As you may have heard, just before Christmas shutdown, my Web hosting provider upgraded my Web server with new software. This is the same server on which over 100 NEA and personal blogs resided. After the upgrade, I was unable to access ANY of these blogs.

Why?
Blogging software uses a database to keep track of content, authors, images, links and a variety of other content-related data.

When my Web hosting provider decided to upgrade my Web server software, they neglected to warn me that such a process would render useless my existing database.

Although you can still visit all my/NEA blogs (e.g., www.donblake.com/technologist) I cannot update or add any new content to these blogs as my blogging software can no longer access the original database.

... and?
Since January, I have been slowly rebuilding ALL NEA managed blogs:

College Affordability Concerns Me.org
NEA UniServ Academy
Western Regional Organizational Effectiveness

...to name a few.

This is a slow process. I actually have to recreate each individual entry AND design so each is reentered into the server's new SQL database housed on my new Web site.

Finally
This posting resides on my NEW NEA Work Priorities Blog. My old blog is still available online at: www.donblake.com/technologist. I will not be porting over old content to this new blog but will leave this legacy content online.

My manager and Director, as well as unit colleagues, will, again, start to receive updates as I post my work priorities, project details, accomplishments and related important updates concerning my work to this blog . Others of you are receiving a gratis update about this new work focus blog as a courtesy announcement. You will not receive daily/weekly updates from this blog unless you email me with a request or unless a specific posting warrants your receiving such an update.

If you DO NOT wish to receive these update email messages, please let me know and I will remove you from my notification list.

Post Scriptum

Please review the "Work Focus" categories listed in the right column of this blog. Let me know if you think I should add additional categories or sub categories. I appreciate your input.

Members and non-members of the Wyoming Education Association and Student WEA are greeted by their association's logo when they sign in to search for lesson plans and other free classroom resources. GEM helps educators clearly see the value in becoming a member of WEA by giving them direct, free access to over 49,000 resources.

Last month we announced what we thought was an extraordinary leap in traffic. We were wrong! The month of February 2008 dwarfed the traffic that we experienced in January 2008. The Gateway recorded a 41% increase in visitors in February 2008 compared to February 2007!

Needless to say, we are thrilled that so many dedicated professional educators and education students have found us and found us valuable.

2008 NEA UniServ Managers Conference

There seems to be a case of split personality going on between our Association and its use of and/or promotion of MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites. Although popularly known as places where people make friends and find romance, social networking sites have the potential to play a key role in helping our Association achieve its goals. Social networking platforms—if we’re smart about how we use them—can give our organization a forum for meeting like-minded organizations and potential supporters, and provide a medium for spreading our messages beyond traditional outlets.

View Presentation

By Christine Kent
chrisk@ckeditorial.com

The social network helps PR people and journalists build virtual relationships—not to mention business connections

You’re a grown-up. You probably think that sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are for the teenagers you live with, or for the recent college grads in your office who are trying to get dates.

"For many companies, the concept of social media is scary; the idea of allowing employees to blog openly about the company—internally and externally—is something to make most companies run—no, sprint—to the hills."

Read...

By Steve Crescenzo
steve@crescenzocomm.com

Five important tips for making Web 2.0 part of your strategy Companies are being told that they better embrace social media, that it’s changing the world, that it’s forever influencing how individuals and organizations communicate … but what the hell is it, exactly?

more...

[online@ragan.com]

Despite the enormous excitment for social media tools among communication and PR professionals, senior management continues to resist the so-called Web 2.0 tools. So does IT apparently. Ragan blogger Toby Ward examines the reasons why...

“Collaborative tools are overloading employees and killing productivity—to the tune of $588 billion a year, according to a January study by Basex, a collaboration technologies consulting firm,” writes Brian Watson of CIO magazine.

For the months of February and March, we've received and have fulfilled requests for campaign materials from the following states:

Idahoe
Ohio
Michigan
Minnesota

These requests came via Facebook, Campaign brochure tear-out mailing, direct email.

Each state contact received at least 2 kits with the largest request being 5 kits.

Each kit ships with:

100 CAC Brochures
100 Bracelets
100 Stickers
4 T-Shirst
100 "Getting Involved" B&W Flyer
100 "My Debt, My Life" NEA Today Article

Just some of the folks I met with while in San Diego...

...both in SecondLife and real world. The opening cocktail reception for ETech was a dual SecondLife real world event (yes, you can drink in the virtual world).

If anyone is interested in viewing this or other examples of organizations (ISTE, NGA, etc.) in SecondLife, let me know and I'll give you a demo.

What follows is a recording of the press conference from within Second Life.

I will be presenting an expanded look at NEA's Partnership with the Gateway to 21st Century Materials to participants of this year's NEA/AFT Higher Education Conference.

To view my presentation, click here...