At a recent training for a nonprofit client, I began my talk on online promotions with that proverbial slide filling the entire frame with logos of online tools. Then I flipped to Edvard Munch’s painting, “The Scream.” Indeed, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all of these possibilities that seem to change by the day. more

When I was younger, we lived in an area with moderate gang activity. Playing in the front yard without adult supervision was strictly forbidden. Accompanying my friends to the market on the corner and skipping the bus and walking to school in the morning was simply out of the question - even if we did it anyways. When I moved across the country, the atmosphere was different. I could play outside without my parents watching me through the window. I could go with my friends down to the stream and stay out until dark. more

I've just released version 2.3 of the Sites module, which has been quietly under off-and-on development for a couple of months now here at EchoDitto Labs. Sites was originally conceived as a way to make it easy to create multi-site Drupal configurations without the problems and complexities incurred by using Domain Access. more

So we've been doing some thinking. And some talking. Which can mean only one thing: trouble.

Our work is about technology and social change, coming through a variety of vehicles, from politics to products. But we started to run into a curious challenge: for many organizations, technology means tools, without a lot of thought about culture or organizational structure. more

It was great to welcome the Orton Family Foundation to EchoDitto recently. The Orton Family Foundation helps small cities and towns adopt land-use planning that engages a broad base of local citizens in order to maintain the ‘heart and soul’ of those communities. more

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, 2010. Through various media formats, the world was able to get almost instantaneous news and images of the disaster as it was developing. Images of destruction and death poured in from media outlets telling an unbearable story of suffering and loss. more

Time for part two of my series on iPhone development basics (you can find part one on the EchoDitto Labs blog). Last time, I gave some tips on writing settings to a binary file using Apple's Foundation Library. This time I'll show you how to retrieve those settings -- either from a cached version of the property list or from the filesystem itself. As with the first article, let's dive in head first with some code. more

Back in November I wrote about a new client of EchoDitto's, Stefany Shaheen, and her blog focused on what it's like to parent a child with diabetes. more

Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Day. It's a national Day of Service and a time to reflect on social justice.

The crisis in Haiti brings extra focus and intensity to the question of how we care for each other. How did one of the world’s poorest countries struggle to survive just miles off the coast of Florida? Why does it require a massive earthquake for us to turn our attention to Haiti? more