AdamNicholson's NTENny DisplayI'm composing this weekly round-up differently this week, for two reasons: 1) there's a LOT of buzz in the blog- and twitter-spheres from and about NTEN members because of last week's conference, so I'll be truncating the summaries; and 2) I want to take this opportunity to share my thoughts about the conference and the NTEN community -- and thank everyone for the great experience.

First up, here's an abbreviated round-up of the 08NTC-related posts from members:

John Kenyon blogged about attending and speaking at the conference; Beth Kanter video-blogged from the conference, then posted a nice post-conference summary of her participation and take-aways, demonstrating the repercussions of sharing and connecting. Judi Sohn (with whom I ended up chatting over coffee at the New Orleans airport) blogged about her experiences, impressions, and take-aways. Ruby Sinreich blogged about her tour of the Lower Ninth Ward while in New Orleans; and Norman Reiss reports on his Day of Service participation plus the two sessions he contributed to. Britt Bravo and Michael Hoffman share their session notes (and even some slides). Chris Parandian shares his Day of Service experience. And Valerie Venezia posts about her experiences with Google and NTEN.

In other news:

NetSquared announced the finalists in their Mashup Challenge. MPower blogs (philosophically) about the affinity between this nation's Founding Fathers, Open Source, and nonprofit technology. Michelle Murrain continues her series on open source tools by blogging about SugarCRM. And Beth Kanter helps Marnie Webb apply the Chicken/Egg question to Twitter and Blogs for getting started with online communicating/social networking.

Finally, I just wanted to give a big thanks to all the NTEN members who joined us in New Orleans last week for the Nonprofit Technology Conference. It was fulfilling, inspiring, and, of course, FUN for me (and everyone else I heard from), and that's because of the general fabulousness of the NTEN community. Seriously. You all proved that it's not about the tools, it's about the people. And it's not just the people, but the dreams. And not just the dreams, but the hard work it takes to bring the people and tools together to make the dream of social change (for the better) a reality.

Stay tuned for our more "official" wrap up of the conference in our April e-newsletter.