(A version of this item with live links is also available at
<http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2006/11/25/2525147.html>.)
Dear ISF Colleagues,
Along with Josh Shortlidge, Naava Frank, and Anne Marie Bellavance,
I'm a convener of the Ethos Roundtable, an informal group that meets
once a month in Harvard Square for presentations and discussions. Our
main interests are in using technology for positive social change and
in the measurement and expansion of ethos.
Several months ago, we agreed that we needed an online presence, in
order to share information and continue discussions in between
meetings. I promised to put something together and - because of the
shocking backlog on my "to-do" list - am just getting around to the
task.
I decided to see how far I could go by using free Google tools. It's
an experiment that may be of interest to other projects that have
several collaborators and no budget.
Thus far, the Ethos Roundtable has:
* A Gmail account (ethos.roundtable 
gmail.com)
* A blog <http://ethosroundtable.blogspot.com/>
* A shared public calendar
<http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ethos.roundtable%40gmail.com>
And perhaps that's all that we'll need.
I think that each of these free online tools is powerful enough to
serve our needs. It's unclear to me whether they will be intuitive
enough for our group of potential users, who will vary greatly in
technology skills, frequency of use, and motivation to play with new
widgets. We'll see!
In the meantime, I'd like to invite you to take a look at the blog
<http://ethosroundtable.blogspot.com/>, and offer some feedback.
Many thanks and best regards from Deborah
Deborah Elizabeth Finn
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
deborah_elizabeth_finn%40post.harvard.edu">deborah_elizabeth_finnpost.harvard.edu
www.cyber-yenta.org
.