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Many people want to do something that will benefit others. The open-source software movement has been one avenue for the technologically inclined.

Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera wrote a recent article about three organizations that give people another way to help: the Extraordinaries, Philoptima, and Ushahidi.

“Platforms that use crowdsourcing principles are experiments in using technology to effectively engage people and channel their interests into a cause,” he writes.

Source

Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera, Networks Direct Volunteers to Micro Gigs, San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 28, 2010; printed in hard copy as “Tapping into Brainpower.”

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Even before his death from cancer in June 2008, I had started looking around for backups. Everyone was fair game, anyone who could cast a similar eye on the passing scene, who would look over as if to say, “Did you see that?”, who could make me laugh with an arched eyebrow or make me look at the other side of things quickly and deeply.

After two years, it’s dawned on me that I’m really seeking a sense that everything is OK, everything will be well, that there are always new people to meet and connect with, to laugh and cry with. I have met them in spades since that year that he was dying. Perhaps my other brothers were always there, but I hadn’t needed to see them. Their strong shoulders, gentle humor, teasing reproaches.

You never stop missing a loved one who has died. But if you’re very lucky, others help you with the burden. Others help you see that the empty places don’t go on forever.

Tags: Personal by GD
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Charles Purdy provides seven steps for using Twitter in your job search.

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Journalist and blogger LaToya Egwuekwe has created an animation that plots U.S. unemployment data by county and state from January 2007 to early August 2010, The Decline: Geography of a Recession. She gathers the numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Thanks to my friend James for the pointer.

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