Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

Enjoyed my day in Berkeley yesterday at the Craigslist Foundation Bootcamp 2009. They had more than 1000 folks show up to talk about service, nonprofits and social action. I thought Arianna Huffington did a good job as the opening keynoter hitting on the service theme. Announcing All For Good was a big piece of the event, of course. Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook had the tough gig of presenting a lunch keynote outside under a tent in lower Sproul Plaza (mucho noise and people talking). She was much more on Facebook marketing message, but of course that's her role at FB. Lots of enthusiastic FB users in the audience helped make her points. I took a lot of pictures, but not that many turned out. Posted the best 30 or so on Flickr : got some great ones of Steve Wright of the Salesforce Foundation. I enjoyed some of the breakout sessions, although the number of concurrent sessions (often 8 at one time) made it hard to pick. Enjoyed Deb Jospin and Shirley Sagawa discussing the Cha...

Just had a good conversation this morning with Craig Newmark of Craigslist and the Craigslist Foundation . There are two hot issue right now on Craig's social action radar, the new launch of the All For Good website and next weekend's Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp in Berkeley. On Craig and Craigslist Q: Do you consider yourself a social entrepreneur? A: No, I don't think of myself that way. I may be one, but it seems to have too many syllables. I think of myself as a nerd. Q: Tell me about the balance between the two bottom lines of Craigslist as a social enterprise. A: We are wholly driven by our community. We ask them what they want and need, and then we do it the best we can. Then we go back and ask again. Jim [Buckmaster] runs the business. I was influenced back in 1976, when I was considering a job with IBM, by reading a quote from TJ Watson (Sr or Jr) about how if you took care of the customer, the business takes care of itself. Q: Do you have explicit ch...