(A version of this item with live links is available at <http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/7/11/1015777.html>.)
Dear Colleagues, I'm usually pretty staunch in my belief that nonprofit and philanthropic organizations should not be carried away by cool tools, but should subordinate the technology they use to organizational missions and strategies. But now Google Earth has come along, and I think that we should all download it, fiddle around with it, and see if we can make creative use of it in our sector. Basically, Google Earth is a free online geographical information system (GIS) tool that allows us to make nearly seamless use of a wealth of visual information that is drawn from many sources. It brings smart maps to our desktops. It's easy to see that this will be a powerful tool for nonprofit educational organizations that want to teach geography. (This is a wonderful discipline, which draws upon social research and natural science for insights about our world, but which is often unfairly deprecated as obsolete "now that we know where everything is.") I can also see how useful Google Earth will be for planners and community-based advocacy groups. But I'd also like to challenge all of us in the nonprofit sector to think about other creative ways to mine this data. For example, can direct-service nonprofits use Google Earth to better understand their catchment areas and the clients that live there? Let's start brainstorming, and find out! Best regards from Deborah Deborah Elizabeth Finn Boston, Massachusetts, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog http://public.xdi.org/=deborah.elizabeth.finn _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
