Networking is at the heart of any conference and at some point the question inevitably arises: how do we carry the momentum forward? Beyond trading business cards, how do people follow up on conversations started over breakfast or crazy ideas hatched at 2a.m.? At the Gaining Ground Sustainable Urban Development Leadership Summit in Victoria, BC (now in its second year), I learned about some new tools to help address this. The newly launched WiserEarth (World Index for Social and Environmental Responsibility) offers a virtual environment for the massive and unbounded global population of changemakers we often call the “sustainability movement.” Paul Hawken, who spoke at the conference, describes the movement in his recent book, Blessed Unrest. In development for the past two years by the Natural Capital Institute, the site amalgamates wikis, social networking, resources, and a job board that intersect at topical hubs (Areas of Focus). NCI seeded the site with about 100,000 organizations and the hope that more will join and create their own profiles, turning the site into an unprecedentedly large and singular aggregation of the world’s progress-oriented and do-good organizations. Much like Zaadz, individual profiles on Wiser Earth promote transparency by including users’ first and last… (more)
(Posted by Katie Kurtz in Community at 8:47 AM)