Susan Tenby

June 8, 2009, Huffington Post — The setting was an amphitheater filled with attendees from around the globe. The scene sounds fairly usual, although the attendees were sitting amongst a Panda -- wearing a shoulder-ferret (looks exactly like it sounds), a bald English woman levitating in lotus position; a small penguin; a punk-rocker girl, replete with a bull's style nose ring; and yours truly, Glitteractica Cookie (Susan Tenby by human/legal standards), a pink-skinned cat-lady, emblazoned with paw-print tattoos, wearing a tuxedo T-shirt and a tutu, though I was both virtual and present in real-life, which is not as tricky as it sounds.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 26, 2009 — The Nonprofit Commons, a project of TechSoup Global (TSG), today announced an all-day, innovative online event in Second Life to showcase recent developments in health care research, and to connect efforts in fighting disease and creating a cooperative and supportive environment for patients and their providers. The Health Panel Expo, an international online conference sponsored by FasterCures.org, will be held on Wednesday, May 27, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PDT (also called Second Life Time, SLT) in the virtual world of Second Life and simultaneously in the real world, being broadcast live at the fourth annual NetSquared Conference at Cisco in San Jose, CA. The Second Life online event is free to attend and open to all interested participants. It will be accessible through Second Life, and all information will be available at http://www.nonprofitcommons.org/healthpanel.

“It’s very easily mocked. People are afraid of it.” — Susan Tenby (aka Glitteractica Cookie), senior manager of online community development at TechSoup, commenting on virtual world Second Life and its potential use by nonprofit organizations, in “Get A (Second) Life” in the July issue of FS.

Working to change the real world by hanging out in a virtual one. That’s pretty much how Susan Tenby sums up nonprofits’ use of the 3-D, online, virtual world known as Second Life. Tenby is senior manager of online community development for San Francisco-based nonprofit technology information provider TechSoup.org Tenby, also known as her Second Life avatar Glitteractica Cookie, says SL can be an extremely valuable tool for nonprofits in terms of collaboration and learning. Launched by the San Francisco-based software company Linden Lab, SL is a place where nonprofits can raise awareness and dollars and reach new audiences while having

Online message boards can transform your Web presence from a one-sided mouthpiece for your organization to a place for interactive dialogue that allows visitors to communicate with you and with each other. Message boards not only encourage communication, but they foster community and accessibility. Message boards offer a specific location where constituents can gather, allow almost real-time communication and easy navigation through message threads, and archive conversations, writes Susan Tenby, online community manager for TechSoup, online provider of nonprofit technology services that include news and articles, discussion forums, and discounted and donated technology products, in her white paper “Using Message Boards to Build Community.”