Flickr Photo: Capt KodakIt's not about the technology, it's about the people.

You are not marketing, you are building community.

In case you need to remind yourself, or others, of these principles, check out Twistori. It's a perfect example of what social media is all about: people. It exposes the humanity that makes social media so powerful -- our love, our hate, our thoughts, our beliefs.

The next time you're thinking about how to get your message out in social media, visit Twistori. Then think about how you can help inspire, motivate, and excite the people in your community instead.

Just learned about the new (dare I say adorable) Twitter mashup Twitlinks from Richard MacManus's post on Read Write Web.

Twitlinks can be defined in two simple steps:

• Tech People Talk about Cool Stuff
• TwitLinks Makes It Look Nice

You can subscribe to the RSS Feed (also available as JSON, iPhone, and Google Gadget), eliminating the need to follow all these tech industry folks individually, and receive fast bits of the latest technology buzz.

As Gary Brewer, creator of TwitLinks, told ReadWriteWeb:

"...as well as drawing links from the latest tech blogs, it also highlights some of the quirkier links these users post that would never see the light of day on sites such as techmeme."

I came across a blog post today that made me smile (and not just because of thejustgiving.com great vocabulary used across the Pond). It's a simple and straight-forward example of how easy it is for someone to use free, fast, online tools to raise money for his or her favorite cause. Here's an excerpt:

"I've just had a rather intense week of trying to use social media to raise funds and by and large succeeding. Inevitably this story involves blogging and tweeting and people I don't know very well being incredibly generous...."

David Harte, Digital Central project manager at Birmingham City University and contributor to the Birmingham Post's Business Blog, decided to try a spur-of-the-moment fundraising campaign one week before he ran in the London Marathon. He didn't have to raise money for a charity, but he decided he wanted to try to help his favorite, St. Mary's Hospice. His goal was £495, and he ended up raising over £300 (and he's still raising money for his cause online).

LOLnptechNTEN members were sharing lots of great tips, checklists, and resources online last week.

Colin Delany, of e.politics, shared his Social Marketing "cheat sheet" for using Web2.0 tools for engagement and fundraising purposes.

If you're a do-it-yourself kind of nonprofit when it comes to designing your web site, you might want to check out Kivi Leroux Miller's "10-Point Basic Website Checklist for Nonprofits".

For anyone plagued by email delivery statistics (or curious about what your organization should be considering when it comes to email messaging), take a look at NTEN member and NTC speaker Bill Pease's helpful tips.

Marnie Webb provides a couple of posts about integrating Twitter into your communications practice: first, she brings Twitter into the virtual tool chest she's building for her readers, then shares a list of Twitter resources that can help you maximize your Twitter-effectiveness.

Speaking of Twitter, Rose Vines is the back-channeling star of the NTEN community. Fortunately for us, she shares her tips for using Twitter for good (documenting and sharing).

In other news, NTEN members are . . .

In the midst of putting the final touches on the NTC, we hosted a Twitter Tutorial today, Twitter Me This!

We had a great lesson and conversation about how Twitter works and how it will function as the NTC back channel. Rosie de Fremery, Director of Management Information Systems for the American Jewish World Service gave us lots of great insights on how to best use the micro-blogging tool. Kari Peterson, Consultant and Official NTC Twitterator, informed us on how we can use Twitter at the NTC.

Want to know more? Check out the recording (and other useful links under Event Materials)!

We're looking forward to seeing you all in New Orleans! Oh, and be sure to follow 08NTC!

If you're on Twitter but don't follow Andy Carvin, you totally should. First, his tweets are REALLY informative. Second, they are often hilarious. Third, he may be the nicest guy on the planet. I know, because he let me bombard him with questions at SXSW and he's helped us figure out how to streamline Twitter usage at the NTC.

Our goal this year was to figure out a way to show ALL the tweets from folks at or talking about the NTC. Bless his heart, Andy showed us how to re-tweet any tweet with a keyword (in our case, the keyword is NTC) on our main Twitter presence for the conference: 08NTC.

I know some of you are interested in similar things, so I thought I'd share his instructions:

LOLnptechAmy Sample Ward let us take a peek at her technology toolbox last week by describing 6 of the daily e-tools she incorporates into her online work and life.

Michelle Murrain has a new free and open source tool overview: Miro, a video tool you can use to play, organize, download, and disseminate online videos. She predicts that this is the future of television.

NTEN member Beth Dunn is profiled as a "tech star" over at @Bar. We're so proud!

Marnie Webb to all organizations thinking about social networking: start with the search. She gives some tips and links to begin your (re)search.

NTEN member Ed Schipul will be speaking on a panel (which includes NTEN superstar Beth Kanter) about web-based social media technologies for nonprofit organizational fundraising at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW). All you NTENners who will be at SXSW -- let us know what you learn!

A couple of familiar NTEN members and contributors joined our nptechies across the pond for the Circuit Riders 4.0 Conference last week. Laura's Notebook has a nice round up, including a video of Beth Kanter, who joined via Skype to discuss Web 2.0 for nonprofits. She also referred to NTEN superstar John Kenyon, who was invited by NTEN organizational member LASA to lead a workshop on nonprofit advising (or leadership, as we refer to it around here) the day after the Circuit Rider Conference. Good show!

Beth also has a great post addressing the issues of transparency and criticism in the world of social media. She offers a hypothetical scenario that anyone engaging constituencies in this user-generated environment should consider (hint: read the comments).

In response to Beth's post, NTEN member Kivi Leroux Miller offers some great advice for nonprofits dealing with negative user-generated content.

Joyce Harmon, of NPower Greater DC, posted slides she presented recently for nonprofit leaders about online strategies and tools for this generation of online fundraising and constituent engagement. Thanks, Joyce!

Speaking of giving stuff away, Katya Andresen wrote this enlightening post applying the business model of the "gift economy" to nonprofit organizations. The important takeaway for me here is that, with the low-cost of technology tools like email, e-newsletters, and of course social media tools, it not only makes sense but is fiscally possible for even the smallest nonprofit organization to use this model. Read Katya's post for more background and ideas.

Finally, I found a new form of online update from an NTEN member: this tweet about the upcoming Nonprofit Technology Conference from "Erica G." Why is this exciting? I used Google Alerts to search for "nten member" -- and was sent a link to this twitter update in my email. Implications? Tweeting has reach outside subscribed followers.

If you're reading this, it's likely that you'll be joining us in New Orleans for the 2008 NTC next month. Even if you aren't, you may want to follow all the action via Twitter. Indeed, we have set up a twitter account just for the conference:

http://twitter.com/08NTC

When you choose to follow it, it will auto-magically follow you in return. This means we'll be able to see the tweets from all individuals following 08NTC at:

http://twitter.com/08NTC/with_friends

Viewing that page will let you see the full stream of everyone's tweets during the event. Alternately, you can subscribe to the RSS feed of that stream at:

http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/3023811.rss

How does that sound as a plan? Anyone want to recommend an alternate idea?

Just a couple of days ago, NTEN member and Social Media for Nonprofits expert Beth Kanter kicked off a great discussion about how NOT to use Twitter for your organization.

The key takeaways are:

• don't use Twitter as a blowhorn for your canned PR;
• don't think of Twittees as a captive audience;

and, everyone's favorite:

• don't Twitter without love.

I was really moved today to see one cause doing everything right with Twitter: the Frozen Peas Friday campaign from the Frozen Pea Fund.

Here's how it's working:

Flickr Photo From: thedpqThe fires in Southern California are a tremendous tragedy. I've heard estimates that up to 500,000 people have been asked to evacuate their homes.

As this is one of the most tech-saturated areas of the country, though, it's interesting to see how many individuals and organizations are turning to the web to organize, share, and emote.

I asked the NTEN community to tell me what they were watching yesterday. Here are a few of the things you told me: