Posting from the Puget Sound

I’m on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Washington, at the moment, participating in a board meeting and planning retreat for WorldChanging.com. I’ve been a spotty contributor to WorldChanging over the past year, but have been trying to do my part, sitting on the board of the non-profit company that operates the site.

(Guilted by the thought of showing up at this meeting without having posted anything, I banged out quick articles on zinc supplements in Bangladesh and tropically tolerant software in Ghana. And because the site’s managing editor is trying to participate in the retreat, not write his usual ten thousand words a day, WorldChanging is running some back content, including an interview Alex Steffen did with me months back, now with a new introduction, where he counts coup in convincing me to become a WorldChanging contributor, board member and now board president…)

I’m feeling incredibly lucky at the moment to be involved with two virtual communities that are trying to create online spaces for conversations that rarely take place in the physical world. There’s a huge number of similarities between WorldChanging and Global Voices and at least as many differences, but the gathering is getting me tremendously psyched to bring together some of the Global Voices team at a conference this December in the UK. Lots more on that as we get closer to the date.