It has very little to do with technology. But those of us who invest time in systems and tools expect that our users will understand why our systems and tools work the way the do. Not so. And we can't get mad at them for it. A post from Seth Godin.

Ben Scott, Free Press

The internet. Not since the printing press has social life been changed so profoundly by an information technology. Few of us understand exactly how it works, but we all know we have to have it. Our homes have to have it. Our schools have to have it. Our businesses have to have it. Every elected official from the dog-catcher to the President is touting the benefits of universal access to high-speed internet service. Never mind that the dot.com bubble burst in 2001, everyone seems to accept with an eerie unanimity (in these

In the inaugural NTEN podcast, NTEN's Holly Ross interviewed Greg Goldman of Wireless Philadelphia and Karen Archer Perry of Karacomm on their experiences in Philadelphia and their thoughts on wireless' potential.

The People's Emergency Center is already testing out how internet access can help the people it serves in Philadelphia. Karen said:

It started out as an organization supporting abused and battered families and in general people who are in great need of help. They added to that the ability to learn about a computer... What they found was that people used it for all the things you'd expect. They used it to find better jobs, to take online courses. Kids used it and they improved their grades.

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T.J. Rogers, NO/AIDS Task Force

I live and work in New Orleans and therefore my experience with municipal wireless has been rather unique. When I returned home after Hurricane Katrina, anywhere with wireless access became my office. I spent many days at a table littered with coffee cups, trying to get work done. I was hardly alone. Every patron in that coffee shop had turned it into a temporary office. Wireless access was everyone's lifeline to keep their business or organization going.

In the months following Katrina, New Orleans

Paul Lamb, Man on a Mission Consulting

The rush to establish municipal and community wireless or Wi-Fi networks continues unabated. According to a recent report from Muniwireless.com, more than 300 cities and counties in the United States have networks or a serious interest in implementing them. These public Wi-Fi networks offer many benefits, including reliable communication channels for law enforcement and emergency response units and low-cost or free broadband internet access to the

Congratulations to Bev Magda of the Humane Society. Bev posted the 1000th message on our new platform this morning. (Cue the streamers, balloons, and dancing bears!)

We're going to send Bev an NTEN prize pack which includes a free webinar registration.

Lucky for Bev, we knew who she was because she has completed her profile under the "My Page" tab at http://groups.nten.org, home of all the NTEN lists. If you haven't signed into the new platform yet, we think you should! Complete your profile so the community can meet you, and find other groups that might be of interest to you.

The NTEN community is getting more prestigious by the day! I'd like to congratulate George Hotelling who won Pizzigati Prize for his work building CitizenSpeak, and Jo Lee for her continued efforts managing the project! (Disclosure: NTEN's Katrin Verclas was a judge on the panel.)

I've been taking a crash course in podcasting over the last week. Fruits of my labor shall be revealed in your next NTEN Connect Newsletter.

It was a fun experience, but I would have been lost without Beth Kanter's del.icio.us links and this document from Scott Alumbaugh. Beth and Scott have been very helpful NTEN community members!

Tomorrow people all around the world will celebrate the internet and its impact on their lives in the first ever global holiday for the web - OneWebDay.

In New York City people will gather to hear internet celebrities like Craig Newmark from Craig's List and Drew Schutte from WIRED speak. Los Angeles,

A report has just been released on how organizers are using technology to bring about social change and how they could be using it better. After getting input from more than 400 social change groups, technology providers, and nonprofit technology capacity builders, dotOrganize pulled their findings together into the report Online Technology for Social Change: From Struggle to Strategy.

In something that I'm sure is no surprise to many in the field, the