I'm a longstanding fan of Tobias Eigen  http://www.dadamac.net/network/tobias-eigen and Kabissa. As our ideas and communities continue to evolve (see details about Kabissa in the newsletter below) I look forward to new collaborative connections emerging between Dadamac and Kabissa. 

Dear Kabissa members, supporters and friends,

I am struck by the relevance to today’s networked world of Frantz Fanon’s warning: A community will evolve only when a people control their own communication. The fact is that we are increasingly ceding control over our means of communicating with each other to privately run social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter. These are great platforms and I continue to recommend that organizations take advantage of them as part of their overall social media strategy. However, as evidenced perhaps most starkly by the Arab Spring, it is becoming apparent that networks like Kabissa that are run by and for civil society need to be strengthened to create a sustainable and functional "communications commons" that is independent from those commercial platforms.

With that guiding thought, read on for an update on Kabissa’s strategic evolution from social business to volunteer-run civil society network, the upcoming launch of our updated community website with improvements we think you will like, and a request for your input on a somewhat revolutionary idea to help Kabissa members spread their organization data more widely by joining the "Open Data movement".

More at http://www.kabissa.org/news/progress-update-may2011