Unthinkingly

Just a few ICT4D Listservs

Listservs are always so easy to miss. Sometimes they’re a joy and sometimes they’re dead, but they’re always elusive, popping up just when you think you know every fold of your little online landscape. So, at the risk of being pedestrian, here’s a few quick links from super-excited Carole.

Information Society: Voices from the South - http://www.dgroups.org/groups/is - good for a time, more philosophical than practical

Ictforruralwomen (http://list.matrixlinks.ca/mailman/listinfo/ictforruralwomen) - really good but high volume

Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 Plus - see www.cawd.info, and here’s their contact and info: http://www.cawd.info/content/aboutus/contact_us.html

Voluntary Sector Forum (http://www.voluntary-sector.ca/eng/index.cfm) - useless unless you’re in non-profit sector advocacy in Canada

Nonprofit Online News - great & diverse NGO/IT links

Open Forum on Telecentres and Development (seems to be telecentres-l@lyris.idrc.ca, or surf on www.IDRC.ca)

Bellanet (seems to be bellanet-l@lyris.bellanet.org)

AfricaFiles InfoServ (www.africafiles.org) - good for various African topics; no IT component

Let’s Send More Emails!

Here’s a great resource for getting your email campaigns in a row: white papers from a consulting group that does email campaigns for a living. They’re free; how nice.

Download them here: Return Path Solutions for Increased Email Delivery, Performance

Email Works. It Even Has A Manifesto.

If you are investing money in a website with a social justice purpose (do, please), you of course need to be thinking about getting people to your site.

Have you read The Gilbert Center’s “Email Manifesto”? It is absolutely the best crystallization of the shape your online strategy should take: make your web presence personal + active. Specifically, spend some time and money on an email strategy. If you really have something that you want to get done with the web, you’ve got to digest this short essay.

“Stop obsessing about how many hits your web site gets and start counting how much email interaction you have with your stakeholders. Stop waiting for people to discover your web site, and start discovering their mailboxes.”

Read it: Nonprofit Online News: The Gilbert Email Manifesto (GEM)