It just so happened that Beth had the perfect destination for them… take a look:

A buddy of mine, Sean Coon, has been working on a project down in (relatively) rural Greensboro, North Carolina for some time called The People, Yes.

The goal of the project is founded in acting locally:

To reach out to our neighbors on the other side of the digital divide and provide the necessary training and logistics for enabling a new online community of voices via blogging, podcasting, vlogging, etc. We plan on directly engaging with the homeless community and folk living at or below the poverty line, but will work with any Greensboro resident who would like to publish their point of view.

After struggling for a year to get off the ground (meanwhile running his own consultancy), Sean has a shot of getting some great support through Net Squared’s Technology Innovation Fund contest as part of their upcoming N2Y2 Conference. He’s submitted a proposal outlining the goals for the project and now needs your support.

From now until April 14th, you can go an read up on the projects submitted, see what Dan Ben-Horin, president of Net Squared’s parent organization, thinks and then cast your votes on the slate of 10 projects that you think are most deserving of support from the NetSquared community.

More specifically, here’s how to make sure your vote counts:

1. First of all, get to know the projects participating by downloading and reading the N2Y2 Voter Booklet.
2. Next, sign up for an account on Net Squared and login (this is a must for your vote to count).
3. Once logged in, head to your ballot and choose at least five different projects, up to a max of 10. And remember to choose wisely, because the top 20 projects will receive a portion of the $100,000 being put towards these projects over the course of 2007-2008.

Oh, and I should add, Citizen Agency will be participating by donating a number of hours of our service to the fund, so clearly, we want a shot at working with the best of the best!

Lastly, I should point out that Net Tuesday is taking place tomorrow night at Citizen Space starting at 6:00pm. This month’s topic is “How Nonprofits Can Use and Build Online Social Networks: Change.org and Ning at Net Tuesday” featuring Gina Bianchini, the co-founder and CEO of Ning and Benjamin Rattray the CEO of Change.org, a stellar line-up, to be sure!

So there you go, two solid ways to do some good. And, in case you’re still not meeting your do-good quota, check out the Giving 2.0, Lighter Footstep and Helping Hand groups on Ma.gnolia.

I’ve put together a nifty survey to gauge what we need to do int he next while to serve everyone’s needs. If you have 10-15 free minutes, stop by and fill it out:

Take the Survey HERE

Thanks so much for your help! We hope to take this movement to really cool places for everyone. It’s all part of our ‘Building Blocks‘.

We had a blowout time last night at Citizen Space celebrating Ma.gnolia’s one year birthday.

Enric has posted some photos and we also captured some with Tara’s laptop iSight, which were uploaded directly using FlickrBooth.

I’ve posted the Wine List to Flickr and you can also check out the related wine entries and on, (where else?) Ma.gnolia under the magnolia1yr tag.

Oh, and thanks to Cris Pearson from Mac devshop Plasq for attending remotely from Australia.

To nobody’s surprise, we all had a slightly different viewpoint of identity from one another.

One person uses the same login name as their offline name everywhere they go. She is not afraid of the consequences. She is all about truth laid bare.
Another person asked how to manage their personal and private – especially when political views come into play. Should it matter once you are responsible for the future of a company, employing several people that you are outspoken? Maybe…

Another person defines himself through his work. His brand and his business are one and the same and everything he lives, eats and breathes is his business. He hasn’t questioned that.

Someone else, who I thought was pretty ‘out there’ online reveals that there is a secret identity somewhere that none of us could trace. I’m curious.

Some of us know who we are. We let our identities lead. We are out there and proud of it. Some of us hide behind a persona online to be able to accomplish what we can’t offline. Some of us don’t distinguish between the two. Some want all identities merged. Others fight to remain anonymous. Others want multiple personalities.
No matter what, all of us have an intense, emotional relationship with identity.
We hope to continue this conversation in a slightly more serious gathering in the new year. Can the solution ever be automated? I don’t know. Parts of it. But emotions and experiences so unique make it a highly personal experience…

Are you looking for new fundraising models that are fun, engaging and use the social web? Come hear Matt Flannery, CEO and Co-Founder of Kiva.org, the first Web site to let anyone with a PayPal account be a “banker to the poor”, and Pim Techamuanvivit (Chez Pim) a food blogger who raised $17,000 for UNICEF with her 2005 Menu for Hope campaign.

The second Tuesday of each month, social changemakers and web innovators get together to network, socialize and share ideas at Net Tuesday, an event produced by NetSquared, www.netsquared.org, a project of TechSoup, www.techsoup.org.

When: Tuesday, December 12th, from 6-8 PM
Where: Citizen Space (425 Second St. #300)

You can RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.org/event/127159/
NetSquared’s Meetup group: http://netsquared.meetup.com/1/
Or by emailing: net2@techsoup.org

Speaker Bios:

Matt Flannery began developing Kiva.org in late 2004 as a side-project while working as a computer programmer at TiVo Inc. In December 2005 Matt left TiVo to devote himself to Kiva.org full-time. As CEO, Matt is a 2006 Global Social Benefit Incubator entrepreneur and a featured blogger on the Skoll Foundation’s Social Edge website. He graduated with a BS in Symbolic Systems and a Masters in Analytical Philosophy from Stanford University. You can read Matt’s blog “The Kiva Chronicles” on Social Edge.

Pim Techamuanvivit grew up in Bangkok, was shipped off to study in other places, and somehow found herself living and loving it in the San Francisco Bay Area. She quit her Silicon Valley job in 2005 to pursue a career in food: the writing, reporting, and basically anything interesting thereof that comes her way. Her recipes, writings, and photographs have since appeared in the New York Times, Food & Wine Magazine, Bon Appétit magazine, among others. You can read Pim’s blog Chez Pim.

Tantek, being quite inspired by the need to go beyond events like this (i.e. panels of white guys) pinged Chris and I this week to suggest that we do some sort of take on online personas of our own.

This is what where we took it:

12×5:Digital Personas Unmasked!

Seriously…are you an online superhero and are begging to tell the world the origins of your identity?

Come unmask yourself!

12 people will be chosen to present for 5 minutes on (guideline):

1. Who are you online?
2. How do you wish to be seen?
3. Why did you decide to pick this identity?
4. Do you have advice for those searching for their inner avatar?

Feel free to be as creative or instructive as you want (video and interpretive dance encouraged).

But probably the most important question of all: is that all one word in camel case, two words lower case, upper case or one word no caps?

Mostly inspired by the brilliant 20×2 at SXSW and Merlin Mann, we think it will be a fun way to kick off the holiday season.

Details:

Wednesday Monday, December 11 13
7-10 pm
Citizen Space, 425-2nd Street, Suite 300 (door code 300)

Beginning Friday, November 24, we’ll be holding post-work (5-7pm) movie nights at Citizen Space. This BYOB, popcorn provided (just ordered this really cool old-fashioned popcorn machine), movie night will have a few geeky twists:

1. The movies are a mystery until everyone gets there: could it be Brando in On The Waterfront? or Depp in CryBaby? a foreign film? a classic? a cult film? a new release? Basically, the algorithm for picking the movies depends on a crazy formula we came up with that combines Amazon recommendations with our Netflix pix.
2. We will do our homework on the movie to provide interesting factoids and trivia…and also create ‘easter egg hunts’ throughout the film. Post film, we will have a short conversation about the film. Sort of like a book club, but with less reading and prizes.

Everyone should also bring $5-10 to throw in for ordering food – most likely pizza or something similarly simple to share. We will make sure there is plenty to go around.

We will also be posting summaries to the blog: of the movie and its insights. Any further suggestions on how to geekify movie watching are welcome!

Upcoming listing

Well, as of yesterday, really, we were (mostly) moved into Citizen Space: our new offices + the newest family member of the SF coworking spaces (The Hat Factory as well). There is still a wee bit of work being done on the boardroom tomorrow, but we have already had all sorts of awesome people stop by, like Evelyn Rodriguez, Tom Conrad, Alicia Preston and Chad Dickerson.

Current residents of the space include Chris, Ben, Ivan Storck and myself…with two others who we think are going to take residency, but they’ve been too busy to even come down and confirm (hint: they are way rockin’ Mac developers).

But that’s not even the best part. You see…the best part is what we plan to do with the space. Yes, it’s going to be an open fabulous drop-in and get creative type space, which is awesome, but what we started thinking about as we were building this baby, was, “Holy begezus! We have our own space! That’s like…power!”

Yep. A room of our own, folks. And what does one do with a room of one’s own?

Anything s/he wants.

So, here is what we are going to do: have as many amazing gatherings in it as possible…AND open it up to the suggestion that anyone out there who is doing something that is worth a damn in this world can have amazing gatherings in our space. Really. It’s yours. Let’s make some beautiful energy.

So…event #1 will take place next Friday (November 10) from 5-7pm…it’s our Open House and we will have food and drinks and music and a bevy of fine, interesting folks to mingle and mix with. We want to show off our new digs and let everyone know what a kickass space it is for such gatherings.

Another great event coming up in the space will be Net Tuesday on November 14. We hope they love it so much that they make it their permanent home.

There will be much more, too. We plan to have Mashpits (probably once per month or so), movie nights, Salons, wine tastings, art shows, meetups and DemoCamps there regularly as well as upcoming seminars, workshops and summits. Mostly small stuff, since our space could hold about 50 people max. (1350 ft2)

But…if you would like to suggest anything, throw anything or be part of anything…please do contact us. We’d love to be your hosts. I mean, really, we have a frickin’ space. (oh man, a space! we are so excited) If nothing else, you can drop by to work starting next week (the wifi is non-existent right now…waiting for Speakeasy) and for just saying hi anytime.
Here is the venue listing on Upcoming.org.