On May 10th we held our first ‘away game’ training in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t easy, but we did it! We’re grateful to some important people who stepped up to help with the training:

Kimberly Ellis, aka Dr. Goddess, who presented Social Media 101.

Jesse Mark from Action United, who participated in our session about integrating online tools into electoral work.

Jennifer England from Action United, who led the session on using the VAN (voter file database software) and on web design for non-techies.

Kenneth Miller from the Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance, who led a session on Salsa and using a CRM.

Celeste Taylor of B-PEP and REMP and Paul O’Hanlon of the Disability Rights Network presented together on issues impacting the 2011 elections.

Our hosts at the North Shore Community Alliance (Carol Washington and staff) were terrific. They have the best computer training lab I’ve ever seen. Our friends, attendees and community partners came together to allow for a great training event that served 25 participants from 13 organizations.

We’re talking about the best way to stay in touch with each other around nonprofit technology, online election tools, digital strategy and social media. One of the options on the table is forming a new 501 Tech Club, to be affiliated with the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). Are you willing to help organizing a Pittsburgh 501 Tech Club? Contact amy@nten.org. She’s expecting you!

Here’s what some of you said about the training:

• The very best session experience I had was the exchanged between Jen England and Charles.  A great example of connecting digital possibilities stemming from the VAN.  A simple concept that can be taken into an amazing number of possibilities …. BOTTOM like – organizations need to develop this type of connected thinking
• How could the opposition use facebook, twitter, online organizing against you… give examples
• Very good intro, acknowledged that online organizing is not a substitute for grassroots organizing… how does online organizing/twitting/facebook supplement grassroots labor organizing?
• Initial presentation was great
• Great hands-on knowledge/connections
• A long term solution to go into details would be good
• The people were great
• How can I get more involved with Organizing 2.0
• Good examples of how these tools can be useful for campaigning
• Our organizations need much better data management
• Website development – learned enough basics to get going and have informed discussions, got me thinking
• The list of online organizing tools given in the closing session was awesome and intimidating
• Well organized, covered a lot of ground
• Intros were too long

Once again, thank you all for helping, showing up, and being cooperative. This was a real team effort.