Just a little promo for a workshop I am organizing here in beautiful summery Toronto... Coming up July 24-25, 2007.

---

Have you heard the buzz about Facebook, MySpace, blogging, and other popular social web tools, and wondered whether they could be useful to your organization... but not known where to start, or how to sort the good stuff from the hype? Come and learn from two of Canada's top experts on web strategy and participation design for the not-for-profit sector!

The latest generation of Web 2.0 (or "social web") strategies and tools offer powerful opportunities for organizations to improve the way they work, communicate their messages, empower others, and serve the public. In this workshop you will learn how the latest tools for online collaboration and community building can make your organization smarter and more effective.

WHO:

This Sunday, I'm going to be giving a little "Web 101" workshop at Traffic Jam.

Traffic Jam is a day-long event organized by the Livable Region Coalition, with the goal of raising awareness and activism around the issue of highway expansion here in the Lower Mainland. I've learned a bunch about the issue recently... and it's worth caring about.

The Liberal Transportation Minister is bent on twinning the Port Mann Bridge, and pouring money into highway expansion. Research and experience suggest, however, that road expansion rarely actually work to resolve traffic problems in anything more than a very temporary way. Traffic expands to meet the new infrastracture within a few short years, and then you're back where you started. Us humans are so terrible at foresight, aren't we? Why is that?

So the Livable Region Coalition has an alternate plan, and it involves rapid public transit. Hello... no brainer? It just seems so obvious to me that major cities *have* to have decent rapid transit, and with the GVRD's population set to double in the next 30 years or so, now is the time to be making that investment. Now, or even yesterday.

This weekend, Traffic Jam will be an opportunity to learn more about this issue and the possible alternatives to highway expansion. It's also a chance to learn some great activist skills - from blogging to banner making! Plus there's great live music, and it's in a sweet East Van park, so if you're around, come and check it out.