You may be familiar with the local groups in the Nonprofit Technology Network, called NTEN 501 Tech Clubs (as in, 501c3). These are informal groups for nonprofit technology professionals who want to share information and resources and connect at the local level.

Our newest 501 Tech Club, organized by Jeanette Russell, is in Missoula, Montana. Jeanette is successfully bringing together nonprofit staff and other cause-minded techies to learn about each other's activities and share tips and best practices for incorporating technology into their work. Nice job, Jeanette!

NTEN Member David Neff, from the American Cancer Society in Austin, Texas produced this video to document a recent Tweet Up Blood Drive he helped organize through his local 501 Tech Club and Social Media Club.

Flickr Photo: relentlesstoilYup, we're talking about the best way to communicate again. We figure the only way we'll master it is, well, by keeping the lines open.

Ryan Richards, Asturais Academy of Guatemala, and Karen Matheson, M+R Strategic Services, will be doing just that on July 31 at a Seattle Net Tuesday Event: Communicating at a Distance: Best practices communicating with members and supporters. They will offer real-world advice and research-based best practices for communicating with your membership effectively, maintaining and developing supporters, building relationships, and sharing your story.

Our 501 Tech Club in Austin, nicely organized by Dale Thompson from Austin Free-Net and David Neff from the American Cancer Society, sent in an "i-report" from their last meetup. Check out their speaker, Ben Finklea, giving a great presentation on analyzing and optimizing your Web site for your various audiences:

Earth Day spurred some conversation on NTEN Discuss about how to figure out carbon emissions for every watt a computer uses per hour. Dean Matsueda wrote that he had seen and used carbon-footprint calculators online to gauge household, car, and air travel C02 emissions but would like to drill down to more specifics, like computer use.

Walt Daniels gave this response:

Carbon footprint is a simple multiply if you have the watts/hr and number of hours. watts/hr is what is hard to come by for most computer setups unless you have a meter on it because the usage depends on too many things,like duty cycle and how you have the power savings features on your computer set.

Gavin Clabaugh lets us know that to do it right, you need to meter the machine. He uses a Kill-A-Watt (a simple one costs about $20).

And Dave Shaw, H4 Consulting, added: