Fractor at the Nonprofit Commons
These days many of my introductions happen over Twitter or Facebook or some other non-meatspace platform. However, this time, I actually met Susan Tenby, Senior Manager of Online Community Development at Tech Soup, in Real Life first. Ok, ok, so we met through a friend who I met on Twitter through another friend that I met through the Metaverse Meetup, but isn’t that when it gets interesting — when online activity meshes with real world actions and connects people? (enter Fractor and one of our objectives!)
Susan asked me to come to a Nonprofit Commons meeting in Second Life to talk about Fractor and my other pet project, Kidz Connect. I had such a good time chatting about Fractor that time whizzed by and I had to come back for a separate session to present Kidz Connect.
If you haven’t heard about the Nonprofit Commons, they’re doing some pretty cool things. The Nonprofit Commons project, managed by TechSoup Global, is a virtual community of practice for nonprofits to explore the opportunities and benefits of Second Life. Nonprofit Commons (NPC) currently consists of two virtual locations (sims) housing over 65 social benefit organizations, managed by a community of volunteers, under the leadership of TechSoup Global.
From the Nonprofit Commons blog: “We focus on providing an accessible entry-point to Second Life and on creating a community of NPOs, not just having NPOs live separately and exist separately in-world. We believe that Second Life is a wonderful place not just to entertain, but also to collaborate, educate, inspire and assist our fellow avatars (and the humans behind them).”
Every week they have a meeting and nonprofit organizers gather to share ideas, inspirations and actions. I had a chance to share the concept behind Fractor and show screenshots of our prototype site. Since I’ve used Second Life as a meeting platform for educational projects before, it’s not new to me, but what was cool was meeting all these like-minded individuals, passionate about their nonprofit projects and eager to share synergy.
Interacting with this community was so interesting — plenty of trailblazers around me, all interested in changing the world by working in a virtual one. I don’t know why I haven’t been going to these meetings before. I’ll definitely be back, and on a regular basis. I would encourage you to drop by their blog at http://nonprofitcommons.org to check out the upcoming events and pop into one of their meetings in Second Life, at the Plush Nonprofit Commons sim on Fridays from 11:30am-1pm EST. Thanks to @suzboop, @penguinasana and the @npsl power team!
Last 5 posts by Josephine Dorado
- Fractor at the Nonprofit Commons - February 21st, 2009
- Evolution of the logo & interface designs - October 10th, 2008
- Bringing things into being... - August 4th, 2008
- Our new office space - July 15th, 2008
- Design/development team hired! - July 15th, 2008
