This week, the Sunlight Foundation unveiled our draft of what could become model transparency legislation -- the Transparency In Government Act of 2008. Here's the twist: Instead of immediately approaching lawmakers to sponsor the bill,
the Foundation decided to first post the bill online at http://PublicMarkup.org in order to solicit public input to further shape, refine and edit the bill.

Participate in this collaboration. You don't have to be an expert. Just tell them what you like, and what you think about what they have drafted.

Developing this model bill via PublicMarkup.org offers an exciting opportunity to experiment with collaborative bill-drafting online. In addition, they hope the public evaluation of the draft bill will increase attention to the critically important issue of transparent government. Our hope is that the final product can be used as a model for transparent government.

After months of development and testing by a few dozen folks, Open Media Boston, the new progressive news, views and arts web portal, has just launched and is now ready for your participation. Please check us out today at http://www.openmediaboston.org!

The Basics

Aiming to cover Boston's community, political and arts scenes using a balance of social media (anyone can publish to our Open Forum) and editorial control (we have an edited front page), OMB is easy to use. See the basic instructions below this message for more information, or just follow the instructions throughout the website.

Marc Osten from Summit Collaborative just posted this to the NTEN list. They are a series of five short video tutorials titles Online Community Building and Engagement. These are the first installments in a series on the topic that will continue. A 2nd installment will air in April.

These videos cover most of the content that Marc presented at the National UK Circuit Riders Conference last month in Birmingham. The five titles are:

Part 1: Getting Started
Part 2: Who is the online community?
Part 3: The Tool Trap
Part 4: Organizational Issues
Part 5: Setting Clear Objectives

The Progressive Technology Project is announcing a new initiative that builds on its new Voter TechKit (http://votertechkit.progressivetech.org.) In the Voter Organizing Technology Education and Resources Project (VOTER Project) PTP will work with community-led organizations to greatly increase their long-term capacity to conduct effective integrated voter engagement activities.

PTP will work with a select group of 501 C3 community organizing groups that are engaged in voter education and get-out-the-vote projects in 2008. This program is designed to develop, support and document efforts to integrate the organization’s voter engagement work with its on-going programmatic work.

Only 14 more days to sign-up for PTP’s Training on Databases and Technology Assessment and Planning taking place April 2-4, 2008 in Minneapolis, MN

If your organization is looking to improve its database, this is the program to dig in and find out what PTP has learned from the best practices in the field.

Our Database, Assessment, and Planning COaTI (Community Organizing and Technology Institute) is designed for organizers who want to build up their database skills, develop a better understanding of what databases can and can’t do, and deepen their understanding of how a specific technology fits into a broader vision for your organization and its technology use. This COaTI features a combination of large group, small group, and hands-on work. While we will provide computers for the training, participants are encouraged to bring a laptop and a copy of your organization’s database.

Welcome to YOUR latest tool for congressional accountability.

* Learn about the latest legislation of significance to the current and aspiring middle class.

* Find out how your member of Congress voted on that legislation. You can search by name, state or zipcode.

* Track the scores of your representatives.

Explore TheMiddleClass.org today! - http://www.themiddleclass.org/

MAPLight.org (http://www.maplight.org), a groundbreaking public database, illuminates the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes in unprecedented ways. Elected officials collect large sums of money to run their campaigns, and they often pay back campaign contributors with special access and favorable laws.

This common practice is contrary to the public interest, yet legal. MAPLight.org makes money/vote connections transparent, to help citizens hold their legislators accountable. They even have a useful widget to incorporate into your advocacy website.

KnowledgeMessenger (http://www.knowledgemessenger.com) provides a complete set of website components and services that enable elected officials, schools and non-profits the ability to entice::engage::activate their audience. They seem pretty affordable too. Their website components and services include:

Entice
eNewsletters - send electronic newsletters to your audience
Blog - engage in a dialog with your audience with a Blog
Event Calendar - keep your audience informed of upcoming events
Content Management - add and update web pages on your website - no need to know HTML!

NetSuite Giving has launched three pilot programs targeting three types of organizations:

* Registered Charities. Charities are increasingly asked to measure, manage and report on performance and outcomes. This reporting can be easier and less of an administrative burden when financial, operations and outcome data is stored in a single, web-based system like NetSuite.
* Fair Trade / Social Enterprises. Increasingly, companies are being formed with a double bottom line — profit and social impact. NetSuite is already designed to handle the challenges of supplier management and ecommerce for businesses. These same capabilities can help Fair Trade groups measure their social impact alongside their profitability.

With Congress returning Washington to start a new session,OpenCongress.org just launched several new features to help you track and rate what's happening on Capitol Hill and organize support for the legislation and issues you care about. The first, My OpenCongress http://www.opencongress.org/, is the first-ever social network designed for people who care about Congress. Now, OpenCongress makes it super easy to track any bill, senator, representative or issue area on the site, simply by clicking "track this" at the top of any page. Use your OpenCongress profile to make your voice heard: vote "aye" or "nay" for every bill in Congress, give a personal approval rating to senators and representatives on a scale of 1-100, and see the total votes for each bill and lawmaker.