The biggest of these is tcktcktck.org, a coalition between more than two dozen major nonprofits and associations, including WWF, Oxfam and Avaaz. They're asking for an ambitious, fair, and binding treaty, and they've got some serious star power to back them up:

The Global Climate wake-up call, from Avaaz.org:

And I've been working on Make Forests Count, a small but growing coalition site aimed at eliminating loopholes that allow countries to clearcut their forests while collecting Kyoto credit.

Here's our video, written and directed by Anthony Wong:

Other groups looking forward to Copenhagen:

• The David Suzuki Foundation calls the summit "the most important wake up call of this century".
• Stop Climate Chaos is a coalition of Irish nonprofits.
• and the entire UK government calls for citizens to Act on Copenhagen

Have you seen any other inspiring sites or social media regarding the Copenhagen summit?

So when Dave posted this video about United Airlines wrecking his guitar, I went to share it around, only to find that the internet beat me to it.

United is on the ball.  Within 24 hours of the video's posting, they've apparently offered to make amends.

Tounge-in-cheek internet embarrassment seems to be the trick to getting real customer service.  When it worked for Adam Savage, many people wondered if AT&T only responded quickly because of Savage's fame. But the success of this video shows that with little more than creativity, anyone can force a monolithic company's hand.

1. iBird Explorer: Leave that stack of heavy guidebooks at home, and take the entire avian directory of North America out in the field. You can even play song samples. Great for Audubon's Christmas Bird Count (unless it's rainy or muddy...) or use at home for Project Feederwatch.  iBird can't identify birds by song the way Shazam identifies music without a sound-isolating microphone.  We could see this feature soon, though, thanks to...
2. Pasco's SPARK, demoed at Apple's 2009 developers conference, will turn the iPhone/iPod Touch into a basic portable labratory by connecting to a variety of sensors.  Possible applications include water and air quality analysis.
3. Photo-based species identification -- Not available yet, but exciting! CNN reports that "researchers at several universities are working on iPhone applications and computer programs that could analyze digital photos of plant leaves and automatically identify the plant's species."  This would allow non-expert botanists to help out in a Bioblitz, for example, automatically identifying (and maybe GPS tagging) each species.
4. GPS, built into the iPhone 3G via Google Maps, allows the user to more-or-less accuately record and upload their location.  Combined with other science applications, the possibilities are amazing.  Users could collaboratively create real-time maps of everything from species range to water chemistry.  As a bonus, the 3GS (2009 iPhone) includes a compass.  Kind of takes the hard work out of orienteering, doesn't it?

Granted, the iPhone is an expensive, delicate device ill-suited to outdoor classrooms.  But if you're carrying one around anyway, why not put it to work improving the world's knowledgebase?

Here are five of the big themes from the classes:

1. An organization's online communications shouldn't stand alone. 
   Whether it's your website, Facebook account, email blasts, or Twitter, online tools should be part of your organization's bigger strategy.  Online communications staff are part of everything... development, communications, senior admin, programs, you name it.
2. You don't have to spend a lot on software and websites. 
   In fact, some of the best services are free, or offer deep discounts for nonprofits.  But research solutions carefully,  Learning a new tool and integrating it into your commuincations isn't really free, when you consider staff time and opportunity cost. Check out Phillip Djwa's presentation on great tools for nonprofits.
3. Know your goals before jumping into a new tool. 
   Should your nonprofit be on Twitter?  First, consider what you want to get out of it.  Most orgs have limited time and staff to devote to online media, and we really can't be everywhere at once.  And remember that tools will come and go.  Facebook is big today, but who knows what the hot new tool will be 6 months from now?
4. Email is still the most efficient way to reach people online. 
   A good email client (like VerticalResponse or MailChimp) is worth paying for.  You'll collect valuable insight on your supporters' interests, and you'll know what works and what doesn't when it comes to getting your emails opened. 
        Bonus tip: Never send bulk email via the bcc: field in your regular email client.  ISPs may start to think you're a spammer, and you could see all of your outgoing emails delayed or blocked. 
        For more insight on effective email, see Eric Squair's presentation on the Best Email Ever (!), and Samer Rabadi's talk on great storytelling for nonprofits.
5. There's no magic rule to online success,
   said Tim Walker (a founder of Adbusters magazine).  Nonprofits have had astounding success with online campaigns without a lot of money, experience, operations or staff.  What successful nonprofits do have in common is an organizational understanding that the internet changes everything about the way we conduct campaigns and interact with supporters, and a willingness to give up some control.  

You can find detailed notes and resources from the Training here.

Veterinary hospitals in Ontario are limited by their licensing body in what they can say about themselves. Words like "spacious" and "friendly" are out. Even testimonials from clients have to be password-protected. So, improving search engine ranking on their sites can be an interesting challenge.

I worked with CAH to make their site search-engine friendly, and to give the pages a more modern look and intuitive architecture.  So how do you do search engine optimization (SEO) when you can't seek out links or say anything nice about yourself?

• Make page titles and URLs meaningful
  suenovotny.com/about will do better in a search than suenovotny.com/347.php?id=8.
• Keep the text rich in keywords
• Add meta tags and a site description on each page.  To be honest, this isn't as important to search engines as it once was.  It does give you a little control over how your site is listed, though.
• Use a good analytic program to track how and why people visit your site.  I installed Google Analytics, a great, free tool for measuring every aspect of a site's traffic.

Design-wise, I worked for a friendlier, more organic feel, with photos of people and pets throughout.  The old site was a bit cramped, so I opened the design up with added whitespace and reduced the section links in the main navigation from 10 to 5.

It's too early to tell how the SEO improvements are working, but stay tuned!

Alberta's workplace safety group has just launched a very similar campaign (though it was apparently in the works before Ontario's launched).

Warning: Not for the squeamish!

What do you think? Is this approach effective?

Microsoft Office 2003 Professional
Regular price $400
Charity price: $20 (and technically, this is an administrative fee).

Adobe Creative Suite 3
Regular price: About $1,500
Charity price: About $150

Note to Canadian charities: Techsoup Stock uses UPS for shipping. Unlike FedEx and USPS, UPS charges customs brokerage fees ($45 or so, in my experience), and can take quite a while to get your shipment across the border. If you have the option to download the software rather than have it shipped, do so and skip the headaches.

You're sure to hear at least some of these terms in your meetings, especially if you're on the administrative or communications side of business.

Impactful is not a word, o marketers of the world.  A website can be stunning, moving, visually appealing or beautiful.  It can be intuitive, helpful, or a great informational resource.  Who needs a vague term like impactful when we have so many wonderfully descriptive adjectives at our disposal?

Google Apps

Google Apps lets organizations keep all their email, documents and calendars in one place.  You can even create an intranet and collaborate on spreadsheets and presentations with their easy-to-use tools. The premium edition, with support and unlimited accounts, is available free to US nonprofits. Canadian orgs can still use the basic edition, with 100 user accounts, for free.
Go to Google Apps »

Web and blogging

Movable Type
Long the choice of the Serious Blogger, MT made two big leaps this year. It's always been free to personal users, but now it's officially open source. With improved support for full web content management, MT powers quite a few big-name sites.
Go to Movable Type >

Social networking

Facebook causes
Launched in Canada earlier this year, Facebook Causes uses the ultra-popular social networking site to turn charitable giving into a social activity. Every time a supporter donates, recruits a friend, or joins a new cause, all their friends read about it.
Go to Facebook Causes >