Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Day. It’s a national Day of Service and a time to reflect on social justice.

The crisis in Haiti brings extra focus and intensity to the question of how we care for each other. How did one of the world’s poorest countries struggle to survive just miles off the coast of Florida? Why does it require a massive earthquake for us to turn our attention to Haiti?

King wrote, “Every man [and woman] must decide whether he [or she] will walk in the creative light of altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s persistent and most urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’”

We have been inspired by our friend and fellow technology geek Luke Montgomery. Three years ago, Luke asked himself that very question. He decided to build an orphanage, brick by brick for abandoned Haitian children with HIV/AIDS. And he looked to his online community and social media to help him do it through participatory fundraising on his website, WeCanBuildAnOrphanage.com. He raised enough funds to start a successful 10-bed orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti.

Luke is on his way back to Haiti. Because the infrastructure is in such bad shape, he’s planning to fly to the Dominican Republic and then make his way over a rocky and roadless mountain to get to Jacmel. He got some news this morning:

Our kids are alive but our orphanage was totally destroyed in the quake… but again, our 13 children have all survived. Somehow amidst all the death around them, these 13 orphans made it out of the rubble alive. They are now living on the street surrounded by rubble with no food, water, blankets or medicine. Many of them are HIV+. Two are handicapped and can not walk. We are rushing an emergency team to them to care for, feed and protect them. I’m leaving and will be on the ground in Haiti for as long as it takes to rebuild. We need your help. We lost everything.

We’re going to help out by renting a satellite phone for his trip. And we’re inviting you to join us by spreading the word about what Luke is doing. Share this link with your personal networks online (Facebook, Twitter, Email) to help put a face on the work that needs to be done in Haiti:

http://tinyurl.com/ykt74rg

The cool part is that he’s a web geek like us so he’ll be blogging and sharing videos/photos so people can see exactly how donations are being spent. You can see the full story of the orphanage in Haiti here:

https://wecanbuildanorphanage.com

For years it seemed like only moments of crisis — from natural disasters like Haiti to global warming — could unite us and our organizations in common purpose. But the connective tissues of technology seem to be taking hold in both charitable and corporate boardrooms alike. We’re seeing first-hand in our work across the climate, service, and veterans movements an unprecedented level of openness and collaboration.

Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Day, a day of national and community service to remember his legacy. After years of working with leading organizations to support service, it’s a real privilege to join with them in a collaborative effort to build All for Good, a joint platform that makes service opportunities ubiquitous.

We’re proud to stand with so many of our clients and partners this weekend — Hands On Network, Do Something, Service Nation, The Huffington Post to name a few — in inviting you to join us in celebrating King Day as a day of service. Click here to find an opportunity near you – and join us in using a day of service to reflect on Haiti and social justice:

http://www.serve.gov/mlkday

• Keep your passport not in your bag — like on your “person” or in a safe place in your room. Fortunately I had the prescience to pull my passport and other non-essentials out of my bag before heading out that morning, otherwise I may still be in the land of the Vikings. Although less important and easier to replace, same would be true for keeping your phone charger separate if you’re in a faraway place where you can’t get a replacement charger.
• Long live the cloud. I was travelling with a small and relatively inexpensive netbook laptop. Because I use it as a secondary computer for travel, it doesn’t contain anything special — it’s essentially a piece of plastic that let’s me access email, calendar, files, and the web, all of which are hosted remotely on google, dropbox, or evernote. I was up and running again within minutes of finding a replacement machine, or using a public terminal. No priceless photos or hard-won music collections lost.
• You can’t backup your moleskin (or non-hipster equivalent). Pretty obvious, but given how we live in a world of auto-save and redundant backups, it did come as something of a shock to realize that my [analog] notes from the year were unrecoverable. Since I didn’t have any special photos on my camera (see below), this was the most significant loss even though it was the least valuable item in my bag as far as my insurance company is concerned.
• Download/upload photos frequently when travelling. I didn’t lose more than a few dozen pics, none of which were that special, but it could have been much worse. The lesson for me here was that when travelling and snapping photos, it’s worth downloading from the camera and uploading to web/backup after every batch of photos that you couldn’t bear to lose.
• Don’t leave your bag even slightly unattended. Ok, right, thanks. Obvious, but my bag was actually attended when it was stolen — on the floor no more than three feet from me/our group. But it was dark and even though it was within my reach, there were plenty of distractions taking my attention away from my bag. So +1 for me for not leaving my bag in the corner or under a pile of coats; -1 for letting the bag out of sight while being obviously American in a foreign city.
• Identify your privacy threshold.Password protection on my laptop (and phone, which was not stolen) puts my mind at ease that no personal information will get stolen, especially since those dirty thieves are most likely looking to resell the equipment. But if you’re the type of person who takes scandalous pictures with your camera or a high profile individual recording your deepest secrets in a journal, it’s worth thinking about what you’d do if that camera or notebook were taken. I don’t think that means you need to limit your creative expression, but it does make me think twice about what I’ll comfortably keep in my bag when heading out vs securing in my apartment. It used to be that a high schooler’s stolen diary couldn’t make it much farther than a copy machine and the school hallways, but with the permanence of information posted to the internet, a few scans and uploads could be devastating depending on who someone is and what they write.
• Keep records of major purchases. Once you get a spreadsheet or system going, it shouldn’t be that hard to update every time you get a new ipod or camera, but if you’re filing an insurance claim, it’ll save you a lot of time and hassle digging up model/serial numbers and receipts.

I also learned that the Danes are the nicest people on earth. Everyone in the bar was helpful and sympathetic when I asked them all to move so I could search, the staff were helpful that night and the next day, and filing a police report couldn’t have been a more pleasant experience.

My thoughts go out to ocean explorer Roz Savage, an inspired woman who i recently met at the computer terminals at the Fresh Air Center because she too was without her laptop. Almost all of her worldly possessions were taken while in CPH. Check out her post [here] to see if you can help, or just to learn about all of her crazy adventures.

Nearly every weekend, Ace drives one of his old cars up Connecticut Ave to pick up his favorite meal at McDonalds. On a nice day, you can catch him outside holding court near while one of the cars is lucky enough to soak up some vitamin D.

I caught up with Ace this past weekend, just following his McDonalds trip and a few days before Veterans Day. Here’s a brief clip of him summing up a remarkable military career and his passion for old cars.

He’ll be laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Solider today and driving an old military jeep in the Veteran’s Day Parade. I could talk to Ace for hours. After a very full life, he has some of the best stories in the word.

ok, 350.org has basically turned into a porn site for online organizers. (and my coworkers have caught me sneaking peeks) #350ppm 11:49 PM Oct 26th

Photo: From times sq, proud organizers, mvmt builders #350ppm global day of climate action http://yfrog.com/0khs3lj 4:16 PM Oct 24th

• Bloggers are in their teenage years — Blogs and bloggers have come of age, compared to the 2004 cycle when their relevance and potential impact beyond enthusiasts and the uber-engaged was unclear at best. With major ‘wins’ in 2006 and 2008, they’re treated with respect, albeit somewhat reluctantly, by everyone from mainstream media to politicians, businesses, and organizations. That was clear from the vibe this year at NN09, and last year — this was no longer a reunion of people who consider themselves a marginalized population. This was a collaboration opportunity for those who know their power.
  
  But the blogosphere is still far from a mature space — it’s still a hodgepodge of pros and amateurs, and those unaffiliated with a high-traffic site or sponsored blog still struggle to find the time or money model that would enable them to produce good citizen journalism. And other forms of social media (twitter, online social networks, youtube) have eclipsed blogs at being powerful word-of-mouth engines. They can help to move a high-quality post or piece of citizen journalism, but blogs are no longer the only game in town for moving information.
• This year was much lower energy than last year. This would make sense, since last year’s event was in the frenzied run-up to the November election. And Austin has a beat that few other cities can compete with. But now that the election glow has worn off, the focus for the NN community was on how to actually get climate, energy, and healthcare legislation through. Seemingly much more challenging and circuitous and complicated than electing a man president.
• Netroots Nation has evolved. It’s really for any kind of progressive online activist, and related organizations in the space — not just bloggers anymore. That’s a probably a good shift. And as i said above, since this is no longer just a validation event for a marginalized community (some of that still happens), it makes sense that the tent is widening to include all online activists and campaigners.
• But the mix of attendees creates a motley and somewhat awkward effect. With a variety of organizations, candidates, industries, and consultancies identifying this as an influential audience to attract, there’s an obvious danger in straying from the grassroots and self-organized origins of this event. Sponsors are good, but they need to be handled delicately — yes, the money is needed, and there are worthwhile organizations for attendees to engage with, but placing exhibitors in a dark room in the corner doesn’t send much of a welcome message. Managing the industrialization and professionalizing of this event will be tough. The union presence this year was nearly overwhelming. Yes, we support the steelworks and the rest, but must you keep shoving take-away hardhats in our face?

That’s all for now. See you in Vegas, NN10.

1. WIFI — enough said; ATT’s international roaming plans will cover you for some emergency email checks, tweeting, or mapping, but beyond that, tapping into hotel or conference wifi has proven invaluable for uploading photos, downloading messages, checking flight information, and most importantly, making phone calls (see 1B)

1B. SKYPE — in Turkey, ATT’s best roaming plan (at $6 for the month) brought the voice rate down to $1.99/min (from $2.99/min); nice to have for emergency use, but otherwise Skype has saved me; at point-zero-something-per-min to landlines, i’ve talked as long as i’ve wanted on clear connections and barely made a dent in my skype credit (just lookout for unstable wifi networks that drop your calls); pair this with free incoming on an inexpensive local SIM chip (cost me less than $20 for a number + some minutes) and I probably didn’t even need to tell my clients i had left the country; although the 7 hr time difference on email may have tipped them off.

2. VIDEO — i recently upgraded to the 3GS, but the video was incidental for me; not anymore; having video has been a cool way to capture unique stories or experiences as they happen; i’d never travel around with a camcorder (i eventually abandoned my Flip after a several-month honeymoon was over), but when there’s one on your cell phone, you’d be amazed at what starts to be come video-worthy all of a sudden.

3. MAPS — English is not so prevalent here, even in Istanbul, as most people had me believe. As in, I have yet to find a cab driver who knows where my hotel is. But everyone can read a map of their own city, so shoving a screen in a driver’s face has proven to be remarkably effective. (Or if you’re suspicious of the results of your exchange, follow along on GPS to see if you’re heading in the right direction.)

I saw a clip on the Internet of that Swiss dude, Yves Rossy, who made himself a jet pack and then flew it around like some kind of European awesome guy! If you haven’t seen it, just imagine if Iron Man and a Stealth bomber had a baby and decided to raise it in Switzerland to be a bald dude. The jet pack, much like the video phone, has always been on my childhood list of things I’ve been waiting for. And now, they’re both here. The future has arrived! Which raises the question: How long till I can get a decent robot? I don’t want any of those big white clunkers I’ve seen rolling around. I want a robot that I can really use. One that can entertain guests with political trivia and lend me money for late-night cab rides. Get it together, robot makers.

I’ve also been enjoying “The Wire” on DVD.

Some context: In just under a week, I drove close to 1,000 miles across half a dozen conservative Appalachian counties to assist the tireless field organizers in “Region 3″ with their get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations, the final push. As did Ben, Asher, and Jen in their respective regions. Ginny had been there for several weeks and was coordinating the entire GOTV picture for our part of the state.

Our work included everything from figuring out the logistics of getting tens of thousands of location-specific door hangers ready for volunteers to shuttling last-minute supplies around or training poll-watch volunteers. Asher and I both unknowingly ended up with Chevy HRR’s from the rental agency. What some consider a herse, i like to think of as Dick Tracy’s pride and joy.

This first clip is of Sandy, who explains how she went from being an online volunteer to  running the entire office and staging location on Election Day, something she never imagined she’d be doing.

Next up is Betty, Sandy’s mom. Betty was classic, which i think is fair to say of anyone who lives in a town for 75 years. Betty explains how she got pulled into this massive volunteer effort along with her family and what she’s seeing for the first time:

Finally, Marleen, overseeing the phone canvassing (and big fan of pumpkin pie), on why this campaign is different from Kerry 2004 and more important than her wedding day:

source