aspiration was honored to once again be working with an amazing network of telecentre leaders and practitioners brought together by telecentre.org and IDRC.
Open Translation Tools 2007, Zagreb, Croatia, November 2007: Aspiration designed and hosted the first-ever "Open Translation Tools Convergence". This 3-day event brought together two passionate communities: those creating open source software tools to support translating open content, and those with a need for better tools to support translation of the open content they create. The event took place in Zagreb, Croatia, from 29 November to 1 December 2007, and was co-organized by Aspiration and Multimedia Institute (MI2). The event was convened to document the open source translation tool landscape, inventory "open content translation use cases", and strengthen the community of practice around open source translation tools for open content, with a particular focus on delivering value to nonprofit and non-governmental organizations (NPOs and NGOs). The agenda was collaboratively developed by participants in the time leading up to and during the gathering; also see additional event background. All event proceedings were captured on the event wiki. An ongoing discussion is taking place on the event mailing list. Open Translation Tools 2007 was supported by the generosity of the Open Society Institute, with additional support provided by TechSoup.
FLOSS Usability Sprint V, Google Campus, Mountain View, California, November 2007: Aspiration and Blue Oxen Associates co-hosted the fifth FLOSS Usability Sprint November 2-4, 2007. FLOSS Usability alums Daniel Schwartz and Jon Slenk stepped up to lead the event planning, outreach and logistics. Once again, Google graciously hosted the event at their headquarters in Mountain View. Project participants included Firefox, Chandler, and WiserEarth. "FLOSS" stands for Free/Libre/Open Source Software, and at FLOSS Usability Sprints, open source software projects partner with usability practitioners to address specific usability challenges in the software tools they are creating. Each team identifies usability outcomes they want to achieve during the course of the 3-day sprint, then collaboratively designs and implements processes for realizing the stated outcomes. Event proceedings were tracked on the FLOSS Usability Wiki.
Good to Great FOSS, Nairobi, Kenya, October 2007: At the invitation of IDRC and in partnership with PRIDE Africa, Aspiration directed the first-ever "Good to Great FOSS: Open Source Software Development in Africa" convening in Nairobi from October 24-26. The workshop provided a collaborative venue for discussion on Open Source software development in a developing country context, and was attended by a diverse group of open source projects and practitioners. The workshop goal was to facilitate an open assessment on how 'Open Source' approaches do (and do not) improve the impact of software initiatives in a developing country context. Also discussed and documented were reflections on the most successful approaches and strategy to implementing Open Source. Participating projects included AVOIR, DrumNet, OpenMRS, Mifos and TradeNet. The main objectives of this workshop were to provide an opportunity for reflection and learning about how to develop successful Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) initiatives in Africa, to promote collaboration and understanding of what it takes to have a successful FOSS project, to document community processes and tool sets of featured projects, profiling best practices required to apply FOSS expertise to add value to various technology driven IDRC-funded projects, and to provide knowledge on business process in the context of FOSS projects. An event wiki was maintained to store session notes and project profiles.
Sun Digital Divide Summit, Sun Headquarters, Menlo Park, California, October 2007: Sun invited Aspiration to design and facilitate an event that brought together senior Sun executives and technologists with Sun Foundation staff to discuss how Sun could play a role in addressing the digital divide on a global level. The day-long meeting was an extremely interactive opportunity for participants to cast long-term visions and to weigh in on what was viable and advisable in applying Sun technologies to assist those living and working in under-served and offline parts of the world.
Mott Grantee Focus Groups, Flint (MI), San Francisco, and Washington DC, September/October 2007: The Mott Foundation invited Aspiration to design and facilitate a series of convenings to engage Mott grantees on how the foundation's web site could better serve their needs. Grantees in Flint, Michigan, San Francisco, California, and Washington, DC were invited to review the current slate of online services, and offer feedback on both the value of those offerings and their ability to take advantage of the same.
YouthNoise Youth Summits, San Francisco, California / Minneapolis, Minnesota / Orlando, Florida, September-November 2007: YouthNoise invited Aspiration to design and facilitate a series of Youth Summits in cities across the U.S. The goal of each Summit in the series was to engage youth in cause-based local activism by extending the YouthNoise's "MyCauseIs" program to offline contexts. The ultimate purpose of the process was to grow the connection between youth-driven ground action and the benefits of online networking, resource building, community organizing and project management.
Making Waves, San Francisco, California, July 2007: Surdna Foundation invited Aspiration to design and facilitate a 2-day event focused on the future of public radio. The goal of the gathering was to offer practical guidance and to suggest new ideas for leaders in the field of community radio. A central question of the event was "what new technological developments now permit us to do radio differently, and make radio viable in previously unviable places?" Participants considered the role of the internet in future community radio strategies, and also discussed policy and advocacy opportunities.
eAdvocacy Jamboree 2007, Oakland, California, July 2007: Aspiration hosted our annual eAdvocacy shindig, which we lovingly named the "eAdvocacy Jamboree", from July 17-20 at Preservation Park in Oakland. The main event ran July 18-20, with a pre-day of eAdvocacy trainings on July 17 for those wanting to ramp up their eAdvocacy skills. Check out the agenda and notes from sessions. Electric Embers also hosted their third annual Most Excellent AdvocacyDev Veggie-Friendly BBQ Shindig, continuing to raise the bar for NPTech hospitality!
Penguin Day Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts, June 2007: Penguin Day Lowell went down on June 22, 2007 in Lowell, Massachusetts. Check out the Penguin Day Lowell Agenda and the Penguin Day web site. Penguin Day Lowell was co-organized by Organizers Collaborative, Aspiration, and NOSI.
iSummit Open Education Track, Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 2007: iCommons and The Shuttleworth Foundation invited Aspiration to co-design and lead facilitation of the Open Education Track at the 2007 iSummit. The track was designed as a loosely integrated collection of sessions with a common focus on how to bring the commons model and philosophy into education. Sessions used participatory, interactive methods to support a shared conversation and convergence amongst people with a passion for open education. The sessions provided a space to showcase emerging open education initiatives and to explore ways to better create, share and evolve open educational materials.
Salesforce.com Nonprofit Roadmap Summit, San Mateo, California, June 2007: Salesforce.com Foundation invited Aspiration to design and facilitate a summit meeting of developers and users of the Salesforce.com Nonprofit Template. The goals of this convening were to 1) take measure of both the successes and outstanding issues with the Nonprofit Template; 2) share perspectives on needs and priorities of the nonprofit Salesforce.com community; 3) collectively cast a vision for the future of Salesforce.com's nonprofit offerings, and 4) translate that vision into actionable initiatives, milestones, and roles rendered in the form of a product "roadmap". New and experienced implementors, developers, users, administrators, and consultants were encouraged to attend and lend their perspective to the proceedings.
Wiki Data Sharing Summit, San Francisco, California, June 2007: Aspiration convened a number of open data platforms to discuss how such technologies could better interoperate. Purple Wiki, Wagn, Wiser Earth, Craigslist Foundation, Radical Designs AMP, and Social Source Commons shared their respective data models and information architectures, and brainstormed use cases for the how the various platforms might share data.
Joomla! Core Team Summit, Mountain View, California, May 2007: Aspiration was delighted to collaborate with Google in co-organizing two events focused on the Joomla! open source content management system. Aspiration facilitated the Joomla! Core Team Summit, which brought together 20 Joomla! Core Team members. The core team is distributed across the globe, and this was the first in-person meeting in over a year. The agenda combined visioning and team-building sessions with working group meetings to move the project forward on a range of fronts, all aimed at delivering Joomla! Version 1.5. The team enjoyed the righteous hospitality of Google, and lots of extracurricular fun was had by all. Following the Core Team Summit, Joomla! Day USA West brought over 100 users, developers and service providers from across the western US together to share knowledge, meet other Joomla! community members, and collaborate in the Joomlasphere.
Penguin Day Austin, Austin, Texas, April 2007: Penguin Day Austin took place on April 28, 2007 in Austin, TX. Details of what went down are at austinpenguinday.org. Also see the wiki and agenda for the event. Penguin Day Austin was co-organized by Aspiration, EFF-Austin, Polycot, and Gmeta.
Penguin Day DC, Washington, DC, April 2007: Penguin Day took place in Washington, DC, right after the Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC). As at every Penguin Day, we explored the potential and the role of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in nonprofit organizations, in sessions designed to answer questions and curiosities! You can see the Penguin Day DC Agenda. Penguin Day DC was organized by Aspiration, PICnet and NOSI.
FLOSS Usability Sprint IV, Mountain View, California, March 2007: Aspiration and Blue Oxen Associates co-hosted the fourth FLOSS Usability Sprint March 9-11, 2007. Once again, Google graciously hosted the event at their headquarters in Mountain View. Project participants included Firefox, Drupal, WiserEarth, and Aspiration's own Social Source Commons. Event proceedings were tracked on the FLOSS Usability Wiki.
2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit, Oakland, California, February 2007: The 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit was a first-of-its-kind convening to bring together the range of developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators, users and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of roles around "developing nonprofit software". The event provided an opportunity both to gather as a community and to take stock of the field, while building connections and capacity. The Summit was hosted in Oakland, California, from February 21st to 23rd, 2007. Additional code sprints and collaborations were scheduled on the day following the event. The 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit was supported in part by the generosity of TechSoup and Google, as well as anonymous donors. See the Event Schedule and Agenda, the Agenda Overview, event background, and press release.
Asia Source II, Sukabumi, Indonesia, January 2007: Aspiration traveled to Indonesia to oversee the agenda and facilitation at Asia Source II: Free and Open Source Technologies for NGOs (Non Government Organisations) and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). The event took place in Sukabumi, near Jakarta. The Asia Source II blog provided detailed accounts of camp life. Aspiration partnered with fellow event organizers International Open Source Network, Tactical Technology Collective, InWEnt, ICT Watch, and Yayasan AirPutih. The event was targeted at those practitioners actively working with the NGO or SME sectors in South Asia and South East Asia, with focus on service and advocacy NGOs, educational organisations, NGO resource centres, community centres, health information organisations, SMEs and SME support agencies.
Telecentre Leaders' Forum in Benin, West Africa, Port Novo, Benin, West Africa, December 2006: Aspiration was delighted to lead the facilitation at the Africa Telecentre Leaders' Forum 2006. The event convened telecentre practitioners, network leaders, researchers and development partners from across Africa and took place at Centre Songhai in Port Novo in Benin from November 28 - December 2, 2006. The Africa TLF was jointly organized by Centre Songhai, IDRC, Microsoft, OKN, SDC and UNESCO under the banner of telecentre.org. The primary goals of the event were to 1) Develop a spirit of networking, learning and collaboration within the African telecentre movement; 2) Provide leaders of telecentres and other Community ICT Centres a chance to gain practical skills and learn about new services that can be used in their own networks and telecentres; 3) Search for common solutions to challenges faced by African Community ICT Centres such as sustainability, content, services, connectivity and impact, and 4) Encourage the development of concrete collaborative activities that offer solutions to these challenges. Complete information about the event can be found on the telecentre.org web site.
Open(Data)/Open[Gov], San Francisco, California, November 2006: The Sunlight Foundation invited Aspiration to design and facilitate the agenda for their first-ever Open(Data)/Open[Gov] meeting. The event, co-hosted by the Mitchell Kapor Foundation, brought together a diverse group of 60 practitioners focused on various aspects of making government data more open to citizens. The group spent the day wrestling with the challenges and opportunities facing activists and technologists working to open up and demystify publicly available data for the average web users. Sessions addressed how to create successful developer networks, how to facilitate open exchange between Congress and citizens, and a look at various APIs, microformats and possible mashups. Also addressed were gaps in existing data sets, sustainable business models for this type of work, and the unintended consequences of transparency.
FLOSS Usability Sprint III, Mountain View, California, October 2006: Google hosted the third convening of programmers, usability experts, project managers, and users gathered to discuss methodologies for improving the usability of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) and to apply those processes towards specific projects. The goals were two-fold: To improve the usability of the participating projects, and to catalyze greater shared understanding and ongoing collaboration between the usability and open source communities. Aspiration's own Social Source Commons platform was one of the focal projects, along with Drupal, HyperScope, Socialtext Open and Sustainable Civil Society.
California eAdvocacy Training Road Show II, September 2006: Aspiration took its open eAdvocacy curriculum back on the road to nonprofits in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The two-day "Web Sites For Advocacy and Community Organizing: Basics, Essentials, and Best Practices" training covers web essentials, development process, design essentials, developing web strategy, as well as best practices for privacy, and security. The trainings were designed to enable grassroots nonprofits to learn effective process and tactics in using email in their campaigns and strategic work. The training materials have been prepared by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs, and funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California. All materials are being distributed under Creative Commons license.
AdvocacyDev III, August 2006, Oakland, CA: The third annual convening of developers, organizers, and activists working with open source tools for online activism brought together passionate practitioners for discussion, collaboration, and trainings. Sessions included show and tell on all the latest platforms and tools, ScoutSeven's DotOrganize project, MobileVoter's latest cell phone organizing techniques, email deliverability, and open standards and open API's (Application Programmer Interfaces) for eAdvocacy. A core theme of the event was capacity building: what trainings, documentation and knowledge sharing are necessary to grow the pool of practitioners in the eAdvocacy space? Trainings included "Building and configuring CivicSpace/CiviCRM sites", "In-depth Drupal Module Development and Theming", "Prototyping Using Ruby on Rails", "Business Development: How to pay the bills and work on advocacy development projects", and "Usability: How Can Online Activist Tools Be Friendlier and More Accessible?" Electric Embers hosted their second annual Most Excellent AdvocacyDev Veggie-Friendly BBQ Shindig. Proceedings were logged on the AdvocacyDev wiki.
Open Curriculum Convergence, June 2006, Toronto, Canada: Aspiration provided facilitation at this convening of open curriculum practitioners. The goal of the gathering was to discuss better approaches to peer production and collaborative development in the open curriculum space. This initial meeting allowed participants to share perspectives why they care about open curriculum, to map out what's working and what's not, posit visions and plans for open curriculum efforts, and zoom in on common ideas.
California eAdvocacy Training Road Show, May 2006: Aspiration took its open eAdvocacy curriculum on the road to nonprofits all over California for a week of trainings in Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. The one-day "Email For Advocacy and Community Organizing: Basics, Essentials, and Best Practices" training covers email campaigns, how to write effective email campaign messages, tracking open rates and responses, how to manage and sustain email lists, as well as best practices for privacy, security, and avoiding spammer status. The trainings were designed to enable grassroots nonprofits to learn effective process and tactics in using email in their campaigns and strategic work. The training materials have been prepared by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs and ScoutSeven, and funded by the Community Technology Foundation of California. All materials are being distributed under Creative Commons license.
LiveWire Summit, San Francisco, California, April 2006: This two-day meeting, convened in partnership with SourceWatch , brought together a broad range of strategists, organizers and implementors working in online strategy and advocacy. Participants included staff and allies from SourceWatch, True Majority, Radical Designs, Democracy in Action, CitizenSpeak, Scout Seven, Greenpeace, Ruckus Society, SEIU, and others who met to discuss how to better get online activism tools into the hands of local activists. A range of capacity building concepts were brainstormed and discussed, from documentation to mentoring to turnkey services.
Shuttleworth Foundation Kusasa Project Sprint, London, England, April 2006: Aspiration designed the agenda and facilitated this convening of educators and technologists meeting to discuss new approaches to teaching analytical skills through computer programming in the South African educational context. The goal was to consider how to develop a self taught, peer mentored program, which can be effectively evaluated without expert supervision, and to provide tools for analysis that will be general useful across the range of disciplines being taught at any given age. A range of leading thinkers, including Alan Kay, Guido Van Rossum, and Mark Shuttleworth, and a range of practitioners in computer software instruction met for 2 days to collaboratively advise the Foundation on project scope and direction.
Penguin Day Seattle, March 2006: Organized in partnership with PICnet, PD Seattle was the biggest and best Penguin Day yet, with almost 90 participants joining in the fun to discuss Free and Open Source Software for nonprofits. Sessions covered a range of topics including Introduction to Free and Open Source Software, Content Management System (CMS) Crash Courses on Plone,Joomla, and Drupal, Hardware Recycling, Business Models for FOSS developers and providers, Creative Commons And Open Content, Online Advocacy, GIS, Helping Techies and Non-Techies Communicate and Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities.
Innovation Funders Network Summit, San Francisco, California, January 2006: The Innovation Funders Network 2006 Summit convened funders, invited affiliate organizations and thought leaders from around the world at Wharton West in San Francisco to explore the role of innovation and networks in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Over 100 participants, coming from a range of perspectives and experiences, discussed challenges and opportunities across the fast-changing landscape of innovation funding. Aspiration designed the agenda, facilitated and co-hosted the event.
Africa Source II, Uganda, January 2006: Africa Source II was convened by the Tactical Technology Collective in partnership with Aspiration and other technology-focused NGOs and organizations. Aspiration managed the agenda and facilitator team, and led facilitation of the event. The eight day hands-on workshop aimed at building the technical skills of those working with and within NGOs on the continent, focusing on how technology, in particular Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) can be integrated into the project work of NGO's. Over 130 NGO Support Professionals and a handful of field leaders from Africa, Europe, North America and Asia explored how technology can best serve the non-profit sector in Africa both in terms of access and content.
Telecentre.org Leaders Forum at WSIS, Tunis, Tunisia, November 2005: The Telecentre Leaders Forum (see video) brought together those working in telecentres, running telecentre networks, and doing telecentre research, and provided a venue for people from across the globe with a passion for grassroots technology to connect, share stories and swap practical ideas. Aspiration led facilitation across four days of collaborative workshops, following an agenda co-designed with Telecentre.org and their partner network.
Penguin Day San Antonio, November 2005: Aspiration went to Texas to partner with SalsaNet, Ployglot Consulting, and Urban 15 in facilitating discussion on the most inexpensive, flexible technologies to support Texas Nonprofits efforts, how Open Source solutions can be more secure, how to get support for Open Source solutions, and how to find the best Open Source applications.
California Community Wireless Summit, San Diego, California, October 2005: Aspiration designed the agenda and facilitated this event, where participants explored strategies for community participation in municipal projects and creating community demand for wireless services through education and outreach. The Summit brought together representatives from community based organizations, activists, community technology and wireless experts, community Internet policy advocates, and local policymakers.Our objective is to build a statewide network of advocates working to bring Internet access and resources to all Californians.
MobileActive Convergence, Toronto, Canada, September 2005: Aspiration and Green Media Toolshed convened a working session of global activists, communications staff, technology experts, and foundation staff to mine a wide variety of experience, expertise and vision. The goal of the MobileActive was to explore the power of the cell phone as an organizing and campaign communication tool with leading activists from all over the world; to share knowledge, stories, and strategies; and accelerate the use of cell phones as a successful tool in campaigns, human rights efforts and field organizing. Activists from across the world including Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, India, the Ukraine, and the Americas participated in the first-of-its-kind event.
Network Facilitation Training Convergence, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 2005: At the invitation of Bellanet's Harambee project, Aspiration offered a second training in our event facilitation methodology for nonprofit technology gatherings. Participants explored how the Aspiration approach can be used to build or strengthen collaborative networks, and to lay the foundation for concrete online and offline post-event collaboration, including the effective use of wikis and other online tools used to produce documentation in real time during face to face events. The workshops also provided a springboard for planning subsequent Harambee events via the Aspiration process.
FLOSS Usability Sprint II: Extreme Usability, San Francisco, California, August 2005: brought together programmers, usability experts, project managers, and users to prototype new methodologies for improving the usability of Free/Libre Open Source Software (F/LOSS) and to apply those processes towards specific software projects. Aspiration's own Social Source Commons platform was one of the focal projects, along with the Chandler project, CiviCRM, and others.
AdvocacyDev II, Oakland, California, July 2005: the second convening of practitioners of open source tools for online advocacy took on an international flavor, with participants traveling from Asia and Europe to join in the festivities. Sessions included Mapping the State of F/OSS eAdvocacy Software, discussing F/OSS Database Tools for NPOs and NGOs, Introducing Aspiration's eAdvocacy Training Curriculum, Open Database Standards, Hacktivism, Inter-Cultural Issues, and a range of peer-to-peer skillshares.
Facilitation for Networks Training Convergence, Ottowa, Canada, June 2005: At the invitation of IDRC and Telecentre.org, Aspiration trained other facilitators in key elements of the event facilitation methodology that Aspiration has developed for nonprofit technology gatherings such as Developer Convergences, sprints, Source Camps, and Penguin Days. Particular emphasis was placed on exploring how the Aspiration approach can be used to build or strengthen collaborative networks, and to lay the foundation for concrete online and offline post-event collaboration, through the effective use of wikis and other online tools used to produce documentation in real time during face to face events. The workshops also provided a springboard for telecentre.org and IDRC planning processes and the development of a 'facilitation for networks' methodology which has since been used to organize other events.
Penguin Day New York, May 2005: PD in the Big Apple was big fun, with a diverse group of participants and facilitators. Co-organized by Aspiration in partnership with the LINC Project of the Welfare Law Center and United Way of New York City, the event included sessions on Introduction to Free and Open Source Software for Nonprofits, Local resources and who's-who in the New York Free/Open Source community, e-Advocacy platforms and best practices, Selecting an operating system, and Free and Open Source migration strategies, and a spirited "Speed Geeking" extravaganza.
Penguin Day San Francisco Bay Area, April 2005: The first west coast Penguin Day, co-organized by Aspiration and CompuMentor, was held in Oakland and brought nonprofit staff, eRiders, and open source practitioners and developers together for fun, dialog and skill-sharing. A particular focus of this Penguin Day was the role free and open source software plays in hardware recycling, with sessions offered by FreeGeek, Technology Rescue, and Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation (HOSEF). Other sessions addressed CRM solutions for nonprofits, eAdvocacy tools, open content, and yet another round of madcap "Speed Geeking"
Penguin Day Chicago, March 2005: Following on the heels of the 2005 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), Penguin Day Chicago was was co-organized by Aspiration with NPOTechs and Teaming for Technology Chicago. Sessions included Introduction to Free and Open Source Software for Nonprofits, Local resources and who's-who in the Chicago Free/Open Source community, e-Advocacy platforms and best practices, Selecting an operating system, and Free and Open Source migration strategies, as well as the ever-popular "Speed Geeking"
FLOSS Usability Sprint I, San Francisco, California, February 2005: The first-ever FLOSS Usability Sprint brought together programmers, usability experts, project managers, and users to discuss methodologies for improving the usability of Free/Libre Open Source Software (F/LOSS) and to apply those processes towards specific software projects. The goals of the sprint will focus on building community between these groups and focusing efforts on non-profit-focused F/LOSS projects. The event surveyed and designed methodologies for improving the usability of open source software and apply the learnings to real software projects.
Asia Source I, Bangalore, India, January 2005: Asia Source I was convened by the Tactical Technology Collective in partnership with Mahiti.org and Aspiration. Aspiration managed design of the agenda, and led facilitation of the event, which was aimed at building the technical skills of those working with NGOs in South and South East Asia. The event brought together nearly 100 NGOs and NGO technology support professionals working at the local level across the region, to act as a focal point in increasing the practical uptake of FOSS desktop and tools amongst the voluntary sector in South and South East Asia.
Africa Developer Road Show, Cape Town, South Africa, December 2004: The first FLOSS Developer Roadshow convened African software developers to meet one another, share skills and build knowledge, while designing and implementing appropriate tools for civil society. The event was aimed at meeting sustainable development needs while enhancing the pool of appropriate software skills in the regions. Participants left with with a better understanding of the potential and reality of FLOSS for civil society, new expertise and an enhanced network of contacts and potential collaborators. Aspiration co-designed the agenda and facilitated the event, which was hosted by CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research).
LocalisationDev I, Warsaw, Poland, November 2004: in partnership with Tactical Tech Collective, Aspiration convened an Internationalization and Localization Convergence with a geographically diverse cast of developers and intermediaries working on a range of internationalization and localization projects. The convergence served both to strengthen the social and technical links between various localization projects as well as to map out aggregated documentation and best practices for designing and documenting NGO software to be deployed in a range of locales.
ICT and Human Rights, Boston, Massachusetts, November 2004: Aspiration supported and facilitated this colloquium on (www.ict-humanrights.org) in in partnerships with Human Rights Education Associates and Benetech that brought human rights program and IT staff together for a three-day knowledge sharing and hands-on training event on using information technology in human rights work. Collective knowledge was documented at wiki.ict-humanrights.org, and the material was being used to author a human rights technology strategy paper.
APC ActionApps Developer Camp, Cape Town, South Africa, October 2004: Aspiration designed the agenda and facilitated this convergence of developer and users of the ActionApps web publishing platform, who traveled from all over the world to discuss the vision and direction for the platform, and plan for capacity building and sustainability of their open source community. Focus areas including training materials development, support for online advocacy features, multi-lingual web sites, and hands-on skillshares. The content management system (CMS) landscape was mapped and discussed, and user survey results were presented.
SMS Sprint, Oakland, California, October 2004: another outcome of the first Advocacy Developers Convergence, this event brought together activists and SMS experts to work on building applications to take advantage of cell phone text messaging in various advocacy contexts. The sprint produced a working "SMS Blaster" capable of sending very large numbers of messages to subscribed cell phones. The blaster was used in various Get Out The Vote (GOTV) and elections monitoring projects around the US elections. In addition, substantial new content was posted for NGO use at wiki.advocacydev.org.
Wireless 4 Development Conference, Djursland, Denmark, September 2004: Aspiration provided facilitation and agenda design at this event, hosted by wire.less.dk and held to discuss the potential for wireless community networking in developing countries, as well as to introduce practitioners from around the world to one another. Proceedings were logged on an Aspiration-designed wiki.
VoIP Developer Sprint, Oakland, California, August 2004: a direct outcome of the first Advocacy Developers Convergence, this event convened software developers passionate about investigating the potential nonprofit applications for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The VoIP sprint produced an "info-line" application built on top of the Asterisk server platform. The tool allows organizations to set up dial-in information lines for campaigning and event organizing, and has already seen substantial use.
Network Funding Models Conference, Seattle, Washington, June 2004: Aspiration facilitated and designed the agenda for Green Media Toolshed's convening of network strategists, foundations and funders curious to discuss what it means to fund networks of organizations instead of individual entities. Underwritten by the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the event was a two-day strategy roundtable to identify essential elements of network development to support movement building.
AdvocacyDev I, San Francisco, California, June 2004: The first Advocacy Developers Convergence brought together developers and allies focused on internet advocacy software. The convergence yielded a valuable and popular web resource (wiki.advocacydev.org) that continues to grow in popularity, has led several projects to merge efforts and share code, and has generated several new projects, including an open database initiative for shared data standards, an Open Source Almanac for nonprofits, a localization working group, and applications from the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and SMS (Short Message Services) sprint events.
Penguin Day Philadelphia, March 2004: Penguin Days were established with the intent to bring together open source developers and technology support staff for nonprofits. The first in March 2004 began an important conversation about the challenges and opportunities extant in realizing the promise of free and open source software in the nonprofit sector. The event spawned a host of similar gatherings in Portland (Oregon), London, Toronto, San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Seattle. Aspiration created replicable, self-documenting materials for local organizations to run the events, with the intention of adapting the process and content model to other types of events.
Aspiration has also presented and facilitated tracks or sessions at the following events:
- PolicyLink Regional Equity Summit, March 2008, New Orleans, Louisiana
- GK3, December 2007, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Oracle OpenWorld "No Slide Zone", November 2007, San Francisco, California
- Bay Area Alliance, October 2007, San Francisco, California
- Craigslist Foundation Bootcamp, August 2007, Berkeley, California
- Copwatch National Conference, July 2007, Oakland, California
- NetSquared, May 2007, San Jose, California,
- Housing California, April 2007, Sacramento California
- e-STAS, March 2007, Seville, Spain
- CTCNet 2006, July 2006, Washington, DC
- iCommons Summit 2006, June 2006, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Net2 Conference, May 2006, San Jose, California
- GKP International Partners Forum and Members Meeting, May 2006, Colombo, Sri Lanka
- NTC 2006, March 2006, Seattle, Washington
- re:Activism, October 2005, Budapest, Hungary
- NTC 2005, March 2005, Chicago, Illinois
- TPOSSCON (Trans-Pacific Open Source Conference), January 2005, Waikiki, Hawaii
- ICOS (International Conference on Open Source), December 2004, Taipei, Taiwan
- LinuxWorld, August 2004, San Francisco, California
- OSCON, July 2004, Portland, Oregon


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kind png
You can get acquainted with the presented collection of kind png to choose suitable ideas for your business or design interface.
Today we have 10 cliparts and vectors for this category.
Advice on how to make a good presentation
Use informative graphics
Graphics are used as additional illustration to any text in a presentation let's get to see some of the basics when using graphics to support our content
- Always experiment then pick the best tools for your design
- Make sure you choose the right color for the graphics you are using in order for them to harmonize with the content of the slide or to call attention in the best possible way.
- Learn from graphic designers. There are tons of videos on YouTube about this. If you feel you are more interested, you can also enrol in a graphic design course.
- Work with all sorts of fonts to see what goes best with what, in terms of an overall slide design

subset: commoncrawl


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This is for all members who apply for Professional Membership. Please do not start a thread asking about how long it takes to become a professional member.
Rule 1 of Professional Membership: Never talk about Professional Membership!
(Please, don't start threads that we on the Membership Committee may not see.
Always contact the Membership Committee about professional membership)
All inquiries for professional membership need to be sent to; firstname.lastname@example.com
Top Ten Reasons for Delayed Applications;
The bottom line is that the less information that we on the Membership receive from applicants, the more difficult it is to process that application.
- Applicant cannot read or comprehend form and does not have enough posts. IF YOU DON'T HAVE AT LEAST 15 POSTS; DO NOT SEND US AN APPLICATION!
- Applicant cannot read or comprehend form and does not send anything verifying his or her qualifications. WE ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU VERIFY TO US. JUST TELLING US YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL IS NOT VERIFICATION!
- Applicant cannot read or comprehend form and does not qualify for forum applying for. IF YOU ARE NOT INVOLVED WITH BUSINESS AND/OR MARKETING, DO NOT APPLY FOR IT!
- Applicant has nothing in profile indicating they are HVAC professional. NO ONE IS ANONYMOUS ANY MORE: FILL OUT THE DARNED PROFILE!
- Applicant's posts have nothing to do with their being an HVAC professional. YOUR POSTS ARE ONE WAY FOR US TO DETERMINE IF YOU ARE AN HVAC PROFESSIONAL OR NOT; TYPE SOMETHING HVAC SOUNDING!
- Applicant sends information that cannot be verified. NAMES OF COMPANIES THAT DON'T LEGALLY EXIST OR PHONE NUMBERS THAT ARE UNLISTED ARE NO HELP TO US BUT TAKE UP A LOT OF OUR TIME!
- Applicant qualified for Professional Technical but not Business and Marketing checks for B&M anyway. IF YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED FOR BUSINESS AND MARKETING, DON'T CHECK THAT BOX. IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT GOING INTO BUSINESS, YOU DO NOT QUALIFY fOR ACTUALLY BEING IN BUSINESS!
- Applicant does not fill out form information. IS IT REALLY THAT DIFFICULT TO JUST FILL IN THE BLANKS?
- Applicant denied access keeps sending emails arguing about how professional they are without verification of qualification. A DEFINITION FOR INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER EXPECTING A DIFFERENT RESULT!
- Applicants have made no posts. POSTING IS ESSENTIAL TO THE PROCESS. IF YOU CANNOT POST, YOU CANNOT BE A PROFESSIONAL MEMBER!
We on the Membership Committee rely solely on the information provided by the applicant. The more we have to search for an applicants proof of professionalism, the longer each application takes and the longer it takes to process applications.
*The Membership Committee does not use any information sent to us for any purpose other then to verify the applicant's professional status. All information is deleted as soon as an applicant's status has been determined.* PLEASE! Let us know who you are, who you work for and where in the world you are located so we can more easily determine your professionalism.
The sole purpose of the Membership Committee is to get as many HVAC professionals into the professional forums as fast as possible....without allowing non-professionals access to our conversations.
I really hope this helps, Robin (RoBoTeq)


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Hello Planet GNOME readers and GNOME community members,
The board of directors has agreed that from now on, to be part of Planet GNOME, it is mandatory to be a member of the GNOME Foundation. In three weeks we will proceed to remove all blogs from people that are not foundation members. This policy change means a few things:
- If your blog is in Planet GNOME and you are not a member of the GNOME Foundation, you have three weeks to become a member!
- New planets additions from now on will take this policy into account.
- This doesn't mean that your blog automatically gets into Planet GNOME if you are a member, the same blog review process will be applied to requests for addition.
- There will be a slight exception with GSoC/GOPW members we will encourage them to join in the meantime, but being able to use the planet to report progress to the community is an important part of their work as interns.
- We will delete the feed syndication from the planet if your membership expires.
The rationale behind this new policy is simple, we want to increase the value of becoming a foundation member. Think of this as the blogging equivalent of rocking an @gnome.org e-mail address.
Update: I have clarified the language behind the deletion of the feed. Someone in the comments thought I was talking about removing their blogs from blogs.gnome.org. This is not the case, if your membership expires your feed won't show up in the Planet, but that's it, if you have a blog in blogs.gnome.org none of your posts will be deleted.
Foundationally yours,
the Planet GNOME editors team.


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Keeping you safe — and ensuring your ability to make academic progress — are top priorities for NYU. As you prepare to spend the semester away from your home campus, we wanted to share with you some tips and best practices that will help to do so.
The University continuously monitors events in cities and countries around the globe, and adjusts security precautions, as necessary, based on the local environment. Should an urgent situation arise, the University maintains an emergency notification system, which delivers alerts via text message and email.
- Register your travel with your respective embassy or consulate – both while you are at your study away location, and anywhere else your travel plans may take you.
- Make sure to have a mobile phone with you whenever you're away from the site – and be sure to keep it charged!
- If you are planning on traveling away from your site – even if only for a night — please be sure to register your trip in NYU Traveler, and let a member of your local site staff know.
- Please be sure that your site staff has a local contact phone number for you.
- Do your homework before you travel away from your site. Check for potential travel warnings for cities and countries to which you are thinking about traveling (the US State Department website is a good place to start.
- Always be fully aware of your surroundings. Avoid at-risk areas (in many cities, this could include locations that are very popular with tourists). And if during your travels you ever find yourself in a situation in which you feel uncomfortable, trust your instincts and leave.
- Whenever possible, travel in groups. Whether you're going out for an evening, or are planning to explore the region (or beyond), go with friends!
- If you don't know the person entering a building right after you, make sure they have their own ID — don't allow "piggy-backing" at entrances to NYU academic centers and residence halls.
- If you ever have a question or concern about your safety – either at your site, or while you are traveling – either check with your local site staff, or call the NYU Public Safety Command Center (open 24/7) at +1.212.998.2222.
- Should you ever feel anxious or upset during your time away, or you simply want to have someone to speak to, please call the Wellness Exchange (24/7). You can always reach them at +1.212.443.9999, but many sites also have local numbers, which can be found here.
For more safety tips, visit: http://www.nyu.edu/shanghai/student-life/safety.html


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Upper St. Clair entrepreneur Michael Carlow pleads guilty in tax case
A high-profile Pittsburgh entrepreneur who once ripped off PNC Bank for more than $31 million in a check-kiting scheme has pleaded guilty to obstructing efforts by the Internal Revenue Service to collect more than $6.2 million in unpaid taxes and other penalties stemming from the earlier case.
Michael Carlow, 61, of Upper St. Clair, on Friday admitted to buying his way into several small businesses and then arranging to have his girlfriend paid, either as a principle or consultant, with the understanding that the money would be passed on to him.
Federal prosecutors said Carlow did that to shield his income from the IRS who wanted to seize it to repay the previous $6.2 million debt.
Carlow faces as up to three years in prison when he's sentenced Oct. 4. His defense lawyer said he still must make arrangements to pay his IRS debts.


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4D FlashCreate Professional Edition 5.1
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Holy Cross Germantown Hospital
- 1-800-777-7904 (toll free)
- No emergency services
- No urgent care services
- No after-hours services
- No pharmacy services
About this facility
To find:
• a Kaiser Permanente provider's office hours, search our facility directory
• affiliated providers' office hours, call their offices directly
The information in this online directory is updated periodically. The availability of physicians, hospitals, providers, and services may change.
Kaiser Permanente uses the same quality, member experience, or cost-related measures to select practitioners and facilities in Marketplace Silver-tier plans as it does for all other Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (KFHP) products and lines of business. The measures may include, but are not limited to, HEDIS/CAHPS performance, member/patient complaints, patient safety scores, hospital quality measures, and geographic need. Members enrolled in KFHP Marketplace plans have access to all professional, institutional and ancillary health care providers who participate in KFHP plans' contracted provider network, in accordance with the terms of the members' KFHP plan of coverage. All Kaiser Permanente Medical Group physicians and network physicians are subject to the same quality review processes and certifications.
Kaiser Permanente uses the same geographic distribution consideration to select hospitals in Marketplace plans as it does for all other Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (KFHP) products and lines of business.
Information about a practitioner is provided to us by the practitioner, or by the credentialing board. If you have questions, please contact Member Services. You can also call the Maryland Board of Physicians at (800) 492-6836, the Virginia Department of Health Professions at (804) 662-9900, or the Washington, D. C., Department of Health at (202) 671-5000.


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Revisit Your Childhood
September 24,1991, was the day that he left our land, but don't be
bland. Turn that frown upside down and celebrate, for
goodness sake! Of course, I am talking about Theodor
Geisel. Who? Dr. Seuss, you silly goose.
Here are a few simple ways we can share and celebrate the
life of Dr. Seuss:
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are
The Lorax
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss


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Phone: 03 9903 6880
Link: mailexchangehotel.com.au
Cuisine: Modern Australian
Overall Impression: 5.5/10
Linguini - prawns with chilli, rocket and extra virgin olive oilThe pasta was simple and enjoyable.
Baked Salmon - Atlantic salmon fillet topped with miso paste and served with Asian greens and bad boy chips
I asked for more vegetables instead of chips and the restaurant kindly obliged. My salmon was perfectly cooked and the vegetables were flavoursome.
It's a little rough around the edges but Mail Exchange Hotel certainly meets expectations. The ambience is enjoyably relaxed and the food arrives promptly. The food itself is pleasant and they are certainly accomodating and adaptable with patrons making slight changes to what is on the menu.


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We have had numerous questions how to assemble the Moscart grenade type, such as those made by King Arms and Mosquito Molds. Admittedly, it can be tricky! There is a tool available to make things easier, but it is not absolutely necessary if you follow these instructions. When you disassemble the shell, please work on a flat clean surface with no other parts to confuse you. There will be eight (8) ball bearings inside, so be careful not to lose them. One trick is to open the shell working inside a clear plastic bag. In case you managed to lose them already, they are standard 3 mm steel ball bearings.
The grenade will leak gas instantly when refilled, if the main valve is not reset properly before filling. After shooting the grenade, you may reset the main valve simply by pressing in the mock primer until you hear a click. If a click is not heard, it is possible that the O-ring has jumped out of its groove. Another reset-technique is to gradually loosen the casing, until the primer clicks up. Then, tighten the grenade again. (Do note that opening it too much will cause the bearings to fall out.)


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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters file
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, pictured in January at the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington, has taken on numerous dietary habits he considers unhealthy.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who banned 16-ounce sodas, trans fats in restaurants and public smoking — has a new bug in his ear: young people who play their music too loud through their headphones.
The city's spending a quarter-million dollars to launch a Hearing Loss Prevention Media Campaign warning young people through social media and focus groups about the risk of losing their hearing, The New York Post reported Wednesday.
"With public and private support, a public education campaign is being developed to raise awareness about safe use of personal music players ... and risks of loud and long listening," Nancy Clark, the city Health Department's assistant commissioner of environmental disease prevention, told The Post.
Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reported in 2010 that nearly 1 in 5 Americans ages 12 to 19 have lost some of their hearing.
Read the top health news on NBCNews.com
The researchers didn't single out portable music devices, but cited a 2010 Australian study that linked them with a 70 percent increased risk of hearing loss in children.
Bloomberg has won a reputation for trying to ban things he considers unhealthy. Just last month, he proposed banning Styrofoam because it clogs landfills and might be harmful.
Other things and activities Bloomberg has banned since he was elected in 2001 include:
- Smoking in bars and restaurants.
- Trans fats, the artificial fats used to cook french fries and other greasy treats, which doctors consider the most dangerous saturated fat.
- Menu boards that don't include calorie counts.
- And most famously, soft drinks larger than 16 ounces.
Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.
Q&A: How loud is too loud?


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Hi, I'm Andrew, and I've been teaching myself Spanish for almost four years now. I've been doing this entirely on my own and it's been a huge learning experience, the fruits of which I enjoy sharing with other people who are passionate about teaching themselves a new language.
Right now, I'm going to cover one of my favorite techniques that I picked up from a friend of mine years ago and have sort of modified and improved. He used this method to get fluent in Spanish using only what are called "telenovelas" (soap operas) in Spanish.
This technique can be applied to any TV show, movie, or music video that you can find a script, transcript, or subtitles for (that would be most of them, by the way – sometimes you really have to look, but typically you can find something to go off of) in any language.
My friend learned to speak fluent Spanish with a perfect Mexican accent in about a year while he was working as a line cook at an Applebees here in Texas (he decided to do this because everyone else in the kitchen was a native Spanish speaker with very limited English skills), and the method he used is… interesting, funny, and just plain ingenious all at the same time.
Please keep in mind the fact that this can be applied to any language in many different ways (you could modify it and use it to teach your children a language through children's songs that you can find the lyrics or subtitles to, or children's TV shows that you can find the script or subtitles for, etc.).
He had DirectTV and what he would do is choose a telenovela (soap opera) on Univision and record a one hour episode of it on Tivo. He would play it back and, pausing every few seconds, write down verbatim one or two minutes worth of dialogue. Then, he would go through those two or three paragraphs of dialogue, turn them into his 'lesson' for the day, and learn absolutely everything he needed to completely understand what was being said – definitions, grammar, idioms, expressions, everything.
He would try saying the lines himself, then immediately replay the character saying the line, then rewind, say it again, replay. He would keep this up until he sounded exactly like the actor (and consequently had excellent pronunciation after a short period of time).
Normally, these 2-3 paragraphs of dialogue would take him about a day to fully learn (he spent an hour or two in the evening working on this), but occasionally it would take him a couple of days because although he could look up definitions and grammar online, frequently he would need to consult with a native speaker either via a language learning forum online or someone he knew from work.
The really important point here is that he would learn absolutely everything he could about those few sentences to the point of memorization: definitions, verb conjugations, tone, pronunciation (very important if you want to sound like a native speaker – what better way to do that than to imitate them repeatedly until you sound just like them?), etc.
He would initially get through one 30 minute show every few weeks but quickly accelerated because he was learning so much just from those few paragraphs (a few paragraphs of spoken dialogue will contain a lot of a language's grammar and syntax). After about a year of this he was completely fluent which, when you think about just how much conversational Spanish he was exposed to and forced himself to learn and speak, isn't really surprising. Persistence, persistence, persistence.
The telenovelas, along with movies, are the best. If you don't want to use soap operas or your language doesn't have them, then you want whatever the equivalent would be: a TV show with lots of normal, natural, colloquial dialogue between the characters so you learn the kind of Spanish people use throughout their everyday lives.
The Spanish in telenovelas is colloquial, but not extremely formal, technical, obscure, or difficult; plus there's a wide variety of characters who you would actually encounter if you were living in a Spanish-speaking country who speak Spanish at very different levels and require widely differing types of Spanish because of the level of respect they're due because of their social status: children, mechanics, housewives, doctors, criminals, and beggars. You'll learn how to speak with all of those people and the various common terms used with and around them (you'll learn the words for "vaccination", "homework", "medium-rare", "toy car", "carburetor", etc.) .
Where to Find Scripts, Subtitles, and Transcripts
I've actually provided translations (my own) for various songs because I use music videos, such as Shakira's Ojos Así, to teach people Spanish, and even scripts for certain Spanish-language movies that I like (such as Maria Full of Grace, which I also found an English translation of the script for) on my site, How to Learn Spanish. If you're learning Spanish or interested, please come on over and check it out.
The easiest way to find a script is to just Google "(movie title) script" or "(movie title) English script" and see what comes up. If you can get an English translation of the script in addition to the original script and/or subtitles so that you've got an in-context translation, that's even better.
If that doesn't immediately turn it up, three great sites to check with are The Internet Movie Script Database, Drew's Script-O-Rama (go to the menu at the bottom under the picture – yes, I know, his site design isn't the best), and Simply Scripts. Not only can you find movie scripts, but you can often find scripts for TV shows as well.
There are a ton of different song lyrics sites and I swear I've used a different one for each song it seems, so frankly the best way to find lyrics for a particular song is to just Google "(song name) lyrics", you'll almost always be able to find them. To get the English translation (which you should be able to find the majority of the time) just Google "(song name) English translation."
I really hope this will be of as much help to you as it was to me. Please let me know what you think in the comments and feel free to ask any questions you might have.
I've been passionate about learning languages since I was 12 and have previously worked on (primarily on my own) French, Russian, and Swedish, and am currently teaching myself Spanish and Japanese. I run a site on how to learn spanish where I share the various techniques and resources I've discovered over the years that you can use to learn Spanish on your own. The idea behind the site is to help people who want to teach themselves the language entirely on their own from home without resorting to formal classes and to focus on using resources that are available online for free. Please come by and check it out.
This website is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as a replacement or substitute for any professional financial, medical, legal, or other advice. By using this website, you signify your agreement to all terms, conditions and notices contained or referenced in our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms and conditions, please do not use this website.


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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN River Falls
Experience Scotland! Set in the historic Dalkeith House, or "Palace" as the locals refer to it, and just six miles from Edinburgh, Experience Scotland provides a rich, cultural immersion with the comfort and safety of an organized and well-staffed international learning community.
Are you one of our over 4,300 student, staff or faculty alums? Visit our alumni page!


text: Quantico Tactical Hires Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising Dan Gaddis Brings 25-years of Executive Experience in Merchandising, Product Management and Development to Quantico Tactical ABERDEEN, NC (August 2013) - Quantico Tactical, a leader in sourcing and supplying performance-proven apparel, equipment and firearms to law enforcement, government agencies, military and private citizens, announces the new position of Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising to be held by Dan Gaddis, a highly skilled marketing and merchandising executive. Gaddis will spearhead the new Marketing and Merchandising division of Quantico Tactical, providing expertise in direct marketing, branding, product development, product management, vendor relations and retail strategies. Gaddis has held executive positions where he successfully led teams to complete company initiatives, increased sales and cut excess waste. He has demonstrated leadership and resourcefulness and has earned a solid reputation in the Military, Law Enforcement, Outdoor and Automotive Aftermarket industries. Gaddis has held various executive positions; including Vice President of Merchandising at U.S. Cavalry and Director of Merchandising at the Eastwood Company. Gaddis served as a Combat Arms Captain in the U.S. Army Reserve and has served as a Police Reserve Officer, Volunteer Fire Police Captain and is currently a Volunteer Fire Fighter for the Puppy Creek Fire Department in Raeford, NC. "Dan brings so much to the table for Quantico Tactical. Not only is his reputation sterling , but the skills he brings for merchandising, vendor relations, catalog, direct marketing, product development and brand management will greatly enhance our current and future strategies." David Hensley, CEO of Quantico Tactical added. "Dan is also an avid firearms enthusiast with a personal working knowledge of our military, police and fire markets. He brings not only his incredible skill set to Quantico Tactical but an understanding and respect for our industry and customers." "I am looking forward to working closely with David in maximizing his company's growth potential in an industry that I am familiar with and fully support," Dan Gaddis, Quantico Tactical's new Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising. "Quantico Tactical has always taken pride in the brands they represent and the clients they serve. Our goal now is to drive that commitment and expand upon it." To become a part of the Quantico Tactical conversation, visit us on Facebook www.facebook.com/pages/Quantico-Tactical/121240781282532 or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/QT_JC. About Quantico Tactical: Quantico Tactical is the premier source of performance apparel, gear, tactical medical supplies, armor and firearms for federal agencies, law enforcement, military and the serious adventure enthusiast. Since its founding in 2001 by a retired US Marine Officer, Quantico Tactical has grown from a small shop in Quantico, Virginia to seven retail stores around the United States and a state-of-the-art headquarters, distribution center and kitting facility which service customers world-wide. Quantico Tactical's retail locations include; Quantico, VA; Woodbridge, VA; San Diego, CA; Oak Grove (Ft. Campbell), KY; Killeen (Ft. Hood), TX; Junction City (Ft. Riley), KS; and Lakewood (Ft. Lewis), WA. Quantico Tactical is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOB) providing many popular brands on the GSA Schedule. Quantico Tactical is US State Department licensed for the export of weapons, munitions and related articles. www.quanticotactical.com


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by Eric
Back to the Future Costume Photo 6 of 7
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|Costume type:
|Costumes for Families
This homemade costume for families entered our 2014 Halloween Costume Contest.
A word from Samantha, the 'Back to the Future' costume creator:
The delorean is made out of a moving box and lots of hot glue! Doc Browns costume was order very cheap from Amazon. Wig, belt, gloves, and painter suit! Luckily we had everything for Marty... Read more »
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Carefree roses
Grow floribundas for lots of blooms with little effort
Easy basics for roses
If you've never grown roses, you may believe what you've heard about them – that they're fussy, disease-prone, and need lots of primping to look good. True, certain roses live up to that reputation. But not floribundas. Prized for their clusters of informal flowers, these landscape roses bloom over a long season on little care. Growing about 3 to 4 feet tall or higher, depending on the variety, they have a rounded, bushy habit and are perfect for both hedges and containers.
Of the many kinds available, which are easiest to grow? To find out, we polled rose experts around the West. Their top six favorites are shown here, along with tips to keep them looking good from planting to bloom.
Roses are sold bare-root (their roots are usually packed in moist sawdust and plastic) at nurseries in December and January (early spring in cold climates). Or wait until late spring or early summer to buy blooming plants in containers.
Plant roses in a spot that gets full sun – at least six hours a day – with fast-draining soil; before planting, amend area with compost. Avoid wetting foliage when watering.
Sources: Arena Roses (888/466-7434), Edmunds' Roses (888/481-7673), Jackson & Perkins (800/292-4769), and Regan Nursery (800/249-4680).


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I am about 3.5-4.0 level player. I can play just once or more often if schedules work out. I am a teacher so my schedule is pretty open during the summer except during the morning. Reply here or send me an e-mail at email@example.com
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Replies to This Discussion
Hi, I also work in a school,,although I still have to go to this mandatory training next week. I will be open the week after next week. I am from Glenview/Niles. Maybe, we can meet somewhere in the middle,,like Old Orchard?
Sounds like it might work. I am fine with a bit of travel. Let me know when you figure out what your schedule is.
Are you up for a match yet?
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Get a little extra from the moment you install
With Installation & Operation we guarantee that your system is correctly installed from day one and is performing with maximum efficiency. For your convenience we offer service contracts, giving you a little extra freedom to focus on your business.
Laser alignment
Precise alignment of pump motor shaft reducing pump wear and optimising efficiency.
Thorough and professional Commissioning services for optimum system performance.
Service contract
Three levels of Service contracts covering various pump installation needs.